Jimmy Castañeda MANOS

Written by Chris Jalufka Photography by Cyntia Apps manosgilroy.org Instagram manosgilroy

In 1978 the community outreach program Tecolote gathered a group of farmworker youth to paint a mural in downtown Gilroy. It was a combined effort to aid each youth in earning their GED and impart discipline through the long process of creating the mural, La Piedra del Sol (The Sun Stone). Over forty years later, that mural still stands. This mural can be seen as the birth of MANOS (Mexican American Nurtured Opportunity Services).

Tecolote’s intent was to instill a sense of civic pride in the farmworker youth, and those kids from ’78 are now adults keeping that spirit alive.

After decades of being beaten by the weather, that mural in downtown Gilroy, La Piedra del Sol , has lost its luminous color. Jimmy Castañeda and the other original artists gathered to see what could be done to restore it to its original glory. The group, in connection with a local nonprofit and through constant fundraising events, attempted to raise the money needed to bring the mural back to life. After some unfortunate events, Castañeda and the artists separated from the nonprofit and started to fundraise once again, this time on their own. Castañeda called everyone over to his porch and told them, “The only way we’re going to do the things that we want to do is if we do it ourselves. We can’t depend on other agencies and then have them not be right with the community. Our name is out there; our face is out there.” He concludes, “We all got together. We met every Friday on my porch, and that’s how MANOS became.”

Growing up in Gilroy, MANOS president Castañeda found himself working in the fields when he was just 10 years old. His parents were kind and patient, with an open-door policy for friends, family, and strangers alike. Those in need could find a place to sleep and a meal in their belly. “I’ll just add more water to the soup,” his mother would say. Castañeda shares this same instinct to help.

MANOS was formed from necessity—from a group of friends with a shared dream of helping the community that had given them so much. As Castañeda explains, “I tell everybody, if you know somebody who’s at risk or you know somebody who needs our help, let us know. We’ll go, whatever we have to do, but that’s just us, and that all came from us. There was no grant. That’s how we started.” Soon after those porch meetings, MANOS would take trucks to the food bank in San Francisco to load up and distribute food to the field-workers in Morgan Hill, San Martin, and Gilroy. The team found that the fieldworkers were apprehensive, unwilling to set foot off the fields in fear of the reaction from their employers. These workers are a part of MANOS’s own community. This is where Castañeda came from. He wanted to offer help any way he could, yet the struggle to reach them was real. Over time, Castañeda and the MANOS crew won them over, and the kindness of MANOS became a welcomed gift.

Each member of MANOS is an artisan. Castañeda’s wife is a dancer who runs a dance group focused on Mexico’s folklorico tradition. Other members are painters and muralists. During the pandemic, Castañeda started doing pop-up events at his ranch. It was a way for people to make money. The first pop-up event had about a dozen people, but by Halloween he had fifty-plus vendors out on his property.

In early 2022, Gilroy’s 6th Street Studios & Art Center received a grant for their Youth Mentorship Program. Founder Emily McEwan-Upright explains, “The program pairs professional artists with at- promise youth for a three-tosix week long program. The sessions teach the youth how to execute a creative project from start to finish, the ending resulting in some sort of exhibition, presentation, or unveiling to the public of their project.” MANOS is signed on to lead a group of young artists in creating a mural downtown.

The work does not stop there. Next on the plate for MANOS is to raise money for a much-needed youth center in Gilroy. “This is more a family than it is a nonprofit. We’ve all done bad in our lives. I always say that even bad seeds will grow beautiful flowers, and we’re like a fine example of that, because everybody in MANOS, we all have some kind of past, but that’s why we want to help the youth.” It’s this shared past of Castañeda and the artists behind La Piedra del Sol that inspired MANOS to dedicate their lives to the service of the next generation, to save them from the streets and the possibility of a darkened future. C