ROOTS AND FLOWS OF THE TEJANO DIASPORA
IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES
By
Antonio L. Vásquez

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Chicano/Latino Studies – Doctor of Philosophy
American Studies - Doctor of Philosophy
2013

ABSTRACT
ROOTS AND FLOWS OF TEJANO DIASPORA
IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED STATES
By
Antonio L. Vásquez

I examine in this dissertation the historical significance
of Texas Mexican agricultural labor and the formation of Latino
communities across the southern United States in the latter
twentieth century.

Their primary destinations chosen for work,

as well as their experiences in those locations, established
patterns of migration and settlement followed and faced by
subsequent flows of Latino workers.

The lives of Texas Mexicans

are, thus, critical to understanding the process of Latino
migration and settlement in the region.
I utilize the term Tejano Diaspora to help understand the
northward movement and eventual settlement of agricultural
workers from their home communities in South Texas.

This

framework also situates Tejano labor migration as a consequence
of forced displacement and reflective of a larger systemic
phenomenon between the United States and Mexico.

In turn, this

dissertation expands and complicates most extant writings on
Latinos in the New South that remain limited to the contemporary
period and neglect the historical presence of Texas Mexicans as
part of the literature.

In this examination, I focus on four distinct localities
that serve as individual chapters in this dissertation:

South

Texas, the Mississippi Delta states of Arkansas, Mississippi,
and Tennessee, then South Florida, and, finally, North Carolina.
These geographies represent the primary destinations chosen by
Tejano workers in chronological order, and were also principal
centers for agricultural production.

To undertake this task, I

conducted extensive archival research at various local, state,
and federal repositories across the country, and I utilized the
interlibrary loan system to review related newspaper articles
from the region.

In addition, I conducted seventeen select oral

history interviews.

Copyright by
ANTONIO L. VASQUEZ
2013

I dedicate this work to the lives and presence of
Papo y Mamo and Nena and Pops,
Catarino Grimaldo Vásquez and María Ynés Castillo Vásquez,
Petra Barrera Lara and Mateo Muñoz Lara.

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work would not exist without the presence and
sacrifices of others in my life—both known and unknown, in the
generations of the past as well as the present.
In formal capacities, the fine folk at Middle Tennessee
State University provided me with a wonderful home as a
dissertation fellow for most of this solitary endeavor.

I also

acknowledge here the North Caroliniana Society and Hispanic
Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) for providing
critical research support when needed.

In both formal and

informal capacities, I thank my guidance committee and every
single person who took time to speak with me for this project.
My friends in the real world, la buena gente, continued
putting their lives on the line every day while still taking
time to serve as my escape in these years.

I am particularly

grateful to my life-long friends from the land of the eagles—
Roland, Jason, Melody, Theo, Frank, and Bernie— for always being
there in word and deed, and la Delois, for the birds that fly in
summer.

I also want to recognize here my teachers and friends

from TLU and St. Mary’s, most especially Profe, Larry, Don
Leche, and Saúl.
In my immediate circumstance, this work belongs to my
family.

I am grateful to Patsy and Baby Andrew for the fishing
vi

at Pecan Valley.

I am also grateful to Bobby for hosting one of

the best barbeques in the state of Texas and knowing exactly
what it means to fall in the snow.

The love and prayers of my

parents, Antonio C. and Gloria L. Vásquez, have sustained me
throughout, as well as Norma, Angie, and Daniel.

This, of

course, also includes mi’jo y mi’ja, Devin and Samantha Amparo,
both of whom I love as big as the sky.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

x

LIST OF FIGURES

xi

INTRODUCTION
Long Line of Immigrants
Chicano Studies and Tejano Diaspora
Outline of Chapters
Terminology
Disclaimer
CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

1
5
18
29
31
32

CONQUESTS, COLONIAL LABOR, AND
DIASPORIC MIGRATION: SITUATING
MEXICAN LABOR MIGRATION
Introduction
Military Conquest and Colonial Labor
Economic Conquest and Diaspora
Early Twentieth Century Migration
Conclusion

36
36
39
48
53
69

DEEP IN THE HEART: BRACEROS Y
TEJANOS IN THE COLONIAL IMAGINARY
OF SOUTH TEXAS, 1940s-1960s
Introduction
Go Work or Go Home
Tejano Migration by Dispossession
Conclusion

71
71
73
88
108

"ONLY AMERICANS:" THE BRACERO PROGRAM
AND DIFFERENTIAL DISPLACEMENT IN THE
MISSISSIPPI DELTA, 1940s-1960s
Introduction
In the Steps
"Only Americans"
Southern Diaspora
Conclusion

110
110
111
121
132
142

ON THE MOVE: ORGANIZED MIGRANTS IN
SOUTH FLORIDA, 1950s-1970s
Introduction
Quiet Riot

144
144
145

viii

Organized Migrants
Conclusion
CHAPTER FIVE

165
190

"ATROCIOUS, INTOLERABLE, AND SINFUL:"
SILENCE AND SOLIDARITY IN THE FIELDS
OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1970s-1990s
Introduction
Migration and Settlement
"Atrocious, Intolerable, and Sinful"
Silence and Solidarity in the Fields
Conclusion

192
192
195
209
226
253

CONCLUSION

255

APPENDIX

260

BIBLIOGRAPHY

266

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. “U.S.-and Mexico-Born Mexican Population
in Texas, By Decade”

261

Table 2. “Foreign Born Persons of Mexican Origin in
Southeast United States Region, 1910-1970”

262

Table 3. “North Carolina Counties Estimated to Have 100
or More Agricultural Migrants at Peak of the
Crop Season, 1956"

263

Table 4. “List of FLOC Campbell Boycott Supporters in
North Carolina”

265

x

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.“Truckload of Mexican Migrants Returning from
Mississippi Where They Had Been Picking Cotton,
Highway near Neches, Texas, Anderson County”

35

Figure 2.“Workers Arrive at Alien Detention Camp at
McAllen, Texas, ca. 1953”

86

Figure 3.“Alien Detention Camp at McAllen, Texas,
ca. 1953”

87

Figure 4.“Travel Patterns of Seasonal Migratory
Agricultural Workers”

106

Figure 5.“ Interviewing People for Migratory Farm Work,
San Antonio, Texas, May 7, 1946”

107

Figure 6.“Mexican Laborers in Tiptonville, Tennessee,
November 23, 1951”

120

Figure 7.“Typical Workers from Weslaco, Texas, in
Poinsett County, Arkansas, 1948”

131

Figure 8.“Major Migrant Work Areas in Ten East Coast
States, 1956”

161

Figure 9.“The Atlantic Coast Migratory Stream, 1957”

162

Figure 10.“Show of Guns Quiets Pay Riot by Laborers,
April 28, 1957”

163

Figure 11.“Girl Leader of Migrant Crew Will Quit Road
and Buy Farm, Goulds, Florida, March 2, 1958”

164

Figure 12.“Camp Quarter in South Dade Labor Camp,
March 15,1973”

184

Figure 13.“Typhoid Hits Florida Farm Workers,
March 23, 1973”

185

Figure 14.“Migrant Worker Demonstration, August 1, 1973” 186

xi

Figure 15.“Nuestra Lucha Newspaper, August 1976”

187

Figure 16.“OMICA Food Trailer at South Dade Labor Camp,
December 15, 1976”

188

Figure 17.“Striking Migrant Workers in Florida City,
Florida, January 26, 1979”

189

Figure 18.“Summer Migrant Education Class in Kenly,
North Carolina, August 8, 1979”

207

Figure 19.“14 Year Old Salvadoran Refugee Collecting
Eggs in Breeder House, Iredell County, North
Carolina, 1989”

208

Figure 20.“Farm in Newton Grove, North Carolina, 1980”

225

Figure 21.“Migrant Farm Worker Cutting Tobacco, 1993”

249

Figure 22.“Migrant Farm Worker Hauling Tobacco to
the Truck, 1993”

250

Figure 23.“Farmworker Solidarity Demonstration in
Raleigh, North Carolina, May 21, 1985”

251

Figure 24.“Farmworker Solidarity Demonstration in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, May 6, 2008”

252

Figure 25.“Texas Farm Workers Union Marching in
Raleigh, North Carolina, August 1977”

259

Figure 26.“North Carolina Summer Term Migrant
Enrollments, 1969-1980”

264

xii

INTRODUCTION

“The first thing I do is
bless my hands with the
love of the Lord. And then…
you have to make sure
you have the right ingredients.”
--Gloria L. Vásquez

1

Unlike past historical periods of large-scale Mexican labor
migration that were peripheral to what was considered legitimate
intellectual inquiry in both Mexico and the United States, the
contemporary phenomenon has benefitted from a long following of
scholars across various academic disciplines and research
interests.

The 2001 anthology Latino Workers in the

Contemporary South ushered in a new era of scholarship focused
solely on the southern United States.

This new literature has

continued in the tradition of past regional scholarship by
examining the contours of “southern distinctiveness,” yet has

1

My Mother, Gloria L. Vásquez, is recognized as our homegrown
oral historian, theologian, philosopher, diplomat, accountant,
chef, political scientist, and organic intellectual in my
immediate and extended family. In the above quote, I asked my
Mother her secret in making menudo, a tripe soup. She first
paused, and then spoke these words.
1

centered on the impact of recent Latino migration and
settlement.

2

As Owen J. Furuseth and Heather A. Smith have pointed out,
“In a region that continues to grapple with long held traditions
of privilege, belonging, and ‘race,’ the growing presence of
Latinos complicates the traditional mythology of southerness and
gives rise to yet another iteration of the so called ‘New
South.’”

The primary stimulus in the scholarly production has,

thus, been the unprecedented numerical increase of Latino
populations, particularly the 1990s.

During this decade, six

states in the South—Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, and Tennessee—were identified among the highest
growth rates for Latinos in the country.

3

2

Mark Overmeyer-Velázquez, “Introduction: Histories and
Historiographies of Greater Mexico,” in Beyond La Frontera: The
History of Mexico-U.S. Migration, ed. Mark Overmeyer-Velázquez
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), xxii; Arthur D.
Murphy, Colleen Blanchard, and Jennifer A. Hill, eds., Latino
Workers in the Contemporary South (Athens and London: The
University of Georgia Press), 2001; Mary E. Odem and Elaine
Lacey, “Introduction,” in Latino Immigrants and the
Transformations of the U.S. South, eds. Mary E. Odem and Elaine
Lacey (Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press,
2009), x.

3

Owen J. Furuseth, and Heather A. Smith, “From Winn-Dixie to
Tiendas: The Remaking of the New South,” in Latinos in the New
South: Transformations of Place, eds. Heather A. Smith and Owen
J. Furuseth (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company,
2006), 2; Rakesh Rochar, Roberto Suro, and Sonya Tafoya, “New
Latino South: The Context and Consequences of Rapid Population
2

This dissertation responds to this growing literature, what
has also been called a variation of the New South or Nuevo
South, by reframing the study of recent migration and settlement
within a larger historical narrative and counter-narratives of
Latino incorporation struggles in the southern United States.
“Reframing,” according to Native scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith,
“is about taking much greater control over the ways in which
indigenous issues and social problems are discussed and
handled.”

To also use the words of family historian and organic

intellectual, Gloria L. Vásquez (my Mother), as shown in the
opening epigraph:
ingredients.”

“you have to make sure you have the right

Most writings on the Nuevo South have played an

important role in describing varied experiences in the
contemporary period, yet have also neglected prior periods of
Latino migration and settlement in the twentieth century.

At

the very least, this examination is necessary to discern
experiences of convergence and divergence between the past and
present, and to contribute toward a more comprehensive
understanding of larger structural processes that have informed
Latino labor migration and settlement in the region.

Moreover,

most academic writings in the Nuevo South continue to position

Growth,” Pew Hispanic Center, July 26, 2005, available at
http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/reports/50.pdf.
3

Latinos within a “new immigrant” narrative that is compared
solely to earlier experiences of European immigration.

4

One critical ingredient that I examine in this
dissertation, which stands in contrast to extant Nuevo South
literature, is the historical presence of Tejano workers in the
southern United States.

As I demonstrate, the experiences of

Tejano agricultural workers, referring to male and female
persons of Mexican ancestry who were born or established
permanent homes in Texas, is absolutely critical to
understanding how Latino communities have formed across the
region in the latter twentieth century.

Their primary

destinations chosen for work, as well as their experiences in
those locations, established patterns of migration and
settlement followed and faced by subsequent flows of Latino
workers.
To undertake this task, I focus on four distinct localities
that serve as individual chapters in this dissertation:

South

Texas, the Mississippi Delta states of Arkansas, Mississippi,
and Tennessee, then South Florida, and, finally, North Carolina.
These geographies were not chosen randomly.

While I examine the

experiences of Tejano workers, this study also represents one

4

Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and
Indigenous Peoples (London: Zed Books Ltd, 1995), 153-154; d to
the a, to the t, to the m.
4

history of agriculture in the region.

The process of mechanized

farming and commercial agriculture gave rise to employer demands
and recruitment efforts for short-term itinerant farm labor.

I

examine how this process involved the lives of Texas Mexicans in
the principal locations across the region in the twentieth
century.

By following the crops on paper through extensive

archival research across the country as well as select oral
history interviews, I strive to make connections between and
across these seemingly disparate experiences, time periods, and
geographies in the South.

Long Line of Immigrants
Since the publication in 2001, the new literature on
Latinos in the Nuevo South has grown rapidly in volume,
reflected in various publication formats that include mostly
scholarly anthologies, several full-length books, and well over
twenty-five dissertations and theses.

Drawing from primarily

anthropology, geography, political science, and sociology, some
works have highlighted how Latinos have enriched these varied
social landscapes, such as through cultural festivals, music and
foods.

Others have described challenges to successful

integration, such as language barriers, or racial attitudes.
Secondarily, some works have also sought to describe why and how
Latinos have migrated to new destinations in the region in the
5

contemporary period, which have enriched the new literature
beyond regional perspectives.

5

Recognizing these important strides that remain necessary,
there are still challenges that confront the new scholarship.
This is clear when contextualizing its formation within the
contemporary politics of immigration enforcement in the United
States.

Immigration enforcement practices had been steadily

growing from earlier decades, notably since the employer
sanction provision in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of
1986.

The events surrounding September 11, 2001, justified the

5

For anthologies, see, for example, Murphy, Blanchard, and
Hill, Latino Workers in the Contemporary South; Odem and Lacy,
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South;
Cameron D. Lippard, and Charles A. Gallagher, eds., Being Brown
in Dixie: Race, Ethnicity, and Latino Immigration in the New
South (Boulder and London: First Forum Press, 2011); Smith and
Furuseth, Latinos in the New South: Transformation of Place;
Stanton Wortham, Enrique G. Murillo, Jr., and Edmund T. Hamann,
Education in the New Latino Diaspora: Policy and the Politics of
Identity (Westport, Connecticut and London: Ablex Publishing,
2002). For full-length books, see, for example, Leon Fink, The
Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the Nuevo New South
(Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press,
2003); Hannah Gill, The Latino Migration Experience in North
Carolina: New Roots in the Old North State (Chapel Hill and
London: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); José María
Mantero, Latinos and the U.S. South (Westport, Connecticut and
London: Praeger, 2008); Helen B. Marrow, New Destination
Dreaming: Immigration, Race, and Legal Status in the Rural
American South (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011);
Gregory B. Weeks and John R. Weeks, Irresistible Forces: Latin
American Migration to the United States and Its Effects on the
South (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010).
6

expansion of actions at all levels of government nationwide in
the name of counter-terrorism and homeland security.
The most visible expression of worksite enforcement in the
first decade of the new millennium was the escalation of
nationally coordinated and highly publicized immigration raids.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the number of
worksite arrests increased from approximately 510 in 2002, to
6,287 in 2008, marking an increase of roughly 1,133 percent
within a six-year period.

In addition to immigration raids,

other strategies included increased fines and penalties against
employers, the use of undercover agents at various worksites,
and the implementation of an employment verification (e-verify)
system, all trying to implement “a culture of compliance and
enforcement.”

6

Immigration enforcement measures were also pursued through
state and local government collaboration, especially in the
South.

“Instead of acting to prohibit and eliminate systematic

exploitation and discrimination against Latinos,” according to a
6

“ICE Worksite Enforcement Overview,” U.S. Customs and
Immigration Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security, April
30, 2009; available at
http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/factsheets/worksite.html; Laurie M.
Dawn, Mahsa Aliaskari, and Joe Whitley, “2008: The Year of
Increased Worksite Enforcement,” in Homeland Security: Legal
and Policy Issues, eds. Joe D. Whitley and Lynne K. Zusman
(Chicago, Illinois: American Bar Association Publishing, 2009),
123-139.
7

study by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2009, “state and
local governments in much of the South have exacerbated the
situation.”

The two most notable examples were the

unprecedented growth of the 287(g) Program and, subsequently,
the Secure Communities Program.

7

Through 287(g), selected state and local officers—such as
highway patrol, city police, or county sheriff officials—receive
training administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) and thereafter become certified as agents for
immigration enforcement in their local municipalities.

Each

287(g) Program is approved through individual memoranda of
understanding agreements (MOAs) between ICE and the
participating state and local agencies.

Although existent since

1996, operation became a tool for immigration enforcement in the
twenty-first century.

In 2002, the Florida Department of Law

Enforcement was the only agency with an existing agreement.
From 2005 to 2009, over 70 agreements were signed between state
and local municipalities and ICE, with the majority located in
communities across the U.S. South.

While still active, the

Secure Communities Program has since replaced the 287(g) Program
in the enforcement agenda.

Established in 2008, the Program

7

Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South, A
Report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (Montgomery, Alabama:
Southern Poverty Law Center, 2009), 4.
8

authorizes local law enforcement officers to fingerprint persons
transported to participating jails.

The fingerprints are then

compared to federal databases available through the Program,
which determines their immigration status.

8

The rise of immigration enforcement and detention in the
first decade, what historian Rachel Ida Buff has rightfully
called the “deportation terror,” also worked in tandem with
anti-immigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment.

One prominent

example from the region was the metropolitan city of Charlotte,
North Carolina.

Following a fatal accident that led to the

death of a local school teacher in September 2005, U.S. House of
Representative Myrick (R-NC) introduced the “Scott Gardner Act”
that called for the deportation of undocumented persons charged
with drinking while driving.

At the same time, she introduced

the “10K Run For the Border Act.”

9

8

In December 2009, there were sixty-six mutually signed
agreements and five active agreements “pending good faith,”
according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The top
four states with the largest number of 287(g) agreements were,
in numerical order, Arizona, Virginia, North Carolina, and
Georgia. In November 2013, there are thirty-six active
agreements shown. “Fact Sheet: Delegation of Immigration
Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act,” U.S.
Customs and Immigration Enforcement, Department of Homeland
Security, accessed November 15, 2013; available at
http://www.ice.gov/news/library/factsheets/287g.htm#signed-moa.

9

Rachel Ida Buff, “The Deportation Terror,” American Quarterly
60, no. 3 (2008): 523-551.
9

When the “Scott Gardner Act” was proposed, Representative
Myrick stated the following: “No more excuses.
You’re driving.

You’re illegal.

You’re drunk.

You’re deported.

Period.”

In

December 2005, in response to another drinking and driving
incident, Representative Myrick stated, “I’m going to offer an
amendment on the floor that says, ‘I don’t think that we need to
give them two more times to kill somebody.’”

Although the "10K

Run for the Border Act" sought to increase the fines for
employers who hire undocumented workers, the imagery of the
border targeted specifically local undocumented residents from
Mexico, with the underlying message again that they did not
belong.

By intentionally linking the issue of immigration with

drinking and driving at the same time, the representative
further neglected the varied social and economic contributions
made daily by the targeted local resident population.

In

addition, the narrative conveyed a message that Mexican lives
are not as worthy, contributing to the perception of them as
“illegals,” that is, as criminals and a problem to society.10
Mexican lives in Charlotte were also positioned as threats
to national security.

Former Mecklenburg County Sheriff and

current Commissioner Jim Pendergraph expressed this sentiment in
10

“Myrick Seeks Immigration Crackdown,” Charlotte Observer,
August 16, 2005; “Bill Puts N.C. in Borders Debate: House
Representatives From State Push to Toughen Legislation,”
Charlotte Observer, December 9, 2005.
10

promotion of the local 287(g) Program, one of the more
successful operations in the South and nationwide.

In August

2006, then-Sheriff Pendergraph testified before a congressional
hearing on the importance of this collaborative program:
Even though I have great concern for the flood of illegals
coming across our southern border looking for a better way
of life, my bigger concern is for those crossing our porous
border looking to cause harm and commit acts of terrorism
against the United States. This is a serious Homeland
Security issue.
Appeals to national security resonated in another statement by
the sheriff in December 2006.

“He can be carrying a dirty bomb

in a suitcase,” he reported in a Charlotte Observer article, “or
there can be two or three of them separately carrying parts to a
bomb.”

Similarly, Representative Myrick highlighted this link

on her campaign website to affirm her opposition to the issuance
of driver’s licenses.

“If we don’t secure our borders, illegals

will continue to come into our country.

It is a national

security issue when we do not know who is in our country,” she
stated.
issue:
ID.

Myrick continued in reference to the drivers’ license
“I don’t support illegals getting any form of government

It allows them to drive on our roads, open bank accounts,

or even get on planes, like we saw on 9-11.”

This particular

language has since been changed, though does not discard how
local political leadership pursued an immigration enforcement

11

agenda by linking the presence of local undocumented residents
with blatant acts of violence, including September 11, 2001.
This, of course, points to a glaring contradiction.

Select

local political leadership like Representative Myrick called for
greater immigration enforcement measures, which included
opposition to driver’s licenses and other forms of government
identification.

Yet, one method to confirm who is living within

the geo-political boundaries of the United States and including
Charlotte, based on the framework of national security, would be
to issue some form of identification to all local residents.
Denying this resource means having persons who live in the
community but are outside the scope of the U.S. government,
making communities “less safe” in this regard.

Focusing briefly

on Charlotte, North Carolina, provides insight here into the
impact of the immigrant enforcement agenda across the southern
United States—especially at the state level in Georgia and
Alabama in the same period—as well as the fervor of antiimmigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment that accompanied these
actions.

11

11

Jim Pendergraph, “Written Testimony for ‘Empowering Local Law
Enforcement to Combat Illegal Immigration,” August 25, 2006,
Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug
Policy, and Human Resources of the Committee on Government
Reform, United States House of Representatives, One Hundred
Ninth Congress, Second Session; “His Mission, Fame: He Sends
Illegal Immigrants Home-Mecklenburg Sheriff Embraces Visible
12

Few works from the New South literature sought to directly
challenge the expansion immigration enforcement in the first
decade.

One noteworthy effort included a small collective of

scholars in North Carolina who studied and documented the varied
human costs of the then-controversial 287(g) Program for Latino
and non-Latino communities alike.

Most importantly, they were

intentional in sharing their insights through various public
community forums held in the state to impact a larger audience
beyond those in academia.

These actions, though critical, were

marginal to the New South project, in word and deed.

12

Pertinent to this dissertation, few studies from the New
South literature have given significant attention to the history
of Latinos in the region.

Two notable exceptions include the

Role in U.S. Program,” Charlotte Observer, December 10, 2006;
“Illegal Immigration,” Sue Myrick Profile Website, available at
http:www.suemyrick.com/site/PageServer?pagename=Immigration.
The particular language currently reads: “It allows them to
drive on our roads, open bank accounts, and get on planes while
unlawfully present in the country. We saw this happen on 9-11,
and it is an issue of national security.”
12

Mai Thi Nguyen, “Immigration Ordinances in North Carolina;”
Hannah Gill, Mai Thi Nguyen, Katherine Lewis Parker, and Deborah
Weissman, “Legal and Social Perspectives on Local Enforcement of
Immigration Under the 287(g) Program,” Popular Government 74,
no.3 (Spring/Summer 2009): 2-21; Mai Thi Nguyen and Hannah Gill,
The 287(g) Program: The Costs and Consequences of Local
Immigration Enforcement in North Carolina Communities (Chapel
Hill, North Carolina: The Latino Migration Project, The
Institute for the Study of the Americas and The Center for
Global Initiatives, The University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, 2010), Gill, The Latino Migration Experience in North
Carolina.
13

works of Wayne J. Pitts and Julie M. Weise.

In 2003, Pitts

provided a brief overview on the history of Mexican immigration
to the United States to contextualize his study on community
formation processes in Western North Carolina.

In 2009, Weise

integrated writings from Mexican American history to help inform
her interpretation on the significance of Mexican “place-making”
in the South.

Both works, however, neglected the historical

significance of Texas and Latino migration in the region, which
is the focus of this dissertation.

13

The pioneering anthology published in 2009, Latino
Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South, stands out
for its influence on current and future directions of the New
South scholarship.

In contrast to the first publication in

2001, the more recent work represents perhaps the most
accomplished to-date because of the breadth of issues addressed
within and beyond regional perspectives.

13

Editors of the

Although not addressing the contemporary period but should be
part of the new literature, Sarah E. Cornell’s work in 2008 drew
from historiography on Mexican Americans and African Americans
to illuminate and deconstruct contradictions in the resilient
binary racial ideologies in the nineteenth century. Wayne J.
Pitts, “Recent Mexican Immigration to the Rural South: A Case
Study in Western North Carolina” (Dissertation, University of
New Mexico, 2003); Julie Meira Weise, “Fighting For Their Place:
Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S. South, 1910-2008”
(Dissertation, Yale University, 2009); Sarah E. Cornell,
“Americans in the U.S. South and Mexico: A Transnational
History of Race, Slavery, and Freedom, 1810-1910 (Dissertation:
New York University, 2008).
14

anthology were also intentional to exclude Texas as well as
Florida from the literature, another important distinction from
the work in 2001.
“For the purposes of this volume,” according to the editors
in the introduction, “we define the South as those states that
share a history of slavery and the legal institution of racial
segregation and its undoing by the civil rights movement.”

They

went on to state definitively, “Because of our interest in new
immigration states we omit Texas and Florida, for they have a
longer and different history of Latin American immigration.”
This view, however, is problematic.

Although located on the

geographic periphery, both Texas and Florida were important
slave states in the region by the mid-nineteenth century in
terms of population.

As I demonstrate in this dissertation,

both states also served as principal geographic centers and
corridors of Latino migration and settlement by the midtwentieth century.

14

By establishing permanent homes in South Florida in 1950s,
Latinos from the Tejano diaspora were able to pursue employment
14

Apart from Texas and Florida, states within the designated
region of the U.S. South as outlined in the new literature have
included Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and
Virginia; Mary E. Odem, and Elaine Lacy, “Introduction,” in
Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South, eds.
Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lacy (Athens and London: The University
of Georgia Press, 2009), x.
15

in other locations in the South.

Although designated a "new

immigration" state, Latinos were already present and established
in North Carolina well before the IRCA legislation in 1986.
Tejano labor migration represents, thus, one critical missing
link in current scholarship on Latinos in the New South.
Excluding Tejano history fails to consider how Latino
communities have formed across the southern United States
through the twentieth century and perpetuates the false notion
of Tejanos as a “people without history,” which is not unique to
the New South literature.

15

Due to the sole focus on the contemporary period, the
dominant narrative in the Nuevo South literature also has
accepted and adopted the portrayal of Latinos as “new
immigrants” or part of the last wave of immigrants, which too is
subject to question as other scholars have noted.

Namely, the

narrative assumes an inclination to migrate and assimilate based
solely on individual free-will, removes from discussion the
larger historical-structural forces that have induced migration,
and negates the historical presence of Mexican peoples that
predates current geo-political boundaries.

As historian Emma

Pérez observed in a related critique, “Immigrants are expected

15

Armando C. Alonzo, Tejano Legacy:
South Texas, 1734-1900 (Albuquerque:
Press, 1998), 6.
16

Rancheros and Settlers in
University of New Mexico

to become part of the dominant culture; they are urged to adopt
its habits and forget their own—to erase.”

Moreover, the

narrative does not consider systemic societal relations that
inhibit successful integration across multiple generations.
Scholarship on Latinos in the New South has, thus, mostly
reinforced a dominant history derived primarily from prior
European patterns of immigration.

16

Beyond just the inclusion of literature, more to the point
here is the need to develop differential critical perspectives,
or what can also be called expressions of oppositional
consciousness, that examine and challenge the hemispheric
imprints of European conquests and colonization in the Americas.
We are now well into the second decade of this growing body of
scholarship on the New South or Nuevo South, and the real task
before us is not just one of “description” but also
“prescription.”

This form of intellectual engagement involves,

16

Emma Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas Into
History (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999),
78; Rodolfo Rosales, The Illusion of Inclusion: The Untold
Political Story of San Antonio (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 2000), 20-23; Ramón Grosfoguel, “Puerto Rican Labor
Migration to the United States: Modes of Incorporation,
Coloniality, and Identities,” Review (Fernand Braudel Center 22,
no. 4 (1999): 503-504.
17

in turn, a necessary process of rethinking the meaning and
purpose of our work.

17

Chicano Studies and Tejano Diaspora
The official intellectual formation of Chicano Studies in
academia—traced to El Grito:

Journal of Contemporary Mexican

American Thought founded in Berkeley in 1967, and Aztlán:
Chicano Journal of the Social Sciences and the Arts in Los
Angeles established in 1970-1971—influence this dissertation,
including my critique of the New South literature.

Most early

writings were intentional, first and foremost, in countering
extant academic scholarship that either completely ignored the
presence of Mexican populations in the United States or
dehumanized them.

As well, noted Teresa Córdova, “Chicana/o

Studies was founded upon ideals of connectedness between

17

These terms “corrective,” “description,” and “prescription”
are drawn here from the work of the late historian Manning
Marable, who identified three principles and practices within
the African-American intellectual tradition. The “descriptive,”
presents the “reality of black life and experience from the
point of view of black people themselves” (57). The
“corrective” reflects “a concerted attempt to challenge and to
critique the racism and stereotypes that have been ever present
in the main discourse of white academic institution.” And the
“prescriptive” represents “an intellectual orientation which
consistently connected scholarship with collective struggle,
social analysis with social transformation” (58); Manning
Marable, Living Black History: How Re-imagining the AfricanAmerican Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future (New York:
Basic Civitas Books, 2006), 57-58; ode to the p, to g, to d.
18

university and community, whereby we pledged to apply the
products of our education toward addressing the issues and
problems facing Chicana/o communities.”

Early scholarship, in

this view, served an important function in directly challenging
forms of inequality confronting Chicano communities in the real
world, and, in the process, contest the very legitimacy of
academic knowledge in traditional disciplines.

18

On the one hand, early writings from the discipline
represented a continued intellectual praxis by preceding
generations of Chicano intellectuals, within academia and
beyond.

In describing the significance of El Grito, Tomás

Ybarra-Frausto asserted that the literature “called for
recognition that the Mexican American ferment of the time was
not the result of new consciousness, but rather a continuation
of a long struggle for human dignity.”

19

Emma Pérez also

surmised that writings by preceding Chicano intellectuals
appeared to be “mainstream,” yet were more oppositional and laid
an important foundation for subsequent scholarship.

18

Teresa Córdova, “Plugging the Brain Drain: Bringing Our
Education Back Home,” in Latino Social Policy: A Participatory
Research Model, eds. Juana Mora and David R. Díaz (New York,
London, and Oxford: The Haworth Press, 2004), 27; emphasis by
Córdova.

19

Cited in Michael Soldatenko, Chicano Studies: The Genesis of
a Discipline (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009), 6.
19

“Oppositional history was being articulated by these early
scholars, whose work exhibited a significant intervention.
Another consciousness was already emerging,” Pérez noted.

While

the formation of Chicano Studies continued in this tradition,
some writings turned to the role of the U.S. state and the study
of colonialism to understand experiences of inequality for
Chicano communities.

20

The prominent example was the promulgation of the “model of
internal colonialism” that was influenced by scholars such as
Pablo Gonzalez Casanova and Robert Blauner.

Casanova defined

internal colonialism as “a structure of social relations based
on domination and exploitation among culturally heterogeneous
distinct groups.”

Blauner further identified four shared

experiences for internal colonies in the United States:

an

experience of forced or involuntary incorporation; a distortion
of indigenous cultural values and ways of life; external
administrative dependence; and finally, experiences of
20

This, of course, should not diminish related critiques by
previous intellectuals, including the important work of Ernesto
Galarza. “Thus it becomes of primary importance to determine,"
noted Galarza in 1949, "whether the economic policy of the
United States is fostering or hampering the chances for creating
a Mexico able to employ, feed, house, clothe, and educate its
workers on a rising standard of living. To ignore its basic
premise is to overlook the roots of the problem” (11); cited in
Gilbert G. Gonzalez, Guest Workers or Colonized Labor? Mexican
Labor Migration to the United States (Boulder and London:
Paradigm Publishers, 2006), 11; Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary,
9-10.
20

institutional and individual practices of racism.

This

analytical framework was most insightful in historicizing racial
inequalities in the United States as a condition of colonialism,
for Chicanos as well as Native Americans and African Americans.

21

Subsequent scholarship has much noted, however, that most
early writings from the discipline did not fully consider
internal differences, contradictions, and changes affecting
Chicano communities.

Most scholars employed the internal

colonial model to understand historical processes of racial
oppression in the United States, yet they did not fully apply
this framework in terms of differences in class, gender,
geography, and sexuality.

In a recent critique of the early

literature, Mark Overmeyer-Velázquez posited that scholars
“tended to oversimplify the complex experiences of this
neglected group.”

The oversimplification was extended to the

study of Mexican labor migration that was hindered by insular
regional and nation-centered articulations, he further noted.

21

Robert Blauner, “Internal Colonialism and the Ghetto Revolt,”
Social Problems 16 (Spring 1969): 393-408; Robert Blauner,
Racial Oppression in America (New York, Evanston, San Francisco,
and London: Harper & Row, 1972); Pablo Gonzalez Casanova
“Internal Colonialism and National Development,” Studies in
Comparative International Development 4 (1965): 33; Cardell K.
Jacobson, “Internal Colonialism and Native Americans: Indian
Labor in the United States from 1871 to World War II,” Social
Science Quarterly 65, no. 1 (March 1984): 158-171; Peter Bohmer,
“African-Americans as an Internal Colony: The Theory of
Internal Colonialism,” December 20, 1998.
21

Due as well to its historic formation during the militant and
culturally nationalist period of the Chicano Movement of the
1960s and 1970s, the internal colonial model and the study of
colonialism has since been subject to much criticism and, for
many, ultimately discarded.

22

In one respect, the disassociation from the study of
colonialism stands with some reason when considering the still
recent history of the discipline as a “legitimate” body of
knowledge in academia.

George Mariscal raised this point in his

critical study, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun: Lessons from the
Chicano Movement, 1965-1975.

The deployment of the

“nationalist” critique without further elaboration, he stated,
has been used to discredit many positive contributions during
the Chicano Movement, and the visibly activist expressions of
contestation that helped establish most Chicano Studies programs
and departments in college and university settings.

The use of

the label has also obscured the multiple nationalist and
internationalist intellectual positions, as well as
contradictions, that influenced Chicano political thought during
22

Mark Overmeyer-Velázquez, “Introduction: Histories and
Historiographies of Greater Mexico,” in Beyond La Frontera: The
History of Mexico-U.S. Migration, ed. Mark Overmeyer-Velázquez
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), xxvi;
George J. Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity,
Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles (New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 6-8; Pérez, The
Decolonial Imaginary, 6.
22

this period, and, in turn, Chicano Studies as a discipline.

The

disavowal of early scholarship, which is conflated with the
historic period, represents one logical response to perhaps
solidify the discipline from its still tenuous position into the
professional mainstream of academia.

This inclination, however,

also comes with a cost that is still being written.

23

In an assessment of the early literature, from 1970 to
1984, anthropologist Renato Rosaldo offered an interpretation
that encapsulates the intellectual charge and challenge of the
discipline.

“Chicano Studies for the most part shares in the

broader endeavor,” according to Rosaldo, “of combating
ideological, political, and economic forms of oppression
confronted by their research subjects.”

24

At the very least, the

business of immigration detention and deportation linked to the
growing prison industrial complex, the concomitant antiimmigrant and anti-Mexican sentiment used to justify immigration
23

Mariscal was more direct: “I am struck continually by the
efforts of many Mexican American professionals to deny any value
whatsoever to the [Chicano] Movement period and to cast it in a
completely negative light. I began to notice the ways in which
at academic conferences and even at the level of everyday
community and campus politics something called ‘Chicano
nationalism’ had become the cucui or bogeyman against which
those professionals who had achieved successful careers (a
success inconceivable without the Movement’s contributions)
constructed their public and professional identities” (11-12);
Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun, 11-12.

24

Cited in Mariscal, Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun, 19.
23

enforcement, deepening economic disparities at local, national,
and international levels, and continued threats against ethnic
studies programs make clear for the continued need of a Chicano
Studies intellectual praxis.
Furthermore, the discipline continues to expand from its
initial intellectual formation in the 1960s, including with this
dissertation.

This relates to the issue of geography.

One

continued criticism of the literature has been the focus on the
southwestern United States as the norm.

Although Chicano

communities have been present in the Pacific Northwest for over
a century, as one glaring example, the number of studies
conducted and published on the entire region does not compare to
scholarly attention on the city of Los Angeles alone.

The

restricted geographic focus has been due to a number of factors,
including the historic concentration of Mexican peoples in the
southwestern United States, the relatively recent history of the
discipline, and the still small number of scholars committed to
its development.

My analysis is informed from a Chicano Studies

framework, while I refine its geography to the southern United
States and, in turn, contribute to the growth of the
literature.

25

25

For one example reflecting this critique, see Gilberto
García, and Jerry García, eds, The Illusion of Borders: The
National Presence of Mexicanos in the United States (Dubuque,
24

This dissertation also enriches discussion on Tejano
history and diaspora within Chicano Studies.

There are varied

elements that can constitute a diasporic experience.

These

include “dispersal from a homeland, often by violent forces, the
making of a memory and a vision of that homeland,
marginalization in the new location, a commitment to the
maintenance/restoration of the homeland, and desire for return
and a continuing relationship and identity with the homeland.”

26

Historian Emma Pérez took important steps by exploring the
experience of diaspora in her work on the "decolonial
imaginary."
This framework, at the very least, offers a much needed
counter-narrative to the dominant new immigrant model that
renders differences invisible or compared solely to prior
patterns of European immigration.

Pérez recognized this point

in the following:
Diasporic subjectivity would not deny the culture of race,
but instead would open a space where people of color—in
this case, Chicanas/os—could negotiate a raced culture
within many kinds of identities without racial erasure
through assimilation, accommodation, adaptation,
acculturation, or even resistance—all of which have been
Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company, 2001); ode to the j, to
the g.
26

Tiffany Ruby Patterson, and Robin D. G. Kelley, “Unfinished
Migrations: Reflections on the African Diaspora and the Making
of the Modern World,” African Studies Review 43, no. 1 (April
2000): 15.
25

robbed of their decolonial oppositional subjectivity under
the rubric of immigrant.
Along the same lines, diaspora provides a long-term and holistic
approach in understanding and resisting the contours of colonial
domination.
of Texas:

Pérez also applied this lens to describe a history
“A kind of colonial diaspora emerged, created by

populations dispersed through a land named, renamed, bordered,
measured, mapped, and fenced to restrict more movement, whether
dictated by Spanish colonialists, Mexicans or Euroamericans—all
have mapped and demarcated with artificial lines land where
travel persists through time.”

In this respect, the term

diaspora provides a critical space that recognizes the different
layerings of colonial impositions and contestations taking place
over time, from generation to generation.
The lived experiences, representing histories from the
“bottom up,” become the center of analysis.

While diasporic

communities are formed through negative experiences, there is
also an emphasis on the power of agency among those living in
the diaspora.

In spite of continued challenges in the “absence

of homeland,” they still possess the power to reconnect and
recreate their own expressions of belonging.

27

27

Pérez, The Decolonial Imaginary, 75-80; see also, Antonia I.
Castañeda, “Que Se Pudieran Defender (So you Could Defend
Yourselves): Chicanas, Regional History, and National
Discourses,” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 22, no. 3
26

Marc Simon Rodriguez also applied this framework in his
title, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism and Ethnic
Politics in Texas and Wisconsin.

Published in 2011, Rodriguez

examined the formation of community activism, what he termed
“Mexican Americanism,” in Texas and Wisconsin, from the postWorld War Two period of the 1950s into the Chicano Movement era
of the 1960s and 1970s.

Social networks within the agricultural

migrant stream enriched community activism between South Texas
and Wisconsin, including the formation of La Raza Unida Party in
the former and the labor union Obreros Unidos in the latter.
For Rodriguez, the Tejano diaspora emerged in response to the
need of labor markets in the United States.

“The migrant stream

that comprised the Tejano diaspora emerged in the early
twentieth century as a labor network established by interstate
agricultural industries,” he noted.

28

(2001): 116-142; Karen Mary Davalos, Exhibiting Mestizaje:
Mexican (American) Museums in the Diaspora (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2003), 21-31; Rafael PérezTorres, Mestizaje: Critical Uses of Race in Chicano Culture
(Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2006),
34-35; Marc Simon Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican
Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). At least one
work to-date from the Latinos in the New South literature has
employed diaspora in the title. See Stanton Wortham, Enrique G.
Murillo, Jr., and Edmund T. Hamann, eds., Education in the New
Latino Diaspora (Westport, Connecticut and London: Ablex
Publishing, 2002).
28

Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora, 6.
27

Although not one of his central concerns, historian James
N. Gregory similarly gave attention to the Tejano agricultural
workers as part of a larger process of U.S. southern outmigration from the turn of the twentieth century through the
1970s.

“The Tejano exodus,” Gregory stated, “was easily

overlooked by contemporaries who usually failed to distinguish
between Chicano migrants and newcomers from Mexico.”

Gregory

applied the term “Southern Diaspora” to represent labor outmigration by southern workers in the United States, a process
that peaked in the 1970s and 1980s and declined thereafter.

29

This study examines experiences of Tejano agricultural
workers who left their home communities in South Texas during
the mid-twentieth century, focusing on localities in the
southern United States.

Similar to the above articulations, I

too apply a “diasporic subjectivity” to emphasize the power of
agency in the lives of these workers.

In addition, the concept

of a Tejano diaspora helps to understand the northward movement
from South Texas and eventual settlement of agricultural workers
as a process of labor migration.
At the same time, viewing the Tejano diaspora solely
through a lens of labor migration and only within a nation-based
29

James N. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great
Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 35.
28

movement neglects the experience of displacement for Tejano
workers as part of a systemic phenomenon between the United
States and Mexico, as I propose in this dissertation.

Labor

migration among southern workers from the United States declined
after the 1970s and 1980s, yet the presence of Tejano
agricultural workers as part of this movement also signaled the
rise of southern workers from Mexico.

The varied experiences of

Texas Mexicans in the southern United States provide insight
then into how Mexican—and, in turn, Latino—communities began to
take shape throughout the region.

While still very

questionable, a diasporic subjectivity helps in this study to
situate the presence of Mexican labor in the United States as a
consequence of forced displacement, including Tejanos, and to
cultivate a consciousness of solidarity between and within
Mexican diasporas across distinct historical periods and
geographic regions.

Outline of Chapters
This dissertation consists of five chapters.

I begin in

chapter one by providing a historical mapping of Mexican labor
migration to and from the United States as reflected in extant
scholarship in Chicano Studies.

I also include a brief

discussion on the first large period of labor migration between

29

Mexico and Texas in the early twentieth century, which provides
a foundation for the remaining chapters.
Chapter two examines the historical significance of the
Bracero Program in South Texas and the systemic inducement of a
Tejano diaspora nationwide.

My discussion on the Bracero

Program continues in chapter three when I turn attention to the
Mississippi Delta states of Arkansas, Tennessee, and
Mississippi.

Similar to South Texas, agricultural workers in

the Delta, principally Arkansas where the largest number of
braceros were contracted, experienced different dimensions of
displacement.
I continue in chapter four by tracing the process of Tejano
labor migration and settlement in South Florida, from the 1950s
through the 1970s.

I particularly examine the formation of

Florida Mexican community activism during this period.

In

chapter six, I then analyze the rise of inter-state farmworkers
and their experiences on farms in North Carolina, primarily from
the 1970s to the 1990s.

As Mexican American and Mexican

farmworkers became more visible during this period, including
employer recruitment of H2A guest workers in the 1990s, I
demonstrate ways in which they too were grafted into existent
colonial configurations already present in the state.

30

Terminology
Let me also say a brief word about terminology.

I have

tried to be as specific as possible to illuminate the geographic
region and historic period being discussed.

In this

introduction, I frequently use the term “Latinos in the New
South” or “Latinos in the Nuevo South” to correspond with
academic literature written about recent Latino labor migration
to the South.

Unless otherwise specified, the term “Latino”

refers to male and female persons living in the United States
whose country of origin or ancestry is located in Latin America,
including Mexico.
Beginning in chapter one, I use the term “Mexican” to refer
to male and female persons who were born in Mexico and migrated
to the United States, unless otherwise specified i.e. “Mexicans
from colonized territories.”

I also begin to use the term

“Texas Mexican” to refer to male and female persons of Mexican
ancestry who were born or established their permanent homes in
Texas.

The term “Tejano” is used interchangeably with “Texas

Mexican.”

Unless specified to individuals, I have decided to

use the masculine term “Tejano” to designate male and female
persons in plural form, i.e. “Tejano migrants” or “Tejano labor
migration.”

This also maintains consistency with the Latinos in

the New South literature, and which I also extend to the
discipline of “Chicano Studies.”
31

In chapter two, I use the term “braceros” or “bracero
workers” to designate legalized single male guest workers from
Mexico who were contracted for work through the Bracero Program
from 1942 to 1964.

This term is also used interchangeably with

“Mexican National workers.”

The term “undocumented” is used to

refer to male and female persons living in the United States
without U.S. legal status.

In chapter three, I begin to use the

term “Black farmworkers” or “Black migrant farmworkers” to refer
to male and female persons born in the southern United States
and direct descendants of enslaved Africans in the same region.
In chapter four, I use the term “Florida Mexican” to
designate male and female migrants from Texas who established
permanent homes in Florida.

Sporadically, I also use the term

“Mexican American” to refer to male and female U.S. citizens of
Mexican ancestry, without distinction to geographic location.
And in chapter five, I use “H2A workers” to designate legalized
single male guest workers from Mexico who were contracted for
farm work in the United States through the Immigration Reform
and Control Act of 1986.

Disclaimer
The purpose of this dissertation, I should also note here,
is not to provide a comprehensive micro-historical study on
Latinos in every location examined.
32

In order to address how and

why Mexican, and in turn Latino, communities have formed across
the southern United States in the twentieth century, my main
goal is rather to trace the systemic process of labor migration
and settlement in the principals destinations, and in
chronological order.
In order to understand, for example, how and why Latinos
have settled in North Carolina, I had to situate this process as
a consequence of labor migration to and from South Florida and
the Atlantic Migrant Stream.

Similarly, migration and

settlement in South Florida took place because of out-migration
from the Mississippi Delta and South Texas.

Each experience of

labor migration, in other words, informed the next.
I also focus my analysis on experiences of agricultural
workers to provide cohesiveness throughout all locations
examined, and to underscore the influence of commercial
agriculture and systemic inducement of labor migration.

I

envision each chapter to serve as a springboard for future
related studies on the southern United States.

More work is

still needed to further contextualize Latino experiences in
urban municipalities, which followed.
I likewise suggest here that future directions in the
Latinos in the New South scholarship should necessitate
concurrent and differential critical perspectives that consider
the geographic expanse of recent Latino migration.
33

The New

South literature, in other words, was formed in response to
contemporary Latino migration, primarily from Mexico and Central
America and secondarily the Caribbean and South America.

30

More

nuanced interpretations on Latinos in the New South or Nuevo
South have just begun to be explored in this regard, which
should also help illuminate distinct configurations of colonial
conquests, colonization, and migration.

This dissertation

project represents, then, only one in a series of much needed
counter-narratives still to be constructed in the Nuevo South
literature.

30

As Mary E. Odem and Elaine Lacy documented, for example,
Mexico and Central America represented nearly ¾ or 74 percent of
places of origin for the Hispanic/Latino population in ten
southern states, according the U.S. Census Bureau, 2006 American
Community Survey; Odem and Lacy, “Introduction,” x, xix.
34

Figure 1. “Truckload of Mexican Migrants Returning from
Mississippi Where They Had Been Picking Cotton, Highway near
31
Neches, Texas, Anderson County”

31

Source:

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.
35

CHAPTER ONE
CONQUESTS, COLONIAL LABOR,
AND DIASPORIC MIGRATION:
SITUATING MEXICAN LABOR MIGRATION

“Certainly our immigration policy and
program results in exploitation of the
Mexican peasant in that he works for less
than our own citizens. The doctrine of
manifest destiny is brought down to date
with a vengeance. Where, in the 19th
century, we only took Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona and California away from Mexico,
we now, in the 20th century, not only
exploit (even though it be to our
long-run disadvantage) Mexico’s own
citizens. We also discriminate against
her on the economic front.”
--U.S. Memorandum Report:

Immigration from Mexico, 1948

1

Introduction
This chapter builds upon extant Chicano Studies scholarship
in history to situate Mexican labor migration to the United
States.

Most writings, first of all, begin with the centrality

of the U.S. military invasion and occupation of northern Mexican
territories in the mid-nineteenth century.

“Since that radical

and painful fragmentation and dispersal of Mexicans in 1848,” as
Karen Mary Davalos has expressed, “women and men have moved and

1

“Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico, December 31,
1948,” Subject File, Papers of David H. Stowe (hereafter PDHS),
Box 6, Harry S. Truman Library and Museum (hereafter HSTLM).
36

have been moved back and forth across the geopolitical border
looking for work, joining with family, and forming communities.”
The Mexican Government lost vast territory, and the U.S.
invasion also established international relations of unequal
engagement between the two countries.
Another variant points rather to the consequent economic
subordination of Mexico that began two decades later in the
nineteenth century.

“When the integration of a national economy

occurred,” noted Juan Gómez-Quiñones in reference to Mexico in
the late nineteenth century, “control of major productive
resources was in the hands of foreign North-American and
European capital.”

Recent work by Gilbert G. González and Raúl

A. Fernández has extended this view:

“The origins of the

Chicano population evolved from economic empire led by corporate
capitalist interests with the backing of the U.S. State
Department.”

U.S. economic dominance over the Mexican Republic

initiated sustained flows of Mexican labor migration, a process
distinct from the violence of military conquest.

2

2

Karen Mary Davalos, Exhibiting Mestizaje: Mexican (American)
Museums in the Diaspora (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 2003), 21; Juan Gómez-Quiñones, “Mexican Immigration to
the United States, 1848-1980: An Overview,” in Chicano Studies:
A Mutlidisciplinary Approach, eds. Isidro Ortíz, Eugene García,
and Francisco Lomelí (New York and London: Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1984), 58-59; González and Fernández,
“Empire and the Origins,” 57, 59.
37

I integrate both perspectives in this chapter to
demonstrate how military and economic conquests have been
mutually reinforcing, albeit in different ways.

First and

foremost, the imposition of a geopolitical border through
military conquest accentuated fragmentation among Mexican
families and peoples.

The physical and symbolic separation was

strengthened through colonial labor practices developed on
conquered lands in the latter nineteenth century, particularly
Texas.

While the U.S. invasion established terms of unequal

engagement, subsequent U.S. capital domination in Mexico further
solidified an economic neocolonial relationship between the two
countries.

Equally important, experiences of displacement

resulting from economic conquest have induced sustained
migratory flows of Mexican diasporas.
I first examine the significance of military conquest and
the imposition of the geopolitical boundary, focusing on South
Texas.

While the formal rights of U.S. citizenship were

extended to Mexican subjects in colonized territories, I
demonstrate ways in which this concession was limited in the
face of real and symbolic forms of violence and dispossession
that emanated from military conquest.

Secondly, I examine the

relation between U.S. economic conquest and Mexican labor
migration.

And lastly, I begin to briefly analyze these

processes in the first large-scale period of Mexican labor
38

migration in early twentieth century, when large numbers of
workers and families from Mexico added to existent Texas Mexican
communities by establishing permanent homes in South Texas.

Military Conquest and Colonial Labor
“Though God might be guiding the Americans to the conquest
of Mexico,” noted Reginald Horsman in his highly referenced
study, “he had not provided a detailed plan for American rule
over the Mexican people.”

3

With its official end in 1848, the

estimated 75,000 to 100,000 Mexicans who remained in colonized
territories were accorded “all the rights of citizens of the
United States” under Article IX of the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo.

At the same time, racialized and gendered renderings

of anti-Mexican hostility that justified the U.S. military
invasion, and the preceding Texas Republic movement in Texas,
continued to manifest in the latter nineteenth century.

3

4

Cited in Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 15.

4

Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 13; Antonia I. Castañeda, “The
Political Economy of Nineteenth Century Stereotypes of
Californianas,” in Between the Conquests: Readings in Early
Chicano History, ed. Michael R. Ornelas (Dubuque, Iowa:
Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1991): 87-105; Arnoldo De León,
“Initial Contacts: Redeeming Texas from Mexicans, 1821-1836,” in
Between the Conquests: Readings in Early Chicano History, ed.
Michael R. Ornelas (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing
Company, 1991): 59-71; Arnoldo De León, They Called Them
Greasers: Anglo Attitudes Toward Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900
39

These real and symbolic forms of violence hindered the full
incorporation of Mexican Americans.

Namely, Mexicans Americans

became “foreigners in their native land” in spite of U.S.
citizenship.

Pertinent to this discussion, elements of a

“colonial labor system” also emerged in the wake of military
conquest.

A “colonial labor system exists,” proposed Mario

Barrera, “where the labor force is segmented along ethnic and/or
racial lines, and one or more of the segments is systematically
maintained in a subordinate position.”

The region of South

Texas—located south of San Antonio, north of the Rio Grande
River, and west of the Gulf of Mexico according to Cynthia E.
Orozco—proved to be an important geography where colonial labor
practices developed.

These included experiences of labor

repression, a dual wage system, occupational stratification, a
reserve labor force, and disposability.

5

Three principal factors facilitated this development in
South Texas.

First and foremost, the military invasion imposed

a contested geopolitical political boundary that became the
United States-Mexico border.

Whereas Mexico held that the

(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983); Gutiérrez, Walls and
Mirrors, 14-20.
5

Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 39-40; Cynthia E.
Orozco, No Mexicans, Women, or Dogs Allowed: The Rise of the
Mexican American Civil Rights Movement (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2009), 18-19.
40

boundary was located farther north along the Nueces River, U.S.
Congress enforced the Rio Grande as the dividing line.

In the

immediate sense, the forced separation of South Texas from
Mexico fragmented Mexican families and peoples living in the
area.

Américo Paredes astutely surmised the impact of war:
It was the Treaty of Guadalupe that added the final element
to Rio Grande society, a border. The river, which had been
a focal point, became a dividing line. Men were expected
to consider their relatives and closet neighbors the people
just across the river, as foreigners in a foreign land. A
restless and acquisitive people, exercising the rights of
conquest, disturbed the old ways.

Through U.S. military conquest, South Texas became a Mexican
internal colony in the United States.

While Mexican labor

migration to South Texas remained fluid throughout the
nineteenth century, the invasion initiated a new era of
formalized divisions among Mexican families and peoples, based
on distinct categories of citizenship.

6

The formation of the United States-Mexico border also
assumed greater importance in terms of its geographic expanse.
That is, with the “Gadsden Purchase” in 1853, the U.S.
territorial conquest created an expansive geographic proximity
to Mexico that allowed, in turn, a continuity of Mexican
migration, including permanent, temporary, or intermittent.
6

The

Martha Menchaca, Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants: A Texas
History (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011), 16-17;
Américo Paredes, ‘With His Pistol in His Hand:’ A Border Ballad
and Its Hero (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958), 15.
41

actual Texas-Mexico border made up more than half of the
geopolitical boundary, which most importantly ensured the
propinquity of a large international reserve labor pool.
The reserve labor could be used in various ways.

7

In

periods of high demand, workers from northern Mexico could
easily be recruited to increase production.

In times of

economic crisis, workers could serve as a scapegoat for public
discontent.

The reserve labor force could also contribute to a

dual-wage system as a means of decreasing wages and countering
actions of organized labor.

Texas remained the primary

receiving state for Mexican labor through the mid-twentieth
century, and these practices continued to grow in importance.

8

A second factor was a settler culture of anti-Mexican
violence that emanated from military conquest, which, in turn,
expanded forms of labor repression.

Texas Mexican communities

were subjected to large-scale acts of violence and dispossession
7

Christine M. Sierra, “Chicano Political Development:
Historical Considerations,” in Chicano Studies: A
Mutlidisciplinary Approach, eds. Isidro Ortíz, Eugene García,
and Francisco Lomelí (New York and London: Teachers College,
Columbia University, 1984), 82-84; Barrera, Race and Class in
the Southwest, 47-48. According to The Texas Tribune, the
Texas-Mexico border represents approximately 1,254 miles, or 66
percent, of the 1,900 mile border. “Tribpedia: Texas-Mexico
Border,” The Texas Tribune, available at
http://www.texastribune.org/tribpedia/texas-mexico-border/.

8

Gómez-Quiñones, “Mexican Immigration to the United States,”
58; Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 41-43.
42

amid the Texas Republic movement in the mid-1830s, particularly
in towns above the Nueces River and in closer proximity to
settler colonies like Austin.

The U.S. military conquest ten

years later reinforced these practices.

9

In the 1850s, Texas Mexican families were expelled in
communities above the Nueces River for suspicion of disloyalty
and aiding enslaved peoples to escape to Mexico and toward
freedom.

According to David Montejano, the Texas-Mexico border

“was the boundary sought by both escaping Mexican peones and
black slaves,” during the 15-year period from the military
invasion and U.S. Civil War.

“The boundary was also the working

zone for slave and peón ‘catchers,’” he continued.

Entire Texas

Mexican communities in cities and counties were completely
uprooted through the 1850s, including in Austin in 1853 and
1855, and Seguin in 1854.

Texas Mexicans were displaced in

Matagorda and Colorado counties in 1856 and in Uvalde in 1857.

10

Following the Civil War in the 1860s and 1870s, South Texas
too became a “powderkeg of violence,” most notably in the form
of lynchings. Perhaps the most notorious acts of violence toward
9

Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 40-41.

10

David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), 26-30, 77; Arnoldo De
León, Mexican Americans in Texas: A Brief History, Second
Edition (Wheeling, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1999), 38;
De León, They Called Them Greasers, 52-53.
43

Texas Mexicans involved the Texas Rangers.

Initially formed in

the 1820s as a small body of volunteers charged with scouting
“Indians,” the frontier battalion became a military unit during
the U.S. military conquest of Mexico.

And upon military

conquest, they served various roles in the displacement of Texas
Mexicans.

During the 1870s and 1880s, according to Arnoldo De

León, the rangers conducted extensive terror campaigns in the
Rio Grande Valley by inciting fear in the lives of Texas Mexican
residents “at every opportunity.”

While “rinche” referred to

official Texas Rangers, the word was also extended to “any other
Americans armed and mounted and looking for Mexicans to kill,”
according to Paredes.

Former rangers also worked as foremen for

landowner Richard King and other cattle barons in South Texas.

11

From this culture of violence resulting from military
conquest, the economic mobility of most Texas Mexican labor
became limited.

In his study, David Gutiérrez noted that work

for Texas Mexicans was fairly evenly distributed in 1850, which
included independent ranch-farm owner-operators, skilled
workers, and semiskilled and unskilled laborers.

By the 1870s,

a disproportionate number were relegated to “unspecialized

11

De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, 40; De León, They Called
Them Greasers, 75-76, 80-81, 88; Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans
in the Making of Texas, 33-34, 52, 83; Gutiérrez, Walls and
Mirrors, 26; Paredes, With His Pistol in His Hand, 24.
44

labor.”

In 1900, “Mexicans in Texas made up part of a regional

economy characterized by a clear ethnic division of labor in
which they were trapped in the least-skilled and lowest-paid
jobs.”

The process of occupational stratification greatly

reduced and limited the types of employment available to Texas
Mexican labor in the latter decades of the nineteenth century.

12

A third dynamic present in South Texas was the existence of
paternal work relations that facilitated the positioning of
Texas Mexican working-class as disposable peoples.

Mario

Barrera identified this condition as “buffers” in his study on
the colonial labor system in the Southwest.

In one sense,

according to Barrera, “buffers” represent workers who lack
social, economic, and political influence, relegated to the
least-skilled and lowest-paid jobs.

That is, “the advantage to

the employer in such a system is that the impact of hard times
is concentrated on the workers who are most vulnerable and least
able to defend themselves.”

As easily as they can be recruited,

as disposable peoples, they can also be used as “shockabsorbers” in times of high unemployment, which in the end only
strengthens the position of employers.

13

12

Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 26; Barrera, Race and Class in
the Southwest, 43.

13

Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 48.
45

In the South Texas where Texas Mexicans were numerically
dominant, the emergence of another important buffer variant also
took shape.

“In the case of the Texas-Mexican border region and

generally in the annexed Southwest,” Montejano pointed out, “the
ability to govern in the immediate postwar period was secured
through an accommodation between the victorious Anglos and the
defeated Mexican elite, with the latter in command of the
Mexican communities.”

In collaboration with landowning elite,

the success of settlers was most contingent on adopting existent
patrón/peón work relations that emphasized loyalty and mutual
dependence, and assuming the ways of the former.
Upon military conquest, this maneuvering proved to be
critical in the concentration of social, economic, and political
control.

One glaring example was the electoral process.

In

localities outside of South Texas, collaboration was less
necessary as legislation mostly constrained Texas Mexicans from
political participation, including the “White Man’s Primaries”
that established criteria for voting to only “qualified white”
voters, and the implementation of a poll tax.

South Texas was

distinct in that electoral success necessitated the local
involvement of Texas Mexican patrones.

That is, “Anglo

political bosses provided patronage and/or cash payments to
these [Mexican American elite] sub-bosses in exchange for the
working-class Mexican American vote they delivered.”
46

The act of

voting represented, then, an extension of obligation to the
patrón as opposed to a liberating form of civic engagement.
By using their knowledge and influence to help to maintain
order and control, some Texas Mexican landowning families also
benefitted from the accommodation arrangement, particularly in
the immediate years after the violence of war.

Due primarily to

their economic status as landowners, elite families were
protected in part from virulent forms of anti-Mexican hostility
that affected most Texas Mexicans.

Male members were also able

to maintain a social identity as “good citizens” and exercise
some degree of influence over local affairs, a process that can
be called selective citizenship.

At best, however, their equal

participation proved to be only circumstantial.

Through the

latter nineteenth century, paternal work relations were
effectively adopted in settler ranches throughout South Texas,
and the economic land base for most Texas Mexican elite families
further collapsed.

With the loss of land, so did most lose

their influence and by 1900, they too were rendered obsolete
with the influx of new settlers.

14

14

Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 34,
50, 81, 84; Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 26-28, 32-33.
47

Economic Conquest and Diaspora
South Texas became a Mexican internal colony in the United
States through military conquest in the mid-nineteenth century.
Subsequently, the Mexican Republic became dependent on the
United States through a process of economic conquest.

While the

former established terms of unequal engagement for Mexican labor
within the U.S. colonial project, the latter ensured a
continuity of labor migration through a condition of economic
neocolonialism.

“The essence of neo-colonialism,” according to

the late Kwame Nkrumah, “is that the State which is subject to
it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings
of international sovereignty.

In reality its economic systems

and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

15

In

this section, I briefly examine the main tenets of this process
in the late nineteenth century, focusing on the relation between
U.S. capital investment and the initial displacement and
migration of Mexican labor.

Building upon the work of Gilbert

G. González and Raúl Fernández, this historical analysis
demonstrates the importance of Mexican labor dispersal in the

15

Cited in Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 191.
48

United States throughout the twentieth century as a structural
response to the economic subordination of Mexico.

16

Mexican workers in Mexico were first displaced in the wake
of U.S. economic conquest in the late nineteenth century, which
coincided with perhaps the most concentrated historical period
of political centralization and economic development.

For the

duration of the thirty-five years under Porfirio Díaz regime,
from 1876 to 1911, and in collaboration with local Mexican
elite, foreign companies came to control all major industries in
Mexico.

“It was a period,” according to one study, “in which

foreigners, with U.S. entrepreneurs at the forefront, took over
much of the economy.”
industry.

The most critical was the railroad

Although a railroad system was already developed from

Mexico City to Veracruz, the Mexican Government during the
Porfiriato opened up government concessions to U.S. railroad
companies to expand construction, particularly in the northern
states of Sonora, Coahuila, and Chihuahua.

Within the first

three years, five railroads were constructed using Mexican labor
and owned by foreign capital.

17

16

Gilbert G. González, Guest Workers or Colonized Labor:
Mexican Labor Migration to the United States (Boulder, Colorado:
Paradigm Publishers, 2006), 194.
17

James D. Cockcroft, Mexico: Class Formation, Capital
Accumulation, and the State (New York: Monthly Review Press,
49

Control of the railroad system enabled regional markets to
be connected as well as future investments in other Mexican
industries.

Links were established between rich mining areas in

northern and central Mexico to gulf ports and towns along the
Texas border, as well as industrial centers in the United States
like Chicago and Pittsburgh.

While U.S. companies came to own

fully 80 percent of Mexican railroads, more capital investment
and eventual control was seized in other industries like mining,
cattle farming, and cotton production.

In 1884, for example,

U.S. mining interests controlled and operated forty mining sites
in Mexico.

Twenty years later in 1904, U.S. companies

controlled just under 13,700 mines, particularly in Chihuahua in
northern Mexico.

By 1911 and in the midst of the Mexican

Revolution, some 90 percent of all investments in mining were
owned by foreign interests, with the majority, approximately 80
percent, by U.S. companies.

18

One immediate and long-term result was the formation an
unequal relationship between the Mexican Government and foreign
economic interests, principally the United States.

By 1910, for

1983), 86-87; González and Fernández, “Empire and the Origins,”
34.
18

Cockcroft, Mexico, 89,
and the Origins,” 21, 34;
Migration: The Odyssey of
The University of Arizona

93; González and Fernández, “Empire
Rodolfo F. Acuña, Corridors of
Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933 (Tucson:
Press, 2007), 40.
50

example, at least half of Mexico’s national wealth was under
control of foreign ownership.

Based on estimates one year

later, U.S. investments alone were greater than Mexican economic
elite and twice as much as all other foreign capital in Mexico.

19

The magnitude of this dynamic was also expressed in the
following observation:
American interests—the Hearsts, the Guggenheims, United
States Steel, the Anaconda Corporation, Standard Oil,
McCormick, Doheny—owned three quarters of the mines and
more than half of the oil fields; they owned sugar
plantations, coffee fincas, cotton, rubber, orchilla, and
maguey plantations, and—along the American border—enormous
cattle ranches. The American investment in Mexico, which
by 1910 had grown to more than a billion dollars, exceeded
20
the total capital owned by the Mexicans themselves.
Under then the direction of U.S. economic interests, local
Mexican elite served as overseers in the development of Mexican
industries and in collaboration with government representatives.
Their involvement was critical to the day-to-day management and
gave the appearance of an independent republic.

21

At the same

time, however, policies related to the growth and direction of
these industries, as well as the Mexican political economy, were

19

González and Fernández, “Empire and the Origins,” 36;
Cockcroft, Mexico, 93.

20
21

Cited in Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 69.
González and Fernández, “Empire and the Origins,” 36.
51

still dictated by economic interests that emanated from the
United States.
Another critical outcome was the then-unprecedented largescale population displacement and internal migration in Mexico,
which facilitated the inducement of labor migration to the
United States.

Internal migration was first realized in two

ways, from rural to urban localities, such as to Mexico City, as
well as from southern to northern states along the U.S.-Mexico
border.

In commenting on the growth of Mexico City, for

example, historian Michael Johns asserted that “railroads and
expanding haciendas threw so many off their lands in the 1880s
and 1890s that nearly half of the city’s five hundred thousand
residents…were peasants.”

The internal displacement of Mexican

peoples from their home communities led to their recruitment as
wage laborers in the development of U.S.-owned industries in
northern Mexico, particularly railroads and mining.

Not

surprisingly, then, northern states of Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo
León, Chihuahua, and Sonora consistently surpassed others in
terms of population growth during the period of the Porfiriato.
Pertinent to this study, the demographic redistribution toward
northern Mexico also solidified the presence of a large

52

international reserve pool of labor along the United StatesMexico border.

22

Early Twentieth Century Migration
The displacement of Mexican labor to northern states in
Mexico also coincided with the first recognized period of largescale Mexican labor migration to the United States.

Informed

scholars estimate one to 1.5 million migrants, or more than 10
percent of Mexico’s population, migrated to the United States
from the late 1890s through the 1920s.

The state of Texas

continued to serve as the primary receiving state, and from 1900
to 1930, its Mexican population grew nearly ten-fold.

As Carey

McWilliams noted, the Mexican population in Texas increased from
an estimated 71,062 in 1900 to 683,681 in 1930.

By 1930,

according to Arnoldo De León, the “Mexico-born population” of
Texas Mexicans in the state was estimated to be 266,364.

23

22

González and Fernández, “Empire and the Origins,” 36-42;
Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American, 43-44, 47; Michael Johns,
The City of Mexico in the Age of Díaz (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1997), 64; Barrera, Race and Class in the
Southwest, 69; Emilio Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker in
Texas (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1993), 15.

23

Gilbert G. González, “Mexican Labor Migration, 1876-1924,” in
Beyond La Frontera, 30; De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, 66,
68; Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors, 40; Lawrence A. Cardoso,
Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1897-1931 (Tucson:
University of Arizona Press, 1980), 38; George O. Coalson, The
Development of the Migratory Farm Labor System in Texas: 190053

Workers born in Mexico who migrated and settled in Texas
were grafted into existent colonial configurations that were
formed in the latter nineteenth century and expanded into the
twentieth century.

The lucrative business of labor recruitment

to meet the desires of commercial agriculture and concomitant
rise of anti-Mexican hostility, the focus of this brief
analysis, relegated Mexican migrants to low-wage, disposable
labor.

At the same time, the large numerical presence and

eventual settlement of Mexican workers contributed to longstanding Texas Mexican communities.
Extensive recruitment of Mexican labor was critical to the
expansion of U.S. railroad, mining, and agriculture industries
in the early twentieth century.

Similar to northern Mexico, the

most important initial development in southwestern United States
was construction and maintenance of a railroad system.

As early

as the 1870s, Mexican labor from the southwest United States and
northern Mexico was recruited to clear brush lands for railroad

1954 (San Francisco, California: R and E Research Associates,
1977), 12; Francisco E. Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez, Decade
of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1995), 7; Carey McWilliams, Ill
Fares the Land: Migrants and Migratory Labor in the United
States (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1942), 247;
Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 65; “Report to Members
of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, from Robert K.
Carr, Subject: Civil Rights Problems of Mexican Americans,”
Records of the President’s Commission on Civil Rights (hereafter
RPCCR), Record Group (hereafter RG) 220, Box 3, HSTLM.
54

construction.

As a result, local markets became linked across

regions and nations, and labor migration was extended into Texas
and other regions of the United States.

“Railroad employment

profoundly affected the movement of Mexican immigrants within
the United States,” according to Barbara A. Driscoll.

“It

influenced settlement patterns, especially outside the
Southwest, facilitated employment opportunities in other
industries, and introduced large visible groups of Mexican
workers to a broader cross section of U.S. society,” she
continued.

Equally important, the railroad system facilitated

the creation of new markets with the transition of land to
large-scale agriculture, and the need for labor.

24

The completion of the St. Louis, Brownsville, and Mexico
Railway in 1904 connected the border city of Brownsville and

24

Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 59-62; De León,
Mexican Americans in Texas, 52-53; Barrera, Race and Class in
the Southwest, 68; Peter N. Kirstein, Anglo Over Bracero: A
History of the Mexican Worker in the United States From
Roosevelt to Nixon (San Francisco, California: R and E Research
Associates, 1977), 2; Barbara A. Driscoll, The Tracks North:
The Railroad Bracero Program of World War II (Austin, Texas:
The Center for Mexican American Studies, The University of Texas
at Austin Press, 1999), 17-18; “Statement of Regional Office
Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish Speaking for President’s
Commission on Migratory Labor, July 31-August 1, 1950.” U.S.
President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, 1950-1951 (hereafter
USPCML), RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM; Victor S. Clark, “Mexican Labor
in the United States” Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau
of labor Bulletin, No. 78, in Mexican Labor in the United
States, ed. Carlos E. Cortés (New York: Arno Press, 1974), 469470.
55

solidified these changes in South Texas.

Soon after, the Rio

Grande Valley was transformed from an isolated geographic area
to one that attracted a large influx of new settlers, the
expansion of land for commercial agricultural production, and
recruitment of migrant labor.

As one study noted, “With the

railroad came farmers, and behind them came land developers,
irrigation engineers, and northern produce brokers.”

One

indication of the growth in farming was the total population in
South Texas, reported at 79,934 in 1900, and 322,845 by 1930.
Most were concentrated in Cameron, Hidalgo, Willacy, and Nueces,
all farm counties.

25

The transition to large-scale agriculture was realized
primarily through the spread of cotton production, first
introduced in 1822 by settler colonies of Austin, and the
harvesting of fruits and vegetables in South Texas.

In the

early twentieth century, the railroad system, increased
migration from southern and mid-western United States, and
partial mechanization in pre-harvest operations—particularly the
introduction of larger machinery such as the tractor—were

25

De León, Mexican Americans in Texas, 52-53; Montejano, Anglos
and Mexicans, 107-108; McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 248;
Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans, 107-109.
56

factors that dramatically expanded production, and Texas became
one of the highest producers of cotton in the country.

26

The railroad system also enabled developers to use land for
perishable “truck crops” in South Texas, along with techniques
were developed to expand irrigation and preserve perishable
goods.

Using the railroad system, fresh produce from farming

counties in South Texas was quickly transported to northern
markets in the United States.

Similar transformations also took

place in California and Florida, contributing to the year-round
availability of fresh fruits and produce in the country.

27

Growers in South Texas, however, faced the need for shortterm farm labor during harvest to maximize potential profits.
The presence of the United States-Mexico border, a consequence
of military conquest in the nineteenth century, gained greater

26

Coalson, The Development of the Migratory Labor System in
Texas, 1-4; Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico: The SpanishSpeaking People of the United States (New York: Greenwood
Press, Reprint, 1968), 173-174; José Guillermo Pastrano,
“Industrial Agriculture In the Peripheral South: State, Race,
and the Politics of Migrant Labor in Texas, 1890-1930”
(Dissertation: University of California at Santa Barbara,
2006), 29-30; Sylvia D. Turner, "Thy Kingdom Come: The
Intersection of King Cotton and Immigration Policy,"
(Dissertation: Emory University, 2010), 69.

27

Coalson, The Development of the Migratory Labor System in
Texas, 6-7; Pastrano, “Industrial Agriculture,” 48; Otey M.
Scruggs, Braceros, “Wetbacks,” and the Farm Labor Problem:
Mexican Agricultural Labor in the United States, 1942-1954 (New
York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1988), 15.
57

importance.

Selden C. Menefree affirmed this view in a study

conducted on migratory workers in 1941.

“The existence of a

reservoir of low-paid Mexican labor just across the border,”
according to Menefree, “has been from the beginning an important
factor in the development of large-scale agriculture in South
Texas.”

In a related assessment, Otey M. Scruggs highlighted

this important link in the following:
Across the Texas border there existed what appeared to be
an inexhaustible supply of Mexicans. On the East Coast,
Negroes only recently emancipated from slavery formed a
convenient reservoir of labor. This proximity to large
sources of labor has historical significance not only in
that it permitted intensive agriculture to expand at a time
when American labor was scarce, but also because it came to
play an important role in the thinking of the American
farmer. He came to regard easy access to reservoirs of
labor as a God-given right, any interference with which
justified resort to the most illegal measures.
The demographic redistribution to northern Mexico in the latter
nineteenth century provided the necessary labor for the
development of commercial agriculture in South Texas.

28

To meet the desires of agriculture and railroad employers,
extensive mechanisms of labor recruitment were also established.
In Laredo and other border cities, for example, private
employment agencies were created with the sole purpose of
recruiting and transporting Mexican labor.
28

One common practice

Selden C. Menefree, Mexican Migratory Workers of South Texas.
Work Progress Administration (Washington, DC: U.S. Government
Printing Office, 1941), x; Scruggs, Braceros, “Wetbacks,” and
the Farm Labor Problem, 31.
58

was to employ private labor contractors in Mexico, who, for a
small charge, recruited and assisted Mexican labor to migrate
outside of formal immigration channels.

Workers were then

transported to San Antonio by other labor agents for an
additional charge, and eventually to desired destinations.

In

return, labor agents, who worked in tandem with employment
agencies, were paid by growers for each worker delivered to the
destination, and often charged for transportation and board.

29

Given the unregulated or underground nature of the
business, employers and recruiters relied upon trickery, debt
peonage, social isolation, and forced labor as frequent tactics.
Mexican Consul Roberto E. Quíros described the experience for
one group of workers who were recruited and transported to
Pennsylvania:
Labor agents, whom we call ‘enganchadores,’ talk to these
men at the border—Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and
California—and even go over into Mexico, telling them tales
of easy jobs at big pay, large cities, elegant houses,
entertainments and good clothes…The next thing they know
they are packed into railway coaches speeding far to the
northward. They cannot go back…They soon are aware that
they have done an illegal act in entering the country, and
they never feel at home here.

29

Coalson, The Development of the Migratory Farm Labor System
in Texas, 16; Pastrano, “Industrial Agriculture,” 140;
McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 250-251; Mark Reisler, By the
Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United
States, 1900-1940 (Westport, Connecticut, London, England:
Greenwood Press, 1976), 9; Clark, “Mexican Labor in the United
States,” 476.
59

Perhaps the most notorious labor contractors to emerge from this
early period were known as “man-snatchers” or “mancatchers.”
“Frequently,” noted Carey McWilliams, “man-catchers would raid
crews imported by labor contractors and shanghai them for
employment elsewhere.

A common practice was to keep crews

locked up in warehouses with armed guards posted at the doors.”
The business of labor recruitment was a lucrative though
competitive enterprise.

30

According to Emelio Flores who testified before the
Commission on Industrial Relations in 1915, it was not uncommon
to see as many as one hundred migrants marching through the
streets of San Antonio under armed guard.

“When put to work at

destination or upon their first pay day,” he noted, “they are
informed [that] so much had been charged to each and every one
of them for transportation and employment fees, which said
amounts are deducted from their earnings.”

31

In Gonzales County,

migrants who attempted to break their employment contracts were
also chained to posts and guarded by men with shotguns.

In some

instances, according to Texas economist Max Handman, growers in
30

McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 251; Pastrano, “Industrial
Agriculture,” 138; George T. Edson, “Mexicans in the Pittsburgh,
PA, District,” Dionicio N. Valdés Papers, Special Collections
Division, Michigan State University Libraries, 28.

31

Cited in Coalson, The Development of the Migratory Farm Labor
System in Texas, 16.
60

Texas “stood guard with shotguns over their Mexican cottonpickers to prevent other farmers from luring them away by the
promise of better pay.”

32

These examples demonstrate both the

dramatic transformations in Texas, as well as the intensity of
actions taken to lure and control Mexican farm labor.
Federal governmental legislation also favored commercial
agriculture, including the leniency of immigration policy.
United States Congress enacted Alien Contract Labor Law in 1885,
which prohibited foreign contract labor in the United States.
From 1885 to 1924, however, the contract law was consistently
voided along the Texas-Mexico border for labor recruitment.

In

the midst of World War I and employer fears of labor shortages,
this particular law was also suspended for “private recruitment”
efforts on a temporary basis.

33

While the Immigration Act of

1917 further restricted European immigration to the United
States and imposed a literacy test and head tax, it excepted
Mexican workers.

As U.S. Secretary of Labor James L. Davis

declared on May 22, 1917, “the United States Secretary of Labor
issued an order instructing immigration officials on the Mexican

32

Cited in McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 253.

33

McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 250; “Braceros,” Ernesto
Galarza Papers (hereafter EGP), Box 26, Folder 9, Green Library
Department of Special Collections, Stanford University
(hereafter GLDSCSU).
61

border to disregard the literacy test, the contract-labor
section, and the head-tax provision of the immigration law with
reference to the coming of Mexican people who were to engage as
workmen in agricultural pursuits.”

34

Between 1917 and 1921,

thousands of Mexican workers, estimated between 72,000 and
80,000, were admitted on a temporary basis in the United States
through this exception.

35

Additional legislation passed in this early period that
favored commercial agriculture.

One indicated was the Tariff

Act of 1897 that taxed foreign sugar imported into the United
States, and increased the value and potential profit to be made
34

Cited in Louis Bloch, “Facts About Immigration Before and
Since the Quota Restriction Laws,” Division of Labor Statistics
and Law Enforcement, California Department of Industrial
Relations, March 1928, Louis Bloch Mimeograph, Hoover
Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace Library and Archives,
Stanford University (hereafter HIWRPSU), 3.

35

Richard H. Hancock, “The Role of the Bracero in the Economic
and Cultural Dynamics of Mexico: A Case Study of Chihuahua,
1959,” Paul Schuster Taylor Papers (hereafter PSTP), Box 38,
Folder 20, Bancroft Library Special Collections, University of
California at Berkeley (hereafter BLSCUCB); “Migratory Labor in
American Agriculture: The Report of The President’s Commission
on Migratory Labor, March 1, 1951,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 10,
HSTLM, III-1; “Plan For a Commission to Survey and Recommend
Control Measures for the Illegal Immigration from Mexico, 1949,”
Records of Assistant Secretary Robert T. Creasey, 1949-1952
(hereafter RASRTC), General Records of the Department of Labor,
Office of the Secretary (hereafter GRDL), RG 174, Box 1,
National Archives at College Park (hereafter NACP), Maryland;
Scruggs, Braceros, “Wetbacks,” and the Farm Labor Program, 78;
Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow, 27; Turner, "Thy Kingdom
Come,” 70.
62

from the domestic cultivation of sugar beets.

This was followed

by the passing of the Reclamation Act of 1902, which provided
funding for the clearing of arid lands to be used for largescale irrigation projects in the Southwest.

In addition, the

Immigration Acts of 1917, 1921, and 1924, along with the
preceding Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the 1907-8
Gentlemen’s Agreements with Japan, were all critical in limiting
immigration from other countries.

In turn, these legislative

acts gave greater impetus for growers and employers in the
United States to pursue Mexican labor.

36

Extensive labor recruitment was critical to the expansion
of large-scale agriculture and other industries, and, yet, the
more visible Mexican presence also reignited widespread antiMexican hostility.

“Large planters welcome the Mexican

immigrant,” lamented then U.S. Representative James L. Slayden
from San Antonio, “as they would welcome fresh arrivals from the
Congo, without a thought of the social and political
embarrassment to their country.”

37

Part of the justification for

their recruitment was their perceived temporality as
36

Barton Clark, “Mexican Migration to the United States,” in
Mexican Migration, eds. Thomas Weaver and Theodore E. Downing
(Tucson, Arizona: Bureau of Ethnic Research, The University of
Arizona, 1976), 53; Carey McWilliams, North From Mexico, 175;
Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American, 19.

37

Cited in McWilliams, Ill Fares the Land, 251.
63

“foreigners,” which corresponded with the seasonal needs of
large-scale agriculture.

Anti-Mexican hostility increased as

family units increasingly replaced single male migrants,
particularly in the cotton industry, and as labor migration in
the 1920s reached record levels.
Concerns about the “assimilability and Americanizability”
of the Mexican presence, according to Louis Bloch, spread to
consume national political discourse.

One defining moment in

the midst of the “Mexican Problem” was the creation of the
“illegal alien” phenomenon.

Mae N. Ngai traces this term to the

passing of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924.

According to Ngai,

the immigration law “created a new class of persons within the
national body—illegal aliens—whose inclusion in the nation was
at once a social reality and a legal impossibility.”
Undocumented Mexican workers emerged to become the “prototypical
illegal alien.”

The historical construction of “illegal alien”

is useful here, as it demonstrates how the term, from its
inception, was conflated to being Mexican, irrespective of
citizenship.

Within this framework, then, to be Mexican meant

not to be “American” in the U.S. public imagination.

“Mexican

Americans and immigrants alike,” according to Ngai, “reaped the
consequences of racialized foreignness that had been constructed

64

throughout the 1920s.”

38

In the previous decades, as already

highlighted, Texas Mexicans after military conquest were
rendered “foreigners in their native land.”

In the 1920s, the

dominant narrative continued when long-standing and newly
established Texas Mexicans were reconfigured as “aliens.”

39

The formation of the United States Border Patrol added
another element of anti-Mexican hostility.

Initially

established in 1924 within the Department of Labor, Kelly Lytle
Hernández argued that the border patrol built upon prior
institutionalized forms of settler violence used against Mexican
peoples in the wake of military conquest.

The most noticeable

example from this lineage was again the infamous terror
campaigns waged by the Texas Rangers.

In the more historical

immediate context, the official entry of a border patrol
38

Bloch, “Facts About Immigration,” HIWRPSU, 6; Mae M. Ngai,
Impossible Subjects:
Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern
America (Princeton and Oxford:
Princeton University Press,
2004), 57, 71.
39

Mae Ngai specifically identifies this experience of alien
citizenship to Asian Americans and Mexican Americans.
Accordingly, “alien citizen” refers to “persons who are American
citizens by virtue of their birth in the United States but who
are presumed to be foreign by the mainstream of American culture
and, at times, by the state” (2). Ngai also attributes the
origins of alien citizenship directly to “the histories of
conquest, colonialism, and semicolonialism that constituted the
United States’ relations with Mexico and in Asia” (8); Mae M.
Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of
Modern America (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University
Press, 2004), 2, 7-8.
65

presence also coincided with a resurgence of Ku Klux Klan
activity in the United States.

In El Paso in West Texas, some

of the early immigration officers at the Texas-Mexico border
were also local Klan members.

Ku Klux Klan chapters were

established throughout South Texas, including Brownsville,
Harlingen, Mercedes, Edinburgh, McAllen, and Laredo.

40

What was once just a dividing line, the border patrol
reinforced formalized divisions among Mexican peoples based on
citizenship, and the geopolitical boundary that separated the
United States and Mexico.

This official governmental agency

reaffirmed the racial and cultural boundary that created
“illegal immigration” to be the United States-Mexico border,
making, in turn, Mexican peoples their primary target.

On the

eve of the Great Depression, the large-scale removal of Mexican
American and Mexican population took place in the United States
through voluntary and involuntary movements, with the latter
first beginning in the lower Rio Grande Valley in 1928.

40

South

Kelly Lytle Hernández, Migra! A History of the U.S. Border
Patrol (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California
Press, 2010), 19-21, 48; Sánchez, Becoming Mexican American, 59;
Charles C. Alexander, Ku Klux Klan in the Southwest (Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 1966), 24.
66

Texas became an important training ground in the development of
border patrol enforcement practices.

41

These imposed conditions, however, did not mean that
workers simply acquiesced.

One method, which occurred

frequently, was to simply walk away from pre-arranged work
contracts with employers.

Workers who were employed with

railroads often left to pursue agricultural work, and vice
versa.

Some used the transportation provided by labor agents to

arrive at specific destinations, and then unexpectedly left to
seek better wages elsewhere.
work for specific growers.

Other workers simply refused to
Work slowdowns, sabotage, contract

violations, and spontaneous walkouts were all strategies used by
farm workers.

And still, employment elsewhere in Texas, such as

Lubbock, and in other states provided workers another means of
countering the treatment they experienced in South Texas.

42

In response to increased border enforcement and more
stringent immigration laws, Mexican workers and their families
also established permanent homes in South Texas, and settled in
41

Abraham Hoffman, Unwanted Mexican Americans in the Great
Depression (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1974), 166-169;
Dionicio Valdés, “South from the United States: Mexican
Migration During the Great Depression and the Unfolding of a
Neocolonial Relationship,” Unpublished Paper, 2012, 14; Sánchez,
Becoming Mexican American, 209-226; Balderrama and Rodriguez,
Decade of Betrayal.
42

Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker, 36-38.
67

cities.

Similar to other larger cities across the Southwest,

San Antonio attracted a significant number of Mexican workers
and their families, in spite of continued experiences of
occupational discrimination and dual-wages that limited their
economic mobility.

Still, the geographic segregation of

existent Texas Mexican communities provided a form of selfprotection and communal belonging from most virulent forms of
anti-Mexican hostility.

New and established Texas Mexican

families in San Antonio represented the largest Mexican
population in the country through the 1930s.
In his recent study on the Tejano diaspora in the midtwentieth century, Marc Simon Rodriguez asserted that a process
of Tejano-ization took place by Mexican migrants adopting
regional Texas Mexican identities.

Migration and settlement in

Texas alone did not make workers from Mexico become Tejanos.
“In a more expansive use of the term,” he argued, “migrants
increasingly became ‘Tejano’ as a result of expansion of these
labor networks, which thrust Texas-based workers into the North
American migrant labor market.”

Rodriguez continued:

“In an

unstable world, migrant workers made these places in South Texas
home and remade themselves as Tejanos, even if their families
had left Mexico in the decades after the revolution.”

The first

three decades of the twentieth century is critically important
in this regard, as Tejano identities emerged for the first time
68

from a confluence of a Mexican diaspora displaced by U.S.
economic conquest in Mexico, and a Texas Mexican diaspora
severed by U.S. military conquest in South Texas.

43

Conclusion
Building upon extant scholarship, this chapter examined
root causes and the first large-scale period of Mexican labor
migration to the United States in the early twentieth century.
This first period provides insight into larger historical
processes of contested relations between the two countries,
which emanated from U.S. military and economic pursuits in the
nineteenth century.

The various methods used by employers to

recruit labor from Mexico demonstrate the expanding influence of
U.S. industries, particularly commercial agriculture, and the
development of labor control practices used against Mexican
labor in the first three decades.
South Texas represented the most densely populated region
for Mexican peoples in the United States, and, hence, served as
an important center where these employer practices began to take

43

Marc Simon Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican
Americanism and Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 4-6; Sánchez,
Becoming Mexican American, 59; Richard Garcia, The Rise of the
Mexican-American Middle Class: San Antonio, 1929-1941 (College
Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991), 33, 43-45; Zamora,
The World of the Mexican Worker, 22-24, 40.
69

shape.

At the same time, workers and families from Mexico also

reinforced the notion of a Tejano homeland by establishing
permanent homes and becoming Texas Mexicans.

70

CHAPTER TWO

DEEP IN THE HEART: BRACEROS
Y TEJANOS IN THE COLONIAL IMAGINARY
1
OF SOUTH TEXAS, 1940s-1960s

“The crux of the migratory problem
lies in the Rio Grande Valley.”
--Héctor P. García, 1950

2

Introduction
Tejano communities in South Texas transformed once again
amid the expansion of an official guest worker agreement between
the United States and Mexico in the mid-twentieth century.

Most

writings on the Bracero Program widely accept experiences of
division and resentment between U.S. citizen and non-citizen
agricultural labor to be the norm, which has also been extended
to relations between Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers,
particularly in California.

Matt García, in his exemplary study

on citrus workers in greater Los Angeles, applied this same

1

The title of this section is partly adapted from Pérez, The
Decolonial Imaginary.

2

“Statement Health and Welfare Conditions Among the
Underprivileged Migrant Workers of Texas, by Dr. Héctor P.
García, M.D. for President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, July
31 and August 1, 1950, Brownsville, Texas,” USPCML, RG 220, Box
7, HSTLM.
71

framework when describing repeated episodes of what he termed as
intra-ethnic conflict.

“Wage differentials and unequal

competition for jobs resulted in strong feelings of resentment
toward braceros among Mexican American men,” he noted.

3

This

chapter, as well as the next that focuses on the Mississippi
Delta, offer a similar and, yet, divergent critique to reframe
this continued discussion within a larger historical context of
unequal international relations.
In South Texas, the proximity of the imposed geopolitical
boundary separating the two countries, a consequence of U.S.
military conquest, was critical to shaping experiences of labor
repression for Tejano and Mexican National workers during the
Bracero Program, and which also favored commercial agriculture.
The nearby presence of reserve farm labor from Mexico enabled
growers to circumvent participation in the program, and violate
contract-related protections when bracero workers were finally
employed.

Texas Mexican workers also faced employer rejection

due to their citizenship status in lieu of bracero and
undocumented labor, and consequently pursued employment in other
agricultural sectors in Texas and beyond.

As I demonstrate in

this chapter, the emergence of a nationwide Tejano presence from

3

Matt Garcia, A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in
the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill and
London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 174-188.
72

South Texas was intimately connected to the expansion of the
Bracero Program.

In this way, as Dr. Héctor P. García astutely

observed in the above epigraph in 1950, the crux of the
“migratory problem” became the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

Go Work or Go Home
The international agreement that formalized the importation
of Mexican labor into the United States, known as the Bracero
Program, was established in 1942 and continued in various phases
through 1964.

During its 22-year official existence, some 4.6

million workers from Mexico were officially brought into the
country on temporary work visas.

4

Growers sought braceros partly

out of a fear of a shortage of workers needed to harvest
agricultural crops in the midst of the Second World War and
beyond.

5

Grower Austin Anson from the Texas Citrus and Vegetable

Growers and Shippers in Harlingen, Texas, affirmed this view.
“We cannot produce our share of the volume of perishable
agriculture required for our nation either in peace or under
4

Douglas Massey, and Zai Liang. "The Long-Term Consequences of
a Temporary Worker Program: The US Bracero Experience,"
Population Research and Policy Review 8, no. 3 (1989): 203;
Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 138; regarding the utilization of
Mexican labor on railroads as part of the Program, see again
Driscoll, The Tracks North.

5

Otey M. Scruggs, “Texas and the Bracero Program, 1942-1947,”
Pacific Historical Review 32, no. 3 (August 1963): 251.
73

wartime conditions without this Mexican labor,” he argued.
Representing the Pride O’Texas Citrus Association of Mission,
Texas, M.W. Held also stated, “Because of the shortage of local
labor we are absolutely dependent upon Mexican labor to do the
necessary grove work, likewise we are dependent upon Mexican
labor for the harvesting of the fruit.”

Braceros represented,

for some growers, to be the “greatest contribution” made by
Mexican Republic.

6

While certainly true, there was still more to this picture
in South Texas.

Aware of the entrenched anti-Mexican hostility

and the still recent deportation campaigns that began in South
Texas, the Mexican Government initially and officially
prohibited growers in the state from accessing bracero labor
from 1942 to 1947.

While growers were prevented from using

braceros, they circumvented the ban in South Texas because of
the geographic proximity of Mexico.

In this way, they still

employed Mexican National labor as undocumented workers.

“As

early as 1943,” noted Otey M. Scruggs, “the availability of
illegal entrants had made it unnecessary for the farmers of
southern Texas to worry unduly about the ban on braceros.”

6

One

“Statement of Austin E. Anson, Texas Citrus and Vegetable
Growers and Shippers, Harlingen, Texas,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7,
HSTLM; “Statement of M.W. Held, Co-Partner of the Pride O’Texas
Citrus Association of Mission, Texas,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7,
HSTLM.
74

official report from the U.S. Department of Justice offered a
more direct appraisal of the situation:

“The majority of

growers in border states, notably Texas and New Mexico, make no
secret of their intention to use ‘wetbacks’ if they can get away
with it.”

7

The decision by Mexican Government to exclude Texas

growers indeed demonstrated political leverage.

The abundant of

reserve labor from Mexico, however, made the symbolic gesture
more inept and intensified the entrenchment of unequal relations
between the two countries.
With the inception of the Bracero Program, the intentional
recruitment of undocumented workers from Mexico became
widespread in South Texas, which reinforced various forms of
exploitation and displacement affecting all workers on both
sides of the border.

Large-scale growers relied on undocumented

labor to have their crops picked early and quickly, which, in
the end, benefitted large-scale agribusiness and to the
detriment of small-scale farmers.

8

Even after being admitted

into the Bracero Program in 1947, Texas growers took “no steps

7

Scruggs, “Texas and the Bracero Program,” 251, 263; Zamora,
Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs, 88; “Mexican Immigration,”
undated, United States Department of Justice, Immigration and
Naturalization Service, USPCML, RG 220, Box 1, HSTLM; Rodolfo
Acuña, Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, Third Edition
(New York: Harpers Collins Publishers, 1988), 261-263.

8

Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 135.
75

either in looking to the legal recruitment of Mexican laborers
under the International Agreement or to hold domestic farm
laborers who are said to be leaving the area in large numbers in
search of employment elsewhere.”

Rather than bother with

contractual obligations, such as providing for transportation,
health and accident insurance, and legal paperwork, most growers
instead recruited and employed undocumented workers.

9

Still, requests for braceros provided several advantages
for Texas growers after the state was admitted into the program.
In some instances, growers made requests to saturate the labor
market and accelerate the harvest, which, in turn, generated
more revenue.

While employer participation in the program

assured the necessary labor for the season, the available
surplus of workers from Mexico also enabled growers to violate
contract-related provisions.
In 1951, growers from Laredo requested additional Mexican
National workers through the Bracero Program.

After an

investigation, the U.S. Department of Labor determined
otherwise:

“Farmers stated that they would like to get more

workers but believed they could get a crop out with those who
were available.

Additional workers, however, would enable them

9

“Mexican Immigration,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 1, HSTLM;
“Statement of Regional Office Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish
Speaking,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM.
76

to harvest the onion crop earlier than usual.”

The letter went

on to state, “apparently, earlier reports on the urgent need for
additional workers were exaggerated.”

In another instance, the

U.S. Department of Labor investigated a bracero contract issued
to one grower from Texas, who was also a county judge.

The

contract was reportedly revoked because of the blatant illtreatment toward legally-contracted braceros, which included
feeding them canned meat that was “dog food” in lieu of human
food.

Though government authorities terminated this one

contract, these decisions were rare.

Most employers caught with

contract violations only faced warnings, without real
repercussions.

10

The Mexican Government also objected to the treatment of
Mexican National labor, and secondarily Texas Mexican workers,
by responding through political discourse and international
diplomacy.

In 1947, the Government of Mexico accused Texas

growers of “fomenting illegal immigration…in the hope of
obtaining cheap hand labor, pay minimum wages, and force Mexican
workers who live permanently in Texas to migrate north.”
10

A year

Letter to Honorable Lloyd Benson, Jr., House of
Representatives, from Robert T. Creasey, Assistant Secretary of
Labor, May 14, 1951, RASRTC, GRDL, RG 74, Box 2, NACP; “CIO Aids
Farm Labor, Pamphlet No. 205, Reprinted from April 1952,
Economic Outlook,” RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 3, NACP; “Texas
Judge Feeds Men Dog Food,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 8,
1951, EGP, Box 25, Folder 5, GLSCDSU; Ngai, Impossible Subjects,
144.
77

later in 1948, an interior ministry spokesman for Mexico warned,
“We’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, no braceros will be
sent to states known for their racial discrimination.”

He

continued, “In both Texas and Arkansas the braceros are
exploited, being paid salaries inferior to other farm laborers.”
According to the Department of Labor in 1951, the Mexican
Government also “complained very bitterly to representatives of
our Government that American employers had come into Mexico and
distributed leaflets inviting Mexicans to enter the United
States illegally and accept work on American farms.”

11

These

instances, however, did not stop the deliberate recruitment and
exploitation of undocumented workers and braceros by employers
in South Texas.
Steps taken to recruit Mexican National workers were also
complemented by actions and inactions of U.S. government
agencies.

One critical government action certified undocumented

workers already present in the United States to be registered as
braceros.

Using the same rationale that created the Bracero

Program, Cleon O. Swayzee from the U.S. Department of Labor
11

“Braceros in Texas,” La Prensa, October 25, 1947, EGP, Box 4,
Folder 2, GLSCDSU; “Texas Still on Mexican Farm Worker
Blacklist,” May 6, 1948, EGP, Box 25, Folder 2, GLSCDSU;
“Department of Justice INS Monthly Review, Volume 7, No. 9,
March 1950,” National Council on Agricultural Life and Labor
Collections, 1937-1967 (hereafter NCALLC), Box 14, Folder 19,
BLSCUCB; “Wetbacks Endanger Health and Security, June 4, 1951,”
RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 2, NACP.
78

justified this decision as a way to prevent further undocumented
migration from Mexico.

“Illegal workers already in the United

States,” he declared, “may be employed under the same type of
contract approved pursuant to the agreement for workers to be
brought in legally from Mexico and that their immigration status
will be adjusted accordingly.”

This policy, he argued,

represented “the most effective means of preventing further
entry of wetbacks.”

Some 80,000 undocumented workers were

granted bracero legal status in Texas in 1949.

By 1950, more

undocumented workers in Texas were granted bracero status by a
ratio of five to one than those recruited from Mexico.

12

The preventive measure soon prompted the opposite effect,
and undocumented labor migration from Mexico to Texas
intensified.

“There have always been wetbacks in Texas,” noted

one Texas official, “but they didn’t become a national and
international problem until the spring of 1947.”

13

By 1951,

another report from U.S. Department of Labor noted what was
obvious in border communities:

“When it became known in Mexico

12

Cleon O. Swayzee, “Regarding Plan for Commission to Survey
and Recommend Control Measures for Illegal Immigration from
Mexico, June 9, 1949,” RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 1, NACP; Cindy
Hahamovitch, No Man’s Land: Jamaican Guestworkers in America
and the Global History of Deportable Labor (Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011), 111-112; Ngai,
Impossible Subjects, 153.

13

Cited in Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 148.
79

that wetbacks were being given legal status and steady
employment by American farmers, this country was flooded with
wetbacks.”

These official observations indicated the rise of

labor migration by the 1950, as well as the widespread
pejorative “wetback” term that critics associated with “misery,
disease, crime, and many other evils.”

14

The government decision to grant bracero status to
undocumented workers, which stimulated labor migration, also
increased the number of violent deaths along the border in South
Texas.

Preceding similar dire consequences from increased

border militarization since the 1990s, one local resident from
Harlingen, Texas, described the multiple deaths that took place
in the mid-twentieth century as the “bracero killings.”

In a

hearing for the U.S. President’s Committee on Migratory Labor in
1950, the resident warned of the severity of the situation in
South Texas:
It has been estimated that 1,000 lives are lost annually
along the lower 100 miles of the Rio Grande, owing to the
reported operations of organized gangs of ‘river bandits’
who kill and robe the returning filed workers for their
small savings. In the dark night crossing, far from any
help at lonely places along the river, boatmen take these
workers for a fee and often while making change, the
savings are displayed and the boatman and his aids attack
the worker and throw the body into the river to float out
into the Gulf, but many bodies are recovered, sometimes
14

“Wetbacks Endanger Health and Security, June 4, 1951,”
RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 2, NACP; Ngai, Impossible Subjects,
148-149; Acuña, Occupied America, 264.
80

seven or eight in a day. It is common talk that whole
families have been lost in the Rio.
One common method was to hold down the bodies underwater and
drown them.

Once dead, single male and female persons as

individuals or entire families would then be robbed, sometimes
stripped naked, and sent down the river.

In one instance, over

60 human bodies were recovered with a 24-hour period.

Since

there were no markings of physical abuse on the bodies, the
deaths were declared “accidental drowning” by authorities.
“These dangers are all produced by the fact,” according to the
local Harlingen resident, “that the worker comes here illegally
in search of employment and cannot use the international bridges
by which he would not be allowed to enter this country without
proper credentials.”

In addition to murder, deaths took place

because of strong currents and mere exhaustion.

The sole

possessions tied on the backs of migrants were too burdensome in
the water.

15

The work of the border patrol represented a more direct
example of government action that favored employers in South
Texas.

The importance of this government agency transformed

during the Bracero Program, according to Kelly Hernández, “from
15

“Statement of
1950, USPCML, RG
Spanish Language
1950, USPCML, RG

Mr. F. Ferree, Harlingen, Texas,” August 1,
220, Box 2, HSTLM; “Statement of José Cantú,
Commentator of Radio Station KZOR,” August 1,
220, Box 2, HSTLM.
81

a series of small and locally oriented outposts into a national
police force with the resources to pursue immigration control on
a much large scale.”

Border patrol apprehensions indeed

increased with the rise of labor migration from Mexico.

In

1950, monthly apprehensions increased by 30 percent in Texas.
In 1951, one government reported noted that the total number of
apprehensions jumped nearly two-fold, from more than 300,000 in
1949, to 600,000 in 1950.

Official statistics indicate that

apprehensions increased considerably through the early 1950s,
peaking to over one million in 1954.

16

In response to increased enforcement, Texas growers
responded by labeling the border patrol a “Gestapo outfit” that
threatened their economic livelihoods.

Congressional

Representative Lloyd Bentsen from Texas, speaking on behalf of
large-scale growers in the Rio Grande Valley, even called for a
full-fledged investigation.

These instances, however, neglected

the long established relations of collaboration between growers
and the agency, and the importance of South Texas as a training

16

“Wetbacks Endanger Health and Security, June 4, 1951,”
RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 2, NACP; Hernández, Migra, 105; Ngai,
Impossible Subjects, 153, 157.
82

ground where border control practices were perfected.
included the art of selective enforcement.

This

17

One report by the U.S. Department of Justice noted that
apprehensions and deportations of undocumented labor in Texas
consistently coincided with the harvest season.

During World

War Two, explained Chief of Border Patrol Willard Kelly, “the
Service officers were instructed to defer to apprehension of
Mexicans employed on Texas farms where to remove them would
likely result in loss of the crops.”

Even in the years after

the war, this practiced continued, with the number of
apprehensions and deportations increasing at the end of harvest
season.

In 1948, from May through July, the number of persons

subjected to deportation in South Texas was 11,000, 9,000, and
7,000, respectively.

By the end of August of the same year,

when the cotton picking was complete, “the immigration
authorities seemed to have discovered some 34,000 of them hiding
around here somewhere,” according to noted Texas Mexican
attorney, Gus García, in his remarks before the same
presidential committee on migratory labor.

18

17

Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program,
Immigration, and the I.N.S. (New Orleans, Louisiana: Quid Pro
Books, 1992, 2010), 34-37; Ngai, Impossible Subjects, 153.
18

“Mexican Immigration,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 1, HSTLM;
“Statement of Gus García, San Antonio, Texas,” President’s
Commission on Migratory Labor Stenographic Report of Proceedings
83

García continued, “There has been little or no attempt to
disguise the fact that because of pressure from above, the
immigration authorities, certainly for a long, long time, made
no effort other than a token effort to deport these people.”
The San Antonio District Enforcement Officer for the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, John Holland, also testified before
the committee.

In response to García, Holland confirmed that

the month of August was always a busy month for the border
patrol in his jurisdiction, along with September and January.
This was due to the actions taken by the agency as well as by
workers themselves, who sometimes surrendered on their own
accord upon completion of their work.
Regardless, as Holland imagined, the apprehensions and
deportations were deemed necessary “because of this invasion—
which is nothing but an invasion, nothing else in the world, a
human invasion of the country, not an armed invasion, but it is
an invasion, and I don’t know of any other way to describe it.”
Through actions of growers and support of the U.S. state via la
Held at Brownsville, Texas, August 1, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box
2, HSTML. Gus García was part of the core Texas Mexican
leadership to emerge from San Antonio during this period. In
Hernandez v. Texas in 1954, he and Carlos C. Cadena successfully
challenged jury discrimination before the United States Supreme
Court. For the Hernandez v. Texas case, see A Class Apart: A
Mexican American Civil Rights Story (New York: PBS Home Video,
2009); Michael Olivas, ed. “Colored Men” and “Hombres Aquí:”
Hernandez v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican American
Lawyering (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2006).
84

migra, the message toward undocumented workers in South Texas
during this period was then clear:
options were limited.

work or go home.

Their

19

19

“Statement of Gus García,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTML;
“Statement of John Holland, District Enforcement Officer of the
Immigration and Naturalization Service,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2,
HSTLM; the term “la migra” here means U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service.
85

Figure 2. “Workers Arrive at Alien Detention Camp at McAllen,
20
Texas, ca. 1953”

20

Source: SALPC, ITCUTSA.
86

Figure 3. “Alien Detention Camp at McAllen, Texas, ca. 1953”

21

Source: SALPC, ITCUTSA.
87

21

Tejano Migration by Dispossession
For thousands of Texas Mexican workers, South Texas was an
already established “Tejano homeland,” their center of the
universe.
Program.

But many were decentered as a result of the Bracero
With employer recruitment of undocumented labor, Texas

Mexicans emerged to become the largest group of U.S. migrant
labor in the country.

1

“South Texas with its large Spanish-

American and Mexican American population has long been a home
base or winter quarters for migratory agricultural workers,”
observed agricultural economist Paul S. Taylor.

“Parallel with

the increase in the wetback traffic, the number of Texas Mexican
residents entering the migratory labor stream has greatly
increased,” he continued.

In South Texas, where the Texas

Mexican population was “‘pushed around,’ ‘jim crowed,’ and
otherwise discriminated against in every conceivable way ever
since the U.S. annexed or occupied the Southwest,” the
experiences of displacement during the Bracero Program added
another important layering in the long history of violence.

2

1

“Texas Harvester Migrant Ministry,” Texas Council of Churches,
United Church Women of Texas, April 1959, North Carolina Council
of Churches, 2001-0100 (hereafter NCCC), Box 56, Duke University
David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library (hereafter
DMRRBML); “Report Summary to the President of his Commission n
Migratory Labor, April 7, 1951,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 1, HSTLM.

2

“Consequences of the Wetback Traffic: Labor Competition and
Displacement,” PSTP, Box 28, Folder 12, BLSCUCB; letter to John
88

According to U.S. government reports in 1948 and 1949,
“There is no shortage of citizen-labor in Texas.”

3

Texas

Mexican agricultural workers confronted, however, a lower
“prevailing wage” determined by local growers and companies in
the area.

In this process, employers’ desire for undocumented

workers at lower pay undermined the economic and social
livelihoods of local Texas Mexican residents.

These experiences

then stimulated processes of intra-state and inter-state labor
migration.

4

This was the case for Tereza L. Rubio from Donna, Texas.
In a handwritten letter to President Harry S. Truman in 1951,
Rubio protested the Bracero Program for stimulating undocumented
migration and preventing her and her family to work in South
R. Steelman, Executive Offices of the President, from George I.
Sánchez, January 23, 1949, Subject File, PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM.
3

Brief to The Director, from J. Otis Garber, regarding Illegal
Immigration from Mexico, January 13, 1949 Subject File, PDHS,
Box 6, HSTLM; “Illegal Immigration from Mexico: Brief on Byron
Mitchell’s Report, February 15, 1949,” RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box
1, NACP; “Statement of Hector P. García,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7,
HSTLM.

4

Carlos E. Castañeda, “Statement on Discrimination Against
Mexican-Americans in Employment, May 9, 1947,” RPCCR, RG 220,
Box 3, HSTLM; memorandum to John W. Gibson, from Robert C.
Goodwin, October 19, 1949, RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 1, NACP;
“The Wetback Invasion: Illegal Alien Labor in American
Agriculture,” President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, in
Mexican Workers in the United States: Historical and Political
Perspectives, eds. George C. Kiser and Martha Woody Kiser
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979), 143-147.
89

Texas.

“We have not been able to work for years,” she wrote.

“They work for $2.00 a day from 6:00 in the morning to the
evening and others only get paid $1.50 for the whole day.
cannot work at that wage.”

We

Similarly, Catarino Montes was born

in 1916 in Driscoll, Texas and lived for the most part in
Weslaco of the Rio Grande Valley.

In the following passage,

Montes described his own experiences:
The farmers pay what they feel like. Now they are paying
$1.00 and $1.25 for 100 pounds of cotton. I cannot buy
food for my family for this wage. In some places there are
800 acres of cotton. There are so many wetbacks they
finish the cotton in two or three days. In one week there
was only enough work for me to pick 300 pounds. In that
week I earned only $3.75. If the farmers in the Valley
would give us the work for a decent wage, we would stay
there and get the work done for them. We have to move to
other states, sometimes to Michigan, to work because the
5
farmers will not pay us.
Grower employment of Mexican National workers saturated labor
markets, lowered wages, and displaced local labor like Catarino
Montes, Tereza L. Rubio, and their respective families.
In 1950, farm crew leader Pablo Reyna also testified about
the lack of employment in South Texas.

“I was born in Mercedes

in 1909 and have been there all my life as an American citizen,”
he stated.

“I have been in the harvesting business all along

5

Letter to President Harry Truman, from Tereza L. Rubio, Donna,
Texas, June 13, 1951, Official File, Papers of Harry S. Truman
(hereafter PHST), Box 1234, HSTLM, translation by the author;
“Statement of Catarino Montes, Weslaco, Texas, July 27, 1950,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM.
90

and we always have been able to take care of the farmers and
harvest their crops and bring them to the sheds,” he continued.
With the employment of undocumented labor from Mexico,
citizenship was not enough.

“To survive,” Reyna stated, “I had

to put a mortgage on my truck to carry on and now my only hopes
are to work here in Corpus Christi, or in East Texas, or
Arkansas or Mississippi to pay my debts.”

According to Reyna,

this condition was prevalent for Tejano families throughout
South Texas.

6

Increased use of the cotton-picking machine further
stripped economic stability for Tejano agricultural workers who
relied upon the cotton industry for their livelihoods.

This was

the case for the maternal family of Rolando Contreras.

After

they lost employment picking cotton in South Texas, they too
turned to the migrant stream, traveling and working in Arkansas
and Missouri.

Cotton harvest mechanization accelerated in South

Texas in the 1940s, and coincided with the expansion of the
Bracero Program in the post-World War Two period.

7

While wages were commonly insufficient to sustain Texas
Mexican families, South Texas growers still refused to employ
6

“Statement of Pablo Reyna, Trucker and Crew Leaders for Farm
Laborers, Mercedes, Texas,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM.

7

Oral history interview with Rolando Contreras, April 30, 2013,
interview with author.
91

them in most cases.

Union organizer D.C. De Baca of the

American Federation of Labor (AFL) expressed this grave concern
from his experiences working with citrus workers in the lower
Rio Grande Valley.

“Farmers and employers of this Valley,” he

stated, “are banded together in a conspiracy to discourage local
citizen labor in order that they may obtain cheap labor from
across the border.”

He continued, “they know that regardless of

anything they are always able to obtain labor from across the
border at very substandard wages.”

For De Baca, the imposed

geopolitical boundary and available surplus of labor from Mexico
favored employers and undermined the livelihood of local citizen
labor.

8

Frequently, he observed, Texas Mexican workers were even
rejected work due to their citizenship status.

That is, they

“have been refused employment merely because they are citizens
of the United States.”

Secretary of the Cannery Workers in

Weslaco, Texas, Chester Turner, also offered a similar critique.
“There are a lot of the canning plants and packing sheds that
will not hire American citizens,” he declared.

8

As a result,

Letter to H.L. Mitchell, from De Baca, Raymondville, Texas,
April 26, 1951, RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 2, NACP.
92

Texas Mexican workers were forced to travel elsewhere in attempt
to make a living.

9

The only way to continue to stay home and work, in some
instances, was for local Texas Mexican residents to seek to
prove their non-citizenship to employers, and, in turn, accept
lower wages assigned to undocumented labor.
did not guarantee their economic survival.

Doing so, however,
Harry Koger raised

this critical point while speaking on behalf of the Committee to
Aid Migrant Workers from San Antonio, Texas, in 1950.

“Not only

are the resident workers of the Rio Grande Valley unable to
compete with the wages paid to their neighbors from across the
river,” stated Koger, “they are unable to even find jobs.”
“They report,” he continued, “that it has often been a lot
easier to land a job if they can prove non-citizenship.”
According to Pauline Kibbe Povall from the Good Neighbor
Commission in Texas, even veteran soldiers who participated in
the violence of war found no work when they returned home in
South Texas, unless they accepted the lower wage rate of $0.25
an hour.

This, of course, adds more complexity to the post-

9

“Statement of D.C. De Baca, A.F. of L., Raymondville, Texas,”
July 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM; “Statement of Mr.
Chester Turner, Secretary of the Cannery Workers, Weslaco,
Texas,” July 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM.
93

World War Two era considered to be a watershed historical period
for Latinos in the United States.

10

Employer threats of retaliation provided effective means of
maintaining control and sowing seeds of division among the
working population.

For undocumented workers, the clear threat

was to call upon the services of immigration authorities to take
them away.

They, consequently, faced a multitude of abuses,

from wage theft to physical coercion, and waged fewer
complaints.

“Many work for a few cents an hour,” according to

one report, “or even just for food and a place to spread their
blankets.

If they object to bad conditions, they can be sent

back to Mexico.”

The recruitment of undocumented workers also

stymied contract protections afforded to legally-contracted
braceros.

Even if symbolic, these “protections” provided enough

incentive for employers to participate in the guest worker
program and further fragment relations among all workers,

10

“Statement of Harry Koger, Representing Committee to Aid
Migrant Workers, San Antonio, Texas,” July 31, 1950, USPCML, RG
220, Box 2, HSTLM; letter to Maurice Tobin, from Texas State
Federation of Labor Executive Secretary, February 21, 1949,
RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 1, NACP; “Comments of Pauline Kibbe
Povall, former Secretary of the Good Neighbor Commission in
Texas, on the Illegal Entry of Mexican Migratory Workers into
the United States, September 14, 1949,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 94,
Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum (hereafter
DDEPLM), 1.
94

especially with Tejanos who had no guarantees in spite of their
citizenship.

11

Rendered to conditions of disposability, Tejano
agricultural workers were forced them to accept lower pay and
severe working conditions, or leave.

“I am advised that the

common practice,” according to the Executive Secretary for the
Texas State Federation of Labor, “is to threaten native labor of
Mexican ancestry that if they are not completely submissive, if
they attempt to join a union, or if they object in any way to
existing conditions, the job will be manned with alien labor.”
These threats hindered any serious efforts to organize workers
through labor unions and challenge the systemic conditions of
inequality.

As one government reported noted in 1948, the

surplus of labor provided a “big enough stick to stop most
collective bargaining in its track and to hold down wages.”

12

Union organizer A.F. Cárdenas also highlighted the
frustration that organized labor encountered in South Texas
11

“CIO Aids Farm Labor, Pamphlet No. 205, Reprinted from April
1952, Economic Outlook,” RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 3, NACP;
“Meeting of the Texas Council on Migrant Labor, October 28,
1957,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, DDEPLM; “Statement of Regional
Office Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish Speaking,” USPCML, RG
220, Box 7, HSTLM.

12

Letter to Maurice Tobin, from Texas State Federation of Labor
Executive Secretary, February 21, 1949, RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174,
Box 1, NACP; “Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico,
December 31, 1948,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM.
95

during the Bracero Program.

Employed by the AFL, Cárdenas first

began work in South Texas in 1935.

“We had the packing plants

all organized and we had very, very good conditions.

Since that

time it seems like the American packer has been displaced,” he
noted.

Increased labor migration from Mexico in concert with

the Bracero Program limited the ability to organize workers.
This was the case on agricultural farms as well as related
industries like packing sheds and canning outfits.

As Cárdenas

made clear:
We have repeatedly tried to organize these plants and the
reason we haven’t been able to organize them is due to the
fact that they give preference to the illegal alien
Mexican. When we go to organize a plant, why naturally,
the illegal alien working in the plant, they go to him and
they say, ‘Well, if you organize, we’ll get the immigration
officers here to send you over,’ so naturally, that leaves
us without an organization because they are the majority.
For thousands of Texas Mexicans throughout South Texas, they
were simply denied employment.

The one notable exception was

the Del Monte Canning Company spinach plant based in Crystal
City, Texas, that employed some 700 workers and included local
citizens.

Still, according to Cárdenas, the wages were poor,

estimated at $0.50 an hour.

“They will tell our citizens here,

‘You will either come to work for this amount of money, or we’ll
get aliens to take your places.’”

Once work was complete at

this one spinach plant, the local workers too were forced to
leave.

“You could go there right at this present time and you

96

will find some six or seven hundred little homes, fellows who
own their little homes, all boarded up,” he indicated.

13

Experiences of displacement from employment or lower paid
work prompted Texas Mexicans from South Texas to move northward.
As the largest city in South Texas, San Antonio was once again a
primary destination and was affected in several ways.
Reflective of entrenched anti-Mexican hostility by the city
political leadership, all class segments of the Texas Mexican
community were confined primarily to the West Side of San
Antonio.

14

South Texas workers too relocated to the same section

of the city, which contributed to various concerns related to
overpopulation and institutional neglect by the city political
representatives.
George I. Sánchez observed effects of labor migration from
South Texas to San Antonio in 1950.

“The slum conditions in San

Antonio are, in considerable part, a direct expression of this
economic situation in the Valley,” he noted.

A city health

official concluded that the local Texas Mexican population was
“the hardest hit by tuberculosis, because so many of them are
13

“Statement of A.F. Cardenas, International Representative,
A.F. of L., San Antonio,” July 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 2,
HSTLM.

14

Richard Garcia, The Rise of the Mexican-American Middle
Class: San Antonio, 1929-1941 (College Station: Texas A&M
University Press, 1991), 118, 205.
97

subjected to poor housing, cheap labor and chronic poverty.”
San Antonio had one the highest tuberculosis death rates in the
United States.

15

Tejanos who left their homes in South Texas for economic
survival still could not escape the varied forms of
discrimination in spite of their citizenship, such as in
employment and education.

As summed up in one report by the

U.S. President’s Commission on Civil Rights, “despite the
important role the Mexican Americans have played and probably
will continue to play in this country, they have been relegated
to a position in which they are without most of the rights which
Anglo Americans have come to take for granted.”

Whether in San

Antonio or lower Rio Grande Valley, manifestations of “Jim
Crowism” continued to reign supreme.

16

San Antonio, in turn, became “one of the South’s greatest
mobilization centers for migratory workers” that involved local

15

“Statement of Dr. George I. Sánchez, Survey of SpanishSpeaking People, University of Texas,” August 1, 1950, USPCML,
RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM; cited in “Statement of Harry Koger,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM.

16

“Report to Members of the President’s Committee on Civil
Rights, from Robert K. Karr, Subject: Civil Rights Problems of
Mexican Americans, Prepared by Milton D. Steward and Herbert
Kaufman, undated,” RPCCR, RG 220, Box 3, HSTLM; Letter to Robert
K. Carr, Records of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights,
from George I. Sánchez, May 6, 1947, RPCCR, RG 220, Box 3,
HSTLM.
98

residents of San Antonio, Texas Mexicans from South Texas, and
braceros and undocumented workers from Mexico.

As local

residents were returning from the north, according to one
observer, there was “always a steady stream of Rio Grande Valley
workers pouring into San Antonio from the South, because they
cannot compete with their fellow workers from across the Mexican
border.”

Consequently, the greater Mexican population in the

city and surrounding towns varied year by year, dependent on
employment elsewhere.

17

For growers who turned to undocumented labor in South
Texas, they portrayed out-migration of local citizen labor
differently.

“It is not because they have to leave here,”

according to Roy Ruff, from Brownsville, Texas.
prevail upon them to stay.

“You couldn’t

They just will not stay.

They move

right on…If we had to depend on those people, we would never get
our cotton picked, and the alien is our only course.”

Growers

also justified the exclusion of Texas Mexican workers by
describing them as “unreliable,” “unwilling to work,” and “no
good.”

Their recruitment of undocumented labor thus created a

17

“Statement of Harry Koger,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM;
“Statement: Regional Office, Bishops’ Committee for the Spanish
Speaking Per Theodore J. Radtke, Executive Secretary, July 1950,
Re: Migratory Labor,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM.
99

“domino effect” that further stimulated labor migratory flows
from South Texas to San Antonio, and beyond.

18

Still, the Bracero Program affected Texas Mexican
communities in San Antonio and surrounding towns in other ways
pertinent to this discussion.

Like El Paso, Laredo, and Los

Angeles, San Antonio already had a “Mexican quarter with a
distinct awareness of itself as a community with a Mexican
consciousness.”

While thriving, concerns and ideas expressed by

its residents—as articulated through the newspaper La Prensa by
Alicia E. and Ignacio Lozano—were long ignored by the local
power structure in the city throughout the early twentieth
century.

A small Mexican middle class had been present in San

Antonio for decades, including families exiled from the Mexican
Revolution.

They too were excluded from established political

institutions in the city.

19

Increased labor migration from South

18

“Statement of Roy Ruff, Brownsville, Texas,” USPCML, RG 220,
Box 2, HSTLM; “Migratory Labor in American Agriculture: The
Report of The President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, March
1, 1951,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 10, HSTLM; Montejano, Anglos and
Mexicans, 273.

19

According to Richard Garcia, Ignacio and Alicia E. Lozano
were part of a Mexican comprador class exiled in San Antonio.
Although the work of the comprador class remained centered on
politics and interests in Mexico, they still advocated for
improvements in the lives of Mexican population in the United
States, whether working-class or middle-class. This included
improvements “in the Mexican West Side of San Antonio—swimming
pools, parks, recreation areas, clinics” (223); Garcia, The Rise
100

Texas during the Bracero Program added a more visible Mexican
presence in the city, a factor that the city political
establishment could no longer ignore.

By the 1940s, according

to Richard Garcia, the city political elite began to evaluate
and establish guidelines “to handle the development of the
Mexicans’ metropolitan and political integration.”

Demands by

local Texas Mexican residents for greater political
representation were finally heard in San Antonio during the
Bracero Program, which coincided with increased urbanization of
the Mexican population in cities across the state.

20

In addition, national attention on migratory labor provided
a public platform for local Texas Mexican leadership to voice
their concerns.

21

Two particular organizations took a public

of the Mexican-American Middle Class, 28, 223; Rosales, The
Illusion of Inclusion, 3.
20

García, The Rise of the Mexican-American Middle Class, 215.
While Texas Mexican political representation was indeed realized
in the latter half of the twentieth century that began in San
Antonio during the period of the Bracero Program, one argument
made by Rodolfo Rosales was that their “inclusion” in the
political process can really be best described as a “illusion;”
that is, in many ways, their inclusion has only provided a form
of legitimacy to the continued state of local domination,
particularly by the business sector that shapes the agenda for
city development (189); Rosales, The Illusion of Inclusion, 189.
21

Underscoring the national importance of migratory labor in
Texas was the appointment of priest Robert E. Lucey to the U.S.
President’s Committee on Migratory Labor in 1950. Father Lucey
was serving as Archbishop of San Antonio.
101

pro-active stance in denouncing the program, the League of
United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, and the American G.I.
Forum.

According to Cynthia Orozco, the former represented a

culmination of civil rights activism through the 1920s, and was
officially established in 1929.

LULAC was the first permanent

and viable Mexican American organization to challenge racial
inequalities in Texas.

The American G.I. Forum was formed by

Mexican American veteran soldiers in 1948, and became an
important civil rights organization in the post-World War Two
period.

Both organizations remain active into the present.

22

As one example, LULAC San Antonio chapter sent a telegram
to political representatives in Washington D.C. in 1947.

In the

telegram, San Antonio President, R.J. Peña, protested the
recruitment of Mexican Nationals by employers in Texas because
they competed with Texas Mexican laborers.

Similarly, LULAC

National President, R.A. Cortez submitted a letter on behalf of
the organization in 1948.

As he stated,

I want to make it perfectly clear that, as American
citizens, what we are primarily concerned with is the
disastrous effect that the use of this limitless reservoir
of cheap labor—workers without rights or standing and
without the protection of either the Mexican or United
States Governments, and bordering on conditions of peonage—
22

Orozco, No Dogs, Women, or Mexicans Allowed, 180; Cynthia
Orozco, “Brief History of LULAC in Austin,” La Voz de Austin,
August - September 2010; Patrick J. Carroll, Felix Longoria’s
Wake: Bereavement, Racism, and the Rise of Mexican American
Activism (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003).
102

has on the nearly two-and-one-half million American
citizens of Mexican and other Latin-American extractions
who are permanent residents of the Southwestern part of the
United States, many of whom are forced to migrate as
23
displaced persons because of their inability to compete…
The American G.I. Forum had a similar position.

In 1954,

Executive Secretary D. Idar sent a letter to President Dwight D.
Eisenhower that called for an end to labor recruitment across
the border.

According to Idar, this practice represented “an

incredible sell-out and callous indifference to the needs of
three million Spanish-speaking citizens of the Southwest.”
Earlier in 1950, founder Dr. Héctor P. García criticized
national political leadership for neglecting the rights of local
citizen workers in Texas.

“No organization can compete with the

paid full-time workers, lobbyists, etc. which the Valley Citrus
and Growers Association and Farm Bureau have had for many
years,” he declared.

24

23

“Mexican Worker Imported Protested, 1947,” EGP, Box 24,
Folder 13, GLSCDSU; letter to Honorable Tom C. Clark, from R.A.
Cortez, National President, November 4, 1948, RASRTC, GRDL, RG
174, Box 1, NACP.

24

Telegram to the President, from D. Idar, Executive Secretary,
American GI Forum, Austin, Texas, January 18, 1954, Dwight D.
Eisenhower Records as President, White House Central Files
(hereafter DDERPWHCF), Box 968, DDEPLM; “Protest, American G.I.
Forum, September 28, 1953,” Subject Files of Secretary James P.
Mitchell, 1953-1960 (SFSJPM), GRDL, RG 174, Box 6, NACP;
“Statement of Hector P. García,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 7, HSTLM.
103

The views expressed by these two organizations were
complemented by related work from other individuals, including
Carlos E. Castañeda and George I. Sánchez.

The former

criticized the ill-treatment toward the “Latin American citizen”
within a longer history of discrimination.

As he stated to the

U.S. President’s Committee on Civil Rights in 1947:
Refusal to give the Latin American citizen equal
opportunities for employment and advancement, and the
denial of the same wage for the same type of work to
members of this group have condemned this segment of our
population to a substandard level of living that forms the
basis for all other forms of discrimination by which the
economic exploitation is justified.
Sánchez was more direct in his critique.

“The fruit growers in

the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas have declared recently that
the prevailing wage in the industry is 25 cents an hour,” he
noted as well in 1947.

Doing so, however, forced “Mexican

American citizens, who pay taxes and are citizens of this
country, to lower their standard of living and work for 25 cents
an hour, or remain unemployed.”

By 1963, Henry B. González from

San Antonio, the first Mexican American in Texas to serve in the
U.S. House of Representatives, also added his voice.

The

longtime congressman began his official political career as an
elected city councilman in 1953, during the period of the
Bracero Program.

“I cannot understand,” he stated, “why these

men are unsuitable for work in Texas but are suitable for work
as far north as Wisconsin.”

Whereas growers turned to
104

undocumented farm labor, according to González, they repeatedly
turned away local citizen labor for employment.

25

In spite of

these and other declarations on behalf of displaced Tejano
workers, they still could not counter the strong economic hold
that employers had in Washington, D.C. through lobbyists and
growers associations.

25

Letter to Robert K. Carr, President’s Committee on Civil
Rights, from Carlos E. Castañeda, Professor of History, May 9,
1947, RPCCR, RG 220, Box 3, HSTLM; letter to Robert K. Carr,
Records of the President’s Committee on Civil Rights, from
George I. Sánchez, May 6, 1947, RPCCR, RG 220, Box 3, HSTLM;
“Statement of Hon. Henry B. Gonzalez, A Representative in
Congress from the State of Texas,” Hearings before Subcommittee
on Equipment, Supplies, and Manpower of the Committee on
Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives, Eighty-Eighth
Congress, First Session on H.R. 1836 and H.R. 2009, March 27-29,
1963.
105

Figure 4. “Travel Patterns of Seasonal Migratory Agricultural
26
Workers”

26

Small text along East Coast reads: "From Puerto Rico."
Source: “Domestic Agricultural Migrants in the United States,”
Public Health Service Publication No. 540, Commissioner's
Office: Migrant Labor File, 1940-1965 (hereafter COML), Box
266, State Archives of North Carolina (hereafter SANC).
106

Figure 5. “Interviewing People for Migratory Farm Work, San
27
Antonio, Texas, May 7, 1946”

27

Full caption reads: “Opportunities for accumulating a good
seasonal bank roll are the principal inducements for the
thousands of Texas farm laborers who migrate to the Northern
beet fields every year. Employment of the migratory workers is
concentrated in San Antonio through the Consolidated Employment
Agency, 822 Buena Vista Street, composed of representatives of
nine companies...The various agencies send contact men into
South Texas to interview prospective families for employment.”
Source: San Antonio Light Photograph Collection, 1924-1993
(hereafter SALPC), Institute of Texan Cultures, University of
Texas at San Antonio (hereafter ITCUTSA).
107

Conclusion
This chapter underscores the historical impact of the
Bracero Program in South Texas and the systemic inducement of a
Tejano diaspora.

A surplus of agricultural labor through the

expansion of the Bracero Program enabled growers to foment
divisions among Texas Mexicans and workers from Mexico, and, in
the process, pursue more capital within the international
political economy.

Formalized divisions based on citizenship, a

marker of military conquest, served as an important strategy
used by employers for this purpose.

While wage differentials

and unequal competition for jobs were the norm, these conditions
were reflective of the expansion of commercial agricultural as
opposed to a natural phenomenon.
Tejanos, braceros, and undocumented workers all experienced
dimensions of disposability, subjected to the needs, wants, and
desires of commercial agriculture.

Through threats of

deportation by employers and in collaboration with the U.S.
Border Patrol, braceros and undocumented workers encountered
blatant forms of labor repression, which also thwarted attempts
at labor organizing.

In spite of U.S. citizenship, employers

refused to employ available Tejano farmworkers because of the
propinquity of the United States-Mexico border.

Notions of

citizenship and social equality proved to be circumstantial at
best, and at worse, simply did not apply.
108

One important destination outside of Texas for Tejano
farmworkers was the Mississippi Delta.

As we shall see in the

next chapter, experiences of displacement present in South Texas
already set the trend for what was to come.

109

CHAPTER THREE
"ONLY AMERICANS:" THE BRACERO PROGRAM
AND DIFFERENTIAL DISPLACEMENT IN THE
MISSISSIPPI DELTA, 1940s-1960s

“Yet many growers still insist there
is a need for Mexican Nationals to pick
cotton. This action is taken only to
terrorize the American workers with a
great surplus of labor, and force them
to work for less than a living wage.”
--George Stith, Vice-President
1
of the National Farm Labor Union, 1950

Introduction
This chapter turns our discussion to farm worker
experiences in the Mississippi Delta states of Arkansas,
Tennessee, and Mississippi in the late 1940s.

Due to its

geographic location near Texas, the Delta region, principally
Arkansas, served as an important destination for the Tejanos.
Its close proximity enabled families to work during the harvest
and subsequently return to Texas, or pursue work opportunities
elsewhere.

Delta growers also began to request large numbers of

Mexican National workers to work alongside Tejano labor.

At the

same time, employer recruitment of Texas Mexican and Mexican
National workers added to an already large surplus of local
1

“Statement of George Stith, Vice-President of the National
Farm Labor Union,” President’s Commission on Migratory Labor,
Stenographic Report of Proceedings Held at Memphis, Tennessee,
August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, HSTLM, 155.
110

resident farm labor.

As I demonstrate in this chapter, the

expansion of the Bracero Program into the Delta region during
the post-World War Two period further complexified experiences
of displacement affecting all agricultural laborers, albeit in
different ways.
I address three themes in this chapter.

First, I examine

the experiences of braceros contracted for work in the Delta.

I

then turn to the experiences of Texas Mexican migrants.
Finally, I look at employer recruitment of inter-state migrant
labor, including Tejanos and braceros, in relation to local
resident farmworkers in the region.

In The Steps
During the Second World War, Mexican braceros were
contracted for agricultural labor mainly in California, the
Pacific Northwest, and parts of the Midwest.

While the number

of braceros during this period never peaked above 88,000, grower
participation in the program expanded in the post-World War Two
period, including into the Mississippi Delta.

By the end of the

1940s, more Mexican National workers were being sent to Arkansas
than any other state in the South outside of Texas.

111

In 1949,

braceros contracted in Arkansas accounted for 16 percent
nationwide, which ranked third behind Texas and New Mexico.

2

In this section, I examine the significance of Bracero
Program in the Mississippi Delta through the experiences of the
workers.

While braceros were contracted for work through the

international agreement, they had no mechanism to enforce
contract-related conditions on their accord.

The workers, thus,

relied heavily on Mexican government representatives to act on
their behalf.

This condition of dependence came to reflect a

critical systemic problem within the Bracero Program.
Bracero workers contracted on farms in the Mississippi
Delta had institutional support through the Mexican Consulate
based in Memphis, Tennessee.

Serving as an intermediary between

braceros and growers, the designated Mexican Consul Angel Cano
del Castillo played an central role in the region.

This

included investigating formal complaints issued by workers,
responding to complaints by growers, speaking with political
representatives and governmental agencies.

As Mexican National

workers arrived in large numbers by the end of the 1940s, formal
complaints were also registered.

2

In 1949, the United States

“PCML Report,” PSTP, Box 28, Folder 12, BLSCUCB. Regarding
the Bracero Program in Pacific Northwest during the Second World
War, see, Erasmo Gamboa, Mexican Labor and World War II:
Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947 (Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990).
112

Employment Service office in Dallas, Texas, reported at least
175 received complaints by bracero workers.

Approximately 50 of

these came directly from workers in Arkansas.

3

Given their critical role on behalf of braceros, contested
interactions between the Mexican Consul and local large-scale
growers were frequent.

In a 1952 incident, growers representing

the Crittenden County Farm Association submitted a formal
protest to their Arkansas political representatives, claiming
that they were receiving “unfair treatment.”

They were upset

that the Mexican Consul was investigating complaints by
braceros.

The growers also published their remarks in the local

newspaper.
association.

The Consul, in turn, demanded an apology from the
Although the result was unclear, this conflict

represented an example of the contested interactions between the
Mexican Government and large-scale growers.

4

In another incident 1957, Cano del Castillo learned that
braceros were being charged extra charges for off-the-job life
insurance coverage.

The Consul advised growers from three

3

“Asks Apology from Arkansas Group,” The Press-Scimitar, April
30, 1952, EGP, Box 25, Folder 7, GLSCDSU; “Statement of Judge
A.W. Oliver of Proctor, Arkansas,” August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG
220, Box 4, HSTLM, 60; telegram from USES, Department of Labor,
November 30, 1949, RASRTC, GRDL, RG 174, Box 1, NACPM.
4

“Asks Apology from Arkansas Group,” EGP, Box 25, Folder 7,
GLSCDSU.
113

growers associations to fully reimburse each worker for the
unnecessary charges, which were processed through the First
Pyramid Life Insurance Company of America in Arkansas.

Until

this was done, the Mexican Consul stopped business with the
designated insurance company in Arkansas insurance coverage for
braceros.

Furthermore, Cano del Castillo threatened to stop the

importation of workers.

This included approximately 300 Mexican

National workers who were contracted for work in Phillips County
in eastern Arkansas.

They were waiting at the labor processing

center in Hidalgo, Texas.

5

Growers turned once again to their political
representatives and governmental agencies.

Representing the

Phillips County Arkansas Farmers Association, President J.J.
White submitted a formal protest to U.S. Senator John McClellan
of Arkansas.

“We have a problem in reference to the contracting

of Mexican National Agricultural Workers,” stated White.

“This

is a very vital matter to us,” he continued, “and if we do not
prevail it will result in an additional burden on the farmers of
Arkansas in the future.”

Writing on behalf of the First Pyramid

5

Letter to Honorable James Paul Mitchell, Secretary of Labor,
from J.W. Fulbright, May 27, 1958, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box
235, NACPM; telegram to Honorable James Paul Mitchel, from
Herbert L. Thomas, President, First Pyramid Life Insurance
Company of America, May 29, 1958, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 235,
NACPM; “Present Status of Deduction of Off-the-Job Insurance,
Mexican Workers, Fall of 1957, Phillips County Arkansas Farmers
Association,” SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 235, NACPM.
114

Life Insurance Company of America, President Herbert L. Thomas
also contacted Secretary James Paul Mitchell from the U.S.
Department of Labor.

As Thomas stated, “we have no

responsibility in the overcharge they [the Mexican Consul] claim
was made by three [growers] associations in eastern Arkansas to
Mexican laborers.”

Rather, he expressed that the insurance

company wanted to be released from the “blacklist” issued by
Mexican Consul.

In turn, the company could then provide

insurance coverage to the 300 bracero workers waiting in Texas.
Eventually, the Mexican Consul relented and growers in eastern
Arkansas secured the labor they requested.

At the very least,

however, this example demonstrates the degree of contested
interactions between the two distinct factions.

6

Though the Mexican Consul intervened in this one incident,
there were too many complaints waged by braceros for staff to
respond adequately.

This demonstrates a critical systemic flaw

within the Bracero Program that provided certain work-related
protections on paper, but not consistently in practice.

At the

same time, the lack of accountability provided incentives for

6

Letter to Honorable John McClellan, United States Senate, from
J.J. White, President, Phillips County Arkansas Farmers
Association, May 24, 1958, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 235, NACPM;
letter to Honorable James Paul Mitchell, from Herbert L. Thomas,
President, First Pyramid Life Insurance Company of America, May
29, 1958, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 235, NACPM.
115

growers in the Delta to neglect contract provisions protecting
workers, which intensified incidences of abuse.
Completely dependent on others to enforce contract-related
provisions, Mexican National workers still responded to the
conditions they confronted.

One highly publicized incident took

place in western Tennessee in 1951.

Upon arriving on an 800-

acre plantation in Tiptonville, Tennessee, from Eagle Pass,
Texas, the braceros made several complaints that included lack
of adequate housing, lack of meals, low pay, and surplus of farm
labor.

The following note partly summarized their experiences:

Mexican cotton pickers charged tonight that Mr. Jamison
[the grower] had housed them in six cold, crowded army
barracks on a windswept lakeshore and had given them only
one stove per building for cooking and heating…They also
charged they had been brought 1,100 miles from Eagle Pass,
Texas to Tiptonville in open trailer trucks, one of which
had no water, and had only three 5-minute rest stops on the
way. They also said that only one water faucet for
cooking, drinking, and bathing purposes had been provided
for the entire camp, that too many pickers had been hired
for the plantation and they had been unable to make enough
money, and that two laborers had been arrested and charged
with theft when they had threatened to report on conditions
to [Mexican Consul] Mr. Cano.
The incident gained national attention when more than 100
workers arrived at the Mexican Consulate office in Memphis to
make their complaints known in-person.

They arrived by foot.

Initially, 49 Mexican Nationals left their place of employment
when their contracts were not being met by the grower.

They

walked more than 100 miles from the plantation in Tiptonville to

116

the Mexican Consulate office in Memphis.

An additional 50

workers followed, and 12 more also traveled 60 miles from the
same plantation near Keiser, Arkansas.

7

The Tiptonville grower, Terry Jamison, admitted no
wrongdoing although he tried to prevent more workers from
leaving.

When more than 15 braceros tried to subsequently

follow suit, they were quickly arrested and placed in the local
county jail.

Justifying these actions, the local sheriff stated

that “Terry Jamison [the grower] is a personal friend of mine.
I hate to see him lose all that money by the Mexicans running
away.”

He continued by stating, “When a man [Terry Jamison]

goes to heavy expense to bring workers here, pays them well and
fulfills his part of the contract in every respect only to have
other parties to the contract walk off at will, then there is
something wrong with the contract.”

Attention, however, was

already focused on this one incident by the media and
governmental representatives.

By choosing to stop working and

walk directly to the Mexican Consulate, the braceros exerted

7

“Laborers List Complaints,” News-clipping, EGP, Box 22, Folder
6, GLDSCSU; “Mexican Exodus Spurs U.S. Inquiry,” New York Times,
November 24, 1951, EGP, Box 22, Folder 6, GLDSCSU; “Second
Hearing Ordered in Mexican Worker Treatment,” EGP, Box 25,
Folder 5, GLDSCSU; memorandum to Phillip M. Kaiser, Assistant
Secretary, from A.W. Motley, Assistant Director, Bureau of
Employment Security, Subject: Agenda for Conference in Mexico
City on Agricultural Labor, January 18, 1951, RASRTC, GRDL, RG
174, Box 3, NACPM.
117

their influence and Cano del Castillo intervened once again.
Along with the U.S. Department of Labor, a joint United StatesMexican investigation was conducted, but nothing more.
Eventually, some of the workers took a bus ride back to Mexico,
as they “laughed and chatted amiably” along the way according to
one article.

8

As evident in the above example, workers frequently
responded when growers violated contract terms.

A

representative from U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service,
J.F. Delaney, provided a glimpse into the extent of this
practice in the Mississippi Delta.

According to Delaney, an

estimated 18,601 Mexican National workers were contracted for
work in the Delta in 1948.

From this number, approximately

2,910 workers, or 15 percent, left their places of employment
upon arrival.

In 1949, an estimated 5,277 out of 21,336

braceros protested contract violations, which represented nearly
25 percent of the total.

9

8

“Mexicans Laborers Tell Why They Left Tiptonville Jobs,” The
Press-Scimitar, November 23, 1951, EGP, Box 25, Folder 5,
GLDSCSU; “Mexican Laborers Sent Home by U.S.,” New York Times,
November 26, 1951, EGP, Box 25, Folder 6, GLDSCSU.

9

“Statement of J.F. Delaney, of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, New Orleans, Louisiana,” September 1,
1950, UCPCML, RG 220, Box 4, HSTLM, 269-270.
118

Those who chose to leave their work either returned to
Mexico or pursued employment elsewhere.

Due to discrimination

they encountered such as low pay, ten braceros decided to leave
a plantation in Mississippi in 1948.

Reportedly, the workers

preferred instead to return home and dedicate themselves to make
a living there.

In a 1953 case, Mexican National workers

decided to leave their place of employment in Lake County,
Tennessee, the site of the infamous Tiptonville incident in
1951.

Many ended up migrating to cities in search of

employment, including Chicago.

10

And still, some bracero workers

chose to join with Texas Mexican workers in the migrant stream,
as part of the Tejano diaspora.

10

“Discriminan a los Braceros los Rancheros de Misisipi,” El
Mañana, October 18, 1948, EGP, Box 25, Folder 2, GLDSCSU;
“Maltratan a los Braceros en Louisiana,” El Pueblo, July 17,
1948, EGP, Box 25, Folder 2, GLDSCSU; letter to Honorable Martin
P. Durkin, Secretary of Labor, from Estes Kefauver, June 18,
1953, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 6, NACPM; letter to Honorable
Estes Kefauver, United States Senate, from Secretary of Labor,
July 7, 1953, SFSJPM, GRDL, RG 174, Box 6, NACPM.
119

Figure 6. “Mexican Laborers in Tiptonville, Tennessee, November
11
23, 1951”

11

Source: Mississippi Valley Collection, Photographs and
Postcards, University of Memphis Special Collections.
120

“Only Americans”
This section highlights experiences of Tejano farmworkers
in the Delta region during the Bracero era.

Unlike their

counterparts from Mexico, Texas Mexicans were not bounded by an
international agreement.

Their experiences differed because

they had no formal recourse to follow and address their
complaints.

As citizen agricultural workers, they were also

without protections from most labor and security laws in the
United States.

At the same time, Texas Mexicans had options

available to them, and demonstrated an understanding of how to
defend themselves.
The Mississippi Delta had been an important destination
long before the Bracero Program.

As early as 1908, Carey

McWilliams noted that small numbers of Mexican workers were
employed on plantations in the Mississippi Delta.

That same

year, labor investigator Victor S. Clark reported, “From Texas,
Mexicans have been taken east as far as the Mississippi River,
and a few gangs of cotton pickers have been tried even in the
Yazoo Delta.”

In 1925, Paul Taylor noted that trainloads of

Mexican laborers were directly recruited for cotton picking, and
again in 1928 and 1929.
established in the 1930s.

Seasonal labor migration became
In 1937, Taylor observed, “now the

use of seasonal labor is appearing as a normal method of
operation, essential to mechanized farming.”
121

Hundreds of

migrants from the vicinity of Dallas, Texas, traveled to
plantations near Glen Allan, Mississippi, in 1936, and again in
1937.

With the possibility for work and continued employer

recruitment to northern states like Michigan, the Mississippi
Delta remained an important destination for the Texas Mexican
workers during the Bracero Program.

12

In this same period, the magnitude of Tejano labor
migration escalated sharply.

According to one report by the

U.S. Department of Labor, an estimated 108,000 Texas Mexican
workers entered the migrant stream in 1955.

From this number,

approximately 51,000 workers, or 47 percent, traveled across 31
states.

In 1959, another report suggested that more than

100,000 Texas Mexicans were part of the migrant stream, with
75,000 classified as inter-state migrants and around 15,000
making their own arrangements.

By 1959, Tejano workers had

traveled to at least 37 states across the country.

13

12

McWilliams, Ill Fares The Land, 249; Clark, “Mexican Labor in
the United States,” 485; Paul Taylor, “Mexican Labor in the
United States Dimmit County, Winter Garden District, South
Texas,” in University of California Publications in Economics,
Volume 6, no. 5 (Berkeley and London: University of California
Press, 1930), 308; “Greenville, Mississippi Notes from JB
Wright, July 2, 1936,” PSTP, Box 14, Folder 70, BLSCUCB; “Farm
Labor in Mississippi and Arkansas Deltas, 1937,” PSTP, Box 17,
Folder 4, BLSCUCB; Coalson, The Development of the Migratory
Farm Labor System in Texas, 34.

13

“Proceedings of Consultation on Migratory Farm Labor, 1957,”
Bureau of Employment Security, United States Department of
122

These numbers, of course, do not offer exact
approximations.

Work was secured through employment service

offices as much as through private grower recruitment efforts
and individual arrangements made by workers.

In addition,

statistical reports were not consistent in terms of who counted
as “workers,” such as adult women, adult men, youth, and
children.

At the very least, they demonstrate the geographic

reach and numerical breadth of migration.
As mostly U.S. citizen agricultural workers, Tejanos lacked
work-related protections under federal legislation.

During the

New Deal liberalism of the 1930s, U.S. workers made certain
strides to secure their right to work.

Most notably, this

included that National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935.

Also

known as the Wagner Act, the NLRA provided a legal means for
workers to participate in unions and collective bargaining to
improve their livelihoods.

Agricultural workers, however, were

exempt from this important legislation.

“Farmworkers did not

benefit from this period of dramatic transformation of the
industrial workplace,” noted Greg Schell in his study on
farmworker poverty.

“Instead,” he continued, “as labor laws

were passed to improve the conditions for workers, the doctrine

Labor, COML, Box 1, SANC, 32-33; “Farm Labor Fact Book, 1959,”
U.S. Department of Labor, NCALLC, Box 14, Folder 2, BLSCUCB,
128.
123

of ‘agricultural exceptionalism’ developed.”

Before 1960,

according to Schell, virtually all federal legislation that
offered work-related protections in the United States excluded
agricultural workers.

14

In addition, U.S. agricultural workers, including Texas
Mexicans, became dependent on the crew leader system for
employment.

This form of labor contracting enabled growers to

obtain the necessary labor during harvest and externalize their
responsibilities over the livelihood of the farmworkers to
individual crew leaders.

These responsibilities included,

supervisory functions on the job, trucking produce to
loading platforms or to markets, computing wages for
individual workers, maintaining time-sheets and records of
performance, paying the workers, providing labor camps and
housing, boarding workers, liability for sickness and
accidents sustained by workers in employment.
As L.A. Winokur and Chip Hughes also noted, “growers carefully
limit their legal responsibility for the workers in the fields
by ‘contracting’ with these ‘independent’ crew bosses to deliver
a certain level of production at the end of a day or week.
the crew leader gets results is his problem.”

How

Whether

contracting directly with crew leaders or the state employment
14

“Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico, December 31,
1948,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM, 8; Greg Schell, “Farmworker
Exceptionalism Under the Law: How the Legal System Contributes
to Farmworker Poverty and Powerlessness,” in The Human Cost of
Food: Farmworkers’ Lives, Labor, and Advocacy, eds. Charles D.
Thompson, Jr. and Melinda F. Wiggins (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2002), 141.
124

office, growers relied upon this system.

They were able to

secure the necessary farm labor and with little accountability.

15

In turn, the crew leaders assumed greater control over
farmworkers, with little or no oversight.

“The key to the whole

migration,” noted one statement by the Workers Defense League in
1950, “is the crew leader whose status shifts from recruiter to
transporter to contractor as he moves northward.”

Dependence on

the crew leader and with little oversight made workers more
susceptible to exploitation and abuse.

16

Family-based social networks formed the core of Texas
Mexican migrant crews, which reduced possibilities for further
abuse by crew leaders.

At the same time, they still encountered

additional liabilities both on the road and at their places of
employment.

According to a report by the U.S. Department of

Labor in 1950, one clear limitation for U.S. agricultural
laborers was the lack of safe transportation.

As the report

stated, “Frequently they are crowded into unsafe trucks, they
15

Liss, “Recruiting of Migrancy Farm Workers,” USPCML, RG 220,
Box 10, HSTLM, 5; Winokur and Hughes, “Workers at the Harvest,”
JPP, Box 31, DURBML, 55.

16

“Summary of Statement by Rowland Watts, National Secretary,
Workers Defense League, October 17, 1950,” USPCML, RG 220, Box
9, HSTLM, 2; “Explanation of Draft Bill to Provide for the
Registration of Crew Leaders in Interstate Agricultural
Employment, and for Other Purposes,” Papers of the President’s
Committee on Migratory Labor, Part I: Correspondence with
States, 1955-1963, microfilm reel 1.
125

mostly sit on board or wooden benches or on their personal
belongings, or even remain standing for hours at a time.”

In

addition, “they travel many hours without stops, without
adequate opportunity to secure food, drinking water, rest and
other necessities.”

17

One liability that had dangerous

consequences was the risk of death on the road.
In 1949, an incident took place when a truck driver was
hired by Arkansas growers to transport workers from Texas, and
fell asleep at the wheel.

“The truck overturned, killing two

passengers and injuring seven others.

The truck owner carried

no insurance and denied any legal responsibility.

Some

settlement was ultimately made in this case but it could not
bring back the dead.”

In 1954, a cattle truck overturned near

Del Rio, Texas, killing seven men.

In 1955, six Texas Mexicans

were killed and a seventh injured when their truck was struck by
a train in east Texas.

In 1956, another truck from Weslaco,

Texas, overturned on the road in Colorado.
and 17 women and men were hospitalized.

One baby was killed

18

17

“Suggested Recommendations of the U.S. Department of Labor to
the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, October 1950,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 9, HSTLM, 14.

18

“Suggested Recommendations of the U.S. Department of Labor to
the President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, October 1950,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 9, HSTLM, 14-15; letter to A.W. Worthy,
Texas Legislative Council, from Gwen Geach, September 27, 1956,
USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, DDEPLM.
126

Such incidences occurred frequently and affected all U.S.
migrant agricultural workers.

Another horrific traffic accident

took place in Fayetteville, North Carolina in 1957, when a flatbed truck hit a potato-laden tractor trailer. Eighteen Black
farmworkers were reportedly killed instantly, including women,
men, and a six-month old baby, while 15 more were injured.

In

1958, in another North Carolina accident, the truck driver ran
into a stop sign and hit another tractor trailer, which left 21
persons dead.

19

In a 1951 study, Samuel Liss explained that the conditions
of the trucks contributed to the frequent accidents.

“Not only

are many trucks found to be old and dilapidated and generally
uncomfortable and unfit for transportation of passengers,”
according to Liss, “but the conditions of transportation en
route do not meet the current requirements for the movement of
even cattle.”

In another study in 1957, Samuel Cox examined

migrant-related traffic tragedies, and observed, “each of these
accidents was characterized by excessive crowding and improper

19

"Report to the President on Domestic Migratory Farm Labor,"
USPCML, RG 220, Box 48, DDEPLM; "Who is Looking After the
Migratory Workers?" Greensboro Daily, March 10, 1959, Terry
Sanford Papers (hereafter TSP), Box 37, Wilson Library Southern
Historical Collection (hereafter WLSHC), University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill (hereafter UNCCH); "Death Rides in North
Carolina Highways," The News and Observer, July 20, 1958,
USPCML, RG 220, Box 6, DDEPLM.
127

operation of the vehicle transporting the workers.”

He

continued, “Incompetent driving, poorly maintained vehicles, and
badly crowded conditions have been elements in many accidents
involving the transportation of these workers.”

20

For Texas

Mexicans, the decision to face these risks in the migrant stream
demonstrated the enormity of the “migratory problem” in South
Texas as much as their determination to survive economically.
Mexican Consul Angel Cano del Castillo and designated
representative Gus García from San Antonio also documented
experiences for Texas Mexicans in the Delta.

Cano del Castillo

noted one instance in 1948, when he was traveling from Dallas,
Texas to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Along the highway, he assisted a
disabled truck with several migrants, all of whom were “American
citizens of Mexican descent.”

According to the Consul Cano del

Castillo, the migrants were already stranded for 36 hours
because the truck stopped working and no one else stopped to
help them.

After learning that they had no food, shelter, or

money, Cano del Castillo quickly went to a nearby roadhouse and
purchased food for them.

In the same trip, he encountered two

additional trucks with Texas Mexican workers.

20

He observed that

Samuel Liss, “Recruiting of Migratory Farm Workers by Labor
Contractors, Crew Leaders, and Other Private Agencies, January
15, 1951,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 10, HSTLM, 31; Ernest G. Cox,
“Migrant Worker Transportation Regulations, September 1957,”
Interstate Commerce Commission, COML, Box 2, SANC.
128

“the workers were forced to stand up, closely crowded together,”
according to the reporting article.

21

Appointed by the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio, Texas,
Mexican attorney Gus García traveled to Arkansas to conduct
investigations on behalf of braceros in 1948.

In testimony

before the U.S. President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, García
remarked,
I discovered that while conditions existing among the
braceros or contract laborers that have come into the
United States for seasonal work from Mexico, through the
International Agreement—that while their conditions were
bad in that, for example, in violation of the agreement,
they didn’t have any cooking utensils and so on, that while
their conditions were bad, they were nothing compared to
the conditions that existed among the natives of Mexican
descent, among migrant laborers. Thus, at least, Mexican
braceros had a roof over their heads, while the other
people, the people from Texas, the people from other states
who were native of our country, were living under trucks
22
and under trees.
As García explained, Texas Mexicans had no formal institutional
structures in place to support their rights.

He continued, “the

Government of Mexico was able to pay an attorney [himself] to
represent the interest of its nationals, and properly so.

But

there was no one at all to speak on behalf of the other people;
21

“Braceros Still Abused, Mexican Consul Says,” San Antonio
Express News, October 18, 1948, EGP, Box 25, Folder 2, GLDSCSU.

22

“Mexico Ask Probe of Arkansas Labor,” San Angelo Standard
Times, October 22, 1948, EGP, Box 25, Folder 2, GLDSCSU;
“Statement of Gus Garcia,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM, 215216.
129

they were only Americans.”
disposable.

In this way, they were rendered

As we have learned through the actions of the

Mexican Consul, there were instances when the Mexican Government
intervened on behalf of “Spanish-speaking Americans.”

23

With few

resources, however, these instances too were rare.
Lacking institutional support, Tejanos turned to themselves
for social and emotional sustenance, and self-protection.

This

dynamic was strengthened through the composition of most Tejano
migrant crews that relied upon family units and networks, joined
by former braceros.

In addition, Texas Mexicans held U.S.

citizenship and were, thus, not relegated to only one employer.
In opposition to unfavorable conditions they encountered, they
utilized their citizenship by exercising their right to move.
The migrant stream served as an important recourse in this
regard, even when this option carried certain risks road.

23

“Statement of Gus Garcia,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, HSTLM, 216;
“Brief to The Director, from J. Otis Garber, re: Illegal
Immigration from Mexico, January 13, 1949,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM,
2.
130

Figure 7. “Typical Workers from Weslaco, Texas in Poinsett
24
County, Arkansas, 1948”

24

Under the caption “Typical Workers,” the section reads:
“Hipolito Ramírez, Mexican, lives at Weslaco, Texas, with his
wife and six children, ranging in age from 18 months to 14
years. Up until four years ago, he and his wife earned their
living by day work in the area near their home in such
vegetables harvests as tomatoes, onions, and carrots. At that
time, he was recruited by Juan Gonzales, crew leader, for
employment on a 2,500 acre cotton plantation in Poinsett County
in Eastern Arkansas. Each succeeding year he has returned to
his employer in this state, traveling with his family in one of
the crew leader’s trucks.” Source: “Arkansas Agricultural
Activities Report, 1948,” Farm Placement Section, Arkansas State
Employment Services, 35.
131

Southern Diaspora
The increased presence of Texas Mexican and Mexican
National farmworkers after World War Two added to an already
large surplus of agricultural labor in the Mississippi Delta.
In this section, I examine how employer reliance on outside farm
labor, including Tejanos and braceros, further impacted the
lives of local agricultural workers.

One result, as we shall

see, was a process of out-migration from the Delta into other
geographic regions in search of employment.
Among the estimated 78,900 agricultural workers in Arkansas
in 1948, according to the Arkansas State Employment Service,
nearly 40 percent were either Tejano or bracero.

Approximately

17,500 migrants, or 22 percent, were reportedly listed as Texas
Mexican, and 13,000, or 16 percent, were Mexican Nationals.
Together, they were part of 35,700 migrant workers, or 45
percent of the total, who traveled to the Delta from outside
locations.

The remaining outside migrants originated from

either non-Delta counties in Arkansas or other states.

25

In 1954, the United Church Women of Arkansas also provided
a picture of farmworkers in the state.

According to their

survey, there were three primary populations working in
Arkansas:
25

“Arkansas Agricultural Activities Report, 1948,” Farm
Placement Section, Arkansas State Employment Service, 19.
132

First are the English-speaking migrants, both White and
Negro, who move through all the states in the East-West and
North-South patterns…Second are the Spanish-speaking people
from Texas (also Oklahoma and Arizona) who move mostly to
the North from Texas and return there sometime during the
year. The third group is composed of the Mexican Nationals
who are brought into the United States under contract to
work for a certain period of time only.
The numerical size and places of employment for bracero workers
were more certain.

“They are the only group,” the survey

stated, “who may be reasonably sure of work and conditions
before they leave their homes.”

Among the 26,350 international

workers who migrated to Arkansas in 1954, approximately 476 were
also listed as workers from the British West Indies.
remaining workers were Mexican Nationals, as braceros.

The
The

majority of all international workers, approximately 21,525,
were used for cotton picking.

26

Employment of non-local farmworkers provided several
advantages to growers in the Delta.

At the very least, they

were not tied to recent collective struggles waged by local
workers.

Unlike prior labor regimes of farm sharecropping and

tenancy, itinerant workers were only present for a short time to
complete the tasks at hand, and then left their places of
employment, with no further responsibility to the growers.

26

“Survey on Migrant Labor in Arkansas,” Ministry to Migrants,
United Church Women of Arkansas, 1954, USPCML, RG 220, Box 52,
DDEPLM; “Arkansas Agricultural Activities Report, 1954,” Farm
Placement Section, Arkansas State Employment Services, 11.
133

The surplus of U.S. citizen and non-citizen farm labor
offered growers additional leverage over workers.

Large-scale

growers often went to great lengths to pursue and employ Texas
Mexican workers in lieu of local farm workers.

A 1948

government report documented how large-scale growers from
Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana utilized private recruiting
efforts to recruit Tejanos and workers from Mexico to meet their
needs for short-term labor.

Growers from these states “are

becoming organized after the fashion of the Arizona cotton
growers.

They have their recruiting representatives.

It is

estimated that this year these private recruiters recruited the
large part of their migratory labor from Texas and from Mexico.”
The city of San Antonio again served as one of the important
geographic centers for recruitment.

“Generally, these San

Antonians,” according again to the same report, “spend the
winter doing odd jobs, mostly in connection with the tourist
trade, pecan hulling, and the like.

In the spring, they work in

agriculture in Texas or Arkansas, then to the beet fields or to
cotton picking.”

Despite the practice of rejecting local

citizen workers, Texas employers were still not pleased when
Texas Mexican labor was diverted elsewhere, as this diminished

134

their labor pool.

Still, according to one report, the available

surplus of labor made Texas ripe for inter-state recruitment.

27

Employer methods of recruiting Texas Mexican farm labor
resulted, in some instances, in direct competition with each
other.

In 1948, the Texas Employment Service office in San

Antonio directed Tejano migrant crews to one large-scale grower
in Louisiana.

Private labor agents employed by cotton growers

in Arkansas redirected the migrant crews to their state.

“By

paying the crew leader a bonus,” according to the same
government report, “his crews were diverted to Arkansas…These
recruiting agents work on the basis of so-much per worker
delivered to the site of the work.”

The farmers furnished

living quarters and cooking utensils for the workers.

28

As bracero labor increased in the region, particularly in
Arkansas, so too did growers from surrounding states compete
with each other about their limited access.

“All is still not

well in the shipment of labor from Mexico,” noted Ed B. Hill of
the Mississippi Bolivar County Harvesting Committee in 1948.
Hill sent his complaint to the labor processing center in
Monterrey, Mexico, where braceros were contracted for growers in
27

“Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico, December 31,
1948,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM, 6.

28

“Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico, December 31,
1948,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM, 7.
135

East Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and
Georgia.

Whereas growers in Arkansas received an abundance of

bracero labor that same year, according to Hill, the number sent
to Bolivar County and neighboring Washington County in
Mississippi was minimal, 150 and 200 workers respectively.
desired more.

They

29

When growers recruited Texas Mexicans for seasonal labor,
they described them as “good and reliable workers” in relation
to local farm labor in the Delta.

This characterization, of

course, contrasted with the predominant view by growers in South
Texas, who instead sought Mexican National labor.

Yet when

growers in the Delta began to employ Mexican National workers in
larger numbers in lieu of Tejanos and local farm workers, they
too used the same justification.
In 1950, John Stephens of the Crittenden County
Agricultural Service in Arkansas explained his desire for
braceros.

“My private opinion,” according to Stephens, “is that

Mexican Nationals offer the greatest possibility to use in this
cotton area.

We have tried migratory labor from other sections,

which has not been satisfactory, as a whole.”

29

Similarly, a

“Cotton Comment,” Common Appeal, September 28, 1948, EGP,
Box 25, Folder 2, GLDSCSU; “Department of Justice INS Monthly
Review, Volume 7, No. 9, March 1950, NCALLC, Box 14, Folder 19,
BLSCUCB, UCB; letter to William Belton, Department of State,
from Robert C. Goodwin, August 19, 1952, PDHS, Box 7, HSTLM.
136

grower from Mississippi County, Arkansas, Rufus Branch, had for
years employed Texas Mexican farmworkers.

In 1948, however, he

began requesting Mexican National workers through the Bracero
Program.

“I have one Mexican bringing me around 100 Texas

Mexicans a year,” explained Branch.

“Last year he promised me

he would come down and pick cotton until the cane season
started, and he didn’t show up, and if I hadn’t had the
Nationals, I would have been in pretty bad shape for cotton
pickers.”

30

Like growers in South Texas, Branch justified his

request for braceros by depicting Texas Mexicans as unreliable.
Similar as well to South Texas, the surplus of labor
enabled growers to foment divisions and displace local
farmworkers.

According to George Stith, employer recruitment of

braceros was used to reject local farm labor.

A local

farmworker and member of the National Agricultural Workers
Union, formerly the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, Stith
observed, “I was sure that no people would be imported from
Mexico to work on farms in Arkansas.”

There were too many local

workers from surrounding towns and cities who could go out to

30

“Migratory Labor in American Agriculture: The Report of The
President’s Commission on Migratory Labor, March 1, 1951,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 10, HSTLM, I-3; “Statement of John Stephens,
Member of the Crittenden County Agricultural Service, Marion,
Arkansas,” August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, HSTLM, 88;
“Statement of Rufus Branch, Farmer, of Mississippi County,
Arkansas,” August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, HSTLM, 83.
137

chop and pick cotton.

“If there are some local workers picking

cotton on the plantation,” he observed, “they are fired so the
Mexicans can be employed.”

Unlike bracero workers, the

“Arkansas cotton picker” was not guaranteed anything, according
to Stith.

31

In a separate incident, Stith recalled when truckloads of
local farmworkers searched for work near Pine Bluff and Little
Rock, Arkansas, in 1949.

When they approached one grower for

farm work, the response was, “Sorry, boys, but I have got these
Mexicans, and I have got to take care of them, of course.”

When

work was finally offered to the workers, they, in turn, refused
because of the lower pay.
the grower.

“You don’t have to take it,” claimed

“I can get Mexicans cheaper than that.”

Employer

recruitment of outside farm labor increased revenue for growers
and, yet, decreased employment opportunities for local
agricultural workers in the Delta.

32

This criticism of the Bracero Program also corresponded
with a related study by William H. Metzler in 1951, which
addressed the economic impact of bracero recruitment on U.S.
31

“Statement of George Stith, Hearings of National Advisory
Committee, Washington, D.C., February 5, 1959,” EGP, Box 24,
Folder 4, GLDSCSU.

32

“Statement of George Stith, Vice-President of the National
Farm Labor Union,” August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4,
HSTLM, 155.
138

citizen farm labor from the Delta.

Metzler documented how wage

rates for cotton chopping and picking decreased for U.S. citizen
farm labor in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Missouri by 1949, one
year after bracero labor was first used in the region.

In 1948,

he noted that U.S. citizen farmworkers from the region were paid
between $3.00 and $5.00 per hundred pounds of cotton.

In 1949,

their pay dropped to $2.50 to $3.00 per one hundred pounds.
Mexican National workers worked in the same location and yet
none were paid above $2.00 per one hundred pounds.

33

Already displaced by increased mechanized farming in the
cotton industry, local farmworkers experienced more unemployment
or low paid work when employers turned to non-citizen farm
labor.

This was the conclusion made by Father J.E. Crosthwait

from the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for Spanish-Speaking, based in
San Antonio.

In 1957, he visited 30 states where braceros were

employed, including Arkansas.

He concluded that recruitment of

33

William H. Metzler, “Staff Study No. 9: Employment, Wages,
and Earnings of Migratory Workers, February 1, 1951,” USPCML, RG
220, Box 10, HSTLM, 17-18; see also, “Statement of the Operation
and Effects of the International Executive Agreement of 1952 for
the Recruitment and Employment of Mexican Nationals in
Agriculture in the U.S., Submitted by the National Farm Labor
Union, AFL, 1951,” NCALLC, Box 20, Folder 16, BLSCUCB;
“Statement to The President’s Commission on Migratory Labor
Submitted by the National Farm Labor Union, July 1951,” EGP, Box
24, Folder 3, GLDSCSU; Henry Pope Anderson, “Health Attitudes
and Practices of Braceros: Report of Progress, January 1 –
December 32, 1957,” EGP, Box 14, Folder 4, GLDSCSU.
139

Mexican National workers by employers in Arkansas “had displaced
Negroes who for generations had lived and worked on, causing a
considerable exodus of the Negroes who thereafter sought work as
migrants elsewhere.”

Similarly, the Reverend J.A. McDaniels

from the Memphis Urban League noted that outside labor was
unnecessary.

“The cotton-picking season is welcomed by hundreds

of them [local farm labor] living in our area, for it means an
income,” stated the Reverend.

As one example, he noted that

Memphis, Tennessee served as primary destination for 12,000 and
15,000 Black farmworkers who experienced unemployment and underemployment during World War Two.

Their numbers, however, only

increased after the expansion of the Bracero Program into the
Delta.

Towns and cities became important destinations for

displaced Black farmworkers, particularly Memphis, and, similar
to South Texas, reflected a process of rural to urban labor
migration.

34

As Tejano diasporic migration reached unprecedented numbers
nationwide during the 1950s, they were preceded and accompanied
by a southern Black diaspora that included the Mississippi
Delta.

In response to the conditions they encountered, Black

34

Letter to Ernesto Galarza from Ted Le Berthon, January 29,
1958, EGP, Box 10, Folder 61, GLDSCSU; “Statement of Reverend
J.A. McDaniels, Secretary of the Memphis Urban League, Memphis,
Tennessee,” August 31, 1950, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, HSTLM, 139;
“Memorandum Report: Immigration from Mexico, December 31,
1948,” PDHS, Box 6, HSTLM, 7.
140

farmworkers too sought employment elsewhere.

Historian James N.

Gregory partly described this process of labor migration,
including Tejanos and Black workers, as a “Southern Diaspora,”
documenting the impact of southern communities in northern and
western states of this country.

35

South Florida, however, was also an important destination
for the Southern Diaspora.

In 1956, one state report on migrant

health noted that the majority of workers involved in the
Atlantic Migrant Stream originally came “from the cotton subculture of Georgia, South Carolina, and other Southern states
where they have been displaced by the westward movement of
cotton production, the depletion of the land in former cotton
areas, and the replacement of farming by industry in some parts
of the South.”

According to interviews with Black farmworkers

in the Belle Glade area of Florida in 1953, William Metzler also
concluded that the majority had traveled to South Florida from
other southeast states, including in the Mississippi Delta.
While Black labor migration to South Florida was heaviest during
the early 1940s, Metzler noted that 20 percent of those he
interviewed had migrated during the last four years.

In

addition, Earl Lomon Koos conducted a survey on agricultural
labor in Florida in 1957, and found that approximately 129 out

35

Gregory, The Southern Diaspora.
141

of 202 Black households listed Georgia as their state of birth.
Additional states of origin, in numerical order, included South
Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Virginia, Tennessee,
Louisiana, and Arkansas, respectively.

The majority of those

interviewed by Koos indicated that they left their homes because
they could not find local employment.

36

Conclusion
This chapter has continued our discussion on the Bracero
Program by focusing on the experiences of Mexican National
workers, Texas Mexicans, and U.S. citizen agricultural labor
from the Mississippi Delta.

As we have learned, each farmworker

population experienced displacement, although in different ways.
Mexican National workers were guaranteed work and certain
work-related protections under an international agreement, yet
did not have the means for enforce their rights on their own
accord.

They depended on others to act on their behalf.

Texas

Mexicans were also recruited for work in the Delta, yet they
36

“Agricultural Migrant Health Conference, April 1956,” COML,
Box 1, SANC; William H. Metzler, “Migratory Farm Workers in the
Atlantic Coast Stream: A Study in the Belle Glade area of
Florida,” U.S. Department of Agriculture Circular No. 966,
January 1955, USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 1; Earl Lomon
Koos, “The Follow the Sun,” Florida State Board of Health,
Jacksonville, Florida, 1957, USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM,
13; Memorandum to County Superintendents of Public Instruction,
from W.H. Marshall, General Consultant in Instruction, Subject:
Migrant Education, January 16, 1956, COML, Box 1, SANC, 12.
142

lacked any formal agreement to address their complaints.

At the

same time, their U.S. citizenship enabled them to move freely,
without being confined to one place of employment.

Local

agricultural workers also faced unemployment and underemployment that limited their economic mobility, which increased
with employer recruitment of outside farm labor.

Similar to

Texas Mexicans, however, the migrant stream served as an
important recourse for these workers to follow.

143

CHAPTER FOUR
ON THE MOVE: ORGANIZED MIGRANTS
IN SOUTH FLORIDA, 1950s-1970s

“We don’t want the farmers to run
the camp. If they do, you will have
to work for one farmer. If you don’t
want to work for that farmer, he will
throw you out. If there is a freeze
and there’s no work, the farmer will
throw you out.”
-- Matilda García,
1
Everglades Labor Camp resident, 1981

Introduction
The final two chapters in this dissertation analyze the
significance of Tejano labor migration within the Atlantic
Migrant Stream.

In this chapter, I turn to southern Florida,

and in chapter five, North Carolina.

Southern Florida and,

subsequently, eastern North Carolina became primary destinations
of migration.

Employer recruitment in the fields, plant

nurseries in Florida and dairy farms in North Carolina enabled
workers to eventually settle out of the migrant stream in both
locations.

This also allowed them to pursue similar employment

elsewhere in the South.

1

Cited in Susan Burnside, “Farm Workers Protest Farmer Takeover
Plan,” The Miami Herald, June 1, 1981, Steve Kirk Personal
Collection (hereafter SKPC).
144

In this chapter, I examine how Tejanos responded to
conditions they encountered in southern Florida between their
initial experiences in the 1950s, and the 1970s.

By analyzing

the significance of community activism in southern Florida, this
brief discussion also contributes to related scholarship on the
Tejano diaspora in Texas and Wisconsin.

2

Quiet Riot
Tejano labor migration into southern Florida took place
through out-migration from the Mississippi Delta and employer
recruitment in Texas.

Florida quickly emerged as an important

destination and home-base because of the available year-long
employment and additional seasonal jobs following the crops in
the Atlantic Migrant Stream.

This section examines their

initial experiences in Immokalee and Homestead.
When Tejanos began to work in southern Florida in 1950,
there was already a defined “migrant stream” of workers
following the crops along the Eastern Seaboard.

2

3

The Atlantic

Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora.

3

In one oral history interview, Lupe Pérez Rivera explained
that her family first migrated to South Florida in 1950. One
additional source noted that Texas Mexican migrants began to
appear in 1951, and others indicated the turning point to be
1953; oral history interview with Lupe Comse Rivera, May 1,
2013, interview with author; “Hearing Before the Florida
Citizens Advocacy Committee on Migrant Agricultural Labor,
145

Migrant Stream dates from before the turn of the twentieth
century.

In the 1890s, unskilled Italian immigrants from

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Polish immigrants from
Baltimore, Maryland, traveled to New Jersey as seasonal harvest
labor.

Black farmworkers from Virginia, Maryland, and North

Carolina also began to travel north for farm work.

In 1901,

according to the U.S. Industrial Commission, “colored labor from
the South was used in the New England States and that migration
from crop to crop and area to area was an established pattern
involving thousands of workers.”

Growers increasingly relied

upon Black farm labor from southern states.

By 1921, according

the Farm Placement Service, labor migration along the Atlantic
Coast had assumed a definite pattern.

4

Immokalee, Florida, March 28, 1956,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 55,
DDEPLM, 37; “Resource Paper on Children and Youth of Domestic
Agricultural Migrant Families, September 11, 1959,” USPCML, RG
220, Box 47, DDEPLM, 3; “Children and Youth of Domestic
Agricultural Migrant Families,” Public Health Service, U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1960, COML, Box 3,
SANC, 205; letter to Elizabeth B. Herring, from Rocco C.
Siciliano, June 1, 1956, NCALLC, Box 20, Folder 19, BLSCUCB.
4

Donald H. Grubbs, “The Story of Florida’s Migrant Farm
Workers,” The Florida Historical Quarterly 40, no. 2 (October
1961): 104; Metzler, “Migratory Farm Workers in the Atlantic
Coast Stream,” 2-3; L.A. Winokur, and Chip Hughes, “Workers at
the Harvest: Laborers of the East Coast Migrant Stream,”
Southern Exposure, Volume XI, No. 6 (November/December 1983):
57, Joan Preiss Papers (hereafter JPP), 1970-2006, Box 31,
DURBML.
146

The migrant stream soon extended southward toward Florida
when the “Everglades” area around Lake Okeechobee began to be
cleared out for agricultural endeavors, primarily for fruits,
vegetables, and sugar-cane production.

Through federal drainage

and irrigation practices, thousands of acres were reclaimed in
southern Florida for agriculture.

This expansion permanently

altered the movement of farmworkers.

The majority of

agricultural laborers continued to conclude their seasonal
employment in the north, such as New York or New England.

At

the same time, available winter-time employment in South Florida
became a principal focal point to the entire migrant stream.
According to one official study conducted in 1950, the majority
of the 1,754 migrant crews active in the Atlantic Migrant Stream
were based in Florida.

By comparison, second-ranked North

Carolina was home to 60 migrant crews.

5

5

Winokur and Hughes, “Workers at the Harvest,” JPP, Box 31,
DURBML, 58; Koos, “The Follow the Sun,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 55,
DDEPLM, 2; Scruggs, Braceros, “Wetbacks,” and the Farm Labor
Program, 29; Carolyn Corrie, “And Justice for All? The Migrant
Farmworker Crisis and the Failure of Liberal Reform,” Senior
History Thesis, Duke University, April 15, 1991, SAWF, Box PM4,
DHRA, DDEPLM, 15; Louis Persh, “An Analysis of the Agricultural
Migratory Movements on the Atlantic Seaboard and the SociEconomic Implications for the Community of the Migrants, 19301950” (Dissertation: The American University, 1953), 21; Olaf
F. Larson, and Emmit F. Sharp, Migratory Farm Workers in the
Atlantic Coast Stream (Ithaca, New York: New York State College
of Agriculture, 1960), 8; “Migratory Labor, June 22, 1950,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 1, HSTLM.
147

A principal destination for Tejanos was Immokalee, Florida,
located in western Collier County of South Florida.

During the

1950s, Immokalee transitioned from a remote small town to an
important destination for agricultural workers.

Grower Joe

Brown testified before the Florida Citizens Advisory Committee
on Migrant Agricultural Labor in 1956:

“I came here [Immokalee,

Florida] in 1949 to live, and I think there were four packing
sheds here when I came in.

Now I believe there are 17 different

packing operators here…It has really grown tremendously in the
last five years.”

When he first arrived in Immokalee, “there

were hardly any roads, but now we have several new hard roads
which have opened up all this other farm land and the people are
just flocking in here.”
possible employment.

Workers traveled to Immokalee to pursue

6

Expansion of commercial agriculture was accompanied by the
dramatic expanse of land devoted to harvesting crops.

As a

state county agent in Immokalee, Mr. Landrum, also testified in
1956, “I have been here four years…when I came in here at first
we had two major crops, tomatoes and cucumbers.
time, we are quite diversified.”

Since that

In Collier County,

approximately 18,000 acres were devoted to crops in 1956,
compared to “less than a thousand acres” in the 1946 and 1947.
6

“Hearing Before the Florida Citizens Advocacy Committee,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 30-32.
148

In 1956, 6,800 acres were used for the tomato crop, which also
required the most farm labor.

This was followed by cucumbers at

6,000 acres, watermelons at 5,800 acres, corn at 4,000 acres,
and potatoes at 3,900 acres.

These were then were followed by,

in numerical order, the cultivation of squash, pepper, and
eggplant.

Together, these crops took up approximately 26,500

acres of land in southwestern Florida, with the majority again
in Collier County.

By the end of the 1950s, the town of

Immokalee was surrounded by a sea of crops, and there were no
beaches.

7

Texas Mexicans traveled to southern Florida through
employer recruitment efforts and, subsequently, social networks.
This was the case for Texas Mexican crew leader Severo Anzaldúa,
whose migrant crew first traveled to southern Florida in the
1950s.

With dim possibilities for employment in South Texas,

Anzaldúa was recruited to Immokalee, Florida.

During his first

visit, growers then met with him directly to request more
workers from Texas the following year, which he did.

8

Like Texas, Arkansas, and Michigan, the state of Florida
quickly became important for Tejanos in the migrant stream that
7

“Hearing Before the Florida Citizens Advocacy Committee,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 2, 26.

8

Oral history interview with Rolando Contreras, April 30, 2013,
interview with author.
149

began in the 1950s.

One common experience was for Texas

Mexicans to work around Immokalee and, upon completion of the
work, continue their journey back to Texas or other locations in
need of farm labor.

One grower from Immokalee, Roy Miller,

relied upon two Texas Mexican migrant crews.

One crew numbered

around 100 and the second around 40 workers.

“They leave here,”

according to Miller, “and go to Arkansas and Texas and come back
in the fall.”

Similarly, Texas Mexican crew leader Mr. Romodiz

had been migrating to Immokalee since 1951.

For the next five

years, he had migrated to South Florida and yet still maintained
his permanent home in Texas.

“We close them up,” he stated.

For other workers, they instead returned to the Mississippi
Delta or further north to the Great Lake states.

As Romodiz

stated, “Some of the people go to Arkansas and to Mississippi to
work, but most of my life I’ve been in Texas.”

For his work as

crew leader, Romodiz was paid $3,000 to $4,000 by the grower.
He used this compensation to pay back his own expenses and
workers in his migrant crew.

9

9

“Hearing Before the Florida Citizens Advocacy Committee,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 22, 37; see also, “Hearing
Before the Florida Citizens Advisory Committee on Migrant
Agricultural Labor, Winter Haven, Florida, April 24, 1956,” from
Papers of the President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, 19551963, Part I: Correspondence with States, 1955-1963, microfilm
reel 18, 27-28.
150

While most Tejanos returned to familiar corridors of
migration, some chose to seek employment elsewhere in Florida.
One important destination further southeast of Immokalee was
Homestead, in Dade County.

As one observer noted in 1956, “The

increase of Texas-Mexicans has been tremendous.
they have increased from 300 to 2,400.”

In two years,

In 1957, a report from

the U.S. Department of Labor also highlighted the growth.
“Increasing numbers of Spanish-Americans from Texas,” according
to the report, “are beginning to appear.

Last year [in 1956]

when we visited Dade County, we estimated that there were about
2,400 in that county alone.

Four years ago, Texas Mexicans were

virtually unknown in Florida.”

By 1958, a housing survey on

Dade County estimated that among Texas Mexicans in that county,
one-third came directly from Texas.

10

The Gómez family was one of the families who traveled to
Dade County for farm work in the late 1950s.

The family,

consisting of Juan Gómez, “a wife, two grown sons, and two
little ones,” had traveled annually as farmworkers from South

10

Memorandum to County Superintendents of Public Instruction,
from W.H. Marshall, General Consultant in Instruction, January
16, 1956, COML, Box 1, SANC, 12; “Proceedings of Consultation on
Migratory Farm Labor, 1957,” Bureau of Employment Security,
United States Department of Labor, COML, Box 1, SANC, 32;
“Housing for Florida’s Migrants: A Survey of Migratory Farm
Labor Housing in Dade County, Florida,” Florida Industrial
Commission, United States Department of Labor, August 1958,
COML, Box 3, SANC.
151

Texas to the Great Lake states.

Their migration pattern shifted

when a crew leader from Brownsville, Texas, recruited them and
three additional families for work in Dade County, Florida.
Part of their decision to travel to Florida was also influenced
by friends who previously made the journey to Dade County, and
returned with favorable accounts regarding employment.

11

An additional incentive for traveling to South Florida was
the opportunity to follow the crops in the Atlantic Migrant
Stream.

This decision was indicated as early as 1952, when

missionary worker from Ecuador, Ed Jaramilla, visited North
Carolina.

According to a news bulletin from North Carolina

Council of Churches, Jaramilla reportedly also “lectured to the
Mexicans” during his visit in the state.

In addition, Texas

Mexican farmworkers were recruited by at least one asparagus
grower in Virginia in 1955.

According to the Virginia State

Employment Service, approximately 571 workers “found their way
to the Eastern Shore of Virginia, many of whom remained
throughout the entire harvest season.”

These workers had also

been employed by the same grower “in previous years,” according
to the same report.

11

12

“Housing for Florida’s Migrants,” COML, Box 3, SANC.

12

“Hands: The News Bulletin of the N.C. Ministry to Migrants,
August 15, 1952,” NCCC, Box 51, DMRRBML; “Annual Agricultural
152

With the availability of work in South Florida and along
the Eastern Seaboard, Tejanos soon began to cast their lot in
places like Immokalee, Homestead, and Florida City in the 1950s.
They became Florida Mexican residents.

A representative from

the Florida State Employment Service, Mr. Tooke, highlighted
this trend in 1956.
in.

“Really, it’s Immokalee they are interested

It isn’t the other parts of the area.

They especially

prefer Immokalee, and most of it is just sort of word by mouth
news, and they decide they would like to come here.

Sometimes

for the first time in Immokalee, they come and settle in
Immokalee.”

This included the Pérez family.

Lupe Pérez Rivera

was only ten years old when her family was recruited in San
Antonio, Texas, for farm work in Immokalee in 1950. “The kids
are going to make a lot of money,” claimed the crew leader.

Her

parents, María Esquivel and Cosme Pérez, had never heard of
Immokalee but decided to take the trip from Texas.

13

When they arrived at their place of employment in
Immokalee, they discovered that there was no available housing

and Food Processing Report, Virginia, 1955,” Virginia State
Employment Service, USPCML, RG 220, Box 4, DDEPLM.
13

“Hearing Before the Florida Citizens Advocacy Committee,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 3; oral history interview with
Lupe Pérez Rivera, May 1, 2013, interview with author. At 95
years old, Cosme Pérez was still alive and well in May 2013,
living in Homestead, Florida. His life partner, María Esquivel,
passed away in 2000.
153

and they had to sleep out in the woods, with a tent supplied by
the grower.

Lupe did not know what was going on.

She was

raised in a city and her family had never lived in a tent
before.

She did know that something happened when they saw

alligators near the creek where they were located.

Immediately,

her mother started gathering their belongings and declared that
they were leaving Immokalee.

She decided that her children were

not going to sleep near the alligators.

The family then

traveled further southeast and arrived in Homestead, where more
farm work was available.

Although they continued to follow the

crops in the Atlantic Migrant Stream through New York, the Pérez
family returned and settled in Florida because of year-round
employment.

They became one of the first Mexican American

families to call Homestead home.

14

Like the Pérez family, lack of housing was consistent with
different testimonies on migrant agricultural labor in
Immokalee, Florida, in 1956.

One Florida Employment Service

representative noted, “It’s frequently the case though these
[Texas Mexican] crews are needed most, living accommodation for
them are hard to find, and it has happened on occasion that
suitable living quarters weren’t to be had.”

Similarly, grower

Roy Miller described the situation as follows:
14

Oral history interview with Lupe Pérez Rivera, May 1, 2013,
interview with author.
154

We’ve got to have these laborers if we keep farming, and,
of course, when the Texas Mexicans first started coming
down to this country, we didn’t have housing for them. The
very first ones that came were put in tents. The following
years we made a little money and built them some houses,
trained them, pretty nice little houses to live in, with
electricity in some of them, but there’s still not enough.
According to another testimony by grower Joe Brown in the same
year, Texas Mexicans lived in some of the worst conditions among
farmworkers because they were isolated and had no shelter or
sewage.

“We didn’t look at the bad places in Immokalee today,”

he noted.
them.

“We didn’t have time to go out in the woods to see

There’s plenty of them here.”

Although lack of housing

was a chronic problem that faced all farmworkers who migrated to
South Florida, Texas Mexicans once again turned to themselves by
creating their own encampments.

15

By the end of the 1950s, Tejano labor migration to South
Florida reflected a certain collective resolve that was formed
by their varied experiences traveling to and from Texas.

This

sentiment was clearly demonstrated in a publicized conflict
between Texas Mexican farmworkers recruited for work in Dade
County in 1957, and their employer.

Similar to Immokalee,

housing in Homestead was an “acute problem.”

Among the few

options available were labor camps developed and owned by
growers, and public facilities.

As well, Texas Mexicans were

15

“Hearing Before the Florida Citizens Advocacy Committee,”
USPCML, RG 220, Box 55, DDEPLM, 3, 22, 31.
155

still “housed in tarpaulin roofed houses,” according to one
report.

16

One large labor camp was located northeast of the city and
became known simply as “Mexico City.”

This was the same labor

camp that was described years later to be like a prison because
of the deplorable housing conditions and guards that stood with
shotguns.

In subsequent years, this same camp was set ablaze in

mysterious fashion, and completely burned to the ground.
was hurt because the premises were vacant at the time.

No one

17

One Saturday morning in April 1957, according to a Miami
Herald article, local law enforcement was called to the labor
camp because of a “threatened riot” waged by the workers.

The

farmworkers were upset because their extra bonus pay was not
included in their final disbursement from their employer, B&L
Farms.

Their complaint was based on a prior agreement made

between them and a labor agent representing B&L Farms, who had
first traveled to Texas to recruit them.

When the workers

decided to travel to Florida from Texas, they did so with the
16

Memorandum to County Superintendent of Public Instruction,
from W. H. Marshall, General Consultant in Instruction, January
16, 1956, COML, Box 1, SANC, 13, 14; “Migrant Farm Worker
Housing Survey, Dade County, Florida, April 1956,” USPCML, RG
220, Box 2, DDEPLM, xii.

17

Oral history interview with Lupe Pérez Rivera, May 1, 2013,
interview with author; oral history interview with Steve
Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with author.
156

understanding that part of their pay was going to be withheld
and returned to them upon completion of the work.

As one worker

stated, “Most of us were hired in Texas…They told us there we
would get 65 cents an hour, and the company would hold back 5
cents per hour until the end of the season.”

Through this

agreement, the employer was guaranteed the necessary work to be
completed.

Concomitantly, the workers were to receive more

money in their final pay, which they needed to return to their
homes.

18

In response to worker complaints, company manager, Jack
Branch, explained that the workers did not follow part of the
agreement that included working six days a week, and ten hours
per day.

As a result, they did not deserve the bonus.

“We’ve

allowed them [the workers] all one day of unexplained absence,”
according to Branch, “but if they were off work oftener than
that, we refused to pay the bonus unless the absences had been
okayed by a doctor.”

For Branch, missing more than one day

without any notice to their employer proved enough to deny the
bonus.

“We did it [the agreement] in an effort to get workers

and keep them throughout the entire season,” he continued.
“They knew the provisions when they signed on in Texas with the
hiring agent.”

As proof, terms of the agreement were posted

18

“Show of Guns Quiets Pay Riots by Laborers,” The Miami
Herald, April 28, 1957, USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, DDEPLM.
157

throughout the labor camp and in Spanish, according to Branch.
The workers stated, however, that they never signed a contract
with the stipulation about missing days.

They were not informed

of claims made by Branch until they received their last pay.
Out of frustration, 700 workers went together to the
company office to confront their employer and retrieve their
owed money.

According to a Miami Herald article, some attempted

to overturn a company truck and others damaged housing
facilities at the camp.

They met the camp manager, Ed Tilly,

who quickly ran from the workers and sought refuge in the
company office.

Tilly then called law enforcement to come to

the camp and restore order.
the workers.

A deputy sheriff arrived to stop

“I showed them a tear gas bomb I was carrying in

my hand,” claimed the deputy.

Three additional sheriff vehicles

and deputy officers returned to patrol the camp throughout the
day, and armed with shotguns.

19

Behind the explanations used by their employer, the bottom
line was that the Texas Mexican workers were being robbed, and
they knew it.

This was evident in the “bonus” bonanza that

served two main purposes for the employer.

The scheme, first of

all, provided another means for B&L Farms to increase revenue
for the season.

19

With an average extra pay of $30 per worker,

“Show of Guns,” USPCML, RG 220, Box 2, DDEPLM.
158

this amounted to more than $21,000.

This estimated amount is

based on the number of workers who went to complain about their
pay, according to the article.

Second, the use of the term

“bonus” enabled the company to portray itself as giving and
benevolent.

Since the extra pay was a “bonus,” the company was

not obligated to award all workers, only those who followed the
rules.

This concept though was misleading because the extra pay

did not come from B&L Farms but from workers themselves.

The

final disbursement reflected what the workers had already
accrued for the season, from their own hands.
The actions of labor agent who recruited the Texas Mexican
workers also illustrate the extent of trickery involved in this
game of theft.

Representing B&L Farms, the labor agent assumed

an important position to recruit the desired workers from Texas
to Florida, which involved making whatever agreement necessary.
When the work was completed and the workers served their purpose
in Florida, B&L Farms only had to change the terms of the prior
agreement, operating from a position of dominance.

As the

workers were well aware, however, this only amounted to lies.
By responding to unfavorable conditions they encountered,
the workers still demonstrated a certain determination to assert
their collective will.

In other words, they were not just

passive workers, ready to jump as high or wide for their
employer, without question or debate.
159

Nor were they willing

participants in a game that already sealed their fate.

An

awareness of their rights as workers and their lives as human
beings was present, reflective of a sense of agency formed, in
part, through their respective experiences on the road.

160

Figure 8. “Major Migrant Work Areas in Ten East Coast States,
20
1956”

20

Source: “Health Services in Major Migrant Work Areas: East
Coast Guide, June 1956,” U.S. Department of Health, Education
and Welfare, COML, Box 1, SANC, 4.
161

Figure 9.

“The Atlantic Coast Migratory Stream, 1957”

21

21

Small text reads: "Dates Shown Indicate Heavy Season of Labor
Demand."
Source: Koos, “The Follow the Sun,” USPCML, RG 220,
Box 55, DDEPLM, 3.
162

Figure 10. “Show of Guns Quiets Pay Riot by Laborers, April 28,
22
1957”

22

Caption in photo reads: "Police, Guns Keep Workers Sullenly
Quiet in South Dade Ruckus." Small text in article partly
reads: "A threatened riot by some 700 Mexican tomato pickers
over wage payments dissolved Saturday in the face of sheriff's
deputies armed with tear gas and shotguns." Source: Papers of
the President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, 1955-1963, Part I:
Correspondence with States, 1955-1963, microfilm reel 1.
163

Figure 11. “Girl Leader of Migrant Crew Will Quit Road and Buy
23
Farm, Goulds, Florida, March 2, 1958”

23

Title reads: “Girl Leader of Migrant Crew Will Quit Road and
Buy Farm, March 2, 1958.” Source: News-clipping, USPCML, RG 220,
Box 48, DDEPLM.
164

Organized Migrants
The collective unrest continued to grow as more Tejanos
settled out in South Florida in the 1960s and the 1970s.

In

this section, I examine the formation of Florida Mexican
community activism in South Florida during this time period.
The work of the Organized Migrants in Community Action (OMICA)
emerged as an important community organization for migrants and
former migrants to amplify their voices over issues that
affected their lives.

Most problems related to affordable,

available, and clean housing.

Although OMICA officially closed

its doors in 1980, I demonstrate here the historical
significance of this organization in the lives of farmworkers in
South Florida.
In the late 1960s, farmworker organizing was on the rise in
Florida.

In 1966, farmworker organizations founded by and for

farmworkers in the state were rare.

By 1971, according to a

Miami Herald article, there were at least 13 related
organizations in South Florida alone.

One example was the

United Farm Workers of Florida (UFWOF) that was founded in Palm
Beach County in 1971.

Distinct from the Florida organizing work

by the California-based United Farm Workers, the UFWOF was
founded by Tejano agricultural workers in response to a major
winter freeze that same year.

The UFWOF sought to provide

direct support to families establishing permanent homes in Palm
165

Beach County, as they became Florida Mexicans.

“The main aim of

UFWOF,” according to José Suárez in 1971, “is to give our
children a better life than we’ve had.”

Suárez was a former

agricultural worker who first traveled to South Florida from
South Texas in the late 1950s.

24

OMICA was among the earlier organizations to be established
in South Florida, officially incorporated in 1967.

The

organization from its inception was an “independent organization
formed and operated by farmworkers themselves,” recalled OMICA
organizer Juanita Alvarez.

With the exception of a small

fellowship to the OMICA co-founder Rudy Juárez from 1968 to
1972, in the amount of $10,000 annually, the organization was
completely independent of external funding through the first
five years of operation.

Farmworkers composed the majority of

the OMICA membership, and they used their own resources
collectively to fund the organization.

“We decided farmworkers

know their problems best and can solve their problems better
than other agencies,” as OMICA organizer Victor García stated in
1971.

This financial independence enhanced the grassroots

24

Georgina Martinez, “The Migrants’ Return: Desperation
Renewed,” The Miami Herald, December 27, 1971, SKPC; James J.
Horgan, “The Union Makes a Difference: The United Farm Workers
Organize in Florida,” Southern Exposure, Volume XI, No. 6,
November/December 1983, JPP, Box 31, DURBML, 62-65.
166

organizing efforts among farmworkers, and enabled OMICA to take
more aggressive positions on behalf of the membership.

25

The impetus was oppressive working conditions that
farmworkers experienced as well as challenges faced by more
settled farmworker families.

Widespread negative experiences

toward children of farmworkers in schools also prompted the
formation of OMICA.

In 1961, a “Spanish-for-Spanish speakers”

program was initiated in Dade County, and in 1963, a “fullfledged bilingual program” was adopted at Coral Way Elementary
School in Dade County, the first in the United States in nearly
50 years.

This signaled the rise of similar programs

nationwide, including in North Carolina in the 1970s, and yet
children of migrant farmworkers were not the primary
beneficiaries in South Florida.

Part of the problem, according

to Fernando Cuevas Jr. who was raised migrating between Central
Florida and Ohio in the 1970s and 1980s, was the social stigma
associated with “migrant.”

“Once you’re stamped, you’re

stamped,” he bemoaned, as he recalled how this label affected
his own schooling.

In addition, parents in Dade County had no

direct representation in the schools, which made their children
more susceptible to abuses.

Similar to the UFWOF, OMICA sought

25

Email correspondence between author and Juanita Alvarez
Mainster, August 12, 2013; Martinez, “The Migrants’ Return,”
SKPC.
167

to direct supported farmworker families who established
permanent homes in South Florida.

26

Steve Mainster recalled the first time he traveled to South
Florida to meet with OMICA members in 1973.

He had previously

volunteered for the U.S. Peace Corps in Peru, which instilled in
him a desire to work with Spanish-speaking peoples on return.
He decided to work with farmworkers in New York, where he first
met Puerto Rican and Mexican American farmworkers from
Homestead.

Through a friend in Miami, Steve then received an

invitation to visit with a civil rights farmworker group in
South Florida.

They met at an old abandoned labor camp in

Homestead.

As Steve described, the place was vibrant and full

of energy.

People were coming and going, and they had great

discussions, talking about real problems that affected their
lives in Homestead.

“All the things I cared about,” Steve said.

Although the organization initially had no money to pay him,
26

Amado Padilla, “Bilingual Schools: Gateways to Integration
or Roads to Separation,” ,” in Bilingual Education for Hispanic
Students in the United States, eds. Joshua A. Fishman, and Gary
D. Keller (New York and London: Teachers College, Columbia
University, 1982), 50; James Crawford, Bilingual Education:
History, Politics, Theory, and Practice (Trenton, New Jersey:
Crane Publishing Company, 1989), 26-28; Guadalupe San Miguel,
Contest Policy: The Rise and Fall of Federal Bilingual
Education in the United States, 1960-2001 (Denton, Texas:
University of North Texas Press, 2004); email correspondence
between author and Juanita Alvarez Mainster, August 12, 2013;
oral history interview with Rolando Contreras, April 30, 2013,
interview with author; oral history interview with Fernando
Cuevas Jr., March 29, 2013, interview with author.
168

Steve still agreed to work with them as a volunteer staff.
was thrilled,” he said.

“I

Eventually, Steve received a pay of

$100 per week, which he gladly accepted.

27

At this first gathering, Steve also recalled meeting Rudy
Juarez, whom he described as the “César Chávez of South Florida”
and the face of OMICA.

Born in San Benito, Texas, in 1938, Rudy

was raised as a migrant farmworker with his family, part of the
Tejano diasporic migration that traveled from South Texas to the
Mississippi Delta and the Great Lake states.

Similar to other

Texas Mexicans, the Juárez family first traveled to South
Florida in 1950s, arriving directly from Blytheville, Arkansas.
Eventually, they too became Florida Mexican residents.

During

his formative teenage years, Rudy recalled one incident he
witnessed in South Dade that infuriated him.

“I saw a bunch of

my people beaten up by Homestead police at the corner of Krome
and Mowrey,” he stated, “when they tried to use a gas station
restroom.”

His own experiences growing up in South Florida, and

the conditions his family encountered in the migrant stream,
exposed Rudy to daily injustices faced by farmworkers.
also influenced his desire to work for change.

27

They

Prior to helping

Oral history interview with Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013,
interview with author; oral history interview with Steve
Mainster, August 4, 2010, interview with Charles Numrich, Art in
Action Oral Histories Project (hereafter AAOHP), University of
Miami Special Collections (hereafter UMSC).
169

establish OMICA in 1967, Rudy worked as an investigator with
Florida Rural Legal Services.

He passed away in 2010.

28

Two highly publicized incidents highlighted key problems
that agricultural laborers faced in South Florida in the 1970s.
In 1971, a major winter freeze affected the entire agricultural
industry in the region.

Then in 1973, one of the worst typhoid

epidemics in the twentieth century broke out at a farmworker
labor camp in Homestead.

The work of OMICA was critical in

both.
When an unexpected winter freeze took place in January
1971, thousands of farmworkers were left with no work and no
pay.

This was the case for Hank Torres, who traveled to Florida

with his family.

“We’re getting deeper in debt and there’s no

way out,” stated Torres, who had to borrow money from his
employer to feed his family.

“We are already behind in payments

on the car, groceries, and rent,” he stated.

According to Al

Aguet who represented the Florida State Employment Service in
South Dade, the winter freeze was disastrous.

“This is the

about the worst I’ve seen it around here in the 16 years I’ve
been here,” he claimed.

The federal government offered aid to

28

Sam Jacobs, “Emergency Programs Insufficient,” The Miami
Herald, February 20, 1971, SKPC; Edith Robertsen, “Dade Migrant
Leader Resigns but He’s Not Ending the Fight,” Miami News, June
2, 1977; “Centro Campesino-Farmworker Center, Inc., Historical
Overview: October 1975 to the Present;” oral history interview
with Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with author.
170

growers in South Dade to help them recover from the winter
freeze.

Farmworkers, however, received nothing.

29

Concern for the affected farmworkers was the priority for
OMICA members.

According to OMICA organizer and leader Rudy

Juarez, many faced either eviction or threats of eviction
because they had no money to pay their rent.

In response, OMICA

members sought to make Dade County as a “disaster area” so that
federal relief funds could be used to support the more than
25,000 workers affected by the freeze.

In this way, they could

at least obtain food stamps for the first time as well as
unemployment compensation.

30

To make this happen, OMICA members first contacted Governor
of Florida, Reubin Askew.

When they received no response, a 33-

member delegation representing the organization traveled from
Homestead to Tallahassee, Florida, in early March 1971.

They

went directly to the Governor’s Mansion where they staged a
demonstration, demanding to speak with Askew.

Although the

delegation did not meet with the Governor that day, he finally

29

Earl DeHart, “Food Rolls to S. Dade,” News-clipping, February
25, 1971, SKPC; Sam Jacobs, “Emergency Programs Insufficient,”
The Miami Herald, February 20, 1971, SKPC; oral history
interview with Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with
author.

30

“Migrant Unit Agrees to Back Disaster Area Bid by Juarez,”
News-clipping, SKPC.
171

relented a few days later and asked President Richard Nixon to
declare freeze-stricken areas in Dade County a disaster zone.
But Nixon was not inclined to act.

31

After learning that the

President was at his winter home in Florida (Key Biscayne White
House), OMICA members then decided to take their requests
directly there.

Approximately 10 busloads and 15 carloads of

Mexican American farmworkers from South Dade, Immokalee, La
Belle, and Fort Myers arrived at the compound on March 13, 1971.
Together, 700 persons representing mostly farmworkers as well as
clergy and attorneys were present for the demonstration.

A

vigil was held and OMICA President Ramon Rodríguez prepared a
petition to give to Nixon.

Part of the petition read,

We are without work, without hope of work. We have no
money for food, for rent, for gas and electricity. We
cannot provide for the necessities of life—our children are
weak and sick—we don’t even have enough money to escape
these dehumanizing conditions. If this country can airlift
emergency aid to Pakistan, if this country can provide
relief for starving people over 15,000 miles away, surely
it can take care of its own people who find themselves,
through no fault of their own, in a disaster situation here
in Florida.
Only a Secret Service agent came forward to greet the
delegation.

After unsuccessfully waiting 20 hours to speak

directly with President Nixon or a close aide, the group walked
31

“South Dade Migrants Picket at Askew’s Office,” The Miami
Herald, March 7, 1971, SKPC; Georgina Martinez, “Askew Rapped
for Disaster Area,” The Miami Herald, March 12, 1971, SKPC; Earl
DeHart, “January Freeze is Blamed,” News-clipping, March 6,
1971, SKPC.
172

to the nearby beach and slept.

Eventually, they all returned to

their respective communities in South Florida, without meeting
with the President.

32

All was not lost, as Nixon relented and responded a few
days later.

He then declared South Florida a disaster area.

This was the first time that a federal relief program was
approved for farmworkers affected by crop freezing in the United
States.

An initial allocation of $2.5 million dollars in

unemployment funds was included as federal aid.

33

An additional concern still affected the farmworkers with
the food relief program that accompanied federal aid.

Items

such as powdered milk, powdered eggs, canned meats, peanut
butter were disbursed in bulk as part of the program, but these
did not meet the dietary needs of the farmworkers.

“You have to

buy other stuff to mix with commodity foods and the people don’t
have the money,” added Connie Treviño.

Rather than accept items

they could not use, more than 500 Mexican Americans gathered
together in Homestead and voted to boycott the food relief

32

Hunter George, “Bid to See President a Failure,” Newsclipping, March 14, 1971, SKPC; oral history interview with
Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with author; Carolyn
Jay Wright, “Desperate Migrants Quit Vigil near Nixon Home,”
News-clipping, March 15, 1975, SKPC.

33

Mike Baxter, “2.5 Million in Funds Allocated,” The Miami
Herald, March 16, 1971, SKPC.
173

program.

Instead, they requested a food stamp program that

enabled them to obtain foods of their own choice.

Russell

James, the regional director of the U.S. Food and Nutritional
Service that supplied the items, stated that the farmworkers
were being “uptight.”

34

To demonstrate their discontent, two truckloads containing
several hundred pounds of disbursed food items were taken by
farmworkers to a food relief center in Florida City, where they
were dumped.

This action along with the boycott finally

prompted a response by the federal government.

Thereafter,

federal officials purchased 20 crates of bell peppers from
Texas, bags of onions from Michigan, and sacks of potatoes from
South Dade.

In addition, Governor Askew approved the

disbursement of food stamps for the farmworkers.

35

In spite of this unprecedented political victory, Florida
Mexican farmworkers continued to face problems related to
housing.

Even as migrants began to receive federal support, for

example, they still lacked the necessary funds to pay their
34

Earl DeHart, and Mike Baxter, “Decision May Stifle
Complaints,” News-clipping, March 20, 1971, SKPC; “Migrants
Boycott Federal Food Handout,” News-clipping, March 18, 1971,
SKPC.

35

DeHart and Baxter, “Decision May Stifle Complaints,” SKPC;
Tom Jones, “Food Dumped as Others Wait for It,” News-clipping,
March 19, 1971, SKPC; Dick Holland, “Power Cut to 200 Migrant
Homes,” Miami News, March 22, 1971, SKPC.
174

bills.

In March 1971, electricity was disconnected for 200

migrant families at labor camps in Homestead because of overdue
payment.

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” according to

George Eicher from the Homestead Housing Authority.

In this one

incident, the Greater Miami Coalition was able to raise $2,000
to restore electricity for the 200 migrant families in South
Dade and Redlands Labor Camps, both of which were operated by
the Homestead Housing Authority.
year was a housing shortage.

One additional problem that

“There’s just no housing,” stated

Victor García on behalf of OMICA.

“People are squeezing into

rooms and apartments and doubling up because there’s no
housing.”

In response, the OMICA offices in Immokalee and

Homestead both stayed open at night to provide shelter.

36

The housing shortage caused by the 1971 winter freeze
demonstrated to the distinct strategic positioning of South
Florida.

The region represented a principal location for

commercial agriculture, including nursery and landscaping.

To

meet demands of commercial agriculture, the farmworker
population consisting of outside workers and local residents
constantly fluctuated.

This, in turn, caused sporadic issues

related to lower pay, over-population, and social service

36

Holland, “Power Cut to 200 Migrant Homes,” SKPC; Sam Jacobs,
and Earl DeHart, “Homestead Restores Power,” The Miami Herald,
March 23, 1971, SKPC; Martinez, “The Migrants’ Return,” SKPC.
175

neglect.

At the same time, South Florida was located in a

geographic area prone to unexpected calamities, particularly
winter freezes and summer hurricanes.

In 1971, those who bore

the brunt of the winter freeze were farmworkers.
they were rendered disposable.

As “buffers,”

37

One catastrophic event related to housing took place two
years later in 1973.

In January 20, 1973, a child from South

Dade Labor Camp in Homestead was admitted to the Variety
Children’s Hospital as the first case of typhoid fever in the
area.

The South Dade labor camp was operated by the Homestead

Housing Authority.

A month later, his younger sibling and a

pregnant woman from the South Dade labor camp were also
hospitalized for typhoid fever.

Six more cases were diagnosed

on February 27th, and 13 more the next day.

By March 1, 1973,

30 additional persons were found with typhoid.

An emergency

clinic was then established at the labor camp on March 2nd, when
then a serious case of typhoid outbreak was finally recognized
by the Dade County public health officials.

37

38

Barrera, Race and Class in the Southwest, 48.

38

According to Webster’s Dictionary, typhoid is a “communicable
disease characterized by fever, diarrhea, prostration, apathy,
headache, splenomegaly, eruption of rose spots, leukopenia, and
inflammation of the intestinal mucosa caused by bacterium”
(2476); Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the
English Language Unabridged (Springfield, Massachusetts:
176

Lack of hospital beds at the local hospital were a major
reason why public health officials delayed recognizing the
typhoid epidemic.

“It was difficult to tell people we suspected

they had typhoid fever, and then tell them we couldn’t find a
hospital bed for them,” stated Dr. Jerome S. Beloff from the
South Dade Community Health Center.

Furthermore, he continued,

the Dade County Department of Public Health was “reluctant to
call this outbreak a community crisis [even] when 20 patients
had been hospitalized and a larger number sent home for lack of
hospitals.”

The county health expert on infectious diseases,

Dr. Joel Nitzkin, argued rather that medical differences of
opinion delayed the outbreak admission.

“There was disagreement

about whether every patient needed hospitalization, or whether
this should be reserved for the most seriously ill,” he stated.
Prior to recognizing the outbreak, approximately 81 women, men,
and children with typhoid symptoms were refused admission at the
Jackson Memorial Hospital.
to the labor camp.

Instead, they were told to go back

39

News of the outbreak also increased mistreatment toward the
residents at the South Dade Labor Camp.

“We have been used to

discrimination for long years,” stated Rudy Juarez of OMICA.
Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2002), 2476; Fraser Kent, “Typhoid Action
Called 10 Days Late,” The Miami Herald, April 11, 1973, SKPC.
39

Kent, “Typhoid Action Called 10 Days Late,” SKPC.
177

“But now we are suffering the worst problems in my memory
because people think they are going to get the fever merely by
looking at us.”

Similarly, Enrique Martínez described one

unsettling experience in the following manner:

“At a local

supermarket where we buy food the girls at the counters began to
run away as soon as we went to the cashiers to pay for our
food.”

At least four residents of the labor camp were fired by

their employers who feared the spread of the disease.

In

addition, at least 70 families who lived at the camp could not
pay their rent, and 30 migrant families were reported leaving
the property.

According to attorney Truman Skinner who

represented the Homestead Housing Authority, the amount owed,
which totaled more than $8,000, was directly related to the loss
of earnings by those infected with typhoid.

Instead, the

families chose to return to South Texas, where they had homes in
Cameron, Hidalgo, and Willacy counties.

40

Once the epidemic was declared, several organizations
became involved.

The OMICA Homestead office became the

coordinating center for transportation, registration,
distribution of de-contaminated water, and moral support.

40

OMICA

Roberto Fabricio, “One New Case is Reported,” The Miami
Herald, undated, SKPC; H. Drew Upright, “Stricken Migrants Owe
$8,000 Rent,” Miami News, April 3, 1973, SKPC; Phil Gailey, and
Joel Greenberg, “18 More Migrants in Hospitals,” The Miami
Herald, March 10, 1973, SKPC.
178

members, some of whom were also affected, became the principal
advocates.

They were the most vocal in opposing the decision by

the county quarantine the labor camp.

According to the county

public health officials, the decision was made to prevent
typhoid from spreading to other locations in the area and to
treat those affected in their own homes.
hospital beds.

And there were no

OMICA members, however, disagreed and demanded

the best medical treatment at a proper hospital for those
infected.

They needed to be hospitalized, they insisted.

41

Rudy Juárez contacted the county manager directly to
express their collective demand.

The response was that there

was no room at Jackson Memorial.

If they did not find a way,

countered Juarez, an OMICA delegation was going to organize a
press conference that lambasted the county.

They were also

going to do this on the front lawn of the county manager.

Two

days later, the members learned that Coral Reef Hospital,
subsequently re-named Jackson South Hospital, was to open nearby
and one wing was ready to treat the farmworkers.
a new hospital,” stated Steve Mainster.

41

“OMICA opened

Later, those infected

Morton Lucoff, and Helga Silva, “Typhoid Victims to get $800
Each,” Miami News, August 27, 1976, SKPC.
179

were finally transferred to Jackson Memorial Hospital, once they
had enough space.

42

After much inquiry, the county public health officials
confirmed that the entire water supply under South Dade labor
camp had been contaminated.

A drainage ditch surrounding the

camp affected the water for the camp, which caused the
contamination.

In the following, Dr. Jerome Beloff described

why the outbreak occurred in greater detail:
Although some of the housing units at the South Dade Labor
Camp have private bathrooms, many have no toilets and the
occupants must use communal toilet and shower resources
scattered about the camp. Sewage flows through a network
of pipes to a disposal plant about one-half mile from the
camp center. It is treated with chlorine and the effluent
is put into a canal system that surrounds the camp on three
sides. The sewage collection system is reported to have
frequent breakdowns, with backed-up sinks and overflowing
toilets. A 20-foot deep well supplies the camp with all
its water for drinking, washing, and cooking. Tests
performed by the Public Health Department showed frequent
contamination by bacteria since 1970. A test of the water
on December 29, 1970, showed such organism and a low
chlorine content.
Due to the contamination, at least 189 persons from the South
Dade labor camp were hospitalized for typhoid, and more than 300
families were in some way affected.

Three years later in 1976,

an out-of-court settlement was finalized for 115 families to
receive $800.06 each.

Although lawyers had earlier stated this

42

Oral history interview with Steve Mainster, August 4, 2010,
interview with Charles Numrich, AAOHP, UMSC; oral history
interview with Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with
author.
180

amount, another article noted that the actual disbursement was
lowered to $443.69.

The remaining compensation was slated for

attorney fees, reimbursement to the Jackson Memorial Hospital
for patient treatment, and reimbursement to the state for
Medicaid payments.

43

The settlement, of course, did not extend to all families.
Some learned too late, many left South Florida and did not come
back, or others declined to participate.

Regardless, the

proposed compensation could not erase the horrible experiences
from 1973, like when then-10 year old Marisela Cruz started
feeling chunks of her own hair falling to the ground.

44

For members of OMICA, the typhoid catastrophe also
demonstrated the greater need for farmworker-owned housing.

In

Dade County, for example, workers were dependent on rental
housing that either operated haphazardly by the city, such as
the South Dade labor camp where the typhoid epidemic took place,
or were controlled completely by their employer.

They

subsequently envisioned a new non-profit agency for workers to
own and control the type of neighborhood housing they wanted.

43

Roberto Fabricio, “One New Case is Reported,” The Miami
Herald, undated, SKPC; Kent, “Typhoid Action Called 10 Days
Late,” SKPC; Morton Lucoff, “Migrant Typhoid Suit Settlement
Blocked,” Miami News, September 10, 1976, SKPC.

44

Lucoff, “Migrant Typhoid Suit Settlement Blocked,” SKPC.
181

Equally important, the OMICA membership desired a new agency to
compete with growers and city housing authority over the living
conditions of farmworkers.

In 1973, the OMICA Housing

Corporation, Inc. was officially established by the OMICA Board
of Directors to meet this challenge.

45

As with other farmworker organizations of the period, OMICA
did not survive past the decade.

More than just a temporal

passing, or “a splash,” the organization still added to a legacy
of farmworker activism in South Florida for future generations
to behold, and left a lasting imprint through subsequent
community organizations and initiatives, which continue into the
present.

Former OMICA members, in other words, continued to

stay engaged, including with the Coalition of Florida Farmworker
Organizations founded in 1980, and Centro Campesino-Farmworker
Center, Incorporated, in 1981.
One important example, to be discussed in more detail in
the near future, involved the devastation of a farmworker labor
camp in 1992, following Hurricane Andrew.

What was initially

established in Florida City as temporary housing for families
affected by the typhoid epidemic, as discussed in this chapter,
the Everglades Labor Camp remained in haphazard condition for
the remainder of the 1970s and 1980s.
45

Hurricane Andrew provided

Oral history interview with Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013,
interview with author.
182

a unique opportunity for former OMICA members to provide direct
emergency support to affected families and address the issue of
farmworker-owned housing once again.
The office of Centro Campesino, a direct outgrowth of the
OMICA Housing Corporation, served as a central organizing hub in
the wake of the hurricane.

Over one million dollars in donated

food, clothing, diapers, and medical supplies were distributed
by the organization, and a “tent city” was built that
accommodated over 500 people on the same property.

Through

Centro Campesino and the Everglades Community Association, the
Everglades Labor Camp subsequently became a model of farmworkerowned housing for the first time in South Florida.

46

46

Oral history interview with Juanita Alvarez Mainster, April
29, 2013, interview with author; oral history interview with
Steve Mainster, April 29, 2013, interview with author.
183

Figure 12. “Camp Quarter in South Dade Labor Camp, March 15,
47
1973”

47

Former military barracks that served as housing units for
agricultural migrants at the South Dade Labor Camp is shown
above. Today, according to Juanita Alvarez Mainster, these same
barracks are now the location for a childhood development
center. Source: Miami News Collection (hereafter MNC), Box 37,
History Miami Archives and Research Center (hereafter HMARC).
184

Figure 13. “Typhoid Hits Florida Workers, March 23, 1973”

48

48

Small text reads: "Two children suffering from typhoid fever
are loaded onto an ambulance at the South Dade Labor Camp, Dade
County, Florida." Small text at top reads: "The official voice
of the United Farmworkers." Source: Farmworker Movement
Documentation Project; available at
http://farmworkermovement.org.
185

Figure 14. “Migrant Worker Demonstration, August 1, 1973”

49

49

Small-text on far poster show multiple farmworker
organizations active in South Florida, including PROOF, OMICA,
LOOK, and FAMU. Other small-texts partly read: "Puerto Rican
Migrant Power," "Washington Help Save our Program MMDS," "We
Need Help for Better Living," and "Please Help Us Migrants, Our
Dream Come True." Source: MNC, Box 67, HMARC.
186

Figure 15. “Nuestra Lucha Newspaper, August 1976

50

50

Small text at bottom right reads: "At the shovel is Martin
Gomez, chairperson of the C.D. migrant farmworkers task force
accompanied by C.D. coordinator Sergio Pereira and Vice Mayor
Clara Oesterle at the ceremony to mark the fill of the South
Dade Labor Camp canal." Source: SKPC.
187

Figure 16. “OMICA Food Trailer at South Dade Labor Camp,
51
December 15, 1976”

51

The background banner on the trailer reads: "OMICA."
MNC, Box 67, HMARC.
188

Source:

Figure 17. “Striking Migrant Workers in Florida City, Florida,
52
January 26, 1979”

Conclusion
52

Photo caption reads: "Striking migrant workers kneel in front
of tomato-laden trucks at Florida Tomato Packers Inc. in Florida
City." Source: “Despite Arrests, Migrants Vow to Picket Today,”
Miami News, January 26, 1979, Miami-Dade Main Public Library,
microfilm reel.
189

In this chapter, I examined early community activism in
South Florida by farmworkers of the Tejano diaspora.

Their

varied responses reflected the problems they encountered,
particularly around housing.

The issues they addressed were

partly distinct to South Florida because of its geographic
location and strategic position within the Atlantic Migrant
Stream.
This chapter also enriches our understanding of the Tejano
diaspora.

As we have learned, Tejano workers and their families

turned to the migrant stream due to economic displacement,
reflective of a systemic phenomenon between the United States
and Mexico.

In spite of their circumstances, Tejanos still

exercised resources available to them.
This was evident as early as 1957, when 700 workers
gathered together to protest wages withheld from their final pay
at the infamous "Mexico City" labor camp.

As more migrant

families from Texas established permanent homes in the 1960s and
1970s, this practice continued.

The emergence of Florida

Mexican activism, embodied here in the work of OMICA, was, thus,
not happenstance but rather a culmination of their experiences
traveling to and from South Florida and Texas since the 1950s.
Focusing on South Florida from the 1950s through the 1970s also
demonstrates the national scope of Mexican American community
activism in the same period.

While "Mexican Americanism" was
190

present in states such as Wisconsin and Texas, according to Marc
Simon Rodriguez, South Florida also proved to be a critical
location.

The unfolding of the Tejano diaspora provided one

critical link in this process.

191

CHAPTER FIVE
"ATROCIOUS, INTOLERABLE, AND SINFUL:"
SILENCE AND SOLIDARITY IN THE FIELDS
OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1970s-1990s

“Something’s not right when 300 years
after bringing Africans here in chains,
even after the civil rights movement,
there are still African Americans living
here in plantation conditions.”
--Ventura Gutiérrez,
1
Johnston County, North Carolina

Introduction
In August 1977, a delegation of women, men, and children
representing farmworkers from South Texas and their allies
gathered together for a rally in downtown Raleigh, North
Carolina.

Under the banner “Texas Farmworkers March for Human

Rights,” the rally was part of a historic 1,600-mile march the
delegation was undertaking by foot from Austin, Texas, to
Washington, D.C.

When they decided head to the nation’s

capital, after they already marched from San Juan to Austin that
same year, the marchers had two goals in mind.

The first goal

was to obtain collective bargaining rights for all agricultural
workers.

The second related goal was to repeal Section 14(b) of

1

Cited in “Group Urges Farm Workers to Fight Back,” The News
and Observer, July 5, 1998, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
192

the Taft-Hartley Act, a provision that established “right-towork” laws that became prevalent in the southern United States.

2

“The decision [to march] was a difficult one to make,”
according to a press release on behalf of the Texas Farm Workers
Union (TFW) delegation.

“But the union board felt that the

violence and restrictive laws that farmworkers must confront
while organizing, and the lack of a strike fund necessitated a
different form of activity.”

When the South Texas farmworkers

marched and rallied in North Carolina in 1977, there was already
a visible presence of Mexican American and Mexican farmworkers
in the state.

3

In this chapter, I demonstrate two main points.

By the end

of the 1970s, growers in North Carolina increasingly turned to
Florida Mexicans and workers from Mexico to meet their needs.

2

Letter to Dear Reader, from Antonio Orendain, Texas Farm
Workers Union Collection, 1977-1980 (hereafter TFWUC), Box 1,
Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection (hereafter NLBLAC),
University of Texas at Austin Libraries (hereafter UTAL). The
late Esteban Jordan commemorated the 1977 farmworker march from
San Juan to Austin, Texas in one song, and then from Austin to
Washington, D.C. in another. Part of the former reads: “From
the Rio Grande Valley/from the small town of San Juan/the
farmworkers gathered/to begin to march/To fight for a cause/that
the gringo does not want to give/these are human rights/that we
must win.” Currently available at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WO13XtEaBk.

3

“Austin Friends of the Farmworkers Press Release, August 16,
1977,” María G. Flores Papers (hereafter MGFP), Box 1, NLBLAC,
UTAL; Johanna Seltz, “Farm Workers March Here,” The News and
Observer, August 24, 1977.
193

Employer labor recruitment of non-local agricultural workers did
not begin in the 1970s, but developed several decades earlier
amid the expansion of commercial agriculture in the midtwentieth century.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of

1986 reinforced employer reliance on outside labor through the
H2A guest worker program.

By the end of the 1990s, more H2A

workers from Mexico were contracted on farms in North Carolina
than any other state in the country.
Although a small concentration of Florida Mexicans was part
of the outside farm labor employed in North Carolina in the
1950s and 1960s, as a direct outgrowth of Tejano diasporic
migration, their presence, along with workers from Mexico,
became more visible in the 1970s.

By the 1990s, Mexican

American and Mexican farmworkers from the migrant stream, and
subsequently H2A workers from Mexico, were predominant on farms
in the state.

The demographic make-up of farm labor changed in

North Carolina by the 1990s, yet practices of labor control that
workers encountered resonated with existent colonial
configurations in the state.

Their experiences, in other words,

added to a culture of violence endemic to the growth of the
agricultural political economy.
This chapter is divided into three sections.

I first

analyze the initial experiences of migration and settlement for
Florida Mexican workers who traveled and settled in North
194

Carolina from the Atlantic Migrant Stream, as well as from Texas
and Mexico.

The next section examines ways in which farmworkers

experienced forms of labor control on farms in North Carolina.
In the last section, I focus on the significance of the H2A
program, which reflected more of the same for agricultural
laborers in the state.

Migration and Settlement
This section traces the initial experiences of migration
and eventual settlement for Florida Mexican and Mexican migrants
in North Carolina.

Although few worked in the state in the

1950s and 1960s, I demonstrate how employer recruitment and
subsequent social network processes made their presence more
visible in the 1970s.

By the 1980s, North Carolina was well-

established as a primary destination.

Year-long employment in

the fields, including dairy farms and poultry processing,
enabled workers and their families to settle out of the migrant
stream.
In North Carolina, employer recruitment of non-local farm
labor was not unique to the 1970s.

As early as 1940, there were

less than 1,500 agricultural workers who entered the state from
the migrant stream, and by 1950, the official number swelled to
30,000 workers.

According to the U.S. Employment Service in

1949, North Carolina received the fourth largest number of
195

migrant farmworkers in the Atlantic Migrant Stream, following
Florida, Virginia, and New York.

Farms in North Carolina

received the next largest concentration of inter-state
agricultural workers traveling northward from Florida.
By 1962, among the 12,153 farmworkers officially recruited
by the Employment Security Commission in North Carolina on
behalf of growers, 10,165 came from the migrant stream,
primarily Florida, while the remaining 1,988 farmworkers listed
were North Carolinians.

These figures did not include

international workers also recruited by employers.

During World

War Two, growers employed workers from the British West Indies,
primarily Jamaica, as well as German prisoners-of-war for work
in apple orchards near Hendersonville.

In addition, at least

410 Mexican National workers were contracted in North Carolina
through the Bracero Program in 1947.

4

4

“Facts About Migrants, September 22, 1950,” COML, Box 2, SANC;
“Migratory Workers in North Carolina,” NCCC, Box 51, DURBML;
Wayne D. Rasmussen, A History of the Emergency Farm Labor Supply
Program 1943-1947, Agricultural Monograph No. 13 (Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Agricultural
Economics, 1951), 226; Richard Lyons, “The Legal Status of
American and Mexican Migratory Farm Labor: An Analysis of
United States Farm-Labor Legislation, Policy, and
Administration” (Dissertation: Cornell University, 1954), 217;
Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C.S. Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor:
From the Bracero Program to NAFTA (Toronto, Ontario: University
of Toronto Press, 2011), 5; oral history interview with Mack
Edward Canipe, August 28, 2011, interview with author.
196

The predominantly Black farmworkers who traveled to North
Carolina from the migrant stream were recruited mainly for work
in vegetable and tobacco crops in the eastern region of the
state, including Camden, Pasquotank, Tyrrell, Beaufort, and
Carteret counties.

In western North Carolina, growers in

Henderson and Transylvania counties also employed workers for
apple orchards, beans, squash, cabbage, and potatoes.

In

addition, farmworkers from other states were recruited outside
of Florida.

In 1956, 3,000 agricultural laborers from Alabama,

South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi traveled to North
Carolina for work in tobacco, and thereafter returned to their
home states.

5

The decision by growers employ non-local labor was partly
in response to increased mechanized farming, which shortened the
season and required fewer workers year-round.

Perhaps most

importantly, workers were only needed on a short-term basis, and
then would leave, having no opportunity to establish community
roots and removing further responsibility from growers. Unlike

5

Morgan Kurtz, “North Carolina’s 30,000 Migrant Workers,” NCCC,
Box 51, DURBML; Hannah Miller, “As Many as 12 Persons May Share
1 Small Room,” News-clipping, NCCC, Box 51, DURBML; “Services to
Migrant Workers Through Public Welfare,” COML, Box 2, SANC;
letter to Ada McRacken, State Department of Public Welfare, from
J.W. Beach, Employment Service Commission of North Carolina,
September 30, 1957, COML, Box 2, SANC; letter to Ada McRacken,
from Employment Security of North Carolina, December 5, 1956,
COML, Box 2, SANC.
197

available North Carolina Black labor, farmworkers recruited from
the migrant stream had no collective memory to the locations
where they labored.

One story consisted of a migrant crew of

Black farmworkers from Florida who were recruited to Henderson
County, in western North Carolina.

According to the newspaper

reporter, “The migrant, his family and his co-workers live to
themselves in 11 camps, ‘foreigners’ to the local community.”
The practice of inter-state labor recruitment continued in North
Carolina into the 1960s and 1970s, and by 1977, “local field
labor is being displaced by migrant crews,” a New York Times
article reported.

Farmworkers from the migrant stream “are both

cheaper and easier to control because they can be held within
the camps, totally dependent on the crew leaders,” the article
continued.

6

There are certainly other considerations that explain the
decrease of North Carolina Black agricultural labor as the
predominant workforce and, in turn, the rise of inter-state
migrant farmworkers.

These include greater employment

opportunities in other industries, such as poultry, as well as
the historical stigma between farm labor and enslavement that
prompted younger generations to pursue work opportunities
6

Hannah Miller, “As Many as 12 Persons May Share 1 Small Room,”
News-clipping, NCCC, Box 51, DURBML; Charles R. Pugh, “The
Agricultural Economy of North Carolina as it Affects the Migrant
Worker, August 11, 1970,” NCCC, Box 56, DURBML.
198

elsewhere.

According to educator Mack Edward Canipe, social

gains from the civil rights movement prompted Black farmworkers
in North Carolina to settle out in cities in the 1970s.
analysis does not discount these views.

My

Rather, what is being

emphasized here is the systemic out-migration of North Carolina
Black agricultural workers from the fields, voluntarily or
otherwise, in response to the needs and desires of commercial
agriculture.

This dimension also, then, adds another important

layering to this varied story of dispossession and migration.

7

Although few Florida Mexicans traveled to North Carolina
for farm work in the 1950s, they appeared more frequently
through the 1960s.

In 1962, one reported indicated that the

majority of the 1,400 out-of-state farmworkers in Camden County
in northeastern North Carolina were “Negro, with a few of
Spanish descent.”

The following year, the North Carolina State

7

For considerations, see, “Near-Slavery is Found in Southern
Migrant Camps,” New York Times, August 28, 1977, JPP, Box 20,
DURBML; Joan Morgan, “African Americans and Agriculture,” Black
Issues in Higher Education, 17, no. 8 (June 2000): 23; David C.
Griffith, “Rural Industry and Mexican Immigration and Settlement
in North Carolina,” in New Destinations, 60-61; David Griffith,
American Guestworkers: Jamaicans and Mexicans in the U.S. Labor
Market (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2006), 59-61; Hahamovitch, No Man’s Land, 198199; Craig Heinicke, “African-American Migration and Urban Labor
Skills: 1950 and 1960,” Agricultural History, Volume 68, no. 2
(Spring 1994): 185; “Expert Cites Negro Shift,” Charlotte
Observer, November 25, 1958, Terry Sanford Papers, Box 38,
Wilson Library Southern Historical Collection, The University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill; oral history interview with Mack
Edward Canipe, August 28, 2011, interview with author.
199

Board of Health news bulletin highlighted “Spanish-speaking
Americans” entering the migrant stream.

“Many of them are

recruited by agricultural associations or large growers to work
as part of a crew,” the bulletin noted.

In 1964, an estimated

150 to 200 Spanish-speaking migrants traveled to North Carolina.
Another report indicated that over 12,000 migrants were
contracted for work through the Employment Security Commission
in 1965.

The “vast majority of these migrants are home-based in

the Florida-Georgia area and are predominantly American Negro
laborers, although approximately 10 percent are American Indians
with the rest a scattering of Mexican, Puerto Rican, and British
West Indies,” according to the report.

8

8

“Camden County, North Carolina Reports on its 1962 Child
Welfare Program for Migrant Workers,” State Board of Public
Welfare, COML, Box 3, SANC; “The Health Bulletin, The Official
Publication of the North Carolina State Board of Health, March
1963,” NCCC, Box 51, DURBML; “Plans for 1965 Migrant Labor
Program, November 17, 1964,” Sanitary Engineering Section:
Migrant Labor Camps Tabulations File, 1959-1969, Box 1, SANC;
“Migrant Labor Proposal, Title III-B, North Carolina Council of
Churches, February 18, 1965,” NCCC, Box 65, DURBML; letter from
Cromer H. Curtis, Forest City, N.C., August 26, 1963, Sanitary
Engineering Section: Migrant Labor Camps Tabulations File,
1959-1969, Box 1, SANC; “State Migrant Ministry Report in North
Carolina for 1964,” NCCC, Box 65, DURBML; “State Migrant
Ministry Report in North Carolina for 1965,” NCCC, Box 65,
DURBML; letter to William Oakley, from Samuel S. Wiley, July 21,
1965, NCCC, Box 65, DURBML; memorandum to State and Area
Directors, from Edith E. Lowry, Subject, ‘Amigo Mio,’ May 18,
1961, NCCC, Box 51, DURBML; “Report of the Pender County Migrant
Council, 1967,” NCCC, Box 56, DURBML; Harold L. White,
“Coordinator’s Report, June-July 1968, Albemarle Migrant Health
Service Project,” NCCC, Box 56, DURBML; “Minutes of the
200

In the 1970s, numbers of Florida Mexican workers in North
Carolina increased substantially.

Tommy Rhodes of the Rural

Manpower of the State Employment Security Commission reported
that 10,000 inter-state farmworkers traveled to the state in
1974.

Approximately 1,500 of these were “Spanish-speaking

migrants and there will probably be 2,000 in 1975.”

A 1978

report by the North Carolina Council of Churches estimated that
15 to 30 percent of all out-of-state workers were Spanishspeaking.

In 1980, Joshua S. Reichert indicated that the number

of migrants who traveled to North Carolina from other states
reached 30,000, an almost three-fold increase since 1974.

The

bulk of the growth occurred “among Spanish-speaking migrants,
many of whom are women and children who need impatient care,”
Reichert stated.

By 1980, it was also estimated that Mexican

Americans and undocumented Mexican workers composed about half
of the total migrant farmworkers in the Atlantic Migrant Stream.

Committee on Ministry to Migrants, October 30, 1967,” NCCC, Box
65, DURBML.
9

“Minutes of the Committee on Ministry with Migrants, April 4,
1975,” NCCC, Box 53, DURBML; “Farmers Count More on Migrant
Laborers,” Durham Morning Herald, August 11, 1976, JPP, Box 8,
DURBML; “Raleigh Report, Office of Social Ministries, North
Carolina Council of Churches, May 12, 1978,” JPP, Box 8, DURBML;
Joshua S. Reichert, “The Agricultural Labor System in North
Carolina: Recommendations for Change,” A Report Submitted to
Division of Policy Development, Department of Administration,
June 1980, 5; Reichert, “The Agricultural Labor System,” 14;
Alma Blount, Martin Gonzalez, and Steven Petrow, “Lost in the
Stream: Three Portraits of Migrant Farmworkers, With a Report
201

9

In 1976, staff at the State Employment Security Commission
office in Burlington, North Carolina, sought to recruit out-ofstate agricultural labor to meet the needs of tobacco growers in
the Central Piedmont area of the state.
Florida, South Carolina, and Texas.

They recruited from

Ted Davis from the

employment security office highlighted the importance of outside
labor recruitment, and particularly Spanish-speaking workers.
“It started with just a few five years ago.”

Among the

estimated 1,500 migrants in Central Piedmont counties in 1976,
approximately 75 percent were Spanish-speaking.

In addition to

tobacco, migrant crews also worked in fruit orchards and on
vegetable farms.

Despite high unemployment rates in Person,

Alamance, and other counties, growers still requested outside
farmworkers.

10

By the end of the decade, North Carolina served as the
important primary destination for Florida Mexicans.

Towns in

South Florida, such as Homestead, continued to serve as the
point of origin for most farmworkers traveling to North
Carolina.

At the same time, the geographic trajectory of labor

of Jamaican Cane Cutters in Florida,” Southern Exposure VII, no.
4 (Winter 1980): 67, JPP, Box 31, DURBML.
10

The Central Piedmont area included ten counties: Alamance,
Caswell, Chatham, Granville, Person, Vance, Orange, Guilford,
Rockingham, and Randolph. “Farmers Count More on Migrant
Laborers,” Durham Morning Herald, August 11, 1976, JPP, Box 8,
DURBML.
202

migration expanded.

Increasingly, agricultural workers did not

stop in South Florida but continued directly to North Carolina,
arriving from places such as Brownsville, Texas, and Mexico
City.

South Texas represented an important geographic center

and corridor for labor migration to North Carolina.
Nereida López partly reflected this expanse of labor
migration.

Born in Texas, López traveled directly to North

Carolina in 1975, where she worked on a farm picking zucchini
squash.

Unlike Florida Mexican workers from the Atlantic

Migrant Stream, López did not have previous ties to North
Carolina or Florida.

Her permanent home was in Texas.

According to the reporter, Rick Nichols, she also spoke only
Spanish and maintained close family relationships with loved
ones in Mexico, and sent part of her earnings to her mother.
Long-time Duplin County resident Juvencio Rocha-Peralta
recalled the first time he arrived in North Carolina in 1980,
from his hometown in Veracruz, Mexico.

He first traveled to

Texas, and then went directly to North Carolina.

Some workers,

he stated, traveled southward to South Florida from North
Carolina for work, en route back to Texas or Mexico.

U.S.

immigration authorities also noted the increase of workers from
Mexico in North Carolina.

INS staff person Louis M. Richard

estimated that 200 to 250 undocumented workers were apprehended
annually in the late 1970s.

“The problem is just beginning to
203

surface here,” he indicated.
office in Charlotte in 1979.

In turn, the INS established an
11

Available year-round employment in agriculture and related
industries provided a means for workers to travel and eventually
settle out in North Carolina.

Employment on poultry and dairy

farms, as well as construction, factories, and landscaping
provided a means for migrants to stay.

According to Peggy

Pardue Canipe of Yadkin County in the north central area of the
state, “If you had a dairy farm, you had hired a man.

Then his

wife and children lived there on the farm year-round because
that was not seasonal work.

There were a lot of dairy farms.

Through the dairy farms, they would stay.”

Similarly, Esteban

Echevarría recalled how his family eventually settled in North
Carolina from Guerrero, Mexico in the late 1970s.

“Back then,

there was a huge dairy industry [in North Carolina],” he stated.
Although his father worked the tobacco crop in the summer,
employment in dairy was how he eventually settled out of the
migrant stream.

Shortly thereafter, he brought the rest of his

11

“Inspection for Agricultural Camps, Division of Health
Service,” Sanitary Engineering Section: Migrant Labor Camps
File, 1963-1977, Box 3, SANC; “Some Illegal Aliens are Settling
in N.C.,” The News and Observer, July 2, 1979; oral history
interview with Juvencio Rocha-Peralta, June 22, 2011, interview
with the author; email correspondence between author and
Juvencio Rocha-Peralta, November 4, 2013; Rick Nichols, “Migrant
Labor Camp is Hardship Only to Those Who See It,” The News and
Observer, June 15, 1975.
204

family with him.

“That’s how we first ended up in North

Carolina,” according to Esteban.

Although the Echevarría family

subsequently followed the migrant stream to South Florida from
North Carolina, and then separated for one year in Texas and
Mexico, they eventually returned together and called North
Carolina home.

12

In addition to the dairy industry, poultry production
provided necessary employment for workers to settle out in the
state.

The rapid expansion of the poultry industry dated from

1950s, when North Carolina transitioned from an import to export
state economy in the production of poultry and eggs.

“By the

mid-1960s,” noted one study, “the chicken business had evolved
from a sideline on the family farm to a giant Southern-based
agribusiness,” which included North Carolina.

By 1966,

seventeen different companies merged “to form one of the largest
broiler producing corporations in the world, processing nearly
52,000,000 broilers a year.”

Meanwhile, Ralston Purina financed

the production broilers, turkeys, broiler hatching eggs and
replacement birds in eastern North Carolina.

By 1967, they were

seeking to accelerate their production of birds to 35 million

12

“Migrant Farmworkers in the East Coast Stream,” Migrant
Farmworkers in North Carolina Packet, Spring 1991, JPP, Box 31,
DURBML; oral history interview with Peggy Pardue Canipe, August
28, 2011, interview with author; oral history interview with
Esteban Echevarría, July 6, 2011, interview with author.
205

per year.

Similarly, Central Soy Company operated in Martin

County in the eastern region of the state, calling for an annual
production of 25 million birds for gastronomic consumption.
Related industries also experienced similar growth.

Whereas hog

production was virtually non-existent in the early 1960s, North
Carolina became home to the largest-scale hog operations in the
country in the 1970s.

13

13

“Our Incredible North Carolina Poultry Industry,” The News
and Observer, March 14, 1966; Charles E. Brewer, “Poultry
Expanding in Coastal Plain,” The News and Observer, March 13,
1967; “N.C. Leader in Hog Industry,” The News and Observer, June
21, 1976; “Migrant Farmworkers in the East Coast Stream,”
Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina Packet, Spring 1991, JPP,
Box 31, DURBML; Hope Shand, “Billions of Chickens: The Business
of the South,” Southern Exposure XI, no. 6 (November/December
1983): 77, in JPP, Box 31, DURBML. Tyson Foods represents one
noteworthy example of poultry industry expansion in the southern
United States. Founded in 1930s, by grower John Tyson in
Northwest Arkansas, the company further extended its reach in
the late 1960s, by acquiring nineteen additional businesses in
this period (14); Blood, Sweat, and Fear: Workers’ Rights in
U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants (New York, New York: Human Rights
Watch, 2004), 14.

206

Figure 18. “Summer Migrant Education Class in Kenly, North
14
Carolina, August 8, 1979”

14

For educator Mack Edward Canipe who directed the first
migrant education program in Yadkin County, the purpose was to
help students become more successful as they began to make roots
in North Carolina. “Some of these students are going to stay,”
he noted in 1980. The photo caption reads: “Pupils of the
Summer Migrant School and their art teacher, Miss Debbie
Christian, show their pride in the art work produced during the
program sponsored by the Johnston County school system. The
pupils are, left to right, Yolanda Gonzales, Peggy Soto, Theresa
Andrade, Maria Barajas and Carmen Alvarez; second row, Abel
Alvarez, Norma Alvarez and Carmelita Rodriguez.” Source: “Summer
Migrant School’s Program Made Learning Fun for Its Pupils,”
Kenly News, August 8, 1979, Support Services Area, Division of
Support Programs, Migrant Education Section: Regular School
Term Migrant Education Projects File, 1979-1980, AlamanceMartin, Box 1, SANC; “The Cow Goes ‘Moo’ and the Dog Goes “Hwa
Hwa,’” Enterprise, August 13, 1980, Support Services Area,
Division of Support Programs, Migrant Education Section: Annual
Evaluation Report File, 1980, Box 1, SANC.
207

Figure 19. “14 Year Old Salvadoran Refugee Collecting Eggs in
15
Breeder House, Iredell County, North Carolina, 1989”

15

Source: Ron Amberg Photographs, 1975-2004 (hereafter RAP),
Box 17, Archive of Documentary Arts (hereafter ADA), DURBML.
208

“Atrocious, Intolerable, and Sinful”
I now turn to an analysis of the experiences of migrant
farmworkers employed in the expanding agribusiness of North
Carolina in the 1970s and 1980s, and demonstrate employers’
varied practices of labor control.

Through their dependence on

the crew leader system, workers experienced wage theft, debt
peonage, physical violence, coercion, and geographic isolation.
Unlike South Florida, housing was completely grower-controlled
and privately-owned, which further exacerbated these conditions.
Florida Mexicans from the Atlantic Migrant Stream, as well as
from Texas and Mexico, too faced similar abuses.
When attorney George Carr visited farms in North Carolina
in 1977, he was shocked.

“The worst thing that could happen to

a farmworker,” according to Carr, “is for him [or her] to go to
North Carolina.”

He was part of an investigative team from the

Florida Rural Legal Services with more than a dozen
investigators, who spent two weeks in Johnston County in eastern
North Carolina.

The team concluded that the conditions they

observed in North Carolina represented forms of “modern-day
slavery.”

Their conclusion resonated with another study

conducted by Joshua S. Reichert in 1980, who asserted, “It would
be difficult to find a part of the country where agricultural
laborers are abused more and protected less than in North
Carolina.”

The crew leader system that farmworkers relied upon
209

for economic survival reinforced this culture of violence.

This

also meant that success of the crew leader system depended on
effective collaboration with individual crew leaders, who
functioned as “buffers.”

Though this form of labor contracting

was widespread and grew with increased employer demands for
outside farm labor, grower-controlled isolated housing in North
Carolina made experiences of violence more prevalent for
agricultural workers in the state.

16

Crew leaders used various means to rob from their workers
in North Carolina.

One was to increase the economic debt each

worker owed to the crew leader.

“Most weeks I worked I came up

short and I’d have to borrow money from the boss,” noted one
migrant farmworker in 1980 when referring to his crew leader.
“If I’d borrow $5, it would cost me $10 to pay him back.
always charged double,” he continued.

He

Workers were also charged

excessive fees for transportation, lodging, food, cheap wine,
beer, and cigarettes, which added to their debt.

Another tactic

crew leaders used was to pay their workers less than the full
amount for their work.

In 1980, Farmworker Legal Services of

16

Joan Preiss, “Perspectives on Food and Hunger Speech,
February 19, 1981,” JPP, Box 25, DURBML; “Migrant Conditions
Labeled as Slavery,” The News and Observer, August 1977;
Reichert, “The Agricultural Labor System,” 1.
210

North Carolina estimated that this practice affected 85-90
percent of all migrant farmworkers in the state.

17

Stevin Levin of The News and Observer uncovered abuses in
1980, when he worked “undercover” harvesting cucumbers at a farm
in Wilson County, in eastern North Carolina.

He lived and

worked as a farmworker for seven days. Levin reported that the
workers in the camp were not paid the federal minimum wage of
$3.10 per hour, but instead, received pay only for the amount
picked, called the “piece rate.” Levine also observed that the
crew leader, Walter Lee Claboine, sold beer, wine, and moonshine
liquor, and deducted the amount owed from wages.

18

Workers also experienced physical violence and coercion.
A long-time resident from eastern North Carolina recalled one
instance when two farmworkers tried to run away from their labor
camp.

When they were caught and returned, the crew leader and

assistants forced the workers to fight each other, and even
placed bets on which would win the match.
knocked down his counterpart.

Eventually, one

And when he stopped, the crew

17

Blount, Gonzalez, and Petrow, “Lost in the Stream,” JPP, Box
31, DURBML, 70; Joan Preiss, “We’ll See That Day Come ‘Round,
1980,” JPP, Box 25, DURBML.

18

Steve Levin, “Violations of Law Evident Even at Relatively
Good Camp,” The News and Observer, July 1980.
211

leader pounced on him.

The crew leader forced him to continue

to punching harder, while the other worker lay on the ground.

19

In another case reported by The News and Observer, Gary Lee
Walters and Joseph D. Romeo tried to leave their labor camp near
Benson, North Carolina in April 1979.

They were walking to a

nearby store to purchase toiletries for their living quarter.
When they were caught by the crew leader, Tony Booker Jr. and
his assistants, they were immediately beaten along the road.
Walters and Romeo were then forced to return to the labor camp
against their will.

The crew leader pursued and physically

abused Walters and Romeo because they left the labor camp
without permission and still owed money.

20

In another incident, Steve Kirk recalled one summer when he
interviewed agricultural workers in the state as a student at
Duke University in the 1970s.

One day, he noticed that two

Black farmworkers were running down an unpaved road.

After

speaking with the two men, Steve then learned that their boss
had tied them to a tree to prevent them from escaping.

During

the same period when Steve interviewed workers as a student, he
19

This story was expressed to me during an informal interview
with a long-time resident from the eastern part of the state,
while visiting Raleigh, North Carolina on August 24, 2011.

20

David McKinnon, and Mary Donne Peters, “Jury Convicts Crew
Bosses of Kidnapping, Enslavement,” The News and Observer,
August 22, 1980.
212

also recalled reading a billboard that stated, “The United Clans
of America welcome you to Smithfield.”

While workers were

subjected to forced confinement and humiliation, as Steve
learned, their treatment added to a culture of violence already
present in the state.

21

As another case, one woman responded to a newspaper
advertisement for domestic employment.

Unbeknownst to her, the

advertisement was placed by a crew leader in Nash County, in
eastern North Carolina.

“Three months later,” according to

reporting article, “she managed to get word to her family that
she was being held prisoner.”

According to Amin Khali, Johnston

and Sampson counties in eastern North Carolina had the “worst
quality of crew leaders in the state.”

Khali worked for the

Migrant Health Program and frequently observed migrant
farmworkers admitted for medical care.

“We have many people who

are admitted to the hospital because of gunshot wounds, stab
wounds, and other acts of violence,” Khali stated.

22

21

Barry Estabrook, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial
Agriculture Destroyed our Most Alluring Fruit (Kansas City,
Sydney, and London: Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2012), 161; oral
history interview with Steve Kirk, July 28, 2010, interview with
Kathiana Desir, AAOHP, UMSC.
22

Ginny Carroll, “Migrant Slavery Difficult to Prove,” The News
and Observer, July 8, 1980; Corrie, “And Justice for All,” SAWF,
Box PM4, DHRA, DDEPLM, 78.
213

One highly publicized incident of physical violence and
coercion took place in September, 1981, when two brothers,
Dennis Warren and Richard Warren, forced one worker in their
crew to work one day despite feeling sick.

They were contracted

at a farm in Nash County, owned by Cecil Williams.

When the

worker suddenly stopped picking sweet potatoes and vomited
blood, the Warren brothers refused him medical attention.
Instead, he was beaten by the brothers and two assistants.

He

continued working until he eventually collapsed, and was then
placed in a closed hot bus.

When medical help was called four

hours later, “it was too late.”

23

One year after this incident, farmworkers testified in
court against their former crew leaders, the Warren brothers.
According to their testimonies, the brothers used different
methods ranging from deception to actual kidnapping.

When some

workers tried to run away and were caught, they were confined to
a “jail house” at the labor camp.

The crew leaders often

carried pieces of rubber hose to force workers to do their job.
The Warren brothers were eventually convicted of slavery.

From

1979 to 1982, there were at least 16 federal slavery charges
issued against crew leaders operating in North Carolina alone.
Out of the 21 federal convictions of slavery in the five-year
23

Corrie, “And Justice for All,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DDEPLM,

98.
214

period of 1978 to 1983, approximately ten were based in North
Carolina.

24

During the same period from 1979 to 1982, farmworker
advocates in the state sought to enact an anti-slavery statute
in the North Carolina State Legislature.

Growers, however,

frequently lobbied to stop proposed legislation through the
North Carolina Farm Bureau.

From the perspective of growers,

enacting an anti-slavery statute implied that “slavery existed
in the state,” and which they considered an insult.

When an

anti-slavery statute was proposed and passed in the state
legislature, growers were only required to report “known
incidences to the county sheriff.”

This meant that crew leaders

could be prosecuted, but not the growers who employed them.
While crew leaders faced prosecution for slavery, growers in
North Carolina were only required to report suspicions to the
county sheriff, and they avoided any accountability over the
treatment of workers on their own property.

25

24

Corrie, “And Justice for All,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DDEPLM,
99; Winokur and Hughes, “Workers at the Harvest,” JPP, Box 31,
DURBML, 60; Catherine Rebecca Rhodes, “Modern-Day Slavery: The
Involuntary Servitude of North Carolina’s H-2A Farmworkers
Today,” Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
2000, SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DURBML.

25

Winokur and Hughes, “Workers at the Harvest,” JPP, Box 31,
DURBML, 60.
215

Grower-controlled housing conditions reinforced violence
that workers encountered in North Carolina.

According to a

study by the Sanitary Engineering Division of the North Carolina
State Board of Health in 1963, living quarters for 100 labor
camps were inspected in the state, and the 93 percent of all
units lacked adequate bathrooms like flushing toilets, while 70
percent of the water supplies were unprotected and unsanitary.
Half of the camps also had housing structures with “unsound
construction,” including insufficient windows, according to the
report.

26

By 1975, federal inspectors visited labor camps in North
Carolina and found numerous violations of sanitation
regulations.

After visiting one labor camp near Benson in

eastern North Carolina, they described the housing conditions to
be “atrocious, intolerable, and sinful.”

A farmworker who

traveled to North Carolina for the first time in the late 1970s
similarly commented,
I’d heard that they’d take you up to North Carolina and
wouldn’t pay you, that they’d take you out in the woods and
keep you on that camp, but I wanted to find out for myself
if it was true. You know, you can’t believe everything you
hear. I’ve worked migrant work all over the United States.
I was in Yuma, Arizona last year; I’ve picked lemons and
lettuce. I’ve picked apples in Oregon and Washington. In
26

George V. Elliot, “Migrant Labor Project Report for 19631964, and Plans and Objectives for 1965 Season,” Sanitary
Engineering Section: Migrant Labor Camps Tabulations File,
1959-1969, Box 1, SANC.
216

California, I’ve done grapes. In the five years I’ve been
doing this, and I’ve never seen anything quite like this.
I’ve never seen it this bad. This is the worst I’ve ever
seen!
By 1980, farmworkers frequently faced a dual-wage system through
wage theft and debt peonage, labor repression through physical
abuse and coercion, occupational stratification, isolation, and
“squalid living conditions” in the Tar Heel state.

27

Florida Mexicans traveled to North Carolina in large
numbers in the 1970s and 1980s, and they too faced similar
methods of labor control.

In 1982, Sandra Martínez-Ruíz partly

documented incidences of wage theft and debt peonage she
observed.

One method that the crew leader frequently kept two

different sets of account books that documented worker expenses.
One book represented the official version and the other was the
actual amount deducted from wages.

“When people come in or to

get something,” she stated, “the only one that writes it down is
him [the crew leader] or his wife, and they are the only ones
that collect that money.”

Consequently, the workers were paid

less than the full amount for their work.

In one instance,

Martínez-Ruíz recalled when one worker asked for help to make

27

Rick Nichols, “N.S. Officials to Probe Migrant Camp Issue,”
The News and Observer, June 19, 1975; Blount, Gonzalez, and
Petrow, “Lost in the Stream,” JPP, Box 31, DURBML, 72; David
McKinnon, and Mary Donne Peters, “Jury Convicts Crew Bosses of
Kidnapping, Enslavement,” The News and Observer, August 22,
1980.
217

sure his pay reflected what he was due.

“They had paid him

$62.00 and when I added up his hours in my room in the house
where I live, it was $93-$94,” she stated.
place on a weekly basis.

This practice took

28

In addition, crew leaders gave preference to workers who
had already accumulated the most debt, as they were the most
vulnerable.
working.
field.

According to her testimony, “right now, I am not

I have four children.

My husband works down in the

For most of the time he [the crew leader] sends the

people that drink a lot, the people that have big bills—those
are the ones who get the good jobs.”

To demonstrate this point,

the mother of four indicated that her husband only earned $1.75
for working all day, which was not enough to sustain them
economically.

29

Another type of wage theft involved crew leaders who
charged extra fees for housing.

The Martínez-Ruíz family had to

pay $5.00 each for light and for gas expenses directly to the
crew leader, despite having no stove or gas tank, or hot running
water.

“That means that right now when I get home I haven’t

cooked,” she stated.

“I don’t have a stove to cook and I don’t

28

“Legislative Research Committee on Migrant Workers, September
8, 1982,” JPP, Box 25, DURBML, 16.

29

“Legislative Research Committee on Migrant Workers,” JPP, Box
25, DURBML, 15.
218

know where I am going to make breakfast for my kids before they
go to school tomorrow,” she continued.
The geographic isolation also made them completely
dependent on the crew leader.

Martínez-Ruíz recalled one

instance when her youngest child had just turned one year old.
For three consecutive weeks, her baby boy had a very high fever
and diarrhea.

Unfortunately, she and her partner had no

transportation, and no way of contacting a doctor or hospital
without the crew leader.

“They [the crew leader and spouse]

don’t take us anywhere,” explained Martínez-Ruíz.

Despite the

urgency of the situation, the crew leader offered no
assistance.

30

Although growers avoided responsibility, their actions also
affected the livelihood of workers on their property.

In 1981,

James H. Parker III, and David C. Hemingway from National
Lawyers Guild documented an incident of physical violence by one
grower in Wilson County.

According to their report, the grower

physically assaulted a Mexican farmworker.

One woman witnessed

the incident and noticed that a sheriff deputy was present when
this happened.

When the worker fell to the ground after being

30

“Legislative Research Committee on Migrant Workers,” JPP, Box
25, DURBML, 18-19.
219

hit, the sheriff did nothing.

“I thought the sheriff was there

for protection but he just stood there,” she stated.

31

Growers also controlled the living conditions that migrants
encountered.

Peggy Pardue Canipe vividly recalled visiting

labor camps in Yadkin County in the late 1970s.

“They [the

growers] did not want just anyone there because the conditions
were less than human,” she stated.

While the living conditions

were similar to grower-controlled housing elsewhere in the
state, she was still in shock.

“The big challenge for me,” as

she stated, “was to try to figure out why the farmers would
allow the conditions to be that low, knowing the people [the
farmers] like I know them.”

There was, thus, a double-standard.

Even as growers in Yadkin County adhered to the dictum that
“cleanliness was next to godliness” within their respective
households, according to Peggy, they simply turned their backs
on workers on their own property.

32

One publicized incident that demonstrated the influence of
growers took place near Spring Hope, North Carolina, in 1975.
According to the article, approximately 80 Florida Mexican
31

James H. Parker III, and David C. Hemingway, “Crewleader
Violence Against Farmworkers in North Carolina,” A Report
Prepared for the North Carolina Chapter of the National Lawyers
Guild, 1981, 9.

32

Oral history interview with Peggy Pardue Canipe, August 28,
2011, interview with author.
220

farmworkers, including 20 children, were left stranded, with no
work or money.

Although the crew leader had contracted with the

grower, the workers became upset and voiced their concerns
directly over the low wages and horrid living conditions.

In

response, the grower turned off the water and gas at the labor
camp, and forced the migrants off his property.

Some workers

thereafter found farm work for two days a week in Nash County,
but this was not enough.
Eventually, the North Carolina Migrant and Seasonal Farm
Workers Association provided temporary shelter at a local hotel
for the migrants.

According to Carolyn Corrie, the Migrant and

Seasonal Farmworkers Association was formerly under the auspices
of the North Carolina Council of Churches Migrant Project.

Due

to the name, the staff of the migrant advocacy organization had
trouble securing political support, and, thus, changed the
official name in 1975.

“The way they [the press] have been

talking about us is that we have been living the easy way.

It’s

not true,” stated Sergio Salinas on behalf of the migrant crew.
“We left home for one reason, to come here and work,” he
continued.

33

33

Corrie, “And Justice for All,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DDEPLM,
66; Jerry Allegood, “Effort to Find Place for Migrants Fails to
Evacuate Hotel,” The News and Observer, July 4, 1975.
221

Another situation took place in 1977, when Alicia and
Guramo Acosta applied and were denied food stamp assistance near
Benson, North Carolina.

The grower of the labor camp, C.C.

Barefoot, refused to cooperate.

The Acostas were one of three

migrant families who had traveled to Johnston County from
Florida for farm work, to pick potatoes.

When Sixto Durand from

Florida Rural Legal Services visited the labor camp, he observed
that the three families lived in “a small, clapboard house with
no running water.”

Alicia and Guramo Acosta and their daughter

lived in one room, and they were expecting their second child.
Outside the house, he also noticed that boards were falling from
the side, and flies were floating in the water barrel used as
drinking water.

34

With no money to move on, the Acostas decided to apply for
food stamp assistance.

They had already met the 30-day stay

requirement needed for eligibility, and they were also U.S.
citizens.

Still, they were denied service by the local office.

As Sixto Duran from Florida Rural Legal Services described, “I
went with them to the food stamp office, but the people there
would not accept their word that they were unemployed.”

The

Acostas were also denied because they could not complete the
income verification form to prove their unemployment.
34

When they

“Migrant Condition Labeled as Slavery,” The News and
Observer, August 1977.
222

approached C.C. Barefoot to sign the form as the grower, he
refused.

“He said workers had enough money to buy cars and beer

and he refused to help them obtain state assistance,” according
to the reporting article.

35

Threats of immigration detention and deportation compounded
labor repression used by crew leaders and growers toward workers
from Mexico who traveled to North Carolina in the 1970s, and
like U.S. citizen farm labor, faced violence such as wage theft,
physical abuse and coercion.

In 1977, one article pointed out

that extra wages were being withheld by crew leaders for “social
security.”

These deductions were being made, even though the

workers had no social security numbers.

Lack of U.S.

citizenship, however, meant that workers from Mexico who
encountered similar abuses waged fewer complaints.

As Steve

Adams from the North Carolina Employment Security Commission
commented in 1979, growers in the North Carolina-Virginia
Tobacco Growers Association preferred undocumented workers
“because they don’t have a lot of mouth.”

The North Carolina-

Virginia Tobacco Association was initially formed by 100
employers, with the specific purpose of recruiting H2 guest

35

Janet Guyon, “Food Stamps Refused for Migrant Families,” The
News and Observer, September 19, 1977; “Migrant Condition
Labeled as Slavery,” The News and Observer, August 1977.
223

workers from Mexico for farm labor in both states.

36

Consequently, farmworkers without legal status were recruited by
crew leaders because they were the most vulnerable.
This was also demonstrated in another article that
documented farm labor conditions near Benson, North Carolina, in
1977.

“The hardest working and the most easily exploited

workers are the illegal aliens,” according to the article.

An

estimated 500 to 1,500 undocumented migrants from Mexico were
working in the area.

In contrast, one Mexican American migrant

farmworker interviewed in the same article could not find
employment.

37

36

Guyon, “Food Stamps Refused for Migrant Families;” letter to
Chris Hartmire, National Farm Worker Ministry, from Joan Preiss,
Triangle Friends of the United Farm Workers, February 20, 1979,
NCCC, Box 77, DURBML.

37

“Near-Slavery is Found in Southern Migrant Camps,” New York
Times, August 28, 1977, JPP, Box 20, DURBML.
224

Figure 20. “Farm in Newton Grove, North Carolina, 1980”

38

38

Small text in photo reads: "Do not enter without permission
of owner or crew leader violators will be prosecuted." Source:
SANC.
225

Silence and Solidarity in the Fields

39

The IRCA legislation in 1986 was important political
victory for the nearly 3 million persons who applied for
permanent residency as a result.

The IRCA legislation provided

an opportunity for undocumented persons living in the United
States before 1982 to apply for permanent residency by May 1998.
This included farmworkers in North Carolina who were able to
obtain legal status and move into other areas of employment
besides farm labor, including fast food restaurants and
construction in cities.

According to INS officer Donald Young,

the Charlotte office processed more than 30,000 applications for
permanent residency through IRCA, approximately 80 percent of
whom were “Hispanic.”

40

Equally important, IRCA enabled workers and families from
other states, such as California, to migrate and settle in North
Carolina and throughout the South.

One study by Holly M. Hapke,

E. Jeffrey Popke, and Rebecca Torres noted that IRCA, anti39

The title of this section is partly adapted from Barry
Yeoman, “Silence in the Fields,” Mother Jones, January/February
2001, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.

40

“Some Immigrants Live in Fear of Authorities,” Burlington
Times-News, August 20, 1997, SAWF, Box SF12, DHRA, DURBML; “N.C.
Farmers Want Foreign Field Hands,” Wilmington Morning Star,
April 9, 1990, Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina Packet,
Spring 1991, JPP, Box 31, DURBML; “Some Immigrants Live in Fear
of Authorities,” Burlington Times-News, August 20, 1997, SAWF,
Box SF12, DHRA, DURBML.
226

immigrant polarization in traditional “gateway” communities, and
economic instability in Mexico contributed to Latino migration
to the South.

Heather A. Smith likewise identified California,

Florida, New York, and Texas as major sending states for Latinos
who migrated to North Carolina from 1985 to 1990.

41

A more problematic facet of the IRCA legislation has been
the H2A guest worker program that provided another important
means for growers to recruit outside farm labor.

Instead of

just turning to the migrant stream in the United States, growers
recruited workers directly from Mexico.

In this section, I

analyze experiences of H2A migrant farmworkers in North
Carolina.

I then briefly discuss how the Ohio-based Farm Labor

Organizing Committee, a product of the Tejano diaspora, has
challenged the agricultural political system by defending the
rights of H2A workers in the state.

41

Holly M. Hapke, E. Jeffrey Popke, and Rebecca M. Torres, “The
South’s Silent Bargain: Rural Restructuring, Latino Labor and
the Ambiguities of Migrant Experience,” in Latinos in the New
South: Transformation of Place, eds. Owen J. Furuseth and
Heather A. Smith (Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing
Company, 2006), 37; Heather A. Smith, “The Untraditional
Geography of Hispanic Settlement in a New South City:
Charlotte, North Carolina,” in Immigrants Outside Megapolis:
Ethnic Transformation in the Heartland, ed. Richard C. Jones
(Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2008), 240-241; Jorge
Durand, Douglas S. Massey, and Chiara Capoferro, “The New
Geography of Mexican Immigration,” in New Destinations: Mexican
Immigration in the United States, eds. Víctor Zúñiga and Rubén
Hernández-León (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005), 9-16.
227

While my focus is centered on the H2A program, one
corollary in North Carolina has been the H2B program.

The

largest employer of H2B workers has been the crab processing
industry in eastern North Carolina, recruiting primarily women
workers from Mexico.

In addition, H2B workers have worked in

the rock quarry industry in the western part of the state.

42

Formed in 1989, the North Carolina Growers Association
(NCGA) quickly became the principal organization that contracted
and dispersed H2A guest workers in North Carolina.

Founder Stan

Eury relied upon his 12-year experience as rural manpower labor
recruiter for the North Carolina State Employment Commission.
He had worked for several years recruiting workers from Florida
for tobacco farms in Lee County.

The workers were contracted

through crew leaders and were primarily “American citizens, but
of Spanish speaking descent.”

Although he spoke some Spanish,

reportedly, Eury preferred to shift his duties to his full-time
assistant, Henry Salazar, which included handling complaints
about work contracts, wages, and emergencies.

43

42

“Migrant Workers in North Carolina: Where Do They Come
From?” Migrant Housing Bulletin, N.C. Department of Labor,
February 1992, SAWF, Box SF12, DHRA, DURBML; Kathleen C. Mosher,
“Delicate Art, Low Pay: The Legacy of Crab Pickers in North
Carolina,” Thesis, North Carolina State University, May 1993,
SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DURBML.

43

“Fired Worker Finds Success in Recruiting,” Charlotte
Observer, November 1, 1999, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML;
228

Eury was suspended and eventually fired for “felonious
manufacture of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia,”
and turned to private labor contracting work for local farmers
in North Carolina.

“Before long,” according to Eury, “several

[growers] approached me about forming the association.”

44

The

NCGA thereafter established headquarters in Vass, North
Carolina, with the specific purpose of contracting H2A guest
workers from Mexico.

Growers in North Carolina employed the

fourth largest number of inter-state farmworkers, behind growers
in California, Florida, and Texas.

Through the NCGA, they

became the largest users of H2A workers in the country.

45

The NCGA dramatically expanded the H2A program and the
North Carolina Employment Security Commission decreased its
activities.

According to one article, federal investigators

found that the state employment offices “are reluctant to refer
U.S. workers to H2A employers because they will not hire them.”
Francesca Coin, “Pickles and Pickets After NAFTA:
Globalization, Agribusiness, the U.S.-Mexico Food-Chain, and
Farm-Worker Struggles in North Carolina” (Dissertation: Georgia
State University, 2007), 87; “Lee Officials Gird for Migrant
Worker Influx,” JPP, Box 24, DURBML.
44

Cited in Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA,” 87.

45

“Fired Worker Finds Success in Recruiting,” Charlotte
Observer, November 1, 1999, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML;
Cynthia Hill, and Charles Thompson, Jr., “The Guestworker
Bienvenidos a Carolina del Norte: A Study Guide to the Film,”
SAWF, Box PM7, DHRA, DURBML.
229

As early as 1990, when growers began to employ H2A workers, the
North Carolina Farmworkers Legal Services filed two grievances
against the state employment commission.

These grievances were

filed on behalf of two U.S. citizen agricultural workers who
sought employment in eastern North Carolina and were told that
no farm labor jobs were available.
of H2A workers continued unabated.

Still, the NCGA recruitment
46

By the end of the 1990s, Eury’s labor contracting business
extended to at least 17 states.

This made him and the

association the largest importer nationwide of legalized farm
labor from Mexico.

As Barry Yeoman noted in 2001, the NCGA “is

the nation’s largest distribution point for Third World farm
labor.”

To meet this need, two additional for-profit companies

were created and affiliated with the NCGA.

The International

Labor Management Corporation served as an inter-state labor
management company, and Amerimex Financial Service helped
workers send remittances to their respective families in Mexico,
for a designated fee.

47

46

“Lax Regulations Trouble Critics of Labor Pipeline,”
Charlotte Observer, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML; “N.C. Farmers
Want Foreign Field Hands,” Wilmington Morning Star, April 9,
1990, Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina Packet, Spring 1991,
JPP, Box 31, DURBML.

47

Rhodes, “Modern-Day Slavery,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DURBML;
“Fired Worker Finds Success in Recruiting,” Charlotte Observer,
230

For growers in North Carolina, utilizing the H2A program
provided additional advantages than solely relying on interstate farmworkers.

Unlike the latter, for example, H2A workers

were bound by contract to one specific place of employment.
Unable to leave and find employment elsewhere, they were
completely dependent on the grower for their livelihood.
According to one grower in North Carolina, H2A workers “are more
dependable, because they can’t just get up and leave the job,
and if they do, they will never be able to come back.”

48

Additionally, H2A workers were only paid for the work they did,
nothing more.

When unexpected calamities occurred, such as

Hurricane Floyd in 1999, or when there was “downtime,” growers
were not obligated to pay any wages to the workers they
employed, which saved them more money.

49

Unlike Florida Mexican

farmworkers, H2A workers were also composed of single male
workers who lived in mostly isolated, privately-owned housing.
Lacking family members or community support, they were
vulnerable to abuses.

Perhaps most importantly, they faced

November 1, 1999, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML; Yeoman, “Silence
in the Fields,” SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
48

Cited in “FLOC Summer Organizing Report 2003,” SAWF, Box PM7,
DHRA, DURBML.

49

“Lax Regulations Trouble Critics of Labor Pipeline,”
Charlotte Observer, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
231

retaliation by growers, including blacklisting, if they reported
injuries on the job or voiced complaints regarding working and
housing conditions.
In 1996, the Farmworker Legal Services of North Carolina
submitted a complaint to demonstrate the extent of these abuses
in the state.

Accordingly, H2A workers who reported health

injuries or requested medical treatment at their places
employment were harassed, blacklisted, or denied future
employment.

This was the case in 14 separate incidences that

took place from 1992 to 1995.

In each situation, the complaint

highlighted that the H2A worker was denied medical treatment or
the very minimum after reporting their injuries.

Workers were

also coerced to return to Mexico without appropriate follow-up
treatment.

Some growers “intimidate and blacklist those who do

assert their rights to receive compensation and who seek the
assistance of an attorney,” according to the complaint.
One H2A worker twisted his foot while emptying a bucket
of peppers.

When he reported this injury, he was told that he

would have to pay his own doctor’s bills.

The worker continued

to work in pain because he did not want to be fired and he was
unable to pay the extra expenses.

Another case highlighted a

H2A worker injured his back while working in North Carolina in
1994, but when he sought to return the following year, he was
denied.

“The recruiter showed him his name on a list of workers
232

who couldn’t be rehired for 1995 because they had reported
accident,” according to the complaint.

50

In a separate case, two H2A workers became sick while
working in tobacco in 1998.
is also the heat.

“The stickiness is very bad.

There

We work very low to the ground,” described

H2A worker Tomás García Vásquez when working in tobacco in North
Carolina.

“It burns the eyes when the sweat runs in the eyes.

It makes one sick when the sweat runs in the mouth.

The

chemicals also do damage when they run into the mouth and
stomach,” he continued.

Two workers from the same migrant crew

reported their sickness to the grower, Keith Parrish, near
Benson, North Carolina.

Immediately, they were dismissed from

their jobs and sent back to Mexico.
The remaining workers responded by putting their resources
together as a small offering for their displaced co-workers.
Another H2A worker, José Luis López Sánchez, described how he
felt when his co-workers were dismissed:
We have eaten together, one with the others. If one feels
a little bad, we try to help the other, to pick up the
slack for him to get the work done for the boss. [Now that
they have had to leave] we want to put together a little
money for their families. I feel sad for their families.
We all came together, all at the same time, to work. I
felt sad because they felt sick. They’re companions. The
little bit of money that they made, well, it wasn’t much.
I felt sad because they left sick, with the little money
50

“Mexican Laborers Complaint Probed,” Charlotte Observer,
January 1, 1996, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
233

that will help a little. It will serve for something, but
it’s not as much as we were thinking, right? More than
anything, it made me want to cry.
According to Adolfo Lorenzo Rosales Rosas, who was part of the
same migrant crew, growers easily replaced H2A workers when they
became sick.

“The boss just has to tell the association they

need another worker,” he stated when referring to the grower.
This was especially the case when harvesting tobacco.

51

Another incident took place in 1999, when Carmelo Fuentes
was contracted for work in Sampson County, located in eastern
North Carolina.

As he worked picking tomatoes, Fuentes began

feeling weak and dehydrated.

For fear of being blacklisted, he

did not want to report the seriousness of his medical state.
“That boy said he was fine and just needed to rest,” commented
the grower.

With no medical treatment, the 36 years-old man

suddenly felt all his internal organs shut down.

He had heat

stroke, and thereafter could not speak or move again.
Eventually, Fuentes was transported back to his home in Central

51

Oral history interview with José Luis López Sánchez, Adolfo
Lorenzo Rosales Rosa, and Tomás García Vásquez, July 26, 1998,
interview with Charles D. Thompson, Jr., Southern Oral History
Program Collection, Interview Number K-0232, WLSHC, UNCCH, 10,
12-13.
234

Mexico, where he was to live out the rest of his life both mute
and motionless.

52

Other incidences ended in death.

This was the case for

Raymundo Hernández, who was from small rural town in San Luis
Potosí, located 100 miles north of Mexico City.

Although

Hernández was contracted through the NCGA as a H2A worker, he
was initially recruited by a labor agent in Mexico.

His

hometown, Tamazunchale, eventually became known as “el Segundo
Carolina del Norte” due to the large number of H2A workers
recruited there and sent directly to North Carolina.

In a

qualitative study published in 2000, Joe Bagby underscored the
significance of San Luís Potosí, where Tamazunchale is located,
as one of several important sending states in Mexico.

The

farmworker population from Mexico to North Carolina, he
concluded, was overwhelmingly rural, with agricultural origins.

53

In 1995, Raymundo Hernández was transported by bus for work
on a tobacco farm in Sampson County, in eastern North Carolina.
52

“Farm Worker Program Draws Scrutiny,” Charlotte Observer,
October 31, 1999, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.

53

Babby identified eleven major sending states in his study:
Aguascalientes, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Jalisco,
Michoacán, Oaxaca, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, and
Zacatecas. “Farm Worker Program Draws Scrutiny,” Charlotte
Observer, October 31, 1999, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML; Joe
Bagby, “Sweat Inequity: The Social Alienation of Mexican Migrant
Farmworkers in North Carolina, 2000,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA,
DURBML, 42-43.
235

On the 21st of July, Raymundo began feeling sick but did not want
to stop working.

Eventually, he started to vomit in the fields.

The grower put him in his truck with the intent of driving him
to the local health clinic to be checked.

When the grower

stopped to speak with another grower, Raymundo exited the
vehicle.

In October 1995, his skull was eventually found under

a pecan tree, and with his other bones nearby.

His remains were

found by dogs, along with his photo i.d. and clothing.
Subsequent to his untimely death at 39 years of age, his
family was approached in Mexico by the same labor agent who
recruited him.

The agent demanded repayment for the debt that

Raymundo still owed him for securing the H2A visa.

When one

family member replied that they had no money, the agent then
“filled up his truck with oranges from the [family] grove.”
oranges represented only part of the debt.

The

“Raymundo still owes

him money,” commented the family member, even in his death.

54

In 1990, Mary Lee Hall criticized the H2A program within
the history of agricultural labor in the state.

“We have

basically gone from a situation involving debt servitude with
African Americans through the 1970s, to exploitation of
undocumented workers in the 1980s,” stated Hall.
54

“So we don’t

“They Don’t Want Their Men Coming to N.C. Anymore,” Newsclipping, Box SF11,DHRA, DURBML; “Vigil Calls Attention to Field
Hand’s Death, November 22, 1995,” News-clipping, SAWF, Box SF11,
DHRA, DURBML.
236

see the importation of H-2A workers,” she continued, “as getting
any closer to having farm workers being treated like regular
workers in our society.”

In 2000, Catherine Rebecca Rhodes

concluded that the H2A program in North Carolina represented
another form of involuntary servitude, defined as “the use or
threatened use of physical coercion or state imposed legal
coercion to compel work.”

Rhodes continued to connect this

definition with the H2A program in the following manner:
Under this institution, migrant farmworkers live in
substandard housing, receive little to no health care, are
paid low wages, are isolated and tied to one grower, have
no means of mobility, and are completely dependent upon the
grower for food, housing, and transportation. Thus, the H2A program is a system that provides for conditions that
can, and do, lead to involuntary servitude in the present
55
day.
Labor repression, occupational stratification, geographic
isolation, and disposability have characterized the H2A guest
worker program in North Carolina.

As H2A worker Efrain Madrigal

commented in 2001, “They say it’s the Mexican’s dream to be
here.
here.”

But many times it isn’t true.
56

There’s a lot of suffering

These conditions were not exceptional but rather

55

“N.C. Farmers Want Foreign Field Hands,” Wilmington Morning
Star, April 9, 1990, Migrant Farmworkers in North Carolina
Packet, Spring 1991, JPP, Box 31, DURBML; Rhodes, “Modern-Day
Slaver,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DURBML.
56

Cited in Barry Yeoman, “Silence in the Fields,” SAWF, Box
SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
237

intrinsic to the growth and development of the agricultural
political economy in the state.
Similar to their predecessors, H2A workers did not simply
conform to conditions they encountered, but utilized resources
available to them.

On farms in North Carolina, one effective

tactic was to leave when they found growers violating their
contracts.

In 1997, the U.S. Government Accountability Office

reported that 40 percent of all H2A workers left their places of
employment before their work contracts ended.

Though Stan Eury

estimated the number in North Carolina to be closer to 15
percent, this proportion still illustrates the magnitude of
discontent among workers as well as their desire to act.

In

addition, former H2A workers chose to join the migrant stream or
pursue employment in other industries, such as construction and
poultry and meat processing.

57

By the end of the 1990s, H2A farmworkers in North Carolina
also turned to an Ohio-based farm labor union founded in 1967,
the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), to amplify their
voices and secure their rights.

The work of FLOC adds to this

discussion in significant ways.

While FLOC had previously

worked in other states outside of Ohio, particularly in Florida
and Texas, former FLOC organizer Fernando Cuevas Jr. noted that
57

“Lax Regulations Trouble Critics of Labor Pipeline,”
Charlotte Observer, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML.
238

organizing efforts in North Carolina focused primarily on H2A
workers from Mexico, which began in the 1990s.

This, of course,

contrasted with existent family-based social networks that
formed the bulk of FLOC membership in Ohio.

58

When the union president made the decision to support H2A
workers in North Carolina, there too was a consciousness of
solidarity among local residents and community organizations to
support their work.

This culture of solidarity was born in the

1990s, but, rather, several decades prior amid the rise of
farmworker organizing in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Between 1968

and 1974, farmworker solidarity committees emerged in cities
across the southern United States, including Atlanta, Georgia,
Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, Tennessee, New Orleans,
Louisiana, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia.
Most were organized by volunteers and part-time staff to support
the farmworker movement based in California.

59

58

“FLOC Turns Focus to North Carolina Workers,” The Blade,
August 13, 1996, SAWF, Box SF11, DHRA, DURBML; oral history
interview with Fernando Cuevas Jr., March 29, 2013, interview
with author.

59

See, for example, UFW Boycott Central files, UFWOC New
Orleans Boycott Office files, and United Farm Workers
Collection, Virginia Boycott Office, Series I files, Walter P.
Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs, Records and
Manuscript Collection (hereafter WPRL), Wayne State University
(hereafter WSU).
239

One of the more effective solidarity committees during this
period took place in Jackson, Mississippi.

As one staff member

from the United Farm Workers commented in 1974, “The Jackson
Boycott had the best record of any volunteer committee in the
country, better than most cities with Union staff.”

According

to then full-time volunteer Rick Abraham in Jackson, part of the
reason was a class consciousness already present in the state.
“It is working-class blacks and whites who can understand and
sympathize with your struggle,” noted Abraham in 1974, “and it
is they who have given their support.”

While supporters in

Mississippi hardly purchased boycotted products, they were
effective in pressuring local stores to not sell them.

In

another letter in 1974, Abraham explained why the committee was
effective:

“We did this because we wanted and needed to win not

only for you but for the movement and the people in Mississippi.
People here have lost too many fights.

They stuck their necks

out and made commitments and they needed to win.”

The issue of

farmworker justice resonated with the working poor in Jackson,
and they provided the necessary base to affect change.

60

60

Letter to Rick Abraham, from Jim Lynch, April 18, 1974, UFW
Boycott Central, Box 7, Folder 9, WPRL, WSU; letter to Office of
President, UFW, from Rick Abraham, April 18, 1974, UFW Boycott
Central, Box 7, Folder 9, WPRL, WSU; letter to UFW, from Rick
Abraham, June 18, 1974, UFW Boycott Central, Box 7, Folder 9,
WPRL, WSU.
240

In 1971, the related committee in Raleigh, North Carolina,
issued a statement of support.

“Since we have some first-hand

acquaintance with the plight of the migrant worker in our own
state,” according to their statement, “we might have instant
sympathy…We call upon our citizens to give moral and actual
support to this commitment.”

Similarly in 1971, Lloyd P. Tyler

from the American Friends Service Committee office in Raleigh
expressed complete support “to secure better working conditions
and economic security for the nation’s agricultural workers.”
The North Carolina State AFL-CIO also offered office space and
staff when possible in the same year.

61

Perhaps the most consistent vocal organization for
farmworker rights in the 1970s and 1980s in North Carolina was
the Triangle Friends of the United Farm Workers (TFUFW), which
held its first official meeting in 1973.

In a letter of

appreciation on the 20th anniversary of the TFUFW, FLOC founder
Baldemar Velasquez commented: “You have been there when we
needed you and you have helped us become stronger and stronger
in gaining dignity and respect that is important to each and

61

“Lettuce Boycott Sought by Group,” The Raleigh Times, April
1, 1971, UFW Boycott Central, Box 7, Folder 18, WPRL, WSU;
letter to UFW Charles R. Wrightston, from Lloyd P. Tyler, AFSC
Southeastern Regional Office, March 19, 1971, UFW Boycott
Central, Box 7, Folder 18, WPRL, WSU; “N.C. State AFL-CIO Backs
Farm Workers,” News Release, March 18, 1971, UFW Boycott
Central, Box 7, Folder 18, WPRL, WSU.
241

every one of us and our families.”

Long-time TFUFW community

activist, Joan Preiss, passed away during the writing of this
dissertation.

62

In addition, the first office of Farmworker Legal Services
opened its doors in Newton Grove, North Carolina, in 1978.

In

1982, the Carolina Interfaith Taskforce on Central America
(CITCA) was initially established.

While CITCA formed to raise

awareness about the violent U.S. government intervention in
Central America, particularly Nicaragua, their work too expanded
to support the rights of working people in North Carolina and
Latin America.

CITCA has consistently supported FLOC through an

annual pilgrimage for justice and peace organized across the
state, which serves as a tool for critical consciousness-raising
and advocacy.

63

One additional noteworthy expression of solidarity has been
the long-standing work between FLOC and Black Workers for
Justice (BWFJ), which was founded in Rocky Mount, North
Carolina, in 1981.

As one example, FLOC, BWFJ, and the AFL-CIO

62

Joan Preiss, “UFW after the Boycott Speech, February 23,
1978,” JPP, Box 25, DURBML; “Farm Union’s Velasquez to Visit
Area,” Durham Morning Herald, March 20, 1986, JPP, Box 25,
DURBML; “20th Anniversary Reflections,” JPP, Box 8, DURBML.

63

Corrie, “And Justice for All,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DDEPLM,
81; oral history interview with Gail Phares, June 23, 2011,
interview with author.
242

held a Juneteenth March and Rally on June 16, 2001.

The

celebration rally focused on varied issues, including an end to
racial profiling, legalization for undocumented workers, rights
of workers to organize, a living wage, and reparations for Black
farmers and Mexican bracero workers.

In addition, FLOC and the

BWFJ have organized “Black-Brown Freedom Schools.”

Commenting

on this critical work, the FLOC president has stated, “It is a
lifetime commitment.”

These relationships and others have given

some legitimacy to the union work in the state, and which
continue into the present.

64

FLOC expanded its geographic reach by establishing an
office in North Carolina, and, subsequently, Monterrey, Mexico.
In 1999, the farmworker union began a campaign to unionize and
secure the rights of H2A workers in the state, what the
president called then “a new civil rights movement.”

In 2004,

FLOC succeeded in signing a three-way collective bargaining
agreement between Mt. Olive Pickle Company and the North
Carolina Growers Association.

This political victory marked the

first time that guest workers obtained a labor contract and
union representation in the United States.

64

FLOC has since

“Juneteenth March and Rally in North Carolina,” The FLOC
Update, Spring 2001, JPP, Box 8, DURBML; “Black Workers for
Justice and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee,” in Across
Races and Nations: Building New Communities in the U.S. South
(Memphis, TN: Center for Research on Women, 2006), 87-88.
243

turned attention to pressuring North Carolina’s tobacco industry
and tobacco corporation, RJ Reynolds, based in Winston-Salem.

65

Organizing H2A workers from Mexico in North Carolina
represents a significant shift in the history of the FLOC, yet
reinforces a long held critical analysis that the union brings
to its work.

In contrast to the history of the United Farm

Workers in California, FLOC from its inception was focused on
holding corporations accountable for the conditions that
farmworkers encountered in the every day.

In this view, the

agricultural workers play an important role within a larger
supply chain dictated by commercial agriculture.

The important

cross-border organizing work that the union has undertaken in
North Carolina and Mexico, while recent, builds upon this
perspective.

66

I would add here that the international class consciousness
that has defined the work of FLOC is also reflective of the
history of the union as a product of the Tejano diaspora.

The

65

Bagby, “Sweat Inequity,” SAWF, Box PM4, DHRA, DURBML, 94;
Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA,” 2; oral history
interview with Justin Flores, July 6, 2011, interview with
author.

66

Dennis Nodín Valdés, “From Following the Crops to Chasing the
Corporations: The Farm Labor Organizing Committee, 1967-1983,”
in The Chicano Struggle: Analyses of Past and Present Efforts,
ed. National Association for Chicano Studies (Binghamton, New
York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue, 1984), 46-47; ode to
sh, to un, to ke.
244

majority of the founding members, including the leadership,
trace their roots to South Texas and the widespread displacement
that affected thousands of Texas Mexicans during the Bracero
Program, as I examined in chapter two.

From South Texas, they,

consequently, were quite aware of the power of commercial
agriculture in controlling the lives of agricultural workers on
both sides of the border.
Similar to FLOC, members of the Texas Farm Workers Union in
South Texas also understood this dynamic quite well.

“Under the

present system,” noted one statement on behalf of TFW, “it is a
divide and conquer philosophy that tries to separate workers of
the United States and Mexico.

There is a damaging separation

between classes and groups that work against the interests of
all workers.”

According to then-TFW organizer Jorge Zaragoza in

1977, “Texas is key.

When we organize Texas, we can organize

any state in the union.”
embraced this challenge.

67

FLOC union organizers too have
Instead of Texas, they have chosen

North Carolina, another southern state prone to violence in the
fields and, yet, filled with the promise of change.
When TFW members took their steps through the heart of the
South in 1977, including North Carolina, and they were met with
67

The Struggle of the Texas Farmworker Union, Santa Cruz,
California Texas Farm Workers Support Committee Pamphlet
(Chicago, Illinois: Vanguard Books, 1977), TFWUC, Box 1,
NLBLAC, UTAL.
245

various acts solidarity, both large and small.

In New Orleans,

Louisiana, more than 150 persons gathered together at a rally,
and the marchers received endorsements from different groups.
These included the Treme Improvement Association, New Orleans
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National
Organization of Women, U.S. Steel Workers Local 1300, Amalgated
Meat Cutters Local 1101, NAACP Youth Council, Latin American
Apostolate, and A. Phillip Randolph Institute.

When they

continued into Pearl River County in neighboring Mississippi,
the marchers were stopped by local sheriff deputies, and
arrested for “obstructing traffic” on a two-lane highway.
Through intervention from Equal Rights Congress and Texas
State Representative Irma Rangel, they were not charged and
released.

From the jail cell, the marchers continued to

Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where a “Freedom Ride” rally was
organized.

Fourteen more organizations from towns and cities

near and far endorsed the march. John Slaughter of the Equal
Rights Council spoke about the impact of the march.

“When the

farmworker left Texas on June 18th, we celebrated Juneteenth in
Mobile, Alabama with a festival in support of the Texas
farmworkers.

I might say that this was the first time that

Juneteenth was celebrated in the state of Alabama!”

Roy Wilson

from Seattle, Washington, also shared news that he and a TFW
support committee had traveled along the West Coast en route to
246

Mississippi, and they collected food, donations, and medical
supplies to give to the marchers.
Members of the TFW delegation also spoke at the Freedom
Ride rally.

Representing the marchers, one woman stated,

“Without knowing us, you have supported us.”

TFW member Señora

Salas also spoke through an interpreter: “I feel very proud to
be walking in these places and states.”

Additional endorsements

and actions of solidarity continued as they made their way
through Georgia and North Carolina.
In Raleigh, North Carolina, where the marchers rested at
Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, one unique opportunity took
place when the organized rally to support the march coincided
with a congressional sub-committee meeting to discuss
transportation of farmworkers.

TFW co-founder Antonio Orendain

spoke to the congressional sub-committee on behalf of the
delegation and U.S. Representative William F. Goodling of
Pennsylvania responded by stating, “I’m sympathetic.”

Orendain

replied that sympathy was not enough, that collective bargaining
rights and a repeal of the “right-to-work” laws were needed for
farmworkers to organize themselves.

Representative Goodling

then stated that allowing farmworkers to strike would only
“devastate the economy.”

As a sign of things to come, U.S.

Representative Ike F. Andrews of North Carolina, who chaired the
sub-committee, encouraged the delegation to find a congressman
247

to introduce legislation on their behalf, and then turned the
other way.
The marchers were successful in arriving in Washington D.C.
on September 5, 1977, on Labor Day, yet did not realize their
goals in changing legislation.

The “Texas Farmworkers March for

Human Rights,” at the very least, gave more meaning to the work
and lives of the members.

Gloria Ynguanzo, who was raised

working in the fields in South Texas, marched so that her
children would not share the same fate.

“A sacrifice was made

when we made the decision to march,” she stated during the
march.

“We had to leave our families and many had to quit jobs.

But, we believe in what we’re doing.

And that makes us strong.”

By taking their steps for the rights of all agricultural
workers, the TFW also built upon and added to a culture of
solidarity throughout the South, and left an important path for
present and future generations to follow.

68

68

“Austin Friends of the Farmworkers Press Release, July 21,
1977,” MGFP, Box 1, NLBLAC, UTAL; “Deputies Slow Farmworkers
March,” The Daily Texas, July 20, 1977, TFWUC, Box 1, NLBLAC,
UTAL; “Texas Farm Workers Are Back on Road,” Hattiesburg
American, July 19, 1977, TFWUC, Box 1, NLBLAC, UTAL;
“Audiocassette: March for Human Rights Freedom Rally,
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 1977,” MGFP, Box 3, NLBLAC, UTAL;
Johanna Seltz, “Farm Workers March Here,” The News and Observer,
August 24, 1977.
248

Figure 21. “Migrant Farm Worker Cutting Tobacco, 1993”

69

Source: RAP, Box 14, ADA, DURBML.
249

69

Figure 22. “Migrant Farm Worker Hauling Tobacco to the Truck,
70
1993”

70

Source: RAP, Box 14, ADA, DURBML.
250

Figure 23. “Farmworker Solidarity Demonstration in Raleigh,
71
North Carolina, May 21, 1985”

71

Far poster reads: "Boycott Campbells, Support Farm Workers."
Source: SANC.
251

Figure 24. “Farmworker Solidarity Demonstration in Winston72
Salem, North Carolina, May 6, 2008”

72

Source:

author’s collection.
252

Conclusion
Prior to IRCA in 1986, North Carolina was already an
established primary destination and home-base.

Florida Mexican

workers were recruited from the Atlantic Migrant Stream directly
by the state employment commission and indirectly by growers.
Their presence in North Carolina became more visible as growers
sought more outside farm labor to meet their needs.

Employer

practice of outside labor recruitment was not new to farms in
North Carolina, but expanded in the mid-twentieth century
onward.

Following the IRCA legislation, this practice continued

when growers increasingly turned to H2A guest workers directly
from Mexico through the North Carolina Growers Association.
Also prior and subsequent to IRCA, increasing numbers of
undocumented farmworkers joined Florida Mexicans on farms in
North Carolina.

Their growing presence enriches our discussion

on the Tejano diaspora in two important ways.

Continued labor

migration from Mexico, including through the H2A guest worker
program, reinforces our understanding of continued unequal
international relations between the United States and Mexico.
As I have argued, these contested relations were formed amid
U.S. economic conquest in Mexico in the last decades of the
nineteenth century.

The Tejano diaspora, in this regard, has

served as a conduit for a Mexican diaspora in the southern
United States.
253

Second, while undocumented workers joined Florida Mexicans
in the migrant stream, their lack of U.S. citizenship status
became another form of labor control used by crew leaders and
growers in North Carolina.

This practice of using citizenship

to divide workers and increase revenue, as I have also argued,
was not formed in North Carolina but rather in South Texas as a
result of U.S. military conquest.

Threats of detention and

deportation only added to existent colonial configurations
present in the state, which were also critical to the growth and
development of the agricultural political economy.

Whereas in

South Texas, practices of labor control wrested upon the
violence of conquest; in North Carolina, they stemmed fully from
the business of enslavement.

254

CONCLUSION

“I started my journey toward becoming a poet
with the idea of the beautiful. I understand
now what the beautiful is. The beautiful is
to be engaged in a struggle that matters. The
beautiful is to be grateful for the ground
that was given me.”
--Benjamin Alire Sáenz,
1
from Elegies in Blue

This dissertation has examined the historical significance
of the Tejano diaspora, the large-scale displacement of
thousands of workers from their home communities in South Texas
to other principal locations in the southern United States.

In

one respect, this study referenced one historic period that
involved the lives of Texas Mexicans through the latter
twentieth century, which is also critical to understanding
Latino migration and settlement in the region.

The experience

of displacement, however, did not stop in South Texas but
continued to manifest throughout Mexico and beyond, reflective
on continued U.S. economic and military presence abroad.
The disastrous impact of the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), signed between Canada, Mexico, and the United
States in 1994, stands out for displacing subsequent generations
1

Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Elegies in Blue (El Paso, Texas: Cinco
Puntos Press, 2002), 113-114; ode to the t, to the m; c to the
s.
255

of Mexican workers and their families on a much larger scale
than South Texas in the mid-twentieth century.

U.S. government

representatives have also used NAFTA as a model to pursue and
secure related flawed agreements with countries in Central and
South America, including the Dominican Republic.

Partly

described in the Latinos in the Nuevo South scholarship, these
displaced Mexican workers and their loved ones now call places
like Charlotte, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, and
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, home.
They also represent an important population to potentially
benefit from the still nationwide movement for comprehensive
immigration reform in the United States.

Through this

legislation, an estimated 12 million persons would finally
secure a path to permanent residency, and, eventually, fullfledged U.S. citizenship.

Thousands of actions, large and

small, have literally taken place by proponents for immigration
reform in the past nearly two decades.

Part of this push,

indeed, has come from and on behalf of Latino high school
students, college-aged young adults, and their allies.
One highly publicized local event took place in downtown
Charlotte, North Carolina, in September 2011, when a rally was
organized at the main campus of the Central Piedmont Community
College.

At the rally, 200 participants gathered together from

different towns and cities near and far in the state.
256

In

conjunction with the rally, some of the participants decided to
take their steps to the nearby traffic intersection on Kings
Drive and Fourth Street in Charlotte.
block car traffic.

They used their bodies to

As they did this, the participants chanted,

“education not deportation” and, “undocumented and unfraid.”
One student with a bullhorn then declared, “My name is Alicia
Torres and I’m risking it all…I am no longer going to be afraid.
I am no longer going to wait around and watch my mom pray.”

A

total of 15 persons were arrested from this one event, 10 of
whom without U.S. legal status.

2

Thousands of similar demonstrations have taken place all
across the United States in the past few years, all in pursuit
of one goal.

In 2010, as another example, 15 persons were

arrested at the local office of then-U.S. Senator Kay Bailey
Hutchinson in San Antonio, Texas, including college-aged
students, community elders, and a Methodist minister.

Most

recently, another significant nationwide rally was organized in
Washington D.C. in October 2013, where an estimated 20,000

2

Gary L. Wright, “Protestors Won’t Face ICE,” Charlotte
Observer, September 7, 2011; Franco Ordoñez, “Immigrants
Arrested at ‘Coming Out’ Rally,” Charlotte Observer, September
7, 2011.
257

persons gathered together and around 200 were arrested,
including participants from Charlotte, North Carolina.

3

As I conclude this dissertation, I am thinking about all
the sacrifices that have been made in this nationwide movement
for comprehensive immigration reform, and the challenges that
will remain.

Whether some form of legislation is realized in

the current administration or the next—to lean on the side of
hope—the question before us, really, is what comes next.

For

those of us who call and will call the southern United States
home, you see, our steps are just beginning.

3

Melissa Ludwig, “DREAM Act Rally Ends with Arrests,” San
Antonio Express-News, November 29, 2010; “Congress Members Among
Hundreds Arrested in Immigration Rally at U.S. Capitol,” RT
News, October 8, 2013, available at http://on.rt.com/y5dbhf.
258

Figure 25. “Texas Farm Workers Union Marching in Raleigh, North
4
Carolina, August 24, 1977”

4

The photo caption reads: “Texas farm workers enter Raleigh
marching down Glenwood Avenue.” Source: “Farm Workers March
Here,” The News and Observer, August 24, 1977, microfilm reel.
259

APPENDIX

260

Table 1. “U.S.-and Mexico-Born Mexican Population in Texas, By
1
Decade”

Year
1850
1860
1870
1880
1890
1900
1910
1920

Mexico-Born
From Census
*
12,443
22,510
43,161
51,559
71,062
124,238
249,652

U.S.-Born
Calculated
*
6,850
13,988
27,492
53,634
92,555
153,093
255,705

1

Total Predicted
From Model
5,000
19,293
36,498
70,653
105,193
163,617
277,331
505,357

Source: Zamora, The World of the Mexican Worker, 211.
credits these estimates to a model developed by Roberto
Villarreal.
261

Zamora

Table 2. “Foreign Born Persons of Mexican Origin in Southeast
2
United States Region, 1910-1970”

State
Alabama
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Louisiana
Kentucky
Mississippi
North
Carolina
South
Carolina
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
West
Virginia

2

1910
75
105
116
*
996
*
72
*

1930
45
194
59
23
1,895
73
88
7

1950
125
553
431
132
1,106
82
259
96

1960
141
209
1,312
161
1,237
116
232
207

1970
214
216
3,018
294
1,351
127
149
331

*

4

28

52

107

*
124,238
*
*

35
242,735
25
42

145
196,077
145
177

232
202,315
270
194

238
193,639
724
135

Source: Clark, “Mexican Migration to the United States,” 61.
262

Table 3. “North Carolina Counties Estimated to Have 100 or More
3
Agricultural Migrants at Peak of the Crop Season, 1956”

Counties A -J
Beaufort County
Buncombe County
Camden County
Carteret County
Craven County
Currituck County
Duplin County
Greene County
Harnett County
Henderson County
Jones County

Counties L - Z
Lenoir County
Montgomery County
Onslow County
Pamlico County
Pasquotank County
Pitt County
Sampson County
Scotland County
Tyrrell County
Wayne County

3

Source: “Health Services in Major Migrant Work Areas: East
Coast Guide, June 1956,” U.S. Department of Health , Education,
and Welfare, COML, Box 1, SANC, 4.
263

Figure 26. “North Carolina Summer Term Migrant Enrollments,
4
1969-1980”

4

Source: “1980 State Evaluation Report,” Migrant Education
Section, North Carolina Department of Education. Support
Services Area, Division of Support Programs, Migrant Education
Section: Annual Evaluation Report File, 1980, SANC.
264

Table 4. “List of FLOC Campbell Boycott Supporters in North
5
Carolina”

Supporters
Baileys Chapel AME Church Missionary Society
Church Women United of N.C.
Commission on Social Ministries of the N.C. Council of Churches
Duke Campus Ministry
Duke Workers Grievance Committee
Durham Central Labor Union
Durham NOW
Hunger Awareness Group—Asheville/Buncombe County
Migrant Ministry Committee of the N.C. Council of Churches
N.C. Farmworkers Network
N.C. Prison & Jail Project
National Farm Worker Ministry
National Sharecroppers Fund/Rural Advancement Fund
Newman Catholic Community of East Carolina University
Peace & Justice Committee of the Diocese of Raleigh
Peoples Alliance—Durham Chapter
Prophetic Concerns Committee, DCM
Religious Emphasis Group of the Durham YWCA
St. Joseph’s AME Church Missionary Society
Triangle Friends of the United Farm Workers
United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 525
Western N.C. Conference Branch/Women’s Missionary Society AME
Church
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom—Chapel
Hill/Durham Branch

5

Source:

JPP, Box 25, DURBML.
265

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266

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