Del Campo Ya Pasamos a Otras Cosas--From the Field We Move on to Other Things": Ethnic Mexican Narrators and Latino Community Histories in Washington County, Oregon
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Portland State University PDXScholar Dissertations and Theses Dissertations and Theses Summer 9-5-2014 "Del Campo Ya Pasamos a Otras Cosas--From the Field We Move on to Other Things": Ethnic Mexican Narrators and Latino Community Histories in Washington County, Oregon Luke Sprunger Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Sprunger, Luke, ""Del Campo Ya Pasamos a Otras Cosas--From the Field We Move on to Other Things": Ethnic Mexican Narrators and Latino Community Histories in Washington County, Oregon" (2014). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 1977. https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.1977 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. “Del Campo Ya Pasamos a Otras Cosas— From the Field We Move On to Other Things”: Ethnic Mexican Narrators and Latino Community Histories in Washington County, Oregon by Luke Sprunger A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Thesis Committee: Katrine Barber, Chair Roberto De Anda David Johnson Patricia Schechter Portland State University 2014 © 2014 Luke Sprunger i Abstract This work examines the histories of the Latino population of Washington County, Oregon, and explores how and why ethnic Mexican and other Latino individuals and families relocated to the county. It relies heavily on oral history interviews conducted by the author with ethnic Mexican residents, and on archival newspaper sources. Beginning with the settlement of a small number of tejano families and the formation of an ethnic community in the 1960s, a number of factors encouraged an increasing number of migrant Latino families—from tejanos to Mexican nationals to Central and South Americans to indigenous migrants of various nationalities—to settle permanently in the county. This work studies how the growth and diversification of the population altered the nature of community among Latinos, how changing social conditions and the efforts of early community builders improved opportunities for new arrivals, and how continuing migration has assisted in processes of cultural replenishment. ii Acknowledgements Thank you to the following individuals for your kind assistance with this project: Emily-Jane Dawson, Beth Dehn, Karen Hill, José Jaime, Carlos Lopez, Jeralynn Ness, Ilene O’Malley, Jose Pastrano, José Rivera, Amie Thurber, and Pat Yama. Thank you to my narrators for your patience and generosity in working with me before, during, and after the interview and transcription processes. My work would not have been possible without you. Fue un placer conocerlos a ustedes : Eduardo Corona, Laura Gamboa, Giores, Hector Hinojosa, Sister Ina Marie Nosack, Ariadna Covarrubias Ornelas, Evangelina Sanchez, Enedelia Hernandez Schofield, and Arturo Villaseñor. Thank you to my thesis committee members—Roberto De Anda, David Johnson, and Patricia Schechter—for your helpful feedback and research suggestions. To Katrine Barber, my advisor: Thank you for your encouragement, for your recommendations, and for taking time out of your already overly busy schedule to guide me along the research and writing processes. I am sincerely grateful for your help in seeing my thesis work through from start to finish. iii Table of Contents Abstract........................................................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................. ii List of Figures............................................................................................................................................. iv Introduction................................................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter I: Tejanos and Community Formation in the 1960s and 1970s........................ 38 Chapter II: Growing Mexican and Latino Populations of the 1970s and 1980s.......... 90 Chapter III: Mexican Immigrants in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s................................. 126 Conclusion............................................................................................................................................... 181 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................... 187 Appendix A: Human Subjects Research Review Committee Approval......................... 195 iv List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Washington County, Oregon........................................................................... 37 1 Introduction Terminology This work uses a variety of terms to refer to people of different ethnic, cultural, and national backgrounds. Ethnic Mexican is used to refer to people who were either born in Mexico or who had ancestors from Mexico. It encompasses both recent arrivals from Mexico and those whose families have been living in the United States for generations. Tejano refers to individuals and families who resided long enough in Texas to identify with the ethnic Mexican culture that developed there. Mexican national and Mexican immigrant refer to people who relocated from Mexico in their lifetimes. These terms are not synonymous with undocumented— some of these people have obtained residency or citizenship status in the United States. Mexican American refers to people who are ethnically Mexican, but are U.S. citizens; in this work, it is used to refer to people who were born in the United States or were brought to the United States at a very young age and would self-identify as “Mexican American.” Chicano , a term used by some Mexican Americans to self- identify, is only used in this work in reference to the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s and the activism it inspired, and where the term is used as part of an academic designation. As someone who left Mexico before he was old enough to remember much about it and was raised in Texas and then Oregon, narrator Hector Hinojosa’s life highlights how terms such as tejano , Mexican immigrant, and Mexican American can serve as only imperfect titular designations. Nationality and citizenship status have an important bearing on one’s life opportunities in the United States, but they do not 2 always correspond with where an individual was raised and with what culture he or she identifies. National and regional identities can become complex and multi- faceted among those whose lives have been shaped by migration. In this work, Hinojosa is a tejano , a Mexican immigrant, and (having obtained his citizenship in the 1970s), a Mexican American. White is used to refer to non-Latinos of European ancestry. In this work it is synonymous with the more cumbersome designation, “non-Latino white.” Some narrators used Americano , Norteamericano , or American in reference to non- Latino whites. Latino refers to anyone of Latin American origin or ancestry, regardless of nationality and regardless of what race (such as “white”) with which they might identify if asked. Latino is used in this work to include people from indigenous communities in Latin America, whether they speak Spanish or not. Hispanic is used less frequently in this work, generally when referencing quotes or population figures or other types of statistical data where this term is employed. It is used as roughly synonymous with “Latino.” In the Spanish language, surnames do not receive an “s” or “es” on the end of the name when referred to in plural. I have preserved this rule. For example, “the Hernandez” and “the Hinojosa” are used instead of “the Hernandezes” or “the Hinojosas.” I refer to Enedelia Schofield, who took her husband’s last name, as “Enedelia Hernandez Schofield” in this work to clarify and highlight her connection to her parents, Emilio and Hortencia Hernandez. Accents on names are used in consistency with print sources and/or how individuals and organizations stylize 3 names. Some ethnic Mexicans residing in the United States have dropped accents from their surnames. Such changes are preserved here. I use Southwest or southwestern states in the broad sense of the term to refer to those places—California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas—that have had significant resident populations of ethnic Mexicans since the United States took possession of the region following war with Mexico in the late 1840s. Project origins/methodology I began my thesis work with more curiosity than knowledge about the ethnic Mexican and Latino populations of Washington County. Completing a Spanish major as an undergraduate gave me some command of the language and exposure to a diverse body of Spanish-language literature from the U.S. Southwest, Mexico, and across Latin America. The literature introduced me to the different types of knowledge and the diversity of Spanish-speaking cultures and communities. Having met both immigrants from Latin America who continued to struggle with English and ethnic Mexican U.S. citizens who lamented not being taught the language of their parents or grandparents, I was curious as to how linguistic, as well as cultural, adaptation