It’s dusk in a Thousand Oaks park, and a photographer is snapping photos of a young woman wearing a white dress, with beautiful, handmade multi-color trim.
The photo shoot is unique.
It’s part of a month long project to document Ventura County's little known diverse heritage of indigenous residents originally from Mexico.
"We're here today with Diego Huerta, who is a Mexican photographer who's been documenting for 15 years all the Mexican indigenous groups in Mexico. He's one of the best portrait photographers alive today," said Carlos Ortega, who is the Museum of Ventura County’s Chief Curator.
"He goes to these remote places in Mexico," said Ortega.
Some of these groups are in danger of extinction because there are very few of them (group members) left, and it's not by choice, but because they have to move away from their towns in order to find work.
The Museum brought Hurerta to Ventura County. It commissioned a month long photo shoot project. The goal is to create a photo exhibition highlighting the county's indigenous residents.
"When people come to the U.S. from Mexico, they're not just labor. They bring a very rich heritage and culture with them, and they enrich the county as a whole," said Ortega.
Huerta has been crisscrossing Ventura County for weeks, doing 18 different photo shoots. He steps away from his cameras for a moment to talk about the effort.
"The big idea of this project is to show the diversity and the richness of the indigenous groups that moved to Ventura County," said Huerta. "It's not just fieldworkers, or farmworkers. They have a lot of richness, a lot of culture, of diversity, and this is the perfect project to show all of this."
Ortega said Huerta has photographed members of six different indigenous groups in the county originally from Mexico, as well as members of the native Chumash community. He admits they were surprised by some of the groups they discovered living in the county.
"Diego didn't even know that there's a large Mayan population living in Thousand Oaks," said Ortega. "We're talking with some the people who are being photographed today, and they are telling us there are over 200 families, and 3000 (Mayan) people that live in the community."
Mario Ordonez says he, and his family are honored to be invited to be a part of the museum project. They are part of the Mayan community in Thousand Oaks.
"I am very excited. Whenever somebody asks me about my culture, was it from Yucatan, where do we come from, I am excited to let them know," said Ordonez.
The women being photographed are wearing traditional Mayan dresses which would be used for special occasions.
Huerta talked about what he hopes the community will get from the project.
"To bring to the community, and to share with the community all of this culture," said Huerta. "They have traditional parties, and traditional celebrations, and now it's part of the culture here in Ventura County. We are no more outsiders...we are neighbors."
The photo exhibition is set to open in Ventura County in February. Then, the museum is hoping to take it on tour, to the villages in Mexico which were the original homes of the people from the indigenous groups who were photographed.
