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Real Photographs of Migrant Labor Families in the 1960s

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Migrant Labor Families in the 1960s: Portraits from the Valley Migrant League Photographs

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Experiences of migrant labor families working in the Willamette Valley during the 1960s are documented in this photographic exhibit. Captured by volunteers and staff for the Valley Migrant League’s newspaper, “Opportunity News,” the images capture a time of tension and rapid change.

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Background: Adela grew up in Arroyo Seco, a small town in the Mexican state of Michoacán. When she was in her mid-twenties, she decided to leave her low-paying job as a housekeeper. She wanted to travel with her husband and their six-week-old baby, Estrella, across the U.S.-Mexico border without the right immigration papers. Adela eventually moved to Modesto, California, where she became a leader in the local immigrant rights movement in 2006. About a year later, when she was 45 years old, she was interviewed. The interview was published in 2008.

Adela had heard many stories about newborns who sadly died on the journey from Mexico to the United States because when Immigration agents got close, mothers covered their babies’ mouths to keep them quiet. But Adela decided to take Estrella and face the journey with her husband. They walked for two nights in the mountains. One night, while they were walking in a canyon just below a U.S. Border Patrol truck, Estrella started to cry. Adela thought, "Oh my God, what should I do?" Her husband suggested they take the blanket off Estrella's head so she could breathe, and that worked! After that, Estrella stayed quiet for the rest of the trip, even when Adela slipped in mud while holding her and even when they crossed the freeway. They made it to the U.S., but it was not an easy journey.

When Adela's daughters began going to school, she got involved in immigrant rights. She started taking English classes so she could communicate with the teachers and better understand her daughters' education. After volunteering at the schools for a while, she became the head of the Latino Parents’ Committee. She attended meetings and workshops for Latino families and would go back to share what she learned with parents in her church and neighborhood.

At first, Adela's husband was okay with her involvement in the schools and community. But eventually, he would come home from work and demand things from her. He would talk about what a woman should do for her husband and what a working man deserves. As her daughters grew, Adela realized she didn’t want to be weak around them. She shouldn’t be afraid just because she is a woman or an immigrant.

The Latino Parents’ Committee planned their first march for immigrant rights on April 10, 2006. When Adela arrived, there were only twenty parents there. It seemed like too small of a group to make a difference. Many people didn’t want to take the risk. But Adela said, "No. Let them arrest us. We’re going to take the risk. We’re going to keep marching." Suddenly, as they turned a corner, she saw many more parents! She didn't know where they came from; she thought they had been hiding out of fear. This gave her the courage to keep marching and not be afraid.

More than three thousand people joined the second march on May 1. They came from towns all around Modesto. Everyone was there, even Adela's husband. He asked her, “You’re not scared?” Adela replied, “Well, if something happens, they’re going to have to take all of us.”

It’s been over a year since the marches, and so far, nothing has changed. Estrella still asks Adela if she is scared, and Adela says no. “I’m not scared,” she tells her daughter. “Because there’s a chance that the people you talk to can help you. They might help you with your immigration papers and fix your situation. My daughter, maybe they’ll be able to fix things for you.” Adela explains, “These are opportunities. Talking about these things might create change. You must, as they say, come out of the darkness. Come out and say, ‘Here I am! See me.’"

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Background: Heraclio Astete grew up on a farm in a mountain village in Peru. He studied education at a university in Lima. Later, he opened a school in his village, but he faced many difficulties during Peru’s political problems in the 1980s. In 1991, he came to the United States on a temporary guest worker visa called H-2A. He worked herding sheep in Idaho and California. After he got very sick from his work, he started a herder’s union to help improve the working conditions for guest workers in California. Heraclio was interviewed in 2016 when he was sixty-two years old, and this interview was published in 2017.

In 1991, my wife was pregnant with our third child, and we did not have any money. I decided to go to the United States with the H-2A guest worker program. I arranged my paperwork with the company in Lima, and they sent me the visa so I could travel. In October 1991, I flew from Lima to Los Angeles and then to Idaho, where I worked for the first time. We arrived at the ranch in the afternoon, and I met other Peruvians who were also working there. That night, we cried together, and the next day we began working. We started very early, at around 5 a.m. We were always very cold because we spent up to twelve hours outside each day. We worked almost every day of the year. In Idaho, we earned $750 a month, no matter how many hours we worked each day.

One day, I was told I would be sent to California. I was an employee of Western Range and could only be in the United States because they hired me. This meant my boss could move me wherever they needed me. In July 1998, I was out setting fences with some other workers. After the sun came up, it was very hot in the desert, and I was feeling uncomfortable. Late that night, I started to feel a fever. My body was not responding to my brain’s commands.

I was taken to a hospital and diagnosed with "valley fever," a serious lung infection caused by a fungus found in California's desert soil. Western Range would not pay for my treatment and insisted that I return to work even though I was still very sick.

I met with a former employee of Western Range, a fellow Peruvian named Victor Flores. I told him my story, and he said, “If you want to die, stay at the ranch. If not, you need to leave.” In early 1999, after six months of trying to keep up with my job while being sick, I left work and moved to Bakersfield. I did not have legal papers to stay in the U.S., but I found a job on a farm that grew produce.

I began to organize a sheepherders’ union. Victor and I would meet at night with the sheepherders in different pastures and fields. We collected signatures to see if they wanted to join the union. We also gathered their stories to show that the sheepherders were being treated badly. In 2001, there was a hearing in Sacramento about the conditions faced by herders with guest-worker visas. I shared my experience with state senators and a special commission. That year, the California legislature passed a law to protect us. It required a gradual increase in pay over the next few years, as well as better living conditions like electricity, toilets, and access to better food and fresh water.

Today, I still live in Bakersfield with my wife. I work for the same farm I worked for after I left the ranch. It is a good company—they respect the laws that protect workers. We also have two of our kids living here with us. My oldest son and my second daughter are still in Peru. My oldest son is a doctor, and my daughter is a nurse who is working on a post-graduate degree. Thank God my children understand and appreciate the sacrifices I have made.

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Understanding Migration to the United States

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Understanding Migration to the United States

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Understanding Migration to the United States - Google Docs

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Asylum: A place of safety. A place of protection for the disadvantaged.

Refugee: A person seeking refuge in a foreign country out of fear of political persecution or the prospect of such persecution in his home country, i.e., a person seeking a political asylum. (Click here to understand this definition better.)

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My Abuela's Immigration Story From El Salvador to the U.S.

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Background: Fausto Sanchez was born in 1969 in Oaxaca, Mexico. He came to the United States as a teenager in the 1980s to work in the fields of southern California. He is a Mixteco, which is an Indigenous group from Mexico. Fausto speaks two Mixteco dialects, Spanish, and English. He used his skills in language to help Indigenous farmworkers in the United States by translating for them and advocating for their rights. In 2016, when he was forty-seven years old, he was interviewed in Arvin, California, where he lives with his wife. This interview was published in 2017.

The village where I grew up had about 200 people, and we all spoke Mixteco, not Spanish. I was seven years old the first time I left for Sinaloa, Mexico. Sinaloa is known for its fruits and vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and eggplant. It has good farmland, and many people from Oaxaca and Guerrero go there to find work.

When I was at school in Sinaloa, the other children made fun of me because I didn’t speak Spanish. It took me a whole year to learn Spanish since that was all anyone spoke. When I was thirteen or fourteen, I started to work for myself. After the season in Sinaloa was over, I went to Baja, California. Then I came to the United States for the first time with some other Mixteco farmworkers looking to earn money in the fields. We went straight to work in the onion and garlic fields.

I was sixteen or seventeen when the group I was with walked for three days in the desert to reach Arizona. After picking oranges, we worked in pecans. The farm had a machine that shook the trees to collect the nuts, but many nuts fell to the ground. The supervisors gave us buckets to collect the nuts, and we filled sacks with them. I think they paid $3.50 for each sack. Sometimes, for nine or ten sacks, I would earn $30 or $40 in a day, which was a lot of money for me.

I married my wife, Alberta, on March 8, 1988. She is also from Oaxaca, and we speak the same Mixteco language. At that time, my brother-in-law lived in Arvin, California, and he invited us to live with him and his sisters. After moving to Arvin, I had an appointment at the U.S. Immigration office in Fresno, California. They asked me where I had worked and what kind of work I had done. That’s how I got my green card, which allows me to live here permanently.

We have three children who were born in the United States. When my kids started school, I decided to go to school too. In 1997, I learned that California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA) was looking for people who spoke Mixteco and Spanish to become interpreters. I signed up, received a grant, and went to Salinas, California, for interpreter training. I earned my GED in 2001. After that, I attended Bakersfield College in California and graduated in 2011 with a certificate in Human Resources. I started working with CRLA on April 26, 1999, in the Indigenous Program. I give presentations in schools, community agencies, or to clients; I also speak at the labor commission, on the radio, or on television.

Prejudice against Indigenous people from other Mexicans can be a problem. Some people believe that Indigenous people who cannot speak Spanish are not smart. We are native people from Mexico with our own language and culture. My favorite part of my job is when we get involved in a lawsuit about wages or other issues faced in the fields, and we win the case for them. We just want to be treated with respect. We are part of a country of immigrants. Our ancestors lived here in the Americas for a long time. The only thing that makes us seem like foreigners is the political border, but Indigenous people have always moved around—there were no borders until politics created them.

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Step 1: Read or watch at least 3 migrant stories (Yellow)

Step 2: Reflect - Why did people leave their country? (What are the pushes? What are the pulls?)

Step 3: Reflect - What are the similarities and differences to American history?

Step 4: Read the Understanding Immigration article (blue), and add more to your reflections.