Flor de Cocula: Jesús in memoriam
Honoring the Contreras Farm founder who harvested a field of dreams in the Bay Area
Contreras Farm founder Jesús “Don Chuy” Contreras in his earlier years. Courtesy of Familia Contreras
AUTHOR’S NOTE
When I met Don Jesús Contreras some 23 years ago, he reminded me of la gente de rancho—ingenious, resourceful y bien trabajadora – from Nuevo León, México, where my parents are from. Like many of the men from rural Mexico, Don Jesús left his home to work someone else’s land in the United States.
Unlike many, Don Jesús operated his own rancho—where he grew flowers and vegetables—in Half Moon Bay, about 30 miles south of San Francisco.
A friend to animals and humans, Don Jesús was like a Mexican (but much less religious) version of San Francisco de Assisi. He was fascinated by animales, especially birds – chickens, ducks, quail, pheasants, peacocks, canaries.
“As a kid in Cocula, he trained a hawk, an águila, to fly away, hunt, and return to him,” recalled his daughter, my kind, sweet and lovely friend Rosa, who, like her father, es muy buena gente, good solid people. “It lived on the rooftop of his home. He loved animals, all kinds, but especially wild ones like birds, deer, coyotes, wolves, dogs.” In his California rancho, he had dogs, too, and “cats galore.”
In 2010, Don Jesús made local news for crossbreeding a chicken and a pheasant. “This is my dream from a long time ago when I was a kid in Mexico,” he told the Half Moon Bay Review. “Finally, my dream came true.”
Roaming his flower farm felt enchanting, and I knew I had to write about him. The feature ran in 2000 in the late (but early) and short-lived Latino.com, one of the first websites to publish Latino “online” content. The tribute below is a revised version of that piece.
¡Long live Don Jesús Contreras Villegas!
—Macarena Hernández, November 2023
Surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees and just a few miles away from the Pacific coastal cliffs of California, Jesús “Don Chuy” Contreras carved out his own paradise: a rancho south of San Francisco.
Those who knew him say he was a dreamer who loved and appreciated nature. His family remembers all the animals—domestic and wild—that he had taken in over the years. He once had a pet deer – Topacio. Named after a Mexican telenovela character, the doe followed Jesús everywhere.
“This is what I like,” Jesús told me in 2000. “I like to be out en el campo. I would love to be un lobo, un venado o un águila to roam free in the hills.”
Jesús’ love for el campo began in Cocula, in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where he grew and lived until age 16 and where he returned whenever he could.
When he was a young boy, Jesús planted pinto and green beans in wooden crates on the family rooftop patio, where women would hang clothes to dry and keep a garden. Growing plants fascinated Jesús.
Even then, he had an entrepreneurial spirit. He bought jícamas, pepinos, and naranjas, which he would cut up, season with chile and limón, and sell outside his grandparents’ store. At the time, it was the only one in El Rancho San Pablo, a few miles from Cocula.
By the time he was 16, Jesús was sowing his own crop on borrowed land. “I was able to harvest maíz with the help of my uncle Jesús Villalobos,” he said.
Jesús’ father, Francisco, came to the United States in the early 1960s as a contracted laborer to work in a pigpen. After five years, he brought Jesús, then 16, to Half Moon Bay, where he would grow flowers for the rest of his life. Together, father and son worked for a farmer who owned flowerbeds, making $1.05 an hour. Jesús learned to do everything from thinning and weeding rows of flowers with a hoe to driving a tractor. He gradually worked his way up to selling flowers at farmers’ markets in the area.
After ten years of working at the farm, Jesús decided to set out on his own. He began in 1980 by tending five acres, where he planted ten different kinds of flowers, including daisies and dahlias (Mexico’s official national flower since 1963). The Contreras Farm eventually grew to 25 acres, where Jesús, at one point, grew up to 65 flower varieties. The family now grows vegetables, too.
During every start of harvest, Jesús would be on the lookout for the first flowers. Always, the first bunch was for his wife Rosa María. “Flowers are like women: they are beautiful,” he once said with a laugh. “Well, that depends if the women aren’t regañonas.”
Jesús “Don Chuy” Contreras, sowing and harvesting at Contreras Farm. | La Familia Contreras. Seated, left to right: Rosa María and Jesús Contreras; standing, left to right: Jesús, Erika, Mayra, Lucy, Rosy | Jesús Contreras and Luna, his faithful and loyal companion. Photos courtesy of Familia Contreras
For some years now, the couple has managed the family farm, along with two of their children, Mayra and his namesake Jesús. His children, five in all, helped on the farm even after leaving home. His daughters–one, a radio producer for a Spanish-language station; the other, a junior in college at the time–would often drive home on Friday nights in order to help sell flowers at the local market on the weekends.
The Contreras offspring have always admired what their father had been able to achieve during his lifetime. “My father has achieved so many things–and even then, he continues to have so many dreams,” said his daughter, Lucy. Jesús never stopped dreaming. Jesús never stopped planning. But his accomplishments hadn’t come easy. On one chilly afternoon in January of 2000, he surveyed his fields of flowers and talked about the difficulties of cultivation. Fog, a frequent and feared visitor, would leave brown spots on some of the flowers. “We are the mercy of nature,” said his eldest daughter Rosa as she followed him around, looking for forget-me-nots and freesias to cut.
His house is a short walking distance from where he plants his flowers. But several times, when Jesús was having financial difficulties during the farm’s early years, he would send his entire family to Mexico.
At one point, Jesús even had political aspirations and twice ran for mayor of his hometown Cocula, whose name means “place that moves in the heights” and whose population was about 25,000 at the time. He lost both times in the city where he was known as “El Llanero Solitario” or The Lone Ranger.
“I have seen that all of those politicians who reach positions of power do it to exploit people, to see what they can get out of the administration, what they can steal,” he once said. “Even though politics isn’t always a good thing, I am interested in it, because I want to change la política so that it can benefit the people.”
Rosa, his eldest child, describes how their father instilled in them an appreciation for his birthplace. “He made sure that we went to Mexico, that we spoke Spanish, and that we learned about our roots and our history.”
Jesús’ cariño for Mexico is still shared by his family, which continues to visit Jalisco, where they have celebrated so many holidays, quinceañeras, baptisms, weddings, and family reunions. The family’s love for his homeland is evident in the dozens of home videos they have recorded on trips to Cocula.
Dios no te prometió días sin dolor, risa sin tristeza, sol sin lluvia, pero él sí prometió fuerzas para cada día, consuelo para las lágrimas, y luz para el camino.
God did not promise you days without pain, laughter without sadness, sunshine without rain, but he did promise strength for each day, comfort for tears, and light for the path.
–Facundo Cabral
Condolences issued via social media to the Contreras family by El Gobierno de Cocula, Jalisco 2021-2024, 16 October 2023
Jesús died on October 16, 2023 at Seton Medical Center in Daly City, CA. He was 73 years old. He is survived by his wife Rosa María Luquin de Contreras and his children Rosa, Lucy, Mayra, Erika, and Jesús. Those who love Jesús and miss him also include grandchildren, sisters, brothers and cousins.
A viewing was held on October 22, 2023 in Half Moon Bay, followed by a funeral mass six days later at Our Lady of the Pillar Catholic Church. Jesús was laid to rest in Cocula, Mexico.
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Contreras Farm website: https://www.contrerasfarm.com