Mayfair has been a working-class Mexican American neighborhood since the early 1900s. The area around its parish church was known as Sal Si Puedes, “escape if you can.” César Chávez and his young family had settled in Sal Si Puedes by 1949; he helped Father Donald McDonnell build Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, which opened in 1953, and began his organizing career with the Community Service Organization in San Jose.
In the 1960s and 1970s Mayfair was a hub of the Chicano movement, and it remains a center of Chicano art. The Mexican Heritage Plaza, opened in 1999, has a 500-seat theater and the School of Arts and Culture, with mosaic tributes to Carlos Santana, Los Tigres del Norte, Luis Valdez and Linda Ronstadt. The neighborhood holds a yearly celebration called Mayferia. In 2026, after allegations of sexual abuse against Chávez became public, many tributes to him in California were removed or renamed.