JOSEPH VÁZQUEZ

Joseph Vázquez was born June 15, 1968 in Santa Barbara, California. He grew up Central Coast — mountains to one side, ocean to the other. His father was a metalworker and ring maker. His grandfather Fidel brought the family from Mexico City to California. Joseph carried that weight forward.

The Vázquez name doesn't start in California. It starts in Galicia, Spain — green coast, Atlantic wind, Celtic roots buried under Spanish rule.

The earliest recorded Vázquez — Juan Vázquez de Coronado — lived around 1235 to 1295. By 1547, the name is carved into church records in Soba, Santander.

One Vázquez even led a Spanish expedition to present-day Kansas in 1540. Francisco Vázquez de Coronado. The name traveled before the family did.

Son of Vasco. Son of the Basque. A name forged before the maps were drawn.

Fidel Rodriguez Vázquez and Esperanza Morelos Chávez raised the family in Mexico City. That's where Joseph's father — Grandpa Joe — was born September 18, 1945.

In 1957, Esperanza packed up her children and crossed north. Joe was twelve years old. Three sisters, three brothers, one mother. They joined family already in Santa Barbara.

One generation moved the family from the Atlantic coast of Spain, to the heart of Mexico, to the California coast. Three countries. One last name.

Wilson Elementary. Santa Barbara Jr. High. Santa Barbara High School.

Joe became a Don. "Once a Don, always a Don." He boxed at the local gyms. He fished off the breakwater. He helped fight the Coyote Fire of 1964 — Joseph's father, a teenager, on the line with the rest of Santa Barbara.

He drove an Austin-Healey convertible up and down the coast with the top down. That car is part of the family story now.

Then he went to work at Jostens in Summerland, California. Investment caster. He made class rings for decades. Every ring a small permanent thing for someone else's legacy.

Rings are permanence. Scale changed. Mastery didn't.

Joseph Vázquez was born June 15, 1968 in Santa Barbara. He grew up Central Coast — mountains one side, ocean the other.

At fourteen, the family moved up the coast to Santa Maria. That same year, he met Deborah — also fourteen. That was the start of Bear's branch of the family tree.

Joseph has always been clear about one thing. VAZQUEZ with the Z. Not Vasquez. Not ever. That Z is the line in the sand — six letters in the right order, held across three countries and five centuries.

Mijo —

I crossed one border with my mother when I was twelve. I made rings for other people's kids for forty years. I drove an Austin-Healey up the coast when the coast was still ours.

You pour concrete. Your son will do something I can't picture yet. That's how it's supposed to work.

Keep the Z.

— Joe Luis Vázquez
Santa Barbara, 1945 – 2020