Local Landmarks & Heritage
Local Landmarks & Heritage
- Our Lady of Guadalupe Church (National Historic Landmark)
- Mexican Heritage Plaza
- César Chávez Memorial Walkway
- Mayfair Community Center
Neighborhood History
Neighborhood History
Mayfair takes its name from the Mayfair Packing Company, a dried-fruit packing house founded in 1931 on the site where the present-day Mayfair Community Center stands. The packing company brought agricultural employment to this part of East San José and anchored the working-class community that grew around it. By the 1940s and 1950s, Mayfair had become a predominantly Mexican-American district, home to farm workers and their families who had come to the Santa Clara Valley through the wartime Bracero Program and the broader patterns of Mexican migration to California. Residents called the neighborhood Sal Si Puedes — "get out if you can" — a phrase that captured the economic hardship and social neglect that characterized East San José during that era.
It was in Mayfair that César Chávez, after returning from Navy service, married and settled among his relatives, joined the Community Service Organization, and began the voter registration and community organizing that would eventually lead to the founding of the United Farm Workers. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where Chávez held his first organizing meetings, is a National Historic Landmark. The Mexican Heritage Plaza, built on the site of a Safeway where Chávez organized an early grocery boycott, stands today as the cultural center of the neighborhood and the anchor of the César Chávez Memorial Walkway.
MY-NHD's Mayfair tee carries the story of a neighborhood that refused to be left behind — the community that helped launch the California farmworker movement.
MY-NHD
Mayfair - San Jose - Unisex Cotton Tee
Mayfair - San Jose - Unisex Cotton Tee
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Mayfair is named for the Mayfair Packing Company, a dried-fruit packer founded in 1931, and residents once called it Sal Si Puedes. César Chávez began organizing here, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, where he held early meetings, is a National Historic Landmark.
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