Three constants have shaped Rogelio Zavala’s life — family, hard work, and a devotion to creating things by hand.
Zavala, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico, arrived in Avondale, Pa., in 1985 to work in the area’s mushroom farms. Not long after, he moved to Wilmington, Del., looking for better working conditions, and settled in a small corner house on Armstrong Avenue, where he still lives and works on his creations in his atelier and at the kitchen table.
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Zavala is an alambrista — an artisan who works with wire roping to produce a type of craft traditional to many Latin American countries — with work that ranges from delicate jewelry wraps to freestanding tabletop sculptures.
In Mexico, Zavala worked and studied from a very young age. “The school was free, but the materials had to be bought,” he said. “And although my father worked for the government in construction, the money was not enough. One day, I got tired of studying and working simultaneously.” He entered the workforce full-time.
He worked in many places doing different things. Most notably, he remembers his work at a famous chocolate factory where he met his future wife, Laura Hernández. Zavala was finishing his shift at night when she arrived. She was crying because a man was following her. Within a week, she was his girlfriend. “It was by chance of fate,” he said, then smiled. “I work fast,”
After they married, they lived in Colonia Roma in Mexico City. Although Zavala tried different jobs, nothing seemed to generate enough stability for the young family. He turned to wire-roping to help make ends meet, but even that was not enough. Zavala’s mother suggested that he migrate “al norte” in search of better prospects.
At the time, the exchange rate was 12 pesos to the dollar. “Crossing the border [back then] used to cost 1,500 dollars,” he said. “I was paid four pesos an hour [at my job].” So his mother paid a coyote to help him cross the border.
Once in the United States, he spent more than 10 years going back and forth between Wilmington and Mexico City to see his family. The first few times, he made the trek without authorization, but then came the amnesty offered by the Reform and Control Act of 1986 and things changed for the better.
Zavala recalled that before the immigration reform only men were seen on the streets of Latino areas in Wilmington, but in the 1990s, “the streets were filled with laughter and movement with the arrival of children and wives.”
Although Zavala had been sending money to Mexico for his wife and his four daughters, things were not easy. The girls went to school and worked afterschool. “We sold coffee and bread in the mornings, lunches at noon for the people who worked in construction, and after one in the afternoon, we sold food for the businesses in the neighborhood,” Hernández Zavala recalled. “At 5 p.m., we were going [out] to sell quesadillas at a high school exit.”
The family reunited in Wilmington in 2007, in waves: first the eldest daughter, Laura, then Julieta, Mariana, and Andrea with Hernández Zavala. By then, Zavala had left his landscaping job of 10 years and had transitioned into construction work, which afforded them a little more economic stability.
The younger daughters learned English while going to high school, and worked at fast food places; the older daughters took free English-language courses offered by nearby churches and organizations, and worked cleaning houses. Then they, too, started making art.
Perhaps the Zavala daughters’ creativity came to the fore in Wilmington because in Mexico the anguish of simply surviving overwhelmed everything. Or maybe it was the renewed proximity to their creative father that jump started it.
Laura Zavala began to make piñatas, which are now sold on Amazon. “And since it is so difficult to dry [the piñatas] in winter,” she said, “I started to combine that business with a T-shirt embroidery business for companies and schools.”
Mariana Zavala started studying at Delaware Community College and, along with her sister Andrea, designs mandalas for use by therapists after hours from their jobs at Bank of America.
Julieta Zavala got into fashion design at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia and has become one of the leading Latina designers in Delaware and Pennsylvania. She has participated in Viroqua Wisconsin’s Day of the Dead event, and in Philadelphia, has taken part in Taco Fiesta at Love Park, the Pride parade, and at the Catrina Fashion Runway fest at Penn Museum, among others.
Julieta reuses and upcycles materials in her designs — something her father does as well, using remnants from construction materials to create flowers, trees, bracelets, mobiles, and more.
In 2017, Mariana convinced the family to take all their crafts to the Cinco de Mayo festival to sell. The work of the Zavala daughters was noticed and appreciated there, but it was their father’s artistry that really connected with people.
“There are anecdotes that break my heart,” Zavala said, recounting the time three boys pooled all the money they had in their pockets so that they could buy one of his tree sculptures.
But that is not the only recollection Zavala recounts as he sits at his kitchen table, surrounded by his daughters and his wife.
He remembers his father: “He was a country boy, he didn’t know anything about construction, but he would dig with a pick wherever they told him to.” His name was Irineo, Zavala added, but they called him Irene or “chaparrito” — which means shorty — because of his small stature.
Working on Mexico City’s second metro line, in Cuatro Caminos Taxqueña, Irinieo found some pottery vases and took them home. When Zavala saw them, he decided to make something like them with the clay slurry that spilled out of his house when it rained. When his father returned home and saw what he had produced, he said “Son, you’re onto something, but I’m going to teach you how to make real clay.”
Zavala was four years old.
“Although he worked long hours, in his spare time, he taught me how to read and write, to add and subtract,” and more, Zavala recalled.
The pre-hispanic vessels his father had uncovered were part of a noteworthy archaeological cache found during the construction of the subway. Zavala doesn’t know where they ended up.
Now with his family in Wilmington, Zavala remembers the difficulties and notes with gratitude the joys and, above all else, the second chances life has afforded him. The second chances that everyone — and everything — deserves.
Even the copper he reclaims from construction sites.
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