Migrant Farm Workers and the Evolution of Farm Labor Programs
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Los Veteranos—Latinos in WWII
Los Veteranos—Latinos in WWII Over 500,000 Latinos (including 350,000 Mexican Americans and 53,000 Puerto Ricans) served in WWII. Exact numbers are difficult because, with the exception of the 65th Infantry Regiment from Puerto Rico, Latinos were not segregated into separate units, as African Americans were. When war was declared on December 8, 1941, thousands of Latinos were among those that rushed to enlist. Latinos served with distinction throughout Europe, in the Pacific Theater, North Africa, the Aleutians and the Mediterranean. Among other honors earned, thirteen Medals of Honor were awarded to Latinos for service during WWII. In the Pacific Theater, the 158th Regimental Combat Team, of which a large percentage was Latino and Native American, fought in New Guinea and the Philippines. They so impressed General MacArthur that he called them “the greatest fighting combat team ever deployed in battle.” Latino soldiers were of particular aid in the defense of the Philippines. Their fluency in Spanish was invaluable when serving with Spanish speaking Filipinos. These same soldiers were part of the infamous “Bataan Death March.” On Saipan, Marine PFC Guy Gabaldon, a Mexican-American from East Los Angeles who had learned Japanese in his ethnically diverse neighborhood, captured 1,500 Japanese soldiers, earning him the nickname, the “Pied Piper of Saipan.” In the European Theater, Latino soldiers from the 36th Infantry Division from Texas were among the first soldiers to land on Italian soil and suffered heavy casualties crossing the Rapido River at Cassino. The 88th Infantry Division (with draftees from Southwestern states) was ranked in the top 10 for combat effectiveness. -
Trends in the Hired Farm W( Force, 1945-J
? Aq& ■CJ ^afís, UnMed States *ii! Oepartmjintof Agricunure Trends in the Economic Research Service Hired Farm W( Agriculture Information Bulletin Force, 1945-J Number 561 Victor J. Olivetra ^ 'f W' 917698 Want Another Copy? It's Easy. Just dial 1-800-999-6779. Toll free. Ask for Trends in the Hired Farm Worl< Force, 1945-87 {AIB-561 ). The cost is $3 per copy. For non-U.S. addresses, add 25 percent (includes Canada). Charge your purchase to your VISA or MasterCard, or we can bill you. Or send a check or purchase order (made payable to ERS-NASS) to: ERS-NASS P.O. Box 1608 Rockville, MD 20850. We'll fill your order via 1st class mail. Trends In the Hired Farm Work Force, 1945-87. By Victor J, Oüveira, Agriculture and Rural Economy Division, Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Agriculture Information Bulletin No. 561. Abstract New technology, nonfarm labor conditions, farm prices, and government policies have altered both the size and composition of the hired farm work force. Average annual farm employment dropped 70 percent between 1945 and 1987. Although family members continue to provide the major portion of agricultural labor, hired farmworl<ers contribute relatively more labor now, 36 percent in 1987 compared with 22 percent in 1945. The numbers of domestic workers and legally admitted foreign nationals doing hired farmwork have stabilized in recent years after wide variations responding to wartime labor shortages, changes in government work programs, and increased mechanization. The number of illegal aliens working in U.S. agriculture is unknown owing to lack of accurate data, but the increase in apprehensions of these aliens after 1965 suggests a large population. -
Sample Pages
Table of Contents Preface . .vii How to Use This Book . .xi Research Topics for Defining Moments: The Zoot Suit Riots . .xiii NARRATIVE OVERVIEW Prologue . .3 Chapter One:Caught in the Currents of Empire and Conquest . .7 Chapter Two: Rising Tensions in California . .25 Chapter Three: A City on Edge . .43 Chapter Four: The Trial of the 38th Street Boys . .59 Chapter Five: The Zoot Suit Riots . .75 Chapter Six: Release from Prison . .91 Chapter Seven: Legacy of the Zoot Suit Riots . .107 BIOGRAPHIES Fletcher Bowron (1887-1968) . .125 Mayor of Los Angeles during the Sleepy Lagoon Trial and Zoot Suit Riots José Díaz (1919-1942) . .128 Mexican Farm Worker Whose Murder Resulted in the Sleepy Lagoon Trial Charles William Fricke (1882-1958) . .131 Judge Who Presided over the 1943 Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial Alice Greenfield (1917-2009) . .134 Civil Rights Activist and Member of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee v Defining Moments: The Zoot Suit Riots Henry “Hank” Leyvas (1923-1971) . .137 Mexican-American Defendant in the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial Carey McWilliams (1905-1980) . .141 American Journalist and Attorney Who Headed the Sleepy Lagoon Defense Committee Edward Roybal (1916-2005) . .145 First Hispanic-American Member of the Los Angeles City Council and Longtime U.S. Representative George Shibley (1910-1989) . .148 Defense Attorney in the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial PRIMARY SOURCES Anglo Squatters Swarm Mexican-Owned Haciendas in California . .153 Examples of Anti-Mexican Discrimination in 1930s America . .156 Depression-Era Los Angeles Targets Mexicans for Repatriation . .161 A Los Angeles Police Officer Issues a Racist Report on the Mexican “Element” . -
The United Colors of Low-Wage Workers
Black and Brown: The United Colors of Low-Wage Workers By Stephen Lerner onventional wisdom holds that tensions between Black and Latino workers are on the rise as the two ethnic C groups compete for the same low-wage service sector jobs in many of our nation’s big cities. But recent success- ful efforts by both groups of workers, to form unions and organize for pay increase and health insurance, show that workers and leaders from both communities are crossing racial lines to help improve the very jobs that they are supposed to be fighting over. In high-profile strikes this year by Service behind the bleak economic outlook are not other Employees International Union (SEIU) janitors in ethnic groups, but the large corporations that are Houston and Miami, Black and “brown” national driving our nation’s service economy. leaders united to support a largely immigrant A lot of attention is given to the fact that the workforce. Dozens of African American leaders— service sector currently drives the overall American many of them veterans of the civil rights movement economy, but what is often ignored is the fact that of the 1960s and leaders in the ongoing struggle the real estate sector drives the service economy. The 33 against racism and discrimination, such as Rev. entities that own, control, and invest in office James M. Lawson and Charles Steele, Jr.—lent their buildings and shopping malls—companies like support to help mostly Latino workers win better Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase—either jobs, using many of the same non-violent, civil dis- directly or indirectly control the jobs of more than obedience tactics that helped spur the civil rights nine million service workers (janitors, security movement. -
UC Santa Barbara Journal of Transnational American Studies
UC Santa Barbara Journal of Transnational American Studies Title Excerpt from Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78k1r8vc Journal Journal of Transnational American Studies, 4(2) Author Peiss, Kathy Publication Date 2012 DOI 10.5070/T842015761 eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Excerpted from Kathy Peiss, Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011). 6 For JTASZooting Around use the World only ‘‘ ome authorities feel that the only thing to do is to let the whole myste- rious business wear itself out and disappear through inner exhaus- Stion of its possibilities,’’ reported Agnes Meyer in the wake of the Los Angeles riot.1 In fact, it was much harder than those authorities thought to shrug off the zoot suit. During the war and for decades there- after, this style traveled across time and place, appealing to youths whose lives otherwise diverged. It turned up in wartime Great Britain and Aus- tralia, despite orders by their governments to conserve cloth for the du- ration. Bahamian farm hands, brought to Florida to pick crops, surprised their hosts by appearing in zoot suits. Canada had its own versions of zoot-suit unrest in the summer of 1944, and in occupied France, zazous sporting long coats and narrow trousers outraged officials. After the war, young people in other countries—from the stiliagi of the Soviet Union to the tsotsis of South Africa—picked up and adapted elements of an extreme style that had originated in American culture. -
FARMWORKER JUSTICE MOVEMENTS (4 Credits) Syllabus Winter 2019 Jan 07, 2019 - Mar 15, 2019
1 Ethnic Studies 357: FARMWORKER JUSTICE MOVEMENTS (4 credits) Syllabus Winter 2019 Jan 07, 2019 - Mar 15, 2019 Contact Information Instructors Office, Phone & Email Ronald L. Mize Office Hours: Wed 11:30-12:30, or by Associate Professor appointment School of Language, Culture and Society 541.737.6803 Office: 315 Waldo Hall Email [email protected] Class Meeting: Wednesdays, 4:00 pm - 7:50 pm, Learning Innovation Center (LINC) 360, including three off- campus service/experiential learning sessions. The course is four credits based on number of contact hours for lecture/discussion and three experiential learning sessions. Course Description: Justice movements for farmworkers have a long and storied past in the annals of US history. This course begins with the 1960s Chicano civil rights era struggles for social justice to present day. Focus on the varied strategies of five farmworker justice movements: United Farm Workers, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Noroeste, Migrant Justice, and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. This course was co-designed with a founder of PCUN, Larry Kleinman, who actively co-leads the course as his schedule allows. The course is structured around the question of the movement and its various articulations. Together, we will cover some central themes and strategies that comprise the core of farm worker movements but the course is designed to allow you, the student, to explore other articulations you find personally relevant or of interest. This course is designated as meeting Difference, Power, and Discrimination requirements. Difference, Power, and Discrimination Courses Baccalaureate Core Requirement: ES357 “Farmworker Justice Movements” fulfills the Difference, Power, and Discrimination (DPD) requirement in the Baccalaureate Core. -
The Bracero Program (1942-1964) a Critical Appraisal
THE BRACERO PROGRAM (1942-1964) A CRITICAL APPRAISAL JORGE DURAND ABSTRACT. Because of its dimension and duration, the Bracero Program (1942-1964) has been perhaps the most relevant example worldwide of a Temporary Workers Program. However, it has been widely criticized and not thoroughly studied. This article uses documents from the time to reappraise the pros and cons of the Bracero Program and re- formulates the possibility of a future program of temporary workers for Mexico and the United States. KEYWORDS: Bracero Program, Migration, Temporary Workers, Mexico, United States. 2007 SECOND SEMESTER 25 MIGRACIÓN Y DESARROLLO JORGE DURAND THE BRACERO PROGRAM INTRODUCTION he discussion about the relevance of a bilateral agreement to develop a new program for migrant workers makes it essential to look back on the Bracero Program. Although it is an old topic, it still contains rectifi- able mistakes and wise examples. The Bracero Program has ultimately Tbeen the largest and most far-reaching and consistent effort to think and reflect on this topic and the problem of temporary contracts for migrant workers. The immediate background of the Bracero Program was the labor-recruiting system known as enganche (“hooking”) and the mass deportations from the 1920s and 1930s. Both modes of recruiting and managing migrant labor were dreadful. The enganche system, a private business of the recruiting agencies, was a model of extreme exploitation that left recruitment, transportation, salaries, internal man- agement of labor camps and work loads in private hands. The consequences of this system were unfair contracts, eternal indebtedness, miserable life condi- tions, child labor, private police and recruitment agencies (Durand, 1993, 1994). -
The Heart of an Industry: the Role of the Bracero Program in the Growth of Viticulture in Sonoma and Napa Counties
THE HEART OF AN INDUSTRY: THE ROLE OF THE BRACERO PROGRAM IN THE GROWTH OF VITICULTURE IN SONOMA AND NAPA COUNTIES by Zachary A. Lawrence A thesis submitted to Sonoma State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in History Copyright 2005 By Zachary A. Lawrence ii AUTHORIZATION FOR REPRODUCTION OF MASTER’S THESIS I grant permission for the reproduction of parts of this thesis without further authorization from me, on the condition that the person or agency requesting reproduction absorbs the cost and provide proper acknowledgement of authorship. Permission to reproduce this thesis in its entirety must be obtained from me. iii THE HEART OF AN INDUSTRY: THE ROLE OF THE BRACERO PROGRAM IN THE GROWTH OF VITICULTURE IN SONOMA AND NAPA COUNTIES Thesis by Zachary A. Lawrence ABSTRACT This study examines the role of the Bracero Program in the growth of Sonoma and Napa County viticulture in an attempt to understand how important bracero labor was to the industry. While most histories of the Bracero Program are nationwide or statewide in scope, this study explores the regional complexities of how and why the program was used in Sonoma and Napa Counties, how both the growers and laborers in the region felt about it, and how this was different from and similar to other regions. Government documents provided the statistics necessary to determine the demographic changes in the region due to the Bracero Program. Important primary source material that provided the human side of the story includes a number of oral history interviews I conducted, the collection of Wine Industry Oral Histories, and various regional newspaper articles. -
The Chicano Movement
The Chicano Movement By Fawn-Amber Montoya, Ph.D. The Chicano Movement represented Mexican Americans’ fight for equal rights after the Second World War. The rights that they desired included equality in education and housing, representation in voting, equal conditions in labor, and the recognition and celebration of their ethnic heritage. The Chicano Movement includes leaders such as Cesar Chavez, United Farm Workers (UFW) who worked to achieve better sanitation and wages for farm workers. Chavez advocated non violent action as the best method of achieving the goals of the UFW. He encouraged striking, boycotting, and marching as peaceful methods to achieve one’s goals. While the UFW was formed in California Chavez encouraged and participated in boycotts and strikes throughout the Southwestern United States. In New Mexico, Reyes Lopez Tijerina fought to regain lands that had been taken from Hispanics after the Mexican-American War. Tijerina believed that if the government and Anglo land owners failed to return lands unlawfully or unethically taken from Mexican Americans after the war in 1848, then Chicanos should use force. In Texas, Jose Angel Gutierrez assisted in the formation of La Raza Unida party which encouraged Mexican Americans to participate in voting, and to run for local, state, and national positions of leadership. La Raza Unida brought together Chicanos throughout the Southwest, but was most successful in Crystal City Texas, where the party was successful in electing local Chicanos to the school board. Rudulfo “Corky “ Gonzalez assisted in establishing the Crusade for Justice in Colorado. The Crusade aided high school and university students in gaining more representation at Colorado universities and establishing Chicano Studies courses and programs in high schools and universities. -
Chicano Latino Studies 139 the Bracero Guest Worker Program
Chicano Latino Studies 139 The Bracero Program Winter 2010 ELH 110 Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Instructor Esther Castillo, Sociology, TA SSPA 4123 SSPA 4102 [email protected] Office Hours: By Appointment Hours: Mon. & Wed. 1:30-2:30pm [email protected] ph: 4-5273 ph: 4-9908 (only during office hours) Course Description In 1942 the United States negotiated a guest worker agreement with Mexico known as the Bracero Program. Proponents, primarily corporate agriculture, justified it as a means for overcoming a wartime labor shortage. However, other reasons were involved in the decision making. The conventional explanation for the Program remains to this day a shortage of labor, but labor unionism was widespread in the 1930s, especially in California, and appears to be the more important reason for implementing the Program. The Program lasted into 1964, long after the war ended, and brought into the United States an untold number of men, and only men, estimated by some to number about 5 million to work mainly in agriculture. During the 22 years of the Program a number of severe criticisms were directed at the Program which ranged from accusations of outright slavery to a means to destroy labor unionism in agriculture. However, the U.S. government, which administered the Program, and the employers of braceros consistently maintained that highest labor standards were strictly observed. Via an emphasis on film, the course will examine the Program in detail, including but not limited to: the reasons why the Program was implemented; the work performed; the treatment of the men; their wages and living standards; the effects on the economy of Mexico; the main beneficiaries and a host of other aspects relevant to the Program. -
Braceros, Mexicans, Americans, and Schools: (Re) Imagining Teaching and Learning in Mexican America
Braceros, Mexicans, Americans, and Schools: (Re) imagining Teaching and Learning in Mexican America Francisco Guajardo, University of Texas-Pan American Stephanie Alvarez, University of Texas-Pan-American Miguel Guajardo, Texas State University Samuel García Jr., Texas State University José Ángel Guajardo, Mexicano Elder Jocabed Márquez, Texas State University This article examines the stories of Braceros, Mexican contract workers who participated in an international labor agreement between the United States and México between 1942 and 1964. The stories Braceros tell challenge some conventional historiographical notions that they were powerless agents and victims of exploitative labor practices. The stories shed new light regarding the kinds of agency and power Braceros actually displayed in negotiating certain circumstances specific to their work. Ángel: Prisciliano de La Cruz y yo nos Angel: Prisciliano de la Cruz and I met in conocimos en el 1941 cuando teníamos seis 1941, when we were six years old and años y éramos alumnos de primaria en la primary school students in a rural school in escuela rural en rancho de San Felipe, en el the village of San Felipe, in the northern norte de México en el estado de Nuevo León. Mexican state of Nuevo Leon. Our school La escuela fue construida como parte de una was built as part of President Lázaro iniciativa rural del Presidente Lázaro Cardenas’ rural development initiatives of the Cárdenas durante los años treinta. Prisciliano 1930s. Prisciliano and I formed a strong bond y yo formamos una buena relación de amistad as kids and shared experiences that would como niños y vivimos experiencias juntos que last a lifetime, even though we spent time durarían una vida entera aunque sólo together only during that one year in school. -
An Unsung Champion of Farm Labor (7/11)
AN UNSUNG CHAMPION OF FARM LABOR (7/11) Among the many unsung heroes of the long struggle to win union rights for farm workers, few were more important than Al Tieburg, former director of California’s State Employment Department. Without him, the United Farm Workers union might not have been able to even begin its organizing drives. For more than two decades before Tieburg took office, employment officials in California and other states had blocked unionization by allowing growers to import workers from Mexico to replace local workers who might demand better pay and conditions. The Mexican workers, imported through the federal bracero program that operated between 1942 and 1964, dared not make any demands. That would have guaranteed them a quick return trip home, where thousands of other desperately poor men waited anxiously to take their place. Theoretically, U.S. workers had first call on available farm jobs. Braceros were to be imported only if there was a legitimate shortage of resident workers. But the state officials who administered the program – and who invariably were political allies of growers – openly ignored that rule in order to supply their grower friends with cheap and compliant labor from Mexico. That raised an insurmountable barrier to farm unionization. Workers knew that engaging in union activity would subject them to replacement by braceros. They were forced to take whatever growers offered or else. Organizers continued trying nevertheless, some from the American Federation of Labor, some from its rival Congress of Industrial Organizations. All of them failed. They tried again after the two labor federations merged into the AFL-CIO, by forming the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, which called a series of strikes in California in 1959.