The food pyramid; Mexicans, agribusiness, governments and communities in the Midwest migrant stream.

INTRODUCTION

In the years after the 1960 Harvest of Shame revealed the struggles of migrant

farmworkers in the United States, Midwest communities, state governments, farmworkers,

growers, unions, and agribusinesses debated and renegotiated the structure of the Midwest

migrant stream.1 The decades from 1960 to 1990 were a critical period in the history of the

migrant stream. Although the Harvest of Shame focused on the experiences of African

American migrants along the East Coast, Midwest state governments and communities realized

that migrants lived and worked in similar horrible conditions in their region. This awareness

coincided with the advent of the Civil Rights, Chicano, Feminist and United Farm Workers

(UFW) movements of the 1960s and 1970s, creating a time period where farmworkers and

Midwesterners debated and challenged the power structure of the Midwest stream. During the

last half of the twentieth century, individuals within and outside the migrant stream

renegotiated power within the home, the Catholic Church, society, and the agricultural system.

The migrant agricultural system, or as I call it, the food pyramid, focused power on a

decreasing amount of people and was structured so that few could see the pyramid as a whole,

but rather seeing only those that held power directly over them. Based on the backs of migrant

farmworkers, other groups in the middle of the pyramid: growers, governments, and the public,

were largely unaware of their role in the pyramid as a whole, or the role of a few agricultural

1 Edward R. Murrow, Harvest of Shame, directed by Fred W. Friendly, (CBS Report, November 24, 1960),

videocassette.

corporations on the top. This food pyramid maintained a power structure that abused

farmworkers and left few in the agri-corporations and a handful of government leaders, on top.

The Midwest food pyramid at the last half of the twentieth century included the growers who

hired farmworkers, state and national governments that developed policies that affected the

model of the stream and the rights of migrants, the aid organizations and unions that sought to

better farmworkers’ lives, and migrant farmworkers themselves; all of which helped to reshape

the stream as each group renegotiated their role in the field, the home, and society.

The Midwest migrant stream during the last half of the twentieth century was a unique

stream during a unique time. In contrast to the East Coast or the Western stream, Midwest

growers did not widely employ migrant workers until the 1960s. By the 1960s, Mexican and

Mexican Americans traveling from their homes in Texas, Florida, or Mexico, came to dominate

the fields of the Midwest, working in a variety of crops including tomatoes, apples, sugar beets,

cucumbers, mushrooms, and much more. For rural Midwest communities largely devoid of

Latino residents, the sight of Mexican and Mexican American families traveling up North to

work in local fields created a major change to the status quo. While the residents of the upper

East Coast had seen African American men working in nearby fields for years and communities

in the West Coast regularly saw an influx of additional Mexican Americans during the harvest

season, most of the Midwest had neither many Mexican American communities nor a long

history of Mexican American migrants. The newly formed Midwest migrant stream was a

unique departure from the formation and existence of the West and Eastern streams. While

previous scholars like Ernesto Galarza examine the long history of Mexican and Mexican

American agricultural workers in the West, and others like Cindy Hahamovitch explore the

changing nature of the East coast stream, few scholars have analyzed the Midwest migrant

stream.2 The Midwest’s distinctive feature as a newer site for Mexican American and Mexican

migrant families positions the Midwest stream as a site of important analysis.

The influx of Mexican and Mexican Americans working and living in poverty

conditions in the Midwest came when social movements encouraged Midwest locals to act on

issues of poverty and minority rights. Midwesterners in 1960 saw the Harvest of Shame, which

examined the struggles, discrimination, and forces that shaped migrants’ lives that were

experienced in fields and farm towns or cities across the Midwest, despite the film’s association

with the Eastern coast. Inspired by the social movements of the period like the Chicano and

Feminist Movements and the struggles of the UFW, the Midwestern public and farmworkers

themselves were inspired to challenge relationships within the food pyramid, organizations, and

family units. Catholic organizations, farmworkers, farmworker unions, the public, growers, and

governments negotiated the roles and rights of women and migrants, though they interpreted

the issues differently. These various ideas combined to a degree not seen before to create

multiple reimaginings of life for farmworkers and society as a whole. Yet the era of activism

came to a close as decreasing activism, the Farm Crisis, and the ascendancy of neoliberalism

started to enthrall the Midwest and the nation as the 1980s progressed. Though this time of

activism in general only lasted two decades, the reverberations of this moment of change

reshaped the power dynamics of the stream and society. An investigation of this period offers a

unique and important glimpse into the power structure and relationships of the Midwest

2 Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story: An Account of the Managed Migration of

Mexican Farm Workers in California 1942-1960 (San Jose, California: Rosicrucian Press, 1964); Cindy

Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-

1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997).

migrant stream at a time of change that previous scholars of farmworkers and Midwest

migrants have largely ignored.

By the time President Bill Clinton, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and

Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed NAFTA in 1993, the significant shift in

international policies that affected immigration and agriculture brought on by NAFTA,

reshaped the Midwest food pyramid. Despite the success of FLOC and the changes created by

legislation and aid programs, the Farm Crisis of the 1980s and the apathy of the 1980s,

refocused the public on issues other than farmworkers’ plight. National and Midwest migrant

patterns shifted during the 1980s and after, as growers avoided crops that required farm

laborers. In addition, agri-corporations moved to Southern areas and ultimately drew a cheap

Latino labor force to a region largely devoid of Latinos, international changes resulted in the

immigration of Central American workers to the United States, and the United States

government-supported policies ensured growers’ employment of foreign workers through the

H-2(A) programs. All these changes altered the national and Midwest stream after the 1980s.

These shifts allow us to see the 1960s to the 1980s as a time of increased activism and interest.

The 1960s to the 1990s resulted in changes, as the time period encouraged or forced the

individuals and groups that made up the Midwest food pyramid to action, revealing the power

each had and the role each played in shaping the Midwest migrant stream.

To understand the nature of the stream during this time, this dissertation will explore the

various groups that influenced the stream: national and state governments, growers, Catholic

aid organizations, farmworker unions, and farmworkers themselves. These groups not only

influenced the stream, but also interacted with each other and altered the interpersonal

dynamics within the stream and within their own groups. The social movements of the era

encouraged women and Chicanos to demand change in the Catholic Church, in the home, in

unions, and in local communities, sparking debates about minorities’ roles in society and the

Church. The UFW inspired activism in Mexican Americans, Chicana nuns and priests, Anglo

college students, and more. Yet all these advocates for farmworkers did not desire the same

degree of transformation. Some sought mild reforms, while others sought a band-aid approach

that privileged agriculture power over empowering farmworkers. Even in the Church groups

that sought to assist, there was no unified agreement on what allies should advocate and how

they could assist the migrants in the stream. The interplay of these different forces framed

Mexican and Mexican American migrants’ experience with attempts at reform in the Midwest,

and in the Midwest food pyramid.

To understand the arrangement of the Midwest food pyramid, the first chapter examines

the role of national and international policies that configured the Midwest migrant stream and

the resulting issues that farmworkers faced as they lived transcultural lives in the stream.

National and international relations and policies, such as the Bracero Program, influenced who

migrated to the United States just as opportunities in the United States and the lack of

opportunities in Mexico also encouraged Mexican nationals to find work al Norte. In the

Midwest, the creation of a pliable, cheap, and transcultural labor force of Mexican and Mexican

Americans became the basis of the migrant stream in the last half of the twentieth century. This

chapter expands on the insights of Deborah Cohen’s Braceros: Migrant Citizens and

Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and Mexico analysis of transnational lives

created by the Bracero Program and examines Mexican Americans’ similar transcultural

experiences as migrants from Latino communities in the South to rural Anglo-dominated

communities of the North.3 Extending beyond the Bracero Program’s effect on transcultural

and family dynamics in Mexico, this chapter will note the international decisions since the

1940s that created the migrant stream and shaped the gender dimensions of transcultural

migration in the Midwest.

National policies reflected the United States government’s effort to placate grower and

agri-corporation demands, making migrant farmworkers an exploited group at the bottom of the

food pyramid, preventing farmworker’s right to unionize, and developing an agricultural model

that encouraged the growth of agribusinesses and the subjugation of small growers. Katharine

Mapes in Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics explores

the connection between national government policies and growers, specifically the command of

corporate sugar beet companies and their growers.4 Midwest growers of the last half of the

twentieth century influenced government decisions, but not necessarily as a unified force.

Instead, agribusinesses and growers did not exist on the same level of the food pyramid,

leading to different ideas about national policy decisions, especially as the public pressured the

government to better farmworkers’ conditions and agri-corporations consolidated their control

over the entire agricultural system. Though public concern forced national regulations and laws

to better migrants’ conditions in the 1960s and 1970s, regulations and laws regarding

farmworkers offered little more than a show for publicity that maintained the food pyramid that

relegated farmworkers to the bottom, kept agribusinesses at the top, with growers, pressured by

the public, corporations, and the government, in the middle.

3 Deborah Cohen, Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and

Mexico (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

4 Kathleen Mapes, Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2009).

Chapter two explores the role of state governments in the reform era that was

inaugurated in the 1960s. Midwest state governments were at the forefront of migrants’

encounter with governments, caught between national policies and public demands for change.

As a result of the limits and approach to agricultural policy at the national level after the New

Deal, state agencies framed Midwest migrants’ access to public aid and education through

agencies’ policies and configurations operated to enforce the pyramid. Examining Illinois as a

case study of a typical Midwest state, this chapter analyzes how Illinois state agencies’

programs, organization, and discrimination, as demonstrated by the language of the people and

texts used in Illinois, exemplified farmworker’s struggles to survive in the Midwest stream.

Mexican American migrants had to navigate policies, programs, and educational institutions

designed primarily for settled, English-speaking residents. Even when state legislators altered

laws or policies to better migrants’ lives, state legislators failed to listen to migrants and

resisted attempts to alter the food pyramid. This finding reinforces Dennis Noldin Valdes’ Al

Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 which reviews the half-

hearted national and state governments’ attempts to address concern for migrants.5 This

overarching examination of farmworkers in the Midwest region focuses solely on laws and

policies, but not the effect of these laws and policies on migrants, nor on the role of the public

in bringing about these policies. For the many Mexican American migrants working and living

in poverty in Midwest fields, state programs largely offered aid that rendered only meager

assistance to migrants.

5 Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University

of Texas Press, 1991).

Chapter three examines the relationship of growers and farmworkers as they

encountered attempts at reform in the Midwest landscape. The food pyramid placed migrants

on the bottom, but also harmed the small and mid-sized growers who made up Midwest

agriculture. Growers faced pressure to reduce costs and increase production to increase their

meager profits, while at the same time governments developed farmworker regulations that

increased labor costs, placing growers in a precarious situation. Though growers saw these

pressures, many refused to see farmworkers’ as potential allies, and viewed their position on

the bottom of the food pyramid as natural. Growers often decried the system, but defended their

employment of migrants at meager wages. The corporatization of agriculture had been

occurring throughout the United States, as Cary McWilliams’ seminal Factories in the Fields:

The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California demonstrates of California agriculture in the

early twentieth century.6 Yet the Midwest remained significantly less corporatized than

California, and even less so in the publics’ eye. Given the idealized image of farmers in the

Midwest, it was more difficult for farmworkers advocates to pressure growers to remedy

migrants’ conditions, or empower them. The idea of family farmers continued to animate the

public imagination in the Midwest, and so when the 1980s Farm Crisis threatened small

farmers, attention reverted to the family farm, and not the migrant stream.

Government regulations, unionization, and public pressure to better farmworkers’ lives

altered growers and migrants’ interaction, ultimately influencing how the farm looked; yet

many in the public were unaware of this dynamic. Mapes’ Sweet Tyranny and Jim Norris’

North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry analyze the

6 Cary McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Hamden,

Connecticut: Archon Books, 1969).

sometimes paternalistic relationship between sugar beet growers and Mexican American sugar

beet workers.7 These works, though notable for investigating how growers and locals viewed

Mexican American laborers, take place before the 1960s and focus on a specific crop where

agribusinesses, rather than growers, mediated farmworker and grower relationships. For the rest

of the Midwest, the post-1960 public decried the conditions of migrants, but failed to clearly

see the role of Midwest family farms or corporate agribusiness in the food chain. The public

failed to see that the poor conditions of farmworkers stemmed from farmers, agribusinesses,

and food corporations’ view of labor as an object and not a product of an individual. Instead,

some of the public supported aid to farmworkers and the continuation of the family farm

without understanding that many family farms had a role in the conditions of migrants in the

stream. This interplay framed the way growers interacted with migrants, where migrants lived,

what farmers grew, what changes the public supported, where migrant families went, and

ultimately the Midwest landscape. As academics studied the role of growers and agribusinesses

in the West, South, and to a smaller degree, the Midwest, few if any examine the role of

farmworkers in the Farm Crisis of the 1980s and how this event impacted farm laborers on the

heels of two decades of social activism. For Midwest growers in the 1960s to the 1990s, public

perception of the Farm Crisis and migrants’ struggles altered how growers and migrants

interacted and thereby reshaped the Midwest landscape.

The public’s view of migrants’ struggles and their role in the food pyramid is further

explored in chapter four. Chapter four specifically studies the role of the Catholic Church in

creating aid programs and supporting change in the stream. The Catholic Church had a strong

7 Mapes, Sweet Tyranny; Jim Norris, North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet

Industry (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society, 2009).

tie to the predominately Catholic Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the Midwest.

Influenced by changing Catholic Doctrine, Vatican II, as well as the Chicano, Feminist, and

UFW Movements, Hispanic and Anglo Catholic individuals and groups created numerous

organizations and programs to assist migrants. The types of programs created by Catholic

groups exemplified the different groups’ perceptions of the food pyramid and how social

movements inspired these organizations to create change. Numerous academic works

investigate the importance of Catholicism and aid in respect to the United Farm Workers, in

particular, Marco G. Prouty’s César Chávez, The Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’

Struggle for Social Justice.8 In contrast to the UFW in California, the Midwest did not have

such a well-known union movement, but Midwesterners were still influenced by the UFW. Just

as Prouty explains how the UFW inspired Catholics to support the UFW union, the UFW also

inspired Catholics and Midwesterners to support the Midwest farmworker union Farm Labor

Organizing Committee (FLOC) and to better all farmworkers’ lives in the Midwest. This

chapter will extend Dustin McLochlin’s American Catholicism and Farm Labor Activism: The

Farm Labor Aid Committee of Indiana As a Case Study beyond his focus on one state and the

influence of the UFW movement on one aid organization to include the impact of the Chicano

and Feminist Movement and the existence of various Catholic organizations that developed

programs to change the status quo in the Midwest.9

In addition, this chapter draws on the general Midwest environment in which these

Catholic groups thrived, including the Chicano and student populations that made up the base

8 Marco G. Prouty, César Chávez, The Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice

(Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2006).

9 Dustin McLochlin, "American Catholicism and Farm Labor Activism: The Farm Labor Aid Committee of

Indiana as a Case Study," (Ph.D. dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2008).

of support for programs that demanded change in society. Faced with different ideas about

migrant and women’s rights, Chicano identity, and labor unions, Catholic organizations, the

Midwest public, and migrants negotiated the type of programs created, with some promoting

changing gender and power relationships within the Church, society, and the fields, and others

focusing solely on minimal aid such as food and clothing for migrants. Similar to Cindy

Hahamovitch’s Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant

Poverty, 1870-1945, which analyzes the state and several progressive groups in the Southern

stream during the early 1900s, aid organizations played a significant role in shaping the migrant

experience.10 Groups’ interpretations of migrants’ issues and their own prejudices and opinions

shaped the types of programs created. In the Midwest this meant organizations had different

opinions regarding the acceptance of Mexican American culture, farmworker rights, and

changing the power structure of the Midwest food pyramid. The interplay of gender, religion,

and social rights interacted to determine the types of programs Catholic groups created,

ultimately influencing farmworkers’ survival strategies in the migrant stream as they interacted

with different Catholic charities and support organizations.

Chapter five further examines the role of farmworkers, growers, and the public in the

food pyramid under the lens of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). Inspired by the

UFW, the Midwest union FLOC sought to alter the migrant stream by forcing corporations to

acknowledge their role in the food pyramid through a three party deal with farmworkers and

growers. While numerous works study the well known UFW in California, only a few works

study FLOC, including W. K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza’s The Farm Labor Movement in the

Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation Among Migrant Farmworkers, which examines the

10 Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor.

creation of FLOC and their method of organizing a successful union.11 In understanding the

structure of the food pyramid, FLOC empowered migrant farmworkers to better their own lives

and their families in the stream. FLOC employed the Midwest stream’s family configuration as

well as a popular tactic of the UFW, a boycott. Though Barger and Reza’s work analyzes

FLOC in terms of a social movement and how leaders developed the union, this analysis does

not consider the influence of UFW and the overall effect FLOC had on gender relationships

because of their family-based organizational structure. FLOC embraced the family

configuration of the Midwest stream just as it embraced the boycott, taking advantage of a

massive union base and an era of activism to gain public support to change the stream. FLOC’s

revolutionary choice to seek a three party deal demonstrated an in-depth understanding of the

Midwest food pyramid, while embracing a boycott exemplified their understanding of the

public’s power in the food pyramid. In addition, FLOC’s use of the Midwest stream’s family

composition empowered men and women in the stream to change the power dynamics of

Mexican American families and the Midwest stream. Social movements of the period and

FLOC leaders’ understanding of the food pyramid shaped FLOC’s tactics, which in turn

influenced farmworker relationships in their families, in society, and in the field.

The last chapter, six, explores the roles of the Midwest, families, and gender in shaping

migrants’ experiences in the Midwest. Midwest migrant farmworkers lived between two

worlds, attempting to create a home either temporarily or, in the case of farmworkers who out-

migrated, permanently in the Midwest. The Midwest was an area with a mixture of urban and

rural and Anglo and Mexican American communities. Traveling between the South and the

11 W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation

Among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994).

North, migrant communities brought their culture with them, including their traditional familial

relationships. Inspired by the social movements of the time, migrants’ interactions with certain

individuals and groups, and the basic necessities of survival in the Midwest stream, forced

migrants to adapt familial roles to survive in the stream. Gender and family roles had to adapt

to suit migrants’ changing lives in the stream as they moved from one location to another. This

chapter expands on Marc Simon Rodriguez’ dissertation, and later book, on how militant

Chicano activism and ideas moved from Texas to Wisconsin through the migrant stream.12 The

Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism of Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin explores

how migrant communities and their locations were critical to the understanding of migrants’

actions. Mexican American farmworkers established migrating communities that maintained

their own cultural roots and traditions. The social ideas of the time, as well as farmworkers’

experiences in their homes in the South and their temporary homes in the North, influenced

how migrant families and communities adapted to their circumstances. While Rodriguez

studies this interaction in terms of the settled-out migrants’ connection to relatives in Texas,

this chapter will expand on the experience of the migrants still in the stream in addition to those

who left the stream. Family dynamics, the communities in which farmworkers worked and

lived, and the maintenance of Mexican American culture shaped migrants’ survival strategies

and experience in the Midwest, whether temporarily as migrants or permanently as settled-out

workers.

The Midwest migrant stream in the last half of the twentieth century defined a

significant moment in time. The increase in concern and awareness about the struggles of

12 Marc Simon Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism of Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011).

Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers brought political, government, and religious

attention. The social activism of the era encouraged farmworkers and the public to seek reform

and for some, radical change in the structure and conditions of the Midwest stream. Yet this

concern was not universal, as groups had different interpretations about farmworkers’

struggles, unions’ roles in the stream, women’s rights, Chicano identity, and altering power

relationships in the food chain. Before national changes including, but not limited to, NAFTA

altered the migrant stream, the farmworkers in the Midwest occupied a significant focus for

discussion and debate. In examining the roles of the various groups that made up and

influenced the migrant stream within the context of this era of change, this work will expand

upon our understanding of a unique space and time.

CHAPTER 1

“WHEN WE ARRIVE…”1: GOVERNMENT POLICIES, MIGRANT FAMILIES AND

BELONGING IN THE MIDWEST MIGRANT STREAM

“The truth is, that the farm labor system is based on underemployment,

unemployment, and poverty at home and abroad. Even more shocking,

public policy is directed toward perpetuation of the system.”2

-…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him

“No, this isn’t my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo

the year I’ve lived here. I don’t belong-I don’t’ ever want to come from here.

You have a home, Alicia, and one day you’ll go there, to a town you remember,

but me I never had a house, not even a photograph....”3

-Robert Jerome Glaser

Sitting in the back of a crowded truck as it raced down the highway, Jesús Zamarrón

Rocha had high hopes of making decent money, as did the other Bracero workers crouched

around him. For years Jesús worked around the country: Arizona, Michigan, Texas, Colorado,

and California, in a multitude of crops including corn, lettuce, strawberries, and cotton. Jesús

was one of millions of Mexicans that came to work in United States fields under the Bracero

Program, a bi-national agreement whereby United States growers contracted Mexican nationals

to work in agricultural fields. Jesús’ first trip on that crowded truck was in 1957, twelve years

1 Tomás Rivera, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him: And Related Readings, trans. Evangelina Vigil-Piñón,

(Evanston, Illinois: McDougal Littell, 1997), 81-87.

2 Robert Jerome Glaser, “American Farm Bureau’s Position on Six Federal Bills Affecting Migrant Farm Labor,”

(M.S., Illinois State University, 1963). Quote made by the Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg.

3 Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street (New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1984), 106-107.

after the end of World War II, despite the fact that the United States and Mexican governments

started the Bracero Program to meet U.S. agricultural labor needs during the war. Agricultural

interest groups pressured the United States Congress to continue the Bracero Program that

allowed Jesús to work as a Bracero. When public pressure and the decreasing need for Braceros

resulted in the end of the Bracero Program in 1964, Jesús continued to work in the United

States, now illegally crossing the border. The public pressured the United States government to

deal with undocumented immigrants and strikebreakers, while agricultural interest groups

pressured the government to not interfere significantly with growers’ demands for cheap

undocumented workers. Shortly before Jesús retired from working in the fields in the 1990s,

Jesús, like many undocumented Mexican farmworkers in the United States, had an option to

apply to be a United States citizen under the Special Agricultural Worker (SAW) section of the

Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986. Jesús would continue to live in the

United States, finally bringing his family in Mexico across the border. Together as a family,

Jesús, his wife, and children adjusted from a life of separation as they all tried to find their

place in a new home.4

The story of Jesús Zamarrón Rocha is not one of a single man, but one of a family

navigating international and national policies to find work and to maintain family and cultural

ties through transculturalism and migrant communities as they struggled to find their place in a

constantly changing world. Jesús’ story exemplifies the experience of Midwest migrant

farmworkers who lived between two worlds as they traveled from their homes in Mexico,

Texas, or Florida to their temporary homes in the Midwest fields. In constantly migrating,

4 Jesús Zamarrón Rocha, interview by Violeta Domínguez, November 3, 2003, Item #108, Bracero History

Archive, accessed May 28, 2014, http://braceroarchive.org/items/show/108. This is a narrative based on Jesús

Zamarrón Rocha’s story within the context of historical events.

farmworkers struggled to come to terms with separation from family and/or being outsiders

because of their poverty or their Mexican culture in predominately Anglo Midwest rural towns.

This isolation made migrants feel like Esperanza in House on Mango Street, detached from the

places where they lived.5 In the early nineteenth century, Mexican and Mexican American

communities developed in large urban areas such as Chicago, Illinois and St. Paul, Minnesota,

or in sporadic locales like Davenport, Iowa where railroad work brought a small but noticeable

influx of Mexican and Mexican Americans.6 Yet most small rural areas where farmworkers

worked in the mid and late twentieth century lacked the urban or railroad draw that brought

early influxes of Mexicans, making migrant workers a culturally isolated group in their

temporary Midwest homes. Sometimes these temporary homes became permanent as migrants

settled-out of the stream, yet the continued migration of other farmworkers and the existence of

a family back in Texas, Florida, or Mexico maintained ex-migrants’ ties to their former homes.7

Unlike the Eastern and Western migrant streams, Midwest migrant farmworkers during the last

half of the twentieth century largely faced these issues as family units, with men, women, and

5 Cisneros, The House on Mango Street.

6 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota;

Mary Terronez Records, University Iowa Women’s Archives, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Nicholas De

Genova, Working the Boundaries: Race, Space, and “Illegality” in Mexican Chicago (Durham: Duke University

Press, 2005); Nicholas De Genova and Ana Y. Ramos-Zayas, Latino Crossings: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and the

Politics of Race and Citizenship (New York: Routledge, 2003).

7 Marc Simon Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism & Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011); Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza, December 22,

2010, transcript, Lideres Latinos Oral History Project, Minnesota Immigrant Oral Histories, Minnesota Historical

Society, St. Paul, Minnesota, accessed April 17, 2014, http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10872845.

children migrating together.8 Like Tomás Rivera’s work …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him,

migrant workers constantly moved, “always arriving” at some new location.9 Children felt like

outsiders at school, women struggled to get assistance in offices where no one spoke Spanish,

and men tried to understand a foreign medical system.10 Struggling to survive and maintain

their cultural and familial ties to home in Mexico or the southern United States, migrant

farmworkers navigated the changing political and social landscape of the Midwest migrant

stream.

Farmworkers struggled to live between two worlds as the United States and Mexican

governments’ policies and the cultural changes in society that shaped the structure of the

migrant stream affected the lives of migrants. The story of Jesús Zamarrón Rocha and his

family exemplified how United States and Mexican societies and governments shaped the

migrant experience and family relations, as laws governed Jesús’ ability to cross national

borders and as society demanded an end to the exploitive Bracero Program. In the Midwest,

governments and societal changes shaped the demographics of the Midwest stream at the end

of the twentieth century from a community of migrant families to one where growers avoided

8 Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C. S. Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA

(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 103, 152, 162-163; Cindy Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor:

Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 1997), 30, 34, 141; Matt Garcia, A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of

Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 36-37; Rick Mines,

Jimmy Torres, and Susan Gabbard, Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 1989: A

Demographic and Employment Profile of Perishable Crop Farm Workers, prepared by Department of Labor,

Office of Program Economics (Washington, DC, 1991); Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican

Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950. (Albuquerque: University of

New Mexico Press, 1987).

9 Rivera, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him.

10 Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers (New York: Harcourt

Brace, 1998), 272-276; Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Organizing Report, January-October 1976, 4:19, Farm

Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan;

José Martinez, interview by Mark DePue, July 31, 2008, transcript, 5, Agriculture in the Modern Era, Agriculture

in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

families because they preferred male laborers.11 National and international rules shaped

agricultural workers’ lives since before World War I, but the significant changes in the last half

of the twentieth century, as Mexican nationals flooded the agricultural fields, social concern for

migrant farmworkers increased, and farmworkers demanded greater rights, brought major

changes to the lives of migrant farmworker families.

Antecedentes/Background

The migrants that came to the Midwest in the last half of the twentieth century were

characteristically different from farmworkers in other parts of the nation. National and

international events and policies developed to create a different labor market in the Midwest.

From the mid to late 1800s through the early 1900s, Midwest vegetable and fruit growers relied

on locals and transients for harvest.12 People from nearby areas and male hobos, many white

and European immigrants, trekked within local circuits or across the country to harvest crops

for a few days in the year.13 As farming became more scientific, mechanical, and output driven,

fewer farmers could economically maintain their small farms, resulting in fewer growers with

larger fields.14 With the advent of scientific and mechanical changes in farming, farmers no

11 Minnesota Department of Health, Migrant Health Services (March-April 1969), 10:2, Red River Sugar Beet

Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University,

Moorhead, Minnesota; Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers: Experience in Advocacy,” 8:25, PADRES

Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana.

12 Jane Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990 (Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1994), 109.

13 Frank Tobias Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-

1930 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 105.

14 Shane Hamilton, Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy (Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 2008), 170.

longer required constant year-round help, replacing local and hobo labor with large numbers of

Mexican and Mexican American migrant families primarily during the harvest.15

Growers came to rely on various racial minorities for labor, employing groups easily

exploitable based on national and international events and local agricultural developments.

California’s massive “factories in the fields” developed in the late 1800s, using a changing

supply of immigrant labor that migrated across the Pacific Ocean in addition to the Mexican

and Mexican Americans living and immigrating to the West.16 By the 1920s, Mexican and

Mexican Americans came to dominate California’s agricultural labor.17 These laborers traveled

short distances within California or from their homes in Texas to work in California and the

Western migrant stream.18 The dominance of Mexican and Mexican American males in

California agriculture continued the practice of employing male workers while wives and

mothers of farmworkers stayed home or worked in local canning industries.19 In contrast, the

migrant stream along the East coast started with immigrant families, evolving into a primarily

male work force. Italian women and children labored in the fruit and vegetable fields of the

East Coast in the late 1800s and early 1900s.20 By the mid-1900s, African American males

traveling without their families replaced Italian families as the primary labor force of the East

15 Sister Mary Eloise Thomas, "A Study of the Causes and Consequences of The Economic Status of Migratory

Farm Workers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, 1940-1958" (Ph.D. dissertation, Notre Dame, 1960).

16 Mark Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States, 1900-1940

(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1976); Cletus E. Daniel, Bitter Harvest: A History of California

Farmworkers, 1870-1941 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 21-66; Carey McWilliams, Factories in the

Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California (Hamden, Connecticut: Archon Books, 1969), 49.

17 Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow; Daniel, Bitter Harvest, 67.

18 Garcia, A World of Its Own, 36-37; Mines, Torres, and Gabbard, Findings from the National Agricultural

Workers Survey (NAWS) 1989.

19 Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives; Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration

Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York: Hill and Wang, 2004). United States restrictions on Japanese and

Chinese immigration meant that immigrants, and therefore workers in the fields, were male.

20 Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor.

Coast migrant stream.21 Though the Midwest migrant stream initially relied on transient male

laborers in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, growers came to rely on Mexican

families by the mid-twentieth century. Unlike the West and East migrant streams, Midwest

growers, with their increasingly large fruit and vegetable fields, saw Mexican and Mexican

American families from Mexico, Texas, and even Florida as a viable labor supply. Though

single men might strike or walk, Mexican and Mexican American families provided Midwest

growers a large labor force unwilling to leave a job that could provide for their family.22

The earliest massive employment of Mexican and Mexican Americans in Midwest

fields characterized the developing transcultural identity of migrant farmworkers and the role of

national and international politics. Seeking a cheap labor force for the labor-intensive sugar

beet fields, Michigan and Minnesota sugar beet refineries had employed Mexican nationals and

Mexican Americans from Texas and Florida to work in growers’ fields since the 1920s.23

Mexicans became a viable labor force after the Mexican Revolution destabilized the country,

sending large numbers of Mexicans into United States fields looking for work.24 The United

States government encouraged even more immigration during World War I to alleviate the

21 Ibid.

22 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 103; Carol Zabin, "U.S.-Mexico Economic Integration: Labor

Relations and the Organization of Work in California and Baja California Agriculture," Economic Geography 73,

no. 3 (July 1997): 349-350.

23 Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1991), 190-192; Kathleen Mapes, Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial

Agriculture, and Imperial Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009); Jim Norris, North for the Harvest:

Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009).

24 Michael J. Gonzalez, The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,

2002); Deborah Cohen, Braceros: Migrant Citizens and Transnational Subjects in the Postwar United States and

Mexico, (Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 2011).

labor shortage created by agricultural workers entering the remunerative war industry.25 In

addition, mechanization decreased farm employment opportunities in Texas, also encouraging

large numbers of Mexicans and Mexican Americans to seek work elsewhere to survive.26 All

these factors combined to make Mexican and Mexican Americans from Texas and Mexico the

main labor source for sugar beet growers in the Midwest, beginning what would become the

Midwest migrant stream. Expanding vegetable and fruit fields in the Midwest eventually

opened more opportunities for Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworker families

traveling up North. By the time World War II came to an end, the Midwest migrant stream that

would continue for the next half a century, was developing.

For the farmworkers who migrated up the Midwest stream, constant migration created a

sense of isolation from Midwestern locals as they developed a transcultural migrant

community. Deborah Boehm describes transcultural migrants as seeing “…themselves as

belonging to, divided between, and outside of two nation-states: here and there,” they “…use

decidedly spatial terms to depict movement and their ‘place’ in the world-territorial locales as

well as symbolic spaces of membership and exclusion.”27 For many immigrants,

transculturalism occurred when men left their families to work in another country, integrating

themselves into the new country and culture, while still remaining tied to their family and

country. This connection could aptly characterize the Mexican men, women, and children who

traveled to the United States to work in the Midwest fields, but transculturalism can also

25 Philip L. Martin, Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America (New Haven:

Yale University Press, 2009), 23; Reisler, By the Sweat of Their Brow, 24-42.

26 Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers

(New York: Verso, 2011), 105; Valdes, Al Norte, 37, 45-46.

27 Deborah A. Boehm, Intimate Migrations: Gender, Family, and Illegality among Transnational Mexicans (New

York: New York University Press, 2012), 5-6.

describe migration within the United States. For Texas and Florida Mexican and Mexican

Americans traveling up the Midwest stream, migration created cultural connections. Migrant

farmworkers generally grew up with homes in largely Mexican and Mexican American areas

but migrated to small rural Midwest areas usually devoid of Mexican American culture.

Though living and even settling out in the Midwest, many still maintained ties through kinship

and the remaining migrant community to their former homes in Mexico, Texas, or Florida.

Though the developing communities of Mexican Americans in the Midwest led to what

Marc Simon Rodriguez describes as a “Tejano diaspora,” or the dispersion of Texas Mexican

American population and culture with a shared identity around the nation, this “Tejano

diaspora” cannot elucidate the experiences of all Midwest migrant stream farmworkers.28 While

Texas culture migrated with farmworkers as they traveled the Midwest, Mexican Americans

from Florida and Mexican nationals and indigenous Mexicans in the Midwest migrant stream

created a complex web of various, but similar, cultural identities from the Midwest migrant

stream.29 Though not sharing a singular identity or culture, all migrant farmworkers struggled

to find a place or sense of belonging while using their home cultures and family connections in

Florida, Texas, and Mexico to maintain important ties to their base. Migrants lived between

multiple worlds, living between their home base with friends, their main school, extended

family, and a language and culture they understood and belonged to, and the current rural

community in which they worked. Unlike most traditional transcultural immigrants, migrants

did not live in two permanent worlds, but moved constantly, rarely creating strong ties with the

28 Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora.

29 David G Gutiérrez, Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Batriz Castillo, interview by Terry Shoptaugh, July 21, 1992,

transcript, 19, Red River Valley Sugar Beet Growers Association, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center,

Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

rural Midwest unless their family out-migrated. The Midwest migrant stream and the culture

and experience of migrant farmworkers must be seen as a transcultural experience with one

fixed point and the others constantly moving. In understanding the changes in the Midwest

migrant stream through the policies of United States and Mexican government and cultural

changes of the last half of the twentieth century, it is also important to understand the effects of

these changes on migrants’ sense of belonging, their transcultural identity, as policies and

culture shifted their rights and ability to mitigate and live between two worlds.

From the Grapes of Wrath to Harvest of Shame

Since the First World War, the United States government increasingly influenced the

creation of an agricultural system based on public pressure and agricultural interests that

abused Mexican and Mexican Americans and shaped the migrant communities of the Midwest.

The government eased border regulations to allow Mexicans to work in the fields during the

First World War, but the federal government also helped to construct an agricultural labor

structure in the Midwest. During the Great Depression and the New Deal, the United States

government not only created the Agricultural Adjustment Act which regulated the amount of

crops grown to increase their cost in the market, but also aided the Anglo “Okies” while

deporting large numbers of Mexican and Mexican Americans throughout the nation based on

the argument that they took jobs from United States citizens.30 Public pressure prompted the

United States and Mexican government to encourage or force Mexicans to repatriate to

30 Linda C. Majka and Theo J. Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State (Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 1982), 108; Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor, 147, 151.

Mexico.31 Without the large numbers of minority farmworkers, growers in California employed

“Okies,” farmers that lost their land because of the Depression. The struggles of the Okies

became the subject of public concern as the photographs of Dorothea Lange and the novel The

Grapes of Wrath narrated the poverty of the Okies, but hidden in this narrative the United

States government also racially discriminated against some migrants.32 Camps established to

house farmworkers segregated and discriminated against housing non-Anglos.33 In addition,

pressure from agricultural interest groups resulted in the exclusion of farmworkers from the

National Labor Relations Act that gave almost every other worker in the nation the right to

unionize.34 These decisions started shaping the triangular pyramid of power, whereby the few

corporate and government leaders had extensive power based solely on the labor of the many

migrant farmworkers in the nation. The different ways the United States government treated

Mexican farmworkers versus others set the precedent for how the United States government

viewed and reacted to the Mexican American farmworkers, negotiating with public and

agricultural pressure groups, usually to the detriment of farm laborers.

The repatriation of Mexicans during the Depression and their subsequent employment

in World War II encapsulated the United States government’s contrasting views of

farmworkers and the influence of agricultural interests in shaping the Midwest stream. During

the Depression, the United States government expanded the right to unionize to all workers

31 Mapes, Sweet Tyranny, 141-142, 221; Valdes, Al Norte, 31.

32 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 108; Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 48;

Valdes, Al Norte, 188.

33 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 112; Devra Weber, Dark Sweat, White Gold:

California Farm Workers, Cotton, and the New Deal (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 135.

34 Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor, 138. President Roosevelt exempted agricultural labor from the NLRA,

though the wording of who performed “agriculture labor” in contrast to cannery work, which was included under

NLRA, remained unclear for a while longer. Other workers exempted from the NLRA included domestic laborers.

except for agricultural workers.35 During World War II, the United States and Mexican

government created the Mexican Farm Labor Program, popularly known as the Bracero

Program, which was named for the rough Spanish term for “one who works with their arms,” or

hand laborers.36 The Bracero Program allowed farmers to contract Mexican nationals to work

in United States fields.37 Under the terms of the program, a grower could not employ Braceros

unless a labor shortage existed and their employment did not decrease U.S. citizens’ wages.38

Neither happened. Instead, the Bracero Program offered cheap labor for United States growers.

While the Mexican government tried to establish certain rights for Braceros, their inability to

ensure basic conditions or rights exemplified the United States government’s acceptance of

deplorable working and living conditions for international and national migrant farmworkers.

Preferred by the United States public that did not want a permanent Mexican labor force and by

the Mexican government who wanted technologically adept farmers, the importation of male

Braceros created a long-term imprint on the developing migrant farmworkers who travelled to

the Midwest.39 Immigration to the United States for agricultural work became a male journey

initially to the Western migrant stream. Families continued to be the backbone of the Midwest

migrant stream, yet the male-dominated Bracero Program started a chain migration that, while

initially not influencing the Midwest, compounded with future changes in the Midwest to create

a male labor force.

35 Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor, 138.

36 Robert Joe Stout, Why Immigrants Come to America: Braceros, Indocumentados, and the Migra (Westport,

Connecticut: Praeger, 2008), 2.

37 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, xxii.

38 Ernesto Galarza, Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story, an Account of the Managed Migration of

Mexican Farm Workers in California, 1942-1960 (Charlotte: McNally & Loftin, Publishers, 1964), 16.

39 Cohen, Braceros; Ana Elizabeth Rosas, “Breaking the Silence: Mexican Children and Women’s Confrontation

of Bracero Family Separation, 1942-1964,” Gender & History 23:2 (August 2011).

The ultimate effect of repatriation during the Depression and the government’s choice

to exclude farmworkers from the right to unionize was to frustrate a generation of migrant

farmworker children raised in between the Midwest and their homes in Texas, Florida, and

Mexico. For the migrants raised in the Midwest stream during and after World War II, their

lack of rights and discrimination were graphically apparent as they traveled to the Midwest.

Jose Martinez felt frustrated growing up in Texas and the Michigan fields. In Texas, Jose had

friends in his predominate Mexican neighborhood and school.40 He belonged. In Michigan, he

was always aware of his different status, aware that he and his family struggled in a nearby

field and lived in horrible housing while growers’ children went to the same school with every

opportunity and few concerns.41 Other migrants described similar feelings as Martinez, feeling

detached from the Midwest where they worked. The future farmworker union leader, Baldemar

Velasquez, described similar feelings. Working as a migrant in Ohio, he felt a disjunction

between his life in the Midwest community and ideals of “equality” and “justice for all” taught

in Ohio schools.42 Though some migrant children felt making friends in a school where they

only briefly attended was useless, many also described prejudice as well as cultural and class

differences as reasons for why they felt like outsiders in Midwest towns.

For many migrant farmworker children raised on the roads, the Midwest fields were a

place of contradictions. In their homes in Florida, Texas, or Mexico, they had communities that

spoke their language, shared their culture, and understood their struggles to survive. In the

Midwest, they felt the sting of discrimination, injustice, and the feeling of being different in

40 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 272-276.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid, 268.

schools and cities where local children viewed them as unwanted temporary visitors. Even

when local Midwest communities offered assistance or aid to migrant children in the form of

broken toys for Christmas, migrant children understood it was because they were different.43 In

other streams, women and children felt the sting of separation from husbands and fathers,

where men traveled to support their families; but, in the Midwest stream, children experienced

injustice and discrimination in their travels up North. Living in two worlds, but never

permanently being part of one, migrant children in the mid-twentieth century Midwest stream

understood they deserved more, and understood that they had to fight for it.

“Arms” to Aid

The Bracero Program came to a close in the 1960s during a time of social movements

and activism, when documentaries, books, and televisions aired the struggles of migrant

farmworkers in the nation. When it aired in 1960, Harvest of Shame made Midwesterners

aware of the abuse and horrible living and working conditions of farmworkers.44 Viewers came

to understand the reality, not only of the African American workers on the East coast portrayed

in Harvest of Shame, but of migrant farmworkers everywhere as farmworkers protested and

unionized in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of this media attention. The United Farm Workers

(UFW) in California also gained more significant support around the nation from college

students, religious groups, and politicians.45 Only a few years before the UFW, Michael

Harrington’s book The Other America offered a glimpse of poverty in the United States,

43 Ibid, 291.

44 Norris, North for the Harvest, 148.

45 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage.

including migrant farmworkers, just as minorities demanded rights.46 Faced with these realities,

the Midwest public demanded the national government assist migrant farmworkers; but while

the United States government negotiated the demands of agricultural interest groups and the

public, migrant farmworkers campaigned for rights through their migrating and transcultural

communities.

Mounting pressure forced the United States government to address migrant farmworker

conditions, but government programs brokered between public, farmworker, and grower

interests, illustrating how the national government understood the “migrant problem.” During

the 1930s, the United States government ignored the harsh reality that under the expanding new

agricultural system farmworkers could not eventually own their own farm as historically

occurred.47 By the 1960s, ignoring the issue became nearly impossible as the public watched

Harvest of Shame, read The Other America, and watched footage of the UFW boycott on the

news. The public became aware, at least partially, of the agricultural power structure that was

built on the backs of farmworkers. Forced to address reality, some in Congress sought to create

better child labor laws, control crew leaders, and possibly give farmworkers the right to

organize.48 However, powerful agricultural interest groups convinced government officials and

Congress that relief programs to ameliorate migrants’ problems was the “best” solution.49

Instead of major changes, The United States government created four main aid programs for

migrant farmworkers: Migrant Education, Migrant Health, the Job Training Partnership Act,

46 Michael Harrington, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1969).

47 Philip L. Martin and David A. Martin, The Endless Quest: Helping America’s Farm Workers (Boulder:

Westview Press, 1994), 14.

48 Martin and Martin, The Endless Quest, 22.

49 Ibid.

and Migrant Head Start.50 Initially called the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act

(CETA) program, the Job Training and Partnership Act (JTPA) replaced the CETA in 1982,

though performing essentially the same function under a different structure.51 While the JTPA

provided education to help migrant workers leave the stream through assistance in finding

employment, Head Start offered early childcare for migrant children before they entered

school, Migrant Education tried to close the gap in migrant children’s uneven education, and

Migrant Health provided medical services.52 To complicate matters, each program had its own

definition of a migrant farmworker, its own qualifications for receiving aid, its own way of

determining the number of farmworkers and therefore the need for aid in a given area, and

different financial means.53 Since the government’s four specific migrant programs were

separate entities, and local organizations that received funding to enact these efforts rarely

communicated, migrants received sporadic assistance. Many towns and cities did not even have

all four major aid programs, making the national government’s reaction to the “farmworker

problem” uneven and limited.54

The federal government’s temporary solutions to the problems of the migrant stream

resulted in farmworkers and their allies seeking different, more empowering routes to better

their lives while the public debated the “farmworker problem.” The UFW established boycott

offices around the nation, eventually gaining the support of various religious organizations and

50 Ibid, 29.

51 Ibid, 57.

52 Ibid, 53, 57.

53 Ibid, 31-50.

54 Ibid, 30-50, 93.

denominations in the United States.55 Like the rest of the nation, Midwestern churches and the

public developed support networks for the UFW and statewide approaches to the “migrant

problem,” to the anger of some Midwest locals.56 Debates on various private and government

efforts and organizations characterized the viewpoints about the role of religion, unions, and

national government in farmworkers' lives. Growers wrote angry letters to churches that

supported farmworker boycotts, local newspapers contained letters demanding the support of

farmworker rights, and growers and farmworkers alike marched on streets with their supporters

as each side demanded to be heard.57 Many in the public were concerned about the horrific

conditions of farmworkers though some would debate to what degree the United States

government should help farm laborers and how far farmworkers themselves should go in

bettering their own lives.

Angered by their difficult life growing up in the Midwest stream, Midwest migrant

children began to demand Midwest communities and growers provide better living and working

conditions, as well as assistance, as the 1960s and 1970s progressed. In Ohio and Wisconsin,

migrant farmworker unions, Obreros Unidos and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee

(FLOC), developed from Midwest migrants’ frustration.58 In addition, migrants that settled-out

55 UFW, Michigan Boycott Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

56 Ibid; DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

DeKalb, Illinois; Michigan Farmworker Ministry Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

57 Eillen Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt Together,” Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1985; Eric Harrison,

“Farm Workers’ Long Trek to Camden Reflects the Passion of a 5-Year Strike,” 5:14, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Letter to Pat Whelan

from Frank I. Meinen, September 19, 1973, 1:15, UFW Wisconsin-Milwaukee Boycott Records, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Patricia Ann Pogre, Letters, migrant workers, 2:54,

Wisconsin State Employment Service: Farm Placement, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

58 Valdes, Al Norte, 190-192; W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest:

Social Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 55.

in the Midwest created pockets of Mexican culture in rural Midwest areas and established

organizations to assist migrants and former migrants by demanding better state government

responses to migrants’ needs.59 One newspaper writer credited Latino and labor groups’

constant persistence for over ten years and their use of the United States courts as the reason

why the Department of Labor and the Occupation Safety and Health Advisory (OSHA) stopped

bending to grower pressure and enforced laws that made safe drinking water available to

workers.60 With their new-found allies, migrants and settled-out migrants endeavored to better

farmworkers and Mexican Americans’ lives despite the resounding contestation from some

local Midwest towns.

The efforts of settled-out Mexican and Mexican Americans in the Midwest often

evinced the continued influence and role of migrant communities and transculturalism. For

farmworkers migrating between Texas and Wisconsin, the “Tejano diaspora” connected the

bourgeoning activism of Tejanos in Crystal City, Texas with the frustration of former Texas

migrants in Wisconsin. Many of the ex-farmworkers that lived in Wisconsin came from Crystal

City and still had family or knew migrants who continued to work in the stream.61 When local

Mexican Americans fought for political representation in Crystal City and developed La Raza

Unida, Wisconsin residents learned from this new activism.62 Wisconsin-settled migrants took

part in the formation of La Raza Unida and developed their own efforts to improve Mexican

American and migrants’ lives, specifically demanding representation in the United Migrant

59 United Migrant Opportunity Service Inc., 1965-1985, 20th Anniversary Album, 1985, 1-9, United Migrant

Opportunity Services, Inc., Milwaukee Area Research Center, UW- Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

60 Dick Meister, “The 20th Century Comes to the Farm,” Christian Science Monitor, July 2, 1987, 23:5, Michigan

Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Detroit, Michigan.

61 Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora.

62 Ibid.

Opportunity Movement (UMOS).63 Even as migrant farmworkers settled-out of the stream to

establish pockets of Mexican American culture in rural Midwest areas, the families and

communities that bound migrants’ old homes in the South with the fields of the North

remained. For Sylvia Garcia and her mother, family maintained ties between Texas, Mexico,

and Minnesota.64 Sylvia used her family ties to maintain culturally traditional foods, getting her

family in Texas to mail chili peppers and jalapeños because she could not find them in

Minnesota.65 Sylvia worked to provide her mother medical treatment in Minnesota when her

mother came up north. Transmitting ideas, as migrants and former migrants actively worked to

produce change in the South and North, farmworkers continued to live between two worlds.

Power from Field to Table

Resistance to laws and regulations to better farmworkers’ lives and the resulting effect

on migrants occurred because of the changing nature of agriculture in the United States and the

national government’s role in this change. Though the government’s agricultural policies

during the Depression attempted to control the market and limit production of goods, the

decisions of Ezra Taft Benson, former Farm Bureau President and the head of the Department

of Agriculture from 1953 until 1961, did the opposite.66 Benson promoted an open market for

agriculture and encouraged advancements in agricultural technology that would eliminate some

63 Ibid.

64 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza, 29, 47.

65 Ibid.

66 Hamilton, Trucking Country, 167, 170; Richard B. Craig, The Bracero Program: Interest Groups and Foreign

Policy, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), 161-162.

farm laborers’ jobs.67 Benson’s philosophies and subsequent policies had repercussions on

farming and farmworkers long after he left the Department of Agriculture. Using taxpayers’

money, Benson encouraged corporate power and the “get big or get out” mentality of

agriculture in addition to government financial support of mechanization, processed foods, and

chemical and genetic changes to crops. All these approaches affected farmworkers in the

Midwest and the nation, as mechanization and genetic engineering decreased the need for farm

labor and the use of chemicals made farm work more dangerous.68 In addition, the increasing

power of corporations, aided by government financing of agricultural research and the greater

number of processed foods made by corporations, meant farmworkers and growers had less

power to negotiate pay as more growers sold crops to large corporations.69 These fewer and

larger growers also faced economic hardship in the Farm Crisis of the 1980s, harming both

growers and the farmworkers who depended on them.70 In the Midwest and throughout the

nation, the actions of the Department of Agriculture affected the lives of migrants in the

farmworker stream.

By the 1970s, government officials, growers, agribusinesses, and even farmworkers

themselves conjectured that mechanization would eliminate the need for farmworkers,

67 Hamilton, Trucking Country, 115-119.

68 Martin, Importing Poverty?, 150-152.

69 Sister Thomas More Bertels, "A Nun Speaks Out Against the FLOC Boycott," 11:22, National Association of

Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South

Bend, Indiana; Susan Sechler and Jim Hightower, "Big Business Down on the Farm," 16:1, National Association

of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South

Bend, Indiana.

70 William Adams, “Natural Virtue: Symbol and Imagination in the American Farm Crisis,” The Georgia Review

39: 4 (Winter 1985).

especially because of the unionization of farmworkers.71 Federal policy makers used this

argument as a reason to provide temporary solutions to the problems in the migrant stream, the

federal government also facilitated and underwrote efforts to mechanize. The Department of

Agriculture, frequently through their Land Grant Colleges, worked with corporations to create

machines as well as genetically alter fruits and vegetables to suit mechanical picking.72 In

contrast to the UFW, which tried to restrict advancing mechanization, Midwest’s FLOC

insisted that the corporations that benefitted from tax-supported research and farmworkers’

hard work should either train and hire displaced farmworkers as machine operators or pay to

retrain workers for new employment.73 Accepting machines as a means to alleviate the work,

FLOC sought only to force corporations to pay for the impact mechanization had on migrants’

lives since corporations helped create a system based on migrant farm labor.

Despite Benson and agricultural corporations’ emphasis on mechanization, growers and

corporations never eliminated hand labor. Yet the implications of mechanization were far-

reaching. In 1960, it took approximately 45,000 workers to harvest 168,000 acres of

tomatoes.74 In 1990, it took only 5,500 workers to harvest 330,000 acres of tomatoes, which

71 Brian Wiersema, “Rural Poverty Gets Attention,” Southern Illinoisan, November 26, 1971, 8; Dee Car,

“Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly,” Crescent-News, June 29, 1982, 9:121, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Baldemar Velasquez

and D.Y. Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate Letter, Revised, December 1980, 11:11, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

72 Sechler and Hightower, “Big Business Down on the Farm;” Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker

Struggle: A Debate by Letter; “Agribusiness Turns to Mechanization Farmworkers Laid off by Machines,” The

Call, March 13, 1978, 18:10, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne

State University, Detroit, Michigan.

73 Martin, Importing Poverty?, 152; Car, "Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly."

74 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 168.

produced four times the number of tomatoes as in 1960.75 The level of mechanization in the

tomato fields was unusual, as scientists could not successfully mechanize most crops. Instead,

small improvements rather than total mechanization affected farmworkers’ lives. Dwarf trees

and vines decreased the need for ladders and extra personnel needed to pick fruit and

vegetables on tall plants and trees.76 Precision planting and better herbicides decreased the need

for laborers to thin crops; and conveyor belts in the fields changed harvesting methods, again

decreasing the need for workers.77 These changes resulted not only in a decrease in the amount

of laborers needed, but altered gendered employment practices. Conveyor belts allowed for

women and the elderly to work in the fields, as conveyors eliminated the need to carry heavy

bags to the end of the rows.78 At the same time, pre-harvest work, which traditionally employed

men, women, and children, required fewer laborers because of improvements as growers and

farmworkers considered operating mechanical equipment masculine work.79 FLOC leaders

specifically argued that operating machines was a primarily masculine job that gave men the

ability to provide for their families as individual workers.80 Farmworkers would grapple with

the issue in which the need to provide for their families set women and men as potential

adversaries. Though mechanization did not replace the need for migrant farm laborers,

75 Ibid; Martin, Importing Poverty?, 82; Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893). It should also be noted that when

looking at statistics on vegetables or fruit, tomatoes may be counted as vegetables, despite biologically considered

fruit. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1893 declared tomatoes as vegetables based on common perception. Therefore,

in regards to tariff and therefore at least some commercial purposes, tomatoes are vegetables.

76 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 169; Martin, Importing Poverty?, 35; Martin and

Martin, The Endless Quest, 169.

77 Martin, Importing Poverty?, 150-152.

78 Ibid.

79 FLOC, Resolutions, no date, 11:11, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne

State University, Detroit, Michigan; Carr, “Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly;” Velasquez and

Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate Letter.

80 Ibid.

technology in addition to biological improvements ultimately shifted the number of

farmworkers in the fields.

The United States government’s policies regarding foreign workers also changed as

agricultural advancements and labor change in the 1970s and 1980s started to shift the

gendered configuration of farm work. Instead of eliminating the need for hand labor, the H-2

program after World War II, which allowed foreign nationals to work in the primarily East

Coast fields of the United States, sought to appease growers’ demands for cheap labor.

President Carter limited the H-2 program and tried to limit the effect on citizen farmworkers’

wages during his presidency from 1977 to 1981.81 Later, President Ronald Reagan reduced

regulation for the H-2 and expanded the program, now called H-2(A), to numerous industries

with agricultural labor under IRCA in 1986.82 Presidential decisions and court rulings made the

H-2(A) program increasingly more compliant to growers’ demands: low minimum wages,

American nationals had only a month advantage for preferential hiring, and if an American

citizen refused a job that paid only the minimum, as most did, they surrendered their right to

first bids.83 Though initially used in the Southern United States, H-2(A) workers became

common throughout the nation, including the Midwest, by the end of the twentieth century. The

expanding nature of H-2(A) not only offered cheap, deportable labor, but the foreignness and

predominately male demographic of H-2(A) workers rarely drew sympathetic reformers in the

United States. These H-2(A) workers coupled with undocumented workers to create a large

influx of cheap labor in the United States. Sometimes the influx of undocumented workers

81 Garry G. Geffert, "H-2(A) Guestworkers Program: A Legacy of Importing Agricultural Labor," in The Human

Cost of Food: Farmworkers, Lives, Labor, and Advocacy, eds. Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Melinda F. Wiggins

(Austin, TX: Austin University of Texas Press, 2002), 117; Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 93.

82 Geffert, "H-2(A) Guestworkers Program," 118; Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 91-93.

83 Geffert, "H-2(A) Guestworkers Program," 118-119, 122, 132.

came from growers’ inflated demands for workers, as happened in 1987 Washington where a

radio advertisement heard all the way to Chicago and Mexico promised jobs and even legal

status for apple-picking workers.84 In reality, weather and inflated labor demands left thousands

of abandoned United States migrants and undocumented immigrants in Washington without

money or work.85 Living between two worlds, men like Heriberto Morales left his family in La

Cienaga, Mexico to work in Harvard, Illinois for eight months in a year, sharing a trailer with

other male migrants.86 Like other parts of the Midwest, the number of men like Morales

increased as entire cities in Mexico migrated to the United States to work. Growers,

corporations, and the United States government’s preference for foreign males dated back to

the Bracero Program and continued with the implementation of the H-2(A) program. The male

predominance of H-2(A) workers, coupled with the changing demographics in the Midwest

migrant stream, only increased the changing gendered configuration of the Midwest migrant

stream.

Farmworkers established and strengthened transcultural and migrant ties to combat and

adjust to the changing political landscape as they dealt with the ever increasing power of

agribusinesses and corporations and the changing structure of the Midwest migrant stream, due

partly to the policies of the government. FLOC’s leader, Baldemar Velasquez, initially saw

growers as the enemy when he created FLOC in 1967.87 However, Velasquez came to realize

84 James Coates, “Apple lure leaves migrant workers stranded,” Chicago Tribune, October 4, 1987.

85 Coates, “Apple lure leaves migrant workers stranded.”

86 Sue Ellen Christian, “Harvesting a Dream- Migrant Workers Sow Sweat, Reap Survival,” Chicago Tribune,

June 13, 1993.

87 “The Cry of the Harvesters: Farmworkers Fight Campbells Soup, Interview with Baldemar Velasquez,”

Catholic Agitator, May 1984, 24:1, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

that corporations abused both growers and farmworkers.88 Though growers themselves initially

refused to see their tie with farmworkers, FLOC successfully boycotted Campbell Soup

Company to create the first three-party negotiations between growers, farmworkers, and

corporations.89 FLOC’s success against Campbell and the union’s continued efforts

exemplified the importance of embracing transcultural and migrant communities. In their initial

boycott of Campbell, FLOC established migrating organizers in addition to bases in Texas and

Florida to organize workers in their homes both before they traveled and while along the

migrant path.90 Employing men, women, and children in the migrant stream, FLOC established

a migrating family-based union within the already existing migrant community.91

Understanding the importance of using preexisting transcultural or migrating communities,

FLOC continued after their success with Campbell in 1986 to expand their union network

beyond the United States.92 FLOC formed ties with the Mexican National Union of Salaried

Field Workers (SNTOAC) because they understood that Mexican nationals could be used to

break the union and saw the proliferation of H-2(A) workers in other fields.93 In addition,

88 “The Cry of the Harvesters.”

89 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 80-82; John Nichols, “FLOC, Heinz Hold Labor

Talks, Officials Confirm,” The Blade, August 8, 1986, 6, 4:8, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

90 FLOC Winter 1978 and 1979 organizing campaign, 24:3, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

91 FLOC Women’s Committee First Quarter Report, 1978, 4:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

92 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 80-82; John Nichols, “FLOC, Heinz Hold Labor

Talks, Officials Confirm.”

93 Altha J. Cravey, "Cowboys and Dinosaurs: Mexican Labor Unionism and the State," in Organizing the

Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism, ed. Andrew Herod (Minneapolis, Minnesota:

University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 92.

FLOC worked to unionize H-2(A) workers in the 1980s and 1990s.94 Using the preexisting and

developing communities of migrants and international workers, FLOC established a base of

resistance against the government policies that subjugated farmworkers in the changing migrant

stream of the twentieth-century.

IRCA, NAFTA, and Maquiladoras

Partially a reflection of agribusinesses’ power and national concern about

undocumented immigration, the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA) and IRCA, in addition to changes in the Mexican economy, altered the makeup of

Midwest farmworker families. From the 1980s to the 1990s, national and international changes

in agriculture, economic policies, and immigration compounded on the historical precedent for

undocumented male migration to the United States. Altering the migrant streams throughout

the nation, the Midwest migrant stream specifically became increasingly male dominated.

Though families continued to migrate up the Midwest stream, the proliferation of males

traveling separated from their families left in Mexico, Texas, or Florida, altered the structures

of families as migrants became more transcultural in nature.

The United States government’s decision to implement IRCA in 1986 profoundly

affected immigrant farmworkers. Forced to deal with an ever-increasing number of

undocumented immigrants, IRCA not only legalized large numbers of undocumented workers

but also established specific provisions for farmworkers. IRCA provided a way for immigrants

who illegally entered or stayed in the United States a way to become legal citizens, given

94 Francesca Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA: Globalization, Agribusiness, the US-Mexico Food-Chain,

and Farm-worker Struggles in North Carolina,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007).

certain requirements.95 Congress passed the act as a way to legalize a small number of

undocumented immigrants, and, in the end, decrease the number of undocumented immigrants

that entered the United States. Under the SAW provision of IRCA, undocumented immigrants

who worked in agriculture for three months could become a United States citizen.96 SAW eased

immigrants’ ability to become legal citizens, leading to a high number of legalizations, many of

which were not necessarily farmworkers. The USDA estimated that there were 350,000

undocumented immigrant farmworkers in the United States, but over one million applied for

SAW.97 The initial IRCA law allowed for the immigration and legalization of primarily

Mexican males, as men usually immigrated first. Later policies emphasized family

reunification, allowing the initial male immigrants to slowly legalize their families.98 The

nation, through SAW, created an immediate influx of male immigrants leading transcultural

lives, migrating between work in the United States and family in Mexico. Only over time did

some of these men encourage the immigration of wives and children to the United States,

though not all immigrant males wanted their family to live in the United States.

The passage of IRCA entrenched earlier patterns of immigration that began with the

Bracero Program, as more Midwest migrants became males leading transcultural lives. Given

the financial hardships of many Mexicans, the Bracero Program provided the means for

Mexican males to provide monetarily for their family, thereby maintaining their masculinity

95 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 23.

96 Ibid, 23, 33.

97 Ibid, 24.

98 Deborah A. Boehm, “ ‘For My Children:’ Constructing Family and Navigating the State in the U.S.-Mexico

Transition,” Anthropolitical Quarterly 81:4 (Fall 2008), 792.

through the role of provider.99 Though Mexican masculinity would be tested and questioned in

the United States, as Braceros performed feminine chores and degrading work, Mexican men

maintained their masculinity in Mexico.100 The ability for Mexican males to provide for their

families in Mexico and the desire for goods, along with the developing interpretation of

migration to the United States as a masculine adventure, shaped the immigration of Mexican

nationals to the United States since the Bracero Program.101 Masculinity encouraged Mexican

males to come to the United States in large numbers. This pattern, though relevant to the

Western migrant stream, would not influence Midwest or East migrant streams until coupled

with IRCA, H-2(A), the United States’ changing agriculture, and Mexico’s maquiladora

industry. With the increasing use of H-2(A) workers in the Midwest, the gendered dimension of

the Midwest stream changed. Martin Mauricio in Illinois had worked to bring H-2(A) workers

to the Eckert Apple Orchard since 1990, after several years migrating from Mexico and Illinois

as a farmworker.102 Working primarily to bring H-2(A) men to Illinois, Martin, like most of the

workers he found to work at the Eckert farm, originally traveled without his family.103 With

family living back in Mexico, Martin, like other H-2(A) workers, lived a transcultural life as he

99 Deborah A. Boehm, “ ‘Now I Am a Man and a Woman!’: Gendered Moves and Migrations in a Transnational

Mexican Community,” Latin American Perspectives, 35:1 (January 2008), 21-24; Ruben Martinez, Crossing

Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Stream (New York: Picador A Metropolitan Book Henry Holt and

Company, 2001), 46-47, 88-89.

100 Cohen, Braceros, 123-138; Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA,” 91; David E. Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican

Border in the Twentieth Century: A History of Economic and Social Transformation (Wilmington, Delaware: SR

Books, 1999), 109.

101 Martinez, Crossing Over, 46-47, 88-89.

102 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue, July 20, 2008, transcript, Agriculture in the Modern Era,

Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

103 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue.

traveled between his labor in the Midwest and his family in Mexico.104 Some employers

switched to an all-male workforce because of public pressure about the housing conditions of

women and children and the changing structure of agriculture. Over time, farmworkers in

places like Lake Mills, Wisconsin heard that employers would no longer hire families because

of the costs of housing families.105 With fewer growers willing to employ families, the Midwest

migrant stream changed to one where children grew up only occasionally seeing fathers and

women took on more duties playing both male and female domestic and authoritative roles in

their lives, all living different transcultural lives.

Not only changing the gendered dimensions of the migrant stream, SAW and the H-

2(A) program also Latinized agricultural work in new areas of the nation.106 SAW flooded the

farmworker labor market as SAW legalized more individuals than had previously worked in

agriculture or had worked in agriculture year round. In fact, SAW workers consisted of almost

fifty percent of all farmworkers in 1993, most of whom were Mexican.107 While Latinos

worked as farm laborers in large numbers before IRCA and SAW, the Southern shift of the

meatpacking industry led to the Latinization of agriculture. Latino immigrant farmworkers

flooded the East Coast and South as greater numbers of Mexican national males also entered

the Midwest stream.108 An increasing number of Mexican nationals and individuals from

104 Ibid.

105 Reverend Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers: Experience in Advocacy”, PADRES, May 15, 1974, 8:25,

PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South

Bend, Indiana.

106 Raymond A. Mohl, “Globalization, Latinization, and the Nuevo New South,” Journal of American Ethnic

History, 22:4 (Summer 2003), 44; Rick Mines, Susan Gabbard, and Ruth Samardick, U.S. Farmworkers in the

Post-IRCA Period: Based on Data from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), prepared by Office of

Program Economics, U.S. Department of Labor, 1993.

107 Mines, Gabbard, and Samardick, U.S. Farmworkers in the Post-IRA Period.

108 Ibid.

Central America came to the United States to work in a variety of agriculture-related jobs,

including meatpacking.109 Along the East Coast especially, the increase in Latinos resulted in

the Latinization, not only of the South itself, but also the migrant stream. Instead of African

Americans migrating up the coast to work different crops, many African Americans left the

migrant stream in the 1970s and the 1980s, with Latinos, Jamaicans, and Haitians replacing

African Americans.110

With greater numbers of foreign and newly legalized male workers in the agricultural

fields of the nation, conditions in the fields deteriorated. Farm contractors and middlemen

played a bigger role in the employment of immigrants in the Midwest and East, as the wave of

new immigrants lacked the knowledge of, or connection to, United States agriculture.111 Farm

contractors and organizations such as the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA)

became even more powerful, as they became the middlemen for H-2(A) workers in the

South.112 This newer agricultural pattern created a predominately younger male immigrant

labor force in the Midwest, South, and East Coast, and a greater number of immigrant

farmworkers living in poverty, as opposed to the older established immigrant communities of

the West.113 SAW individuals made comparatively less money than earlier migrant workers

since SAW workers usually did not perform semi-skilled work because of lack of contacts and

experience.114 On the East coast, SAW workers were more likely to lack toilets and drinking

109 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 137-139; Mines, Gabbard, and Samardick, U.S. Farmworkers in

the Post-IRA Period.

110 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 20-21.

111 Ibid.

112 Coin, "Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA,” 1-2.

113 Mines, Gabbard, and Samardick, U.S. Farmworkers in the Post-IRCA Period.

114 Ibid.

water than long term U.S. resident farm laborers, possibly due to unreliable contractors and

middlemen who did little about sanitation issues. The Latino citizens, undocumented Latino

workers, and H-2(A) workers in the South had few existing rights or economic opportunities,

creating an impoverished group of workers.115 The predominately male SAW immigrants,

undocumented immigrants, and H-2(A) workers in the Midwest and East Coast discouraged

public attention on farm labor conditions.116 The role of migrants in the pyramid of power thus

faded from public consciousness. Not already a part of an established transcultural or migrant

community with ties to the Midwest or South, most H-2(A) and SAW workers relied on

contractors, growers, and companies. As the twentieth century came to a close, United States

growers and agricultural corporations depended on male immigrant workers as their chief

source of farm labor.

The cultural and economic policies of the United States and Mexico also contributed to

the proliferation of male workers. Employment in the United States offered more pay and

numerous job opportunities, but the poor economic condition of workers in their home country

perpetuated the economic pull. Mexican Presidents Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988) and

Carlos Salinas (1988-1994), in league with corporations and under pressure from the World

Bank, encouraged foreign investment and dropped protective tariffs and crop subsidies to open

Mexico’s market with reforms that allowed for the private distribution and lack of protection

115 Ibid.

116 Mark A. Grey and C. Anne Woodrick, “Latinos Have Revitalized Our Community: Mexican Migration and

Anglo Responses in Marshalltown, Iowa,” in New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States, eds.

Victor Zúñiga and Rubén Hernández-León (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005).

for communal land.117 The maquiladora industry that relied so heavily on cheap, non-

unionized Mexican women’s labor, developed from Mexican government and international

efforts to open Mexico to the “free market.” 118 Seeking to advance their economy similar to

the free market ideal touted by the Western World, the Mexican government opened the

country to outside corporate investments, establishing an economic system in Mexico that

offered few remunerative job opportunities for men and offered women only low paying work.

Since the Border Industrialization Program in 1965, the Mexican government

encouraged the establishment of United States corporate factories, or maquiladoras, in Mexico

that offered employment for Mexican women. Maquiladoras allowed corporations to ship

material to manufacture and assemble products in Mexico at cheaper, un-unionized rates, which

were then shipped back to the United States with little to no tariffs.119 Located originally near

the United States and Mexican border, these factories employed large numbers of Mexican

women in arguably “unskilled,” tiring, work with little chance for pay increases or

advancement.120 The strong sexual “naturalistic” division of labor kept Mexican women

degraded, while the maquiladora industry offered few Mexican men opportunities.121 The

devaluation of the Mexican peso in 1994, coupled with the creation of NAFTA that same year,

continued to harm Mexico’s economy and encourage the movement of primarily Mexican

117 Grey and Woodrick, “Latinos Have Revitalized Our Community;” Remonnda Bensabat Kleinberg, "Strategic

Alliances: State-Business Relations in Mexico under Neo-Liberalism and Crisis," Bulletin of Latin American

Research 18, no. 1 (January 1999); Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor.

118 Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican Border in the Twentieth Century.

119 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 178-179; Lorey, The U.S.-Mexican Border in the Twentieth

Century, 118-121.

120 Ibid.

121 Melissa W. Wright, Disposable Women and Other Myths of Global Capitalism (New York: Routledge, 2006),

57-60, 110.

males to the United States since few opportunities existed in Mexico.122 The actions of the

United States, in their efforts to control the progress of other Latin American nations, usually

for political and U.S. corporate’s benefit, in addition to the power of the World Bank and IMF,

detrimentally affected Mexican economic stability, leading to an influx of male labor to the

United States.

The opportunity for employers’ abuse of farmworkers only expanded after NAFTA in

1994. Proponents of NAFTA argued it would open the borders between Canada, the United

States, and Mexico, promoting laissez-faire trade and improving all three nations’ economies.

The results of NAFTA were quite different. In contrast to the increasing jobs in the United

States, companies opened factories in Mexico to employ the cheap labor force.123 United States

government subsides coupled with chemicals and biotechnology to give United States growers

a distinct advantage over small Mexican growers. When NAFTA opened the tariff-free borders,

it allowed United States products, especially corn, to flood the Mexican market at prices

cheaper than those of small Mexican farmers.124 In contrast to the United States groups, most

Mexican farmers neither had the financial capital to grow biotech crops on the same scale as

United States growers, nor did they receive subsides like United States growers to produce

cheap foods. Though some Mexican crops partially benefited from the free market, such as

tomatoes that benefitted from different harvest timing, the United States investment in the

Mexican tomato crop since the 1980s, and the cheap labor demanded of Mexican workers to

122 Kleinberg, “Strategic Alliances,” 71-87; Zabin, “U.S.-Mexico Economic Integration,” 337-355; Coin, "Pickles

and Pickets after NAFTA.”

123 Deborah Barndt, Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail, Second Edition (New

York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008); Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA.”

124 Ibid.

compete with United States growers, continued to hurt Mexicans economically.125 With few

alternative jobs for Mexican farmers, urban centers began to swell with people desperate for

work in post-NAFTA Mexico.126 Unable to find work in Mexico’s urban centers, many

Mexican males entered the United States without papers to find work.127

The surplus of male Mexican nationals entering the United States, both legally and

illegally, because of the changing political and economic landscape of both countries created

the demographic changes of Midwest migrant farmworkers. Farmworkers became

disproportionally male since the increase in undocumented Mexicans in the United States since

the 1970s. With limited opportunities for Mexican men in maquiladoras and in Mexico, these

men entered the United States to work. Though women and children began joining husbands

and fathers al norte, men provided the transcultural link between Mexico and the United States.

In various Mexican areas, such as Tinaja de Coyote, almost the entire male population

immigrated to towns and cities in the United States such as Hartford, Michigan, leaving their

families behind in Mexico.128 Returning occasionally to see family, these immigrant

populations invested in homes, businesses, and their local ranchero Mexican community

through electricity and other improvements.129 Transcultural links between a rural community

in the Midwestern United States and a ranchero in Mexico started with a brave and desperate

immigrant who found work in the United States, and after returning to the ranchero with new

125 Zabin, "U.S.-Mexico Economic Integration.”

126 Coin, "Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA.”

127 Coin, "Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA;” Zabin, "U.S.-Mexico Economic Integration.”

128 Boehm, “Now I Am a Man and a Woman!;” Rothenberg, With These Hands, 321; Susan Rose and Sarah Hiller,

“From Migrant Work to Community Transformation: Families Forming Transnational Communities in Peribán

and Pennsylvania,” The Oral History Review, 34:1 (Winter-Spring 2007).

129 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 309.

clothes and money, began to help friends and family members find jobs in the United States.130

Eventually, most of the men in a city or town migrated across the border to work in a particular

field up North, though families did continue to migrate together.131 Sometimes these

transcultural communities included entire families, but often the cost and danger of

undocumented immigration, in addition to farmworkers’ strong ties to Mexico, made most

immigrant males unwilling to transplant their family al norte. Migrant children continued to

travel up the Midwest stream with family, struggling to find a place in a culturally and socially

different Midwest, just like the additional men who traveled up the stream away from their

families in the later part of the twentieth century.

Conclusion

After the passage of NAFTA in 1993, two interconnected but different types of migrant

farmworkers existed: individuals like Perla Sanchez in the documentary The Harvest/La

Cosecha traveling up the Midwest with family members, and farmworkers like Jesús Zamarrón

Rocha who traveled al norte away from his family to support them back in Mexico.132 Since

the first farmworker migrated to the Midwest, migrants lived between two worlds, trying to

come to terms with family roles and their place in the Midwest as they either lived away from

family members, or constantly moved to new, uninviting communities. Both types developed in

the Midwest migrant stream during the last half of the twentieth century because of the

decisions and policies of the United States and Mexican governments and the influence of

130 Boehm, “Now I Am a Man and a Woman!,” 19; Martinez, Crossing Over, 46-47, 88-89.

131 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 321-322.

132 The Harvest/La Cosecha, directed by U. Roberto Romano (Globalvision, Romano Film & Photography, Shine

Global, 2011), DVD.

society on the government decisions that shaped the opportunities and rights of migrants.

Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers became part of established communities

up North by the 1980s and 1990s, fighting for greater rights and freedoms in the South and

North, and struggled to maintain their cultural and familial ties as they lived in two worlds, all

while the migrant population slowly shifted away from a family-oriented population. Both

transcultural and migrant communities were separated from their culturally familiar settings

and family, and both struggled to maintain ties to their culture as they tried to create and find

for themselves a new, temporary place in a foreign society. As Deborah Boehm wrote of

transnational immigrants:

Migrants understand themselves as belonging to, divided between, and

outside of two nation-states: here and there. (Im)migrants are, in their

own words, “de ambos lugares/from both places” and “de ambos lados/

from both sides,” “mitad allá, mitad aquí/half there, half here,” “del

otro lado/from the other side,” and tellingly, “ni de aquí, ni de allá/

from neither here nor there.133

133 Boehm, Intimate Migrations, 6.

CHAPTER 2

YOU SAY TOMATO, I SAY TOMATE: SPANISH SPEAKERS, FAMILIA,

AND MIDWEST BUREAUCRACY; A CASE STUDY OF ILLINOIS

“The Commission strongly feels that unless some of the proposed

legislation is passed and enforced the migrant issue will continue to be a

source of embarrassment in the State of Illinois.”1

-Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission

Manuel and Maria Guerra and their three children came to the Midwest to work for

years, but one year in the early 1970s a drought devastated the fields along with their

opportunity to work. Indebted to the Indiana farmer who paid them to come up North, Maria,

Manuel and their children found themselves stuck in a state far from home with no money.2

Desperate for work, Manuel went to the Indiana State Employment Service, but with no

available agricultural jobs the service offered no resolution to Manuel and his family’s

dilemma. Although non-agricultural jobs existed, the employee at the Indiana State

Employment Service failed to offer these positions to Guerra.3 Desperate, the Guerras first

went to the township for welfare assistance, which immediately refused the family aid, forcing

1 Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Summer 1975), 18, Spanish Speaking

Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

2 Richard Orr, "Migrants Hopes Blighted,” Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1975.

3 Orr, "Migrants Hopes Blighted.”

the Guerras to request food stamps from the county.4 After a week of waiting for help from the

county, the Guerras again faced refusal, this time because the county estimated their next

month’s pay as too high to receive food stamps.5 Despite seeking aid from agencies created to

assist, the Guerras found no help. Like other similar stories depicting the failure of state

systems, the Guerra’s story found its way into a report, in this case a report written in English

by the Indiana Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights entitled

“Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights.”6 This report found its way to government

offices where numerous committee members probably read the report as they debated migrants’

situation with the report eventually ending up in a library. Yet the Guerras probably never saw

this report. For other migrants who were not fluent in English, the report was entirely

inaccessible because of the language barrier. For the migrant farmworkers who came to the

Midwest like the Guerra family, language, state bureaucracy, and prejudice would structure

their families’ experiences with the state bureaucracy.

Like most bureaucratic institutions, reports, studies, and committees comprised most

Midwest states’ efforts to understand and react to public concern over migrant farmworkers’

plight. As the Guerra family story demonstrated, state governments analyzed how state officials

and departments failed to provide the programs and aid migrants needed. Yet the report

“Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights” speaks to a larger issue: language, words

and power. Distributed primarily in English, state governments’ published reports were in a

language largely inaccessible to the Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers who

4 Ibid.

5 Orr, "Migrants Hopes Blighted.”

6 Ibid.

came to the Midwest in the last half of the twentieth century.7 Legislators and committees’ use

of English demonstrated that they cared little to change or empower farmworkers but rather

served only to pacify public concern. For Illinois and other Midwest legislators, the “migrant

problem” was believed to be the public attention to the deplorable working and living

conditions of migrants that many viewed as temporary. Believing in the widespread argument

that the migrant stream would end in a couple of decades, Midwest officials and legislators

sought temporary solutions that fit their own gendered, social, and racial conceptions.8 Illinois

legislatures and state employees were no different, as Illinois’ agricultural interest groups and

the government’s reaction to public concern exemplified the bureaucratic response to Spanish-

speaking migrant farmworkers throughout the Midwest. For many farmworkers in Illinois and

throughout the Midwest, words and language confined, controlled, and limited them as various

departments, agencies, and committees within the Illinois state bureaucracy sought to define the

farmworker problem as a temporary issue based within bureaucratic members’ own gendered,

social, and racial perception.

For the Guerra family, like many other Mexican and Mexican American migrant

farmworkers in Midwest, the migrant stream meant negotiating between various state groups.

Since the 1960s, large numbers of Mexican and Mexican Americans traveled from their homes

in Texas, Florida, and Mexico to work in various Midwestern crops such as tomatoes, apples,

and cucumbers.9 Though the employment of migrants in the Minnesota and Michigan sugar

beet fields since the 1920s initiated state government regulations and committees in the first

7 “Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights,” prepared by the Indiana Advisory Committee to the United

States Commission on Civil Rights, (1975), accessed January 22, 2013,

https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12in24a.pdf.

8 Brian Wiersema, “Rural Poverty Gets Attention,” Southern Illinoisian, November 26, 1971, 8.

9 “Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights,” 17.

half of the twentieth century, most Midwest states did not have large enough migrant numbers

to generate concern and state committees until the 1950s and 1960s.10 Coinciding with public

debates on the continuation of the Bracero Program in the 1950s, the Harvest of Shame

broadcast in 1960, and the United Farm Workers grape boycott in the 1960s, farmworkers

became a matter of public concern.11 Each Midwest state’s agriculture was different, yet each

state’s government reacted similarly to the “migrant problem,” as prejudice and agricultural

interest groups pressured state officials to squash any major changes to the agricultural system.

Although Chicago’s large Latino population offered a unique ability for Latinos to sway the

state government and the public, the lack of a strong Latino voting block, and the differing

concerns between urban Latinos and migrant farmworkers, meant Illinois’ leaders reacted to

the “migrant problem” in a similar way to other Midwest states.12 Illinois’ reaction to public

interest in the plight of Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers in the 1960s and 1970s

exemplified Midwest states’ reactions to the “migrant problem.”

La Cosecha y el gobierno de Illinois/The Harvest and Government in Illinois

Only with public pressure did state governments such as Illinois actively address the

situation of migrant farm laborers. Like Illinois, other Midwest states began to address

10 Kathleen Mapes, Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2009); Jim Norris, North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar

Beet Industry (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009).

11 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), 154.

12 Patricia Mendoza, “Latinos and the Growth of Political Empowerment in Illinois,” in La Causa: Civil Rights,

Social Justice and the Struggle for Equality in the Midwest, ed. Gilberto Cárdenas (Houston: Arte Público Press,

2004), 19-36.

concerns about farmworkers when migrant numbers and public interest forced a bureaucratic

response. Though state governments were in many ways constrained by national policies and

decisions regarding migrants, they too played a major role in the pyramid of power. Michigan

and Minnesota’s early employment of large numbers of Mexican and Mexican American

migrants in the sugar beet fields differed from other Midwest states, but studies of Michigan

and Minnesota’s early sugar beet industry suggest that both state’s legislators only improved

working and living conditions after labor, international, and national pressure because of the

Bracero Program.13 Initial concern with migrant children’s education and the development of

governor state committees became common reactions to public pressure, whether initiated in

the early twentieth century in Michigan or the mid-twentieth century in Illinois.14 By the 1960s,

every Midwest state government had created a committee that investigated migrants’ issues

after and during initial efforts to better migrant education.15 Following similar trajectories,

Midwest states’ offices and governments established similar methods to mitigate the concern

for Mexican and Mexican American migrant farm laborers.

While governor committees’ existence coincided with the increase of Mexican migrant

farmworkers in the Midwest, the national and local interest in the migrant stream during the

1960s suggested a strong correlation between public interest and government reaction. Local

events added to the national story as they increased political pressure for state legislators to act.

Strikes by local farmworker unions, such as Obreros Unidos in Wisconsin and the Farm Labor

Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Ohio, made the issues of farm laborers a public concern that

13 Mapes, Sweet Tyranny, 166-185; Norris, North for the Harvest, 61-86.

14 Ibid.

15 Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1991), 144.

state legislators felt pressured to address.16 In addition, local stories of migrant families unable

to find shelter one night or a migrant child dying from pesticide poisoning made local

communities aware of migrants’ difficult lives.17 All these factors encouraged and sometimes

informed Illinoisans and Illinois politicians about the problems that Mexican migrant

farmworkers faced in their own state.

With the increasing interest of the national government in migrant affairs, state

governments used the finances provided by national programs and laws to create aid programs.

National efforts to increase funding or establish better legal standards included such national

acts as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, which provided educational

funding, the Farm Labor Contract Regulation Act of 1974, the Migrant Health Act in 1962,

which gave funding for health clinics, and the Economic Opportunity Act in 1964, which

among other things, provided funding for job training.18 With national funding, state

governments enacted legislation to assist farmworkers, but legislation did not always address

all farmworkers’ issues as state bureaucracies curtailed and defined the farmworkers’ problems

and the solutions. Many in the Illinois state government did not want to change the structure of

the stream in ways that would improve the lives of farmworkers. Employing national funding,

state departments and legislators established programs and enacted legislation that often failed

to consider migrants’ opinions, instead establishing laws and programs that created only

superficial change.

16 Valdes, Al Norte, 190-192; W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest:

Social Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1994).

17Letter to Naomi Hiett from Stanley M. Knebel, December 27, 1960, Migrant Committee Evaluations,

Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton

Building, Springfield, Illinois; Sandra Holter, “Too Broke, Too Tired To Move On,” Southern Illinois, November

23, 1971, 2.

18 Valdes, Al Norte , 171-172.

The domination of the English language in Illinois and other Midwest state

governments not only complicated Spanish speakers’ interaction with the state bureaucracy but

also characterized states’ anxiety with non-English speakers. Unlike many Midwest states,

Illinois had the distinction of establishing English as the official state language in 1969,

significantly earlier than the 1980s national fervor to establish English as the official language

throughout the nation.19 Originally declaring “American” as the state official language in a

1923 statute, Illinois legislators eventually changed the statute to declare English the official

state language.20 In contrast to future state efforts in the 1980s, this statute did not restrict the

use of any other language by government officials or the printing of state government

materials, such as laws. Since the 1980s, other Midwest states have declared English as their

official language besides Illinois, with Indiana in 1984 and Iowa in 2002.21 Illinois’ declaration

of English as the official language, though a symbolic act akin to declaring a state bird or

mineral, came when the nation was concerned with and aware of the Chicano movement,

bilingual education, and migrant farmworkers, suggesting a fundamental question about the

Illinois state government’s willingness to communicate with a multi-lingual population. While

the national government started to offer reports in Spanish by the 1970s, the Illinois state

government published only limited reports, brochures, or informational pamphlets in Spanish.22

19 Sandra Del Valle, Language Rights and the Law in the United States: Finding Our Voice (Buffalo, New York:

Multilingual Matters LTD, 2003), 55.

20 Madeline Zavodny, “The Effects of Official English Laws on Limited-English-Proficient Workers,” Journal of

Economics 18, no. 3 (July 2000), 430-431.

21 Zavodny, “The Effects of Official English Laws.”

22 After consulting a Government Publications library staff member, I searched a government records repository

library’s database using broad key words such as “committee,” “department,” “Leyes,” “departamento” in addition

to the key words “Illinois” and “government,” restricting the results to Spanish language records. Few results

appeared, mostly starting in the 1990s. Similar attempts with the national government wielded more results, with

material starting in the 1970s while a search of the National Government Publications database returned similar,

but more extensive results.

In cases where an Illinois department published information in Spanish, the document, like its

English counterpart, was a cheaper reproduction not necessarily published by normal Illinois

state government publishers.23 A few academics argued that the establishment of English as an

official language in Illinois, although only symbolic, encouraged discrimination as businesses

and individuals could misunderstand the symbolic nature of the statute.24 Typical of many

Midwest states with migrant farmworkers, the Illinois government’s simple choices obscured a

developing linguistic issue within Illinois and the Midwest, as states debated the role of

language within the states’ growing multi-lingual population.

The history of Illinois’ reactions to Mexican and Mexican American migrant

farmworkers and the Spanish language hide an even greater complexity to the language

difficulties of farmworkers in the Midwest. Hidden beneath the Spanish-English dichotomy

were indigenous Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and by the late twentieth century, an increasing

number of Central and South Americans. Academics and government agencies’ studies and

statistics failed to note the number of indigenous Mexicans migrating to the Midwest; however,

United States communities such as Cobden, Illinois received large influxes of indigenous

23 “Sumario de las Leyes de Illinois Pertinentes al Trabajo de Agricultura (Efectivo 1972),” prepared by La

División de Estadística, Programas y Publicacioned, 5:13, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History

Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; “Directorio de Servicios Para

Familias Migrantes: Título I 89-750; Programas para Migrantes, 1976-1977,” prepared by the Oficina Estatal de

Educación de Illinois, 5:10, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial

Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; El Department de Trabajo de Illinois “Estado de Illinois:

Resumen de un Trozo Escogido de las Leyes Relevantes al Empleo de Trabajadores Agriculturales y Otros de

Fuera del Estado,” prepared by the Servicio de Empleo del Estado de Illinois, Servicio del Potencial Humano

Rural en Cooperacion con el Proyecto de las Assistencia legal para Migrantes en Illinois, (1974), 6:2, DeKalb

County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University,

DeKalb, Illinois.

24 Zavodny, “The Effect of Official English Laws,” 431; Del Valle, Language Rights, 61.

Mexicans in the 1960s.25 P’urépechas migrated from their homes in Cherán, Michoacán to

work in various fields along their migratory route, including picking fruit in Cobden, Illinois

where a small community of former migrants eventually developed.26 Indigenous to Mexico,

P’urépecha migrants spoke their native tongue, and to some degree, Spanish.27 Though this

study focuses on the largest group of migrant farmworkers, Mexican and Mexican American,

Midwest state governments actually faced different cultural groups with various demands, who,

in the case of indigenous Mexicans, did not necessarily speak Spanish as their first language.28

The Illinois state government struggled to recognize the linguistic and cultural needs of all

Spanish speakers, including Mexican and Mexican American migrants, almost never

recognizing the small numbers of indigenous Mexicans, and favored urban, voting Puerto

25 Warren D. Anderson, “P’urépecha Migration into the U.S. Rural Midwest: History and Current Trends,”

Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States, eds. Jonathan Fox and Gasper Rivera-Salgado (La Jolla,

California: Center of U.S. Mexican Studies, UCSD, 2004).

26 Ibid.

27 Ibid; Egla Martinez-Salazar, "The 'Poisoning' of Indigenous Migrant Women Workers and Children: From

Deadly Colonialism to Toxic Globalization," in Women Working the NAFTA Food Chain: Women, Food and

Globalization, ed. Deborah Barndt (Toronto: Second Story Press, 1999).

28 Some indigenous Mexicans did speak Spanish, having learned it because the Mexican government financially

favored the Mexican educational system, which offered bilingual education with a focus on learning Spanish over

indigenous educational networks.

Ricans’ needs over the less vocal “Spanish-Speaking” groups. 29 Population numbers, urban vs.

rural, permanent vs. migrant, racism, and language often influenced state policies, as Midwest

state governments formed “Spanish Speaking” committees that characterized the state’s

unwillingness to address the real needs of the heterogeneous farmworker familias.

The Illinois Committee on Agricultural Migrants

One of Illinois' first actions to address the growing migrant stream was to create the

Committee on Agricultural Migrants subcommittee of the Illinois Commission on Children

(ICC). Created in 1955, after several concerned individuals came together to discuss the

educational problems faced by migrant children in 1954, the Committee on Agricultural

Migrants was Illinois’ first major state response to the “migrant problem.”30 Spurred to action

by the increasing number of struggling migrant children in schools and by the United States

President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, the Migrant Committee researched the ordeals of

29 Fall Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Fall 1974), Spanish Speaking

Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois (also in Spanish); Spring

Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Spring 1973), Spanish Speaking

Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; Report, prepared by the

Spanish Speaking People’s Study Commission, (Summer 1975), Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Meeting Tapes, March 11, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Minutes, February 27, 1976, cassette audio

recording, 5:8, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern

Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission note with handwriting, January

11, 1978, 5:8, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern

Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Anderson, “P’urépecha Migration;” Martinez-Salazar, “The ‘Poisoning.’”

Many Midwest states established committees with the term “Spanish-Speaking,” such as Illinois’ Spanish

Speaking Peoples Study Commission, which will be explored in detail later. My use of quotations around “Spanish

Speaking” reflects my recognition that states ignored indigenous Mexicans whose primary language was not

Spanish yet were lumped within the broad “Spanish Speaking” committees. Outside of specifically committees, I

will continue to use quotations around the term to recognize the lack of homogeneity within migrant populations in

the Midwest and throughout the United States.

30 Letter with material for U.S. Department of Labor from Illinois Commission on Children and Youth, April 7,

1955, Migrant problems study commission I, 1950-1957, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study

Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

migrant farmworkers to educate the public and provide information on migrant services.31

Illinois Governor William Stratton offered the Committee on Agricultural Migrants as Illinois'

agency on migrant workers that would work in conjunction with the national President’s

Committee on Migratory Labor started in 1954.32 While the Committee on Agricultural

Migrants could address issues of education, nutrition, or housing, its focus on children limited

the committee’s ability to question the basic structure of the migrant stream. Unlike the

President’s Committee on Migratory Labor, the Illinois Committee on Agricultural Migrants

developed from various educational and women groups’ concerns with migrant children’s

education, not with the overall issues of migrant farmworkers.33 Founded under the ICC, the

Committee on Agricultural Migrants had a narrow focus on migrant children. The Illinois

Governor’s choice to make a child-focused agency the state’s sole migrant committee impeded

questions of migrant farmworkers’ power in the agricultural system. While the committee’s

title suggested a broad committee focus, a brief investigation into the bureaucratic structure of

the Committee highlighted the committee’s linguistically-defined focus and, simultaneously,

the Illinois Governor’s unwillingness to question the agricultural system of power.

Since its inception, the Committee on Agricultural Migrants, named as if it was a

committee with a broad mission, reflected the gendered and racial beliefs of its creators and the

societal changes of the time period. The female members of the Committee represented the

female dominated positions in their fields of expertise and interests, while the men made up the

31 Letter with material for U.S. Department of Labor.

32 Ibid.

33 Letter to Naomi Hiett from Rev. Gilbert Carroll, August 5, 1960, Migrant Committee Evaluation, Commission

on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois.

experts in stereotypically male fields.34 As the executive secretary of the Committee, Naomi

Hiett represented the ICC, while the other female members of the committee represented the

American Association of University Women (AAUW), the United Women’s Christian

Association (UWCA), the Parent Teacher Association (PTA), nutrition committees, and

numerous other organizations and state departments associated with education and welfare.35

The rest of the members of the original committee consisted of men representing growers,

canneries, specialists in rural sociology, members of the state medical society, chief division of

preventative medicine, and other science related fields.36 The proliferation of women on the

Illinois Committee on Agricultural Migrants suggested a gendered approach to farm laborers,

similar to other Midwest state’s initial foray into the lives of migrant farm laborers. Initial

organizations and committees, both private and state government, that addressed farmworker

issues often started with Anglo women addressing health, housing, and children’s education.

The female dominion of education and charity coalesced into attempts to reform 1920s

Michigan child labor laws, one of the few early efforts by the Wisconsin State Migrant

Committee where they experimented with migrant education, the Elizabeth S. Magee

Education and Research Foundation, and the United Church Women of Ohio’s finance of an

educational program in Ohio from 1958-1959.37 Potentially improving the education of migrant

children, committees such as Illinois’ Committee on Agricultural Migrants focused on issues of

34 Letter to Naomi Hiett from Rev. Gilbert Carroll.

35 Ibid.

36 Outline for Obtaining Information in State Committees on Migratory Labor, 1963, Migrant Committee SIU

research, 1958-1960, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State

Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

37 Mapes, Sweet Tyranny, 65-95; Valdes, Al Norte, 144, 151.

concern to Anglo women, namely the lack of education and poverty of migrant children so

visible to the public, but not the cause of children’s poverty or lack of education.

Focused on migrant children, the Committee on Agricultural Migrants and its umbrella

organization, the ICC, focused on mediating the negative aspects of the migrant stream rather

than changing the structure of an agricultural system that used migrant families for cheap and

transitory labor. Initially facing resistance from the ICC, the Committee on Agricultural

Migrants continued to work under their umbrella organization. The Executive Secretary of the

committee, Naomi Hiett, argued in 1960, “Many member of the Illinois Commission on

Children have never been enthusiastic about our entrance into the Agricultural migrant workers

committee.”38 Hiett argued that some ICC members felt that migrant children should not be the

focus of the ICC or its divisions.39 The Committee on Agricultural Migrants stayed tied, and

therefore restricted, to the Illinois Commission on Children despite the ICC’s negative view of

the Committee’s work. Only one year after Hiett argued that the ICC did not support the

Committee’s work, the Committee evaluated its success and the direction it would take in 1961,

ultimately shifting to a more active role while still confining their activities to the ICC.40

Shifting their focus after 1961, the Committee offered not only information and encouragement

to organizations, but also initiated their own efforts in migrant health care in addition to

promoting legislation for congressional proposals.41 Yet the committee member’s wish to

38 Letter to J.E. Clettenberg from Naomi Hiett, July 26, 1960, Migrant Committee Evaluations, Commission on

Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois.

39 Ibid.

40 Letter to Dr. Donald Brieland from Naomi Hiett, January 18, 1962, Migrant Problems Study Committee II,

1958-1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives,

Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

41 Letter to Dr. Donald Brieland from Naomi Hiett.

maintain organizational and personal connections to the ICC restricted the committee under the

linguistic domain of “children,” dividing the concerns of migrant children from the greater

issues of migrant children’s familia. Though the Committee on Agricultural Migrants

maintained their tie to the ICC, the narrowing of focus to children demonstrated a propensity

for the Committee, like most state organizations, to focus on temporary means to placate public

concerns about the migrant stream.

The Illinois Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ restrictive mission reflected the

Committee’s own restrictive membership, as the Committee endeavored to create temporary

solutions without radically changing the agricultural structure. As noted earlier, the Committee

consisted of several women representing educational and welfare groups and agencies, while

several men offered scientific, agricultural, and medical guidance to the Committee. The

Committee sought growers’ perspectives on migrant children’s dilemma, yet they never

included a migrant farmworker or farmworker representative, instead criticizing any effort by

others to speak in the interest of migrants. Some Committee members were outraged about

newspaper articles that depicted the racism and discrimination faced by migrants, arguing that

the stories would not properly motivate the public to support programs for migrants.42 As a

field consultant for the Department of Labor, Stanley M. Knebel stated in a letter to the

Committee’s Executive Secretary that negative stories on tragic events spurred communities to

action.43 Referring to the 1960 case in DuPage County where a two-year-old migrant child,

Ernesto Perez, died from exposure to pesticides, both the DuPage County government and the

42 Agricultural Migrant Workers Committee Meeting Minutes, May 8, 1958, 6, Migrant Problem Study

Commission II, 1958-1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois

State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

43 Letter to Naomi Hiett from Stanley M. Knebel.

public pushed for changes to the housing and working conditions of migrant farmworkers in the

area.44 Despite such evidence, agricultural representatives and Committee members demanded

more restricted language by newspapers to create the illusion that growers and canneries cared

about the welfare of migrant farmworkers and willingly could and would enact any changes to

better farmworkers’ lives.

The Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ illusion that growers could and would

willingly change the plight of migrants stemmed from the proliferation of grower and cannery

representatives on the Committee and their influence. Growers and company representatives on

the Committee argued that growers and companies would willingly enact suggestions to better

migrant housing, arguing mandatory regulations were unnecessary.45 In reaction, the

Committee in 1958 encouraged voluntary improvements on a one to two-year trial basis to see

the results; however, many of these policies would become mandatory around 1961 as growers

and canneries apparently failed to follow the recommendations.46 Growers failed to initiate the

recommended changes because of some growers’ own prejudice against the racially and

linguistically different migratory farmworkers, as evidenced by growers’ complaints that

migrants didn’t want or know how to use nice housing facilities, as well as growers’ financial

44 Ibid.

45 Summary Meeting on Migrant Health Problems Associated with Migrant Workers, 1, Migrant Problems Study

Commission II, 1958-1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois

State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

46 Ibid; Dorthea Ann Weaver, Migrant Ministry State Report, 1959, Migrant Problem Study Commission II, 1958-

1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives,

Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

restrictions.47 Carl Habenicht of H&E Sod Nursery in Illinois told a newspaper, “We get our

places all up to code, and they look real nice…then the Mexicans come in and within a month it

looks terrible.”48 The Committee’s focus on pacifying growers and cannery operators through

representation on the Committee and discouraging negative speech only resulted in initial half-

hearted improvements as public and political pressure mounted for unmistakable improvements

to migrants’ position.

The Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ pacification of agricultural concerns reflected

their racial and linguistic choices. The Committee, like many similar Midwest state

committees, rarely listened to the concerns or opinions of farmworkers. The Committee never

had a representative of migrant farmworkers throughout its existence, but included growers and

cannery operators. Only once, in correspondence, did Executive Secretary Naomi Hiett suggest

migrants should have a representative; however, no migrant farmworker or ex-migrant

farmworker ever served on the Committee.49 Similarly, other Midwest state organizations

created specifically to investigate and assist farmworkers had corporate and grower

representatives but no farmworkers or ex-farmworker representatives. The Ohio Governor’s

Committee on Migratory Labor had no farmworker representative from its start around 1960

until 1968, when a labor recruiter for a canning company became a “farmworker

47 Letter to Reverend Isaac Igarashi from Mrs. Malvina Holvorsen, March 2, 1966, 1:5, Michigan Farm Worker

Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Larry Hills, “The Migrant Ministry Can Help the Michigan Fruit Farmer,” Michigan Christian

Advocate, 3:43, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

48 Jane Ransom and Bonnie Gross, “Housing: The Worst Problem for Migrants,” Chicago Sun-Times

North/Northwest supplement, 6:1, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial

Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

49 Letter to Eisendrath from Naomi Hiett, 1962, Migrant Problems Study Committee, IL, 1958-1963, Commission

on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois.

representative.”50 The Illinois Committee further compounded migrants’ lack of representation,

as the Committee failed to consistently communicate in Spanish. Many migrant farmworker

adults did not speak or read English fluently, sometimes relying on their children for

translations. For this reason alone, it would be difficult for farmworker representatives to

function on the committee if the Committee operated solely in English. No records indicate that

the Illinois Committee made any effort to translate the Committee’s findings into Spanish or to

even disseminate information about their investigations or reports to migrant farmworkers,

making the Committee completely unaccountable to the migrant farmworkers they were

supposed to help.51 The Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ choice of language in

communications and the lack of farmworker representation on the Illinois Committee and other

Midwest state committees continued to linguistically and physically distance migrants from the

state programs designed to assist them.

Not only failing to represent and communicate with farmworker familias, the Illinois

Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ use of language ignored migrants’ agency. The

Committee’s original mission was to be a “clearinghouse” of information on migrant services;

however, no records indicate that the committee offered any information on migrant services in

Spanish. Instead, churches and agencies received information on how state services and state

and national funding worked to use for their migrant programs to aid.52 Like the entire state

50 Valdes, Al Norte, 170.

51 Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton

Building, Springfield, Illinois.

52 Summary of Status of the Agricultural Migrant Committee in Illinois for Consideration by the Illinois

Commission on Children for Future Planning, November 1960, Migrant Committee Evaluations, Commission on

Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois.

structure, the Committee assumed only English-speaking Anglos permanently residing in the

state could affect any changes in the migrant stream.

Illinois State Employment Service

As a branch of the national United States Employment Service (USES), the Illinois

State Employment Service (ISES) became an important part of the bureaucratic state response

to migrant farmworkers in the last half of the twentieth century. The national government

founded the USES during World War I to manage employers’ labor needs, essentially

becoming the Italian padrone system so decried by social reformers on the East Coast in the

early 1900s.53 Initially facing resistance from the Department of Agriculture, the USES, by the

end of World War I, became the government agency involved in agricultural job placement.54

Connecting unemployed workers with employers’ labor demands, the USES installed state

offices all over the country, eventually transforming into the State Employment Services used

both by growers and farmworkers.55 This state-focused structure developed after years of

debate and experimentation during the beginning of the twentieth century, eventually

establishing a state system by which the national USES office, under the Department of Labor,

oversaw only state offices.56 Individual SES worked by taking employer estimated farm labor

53 William J. Breen, Labor Market Politics and the Great War: The Department of Labor, the United States, and

the First U.S. Employment Service, 1907-1933, (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1997), xi.

54 Breen, Labor Market Politics and the Great War, 37.

55 Jane Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990 (Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1994), 157.

56 Breen, Labor Market Politics and the Great War.

needs and then referring migrants who contacted the state office.57 Each Midwest state’s

employment service office worked similarly, ultimately revealing a state’s interaction with

migrants and growers.

Used by both growers and farmworkers, ISES was not, however, a neutral party

navigating between grower and migrant needs. Debates on the role of the USES between

employees and employers occurred since the beginning of the USES, as individuals questioned

how best to maintain a “neutral” position.58 The role of the ISES can best be understood by the

language used by Illinois government officials and ISES employees during a meeting when the

minutes noted, “Dr. Brooks paid tribute to the outstanding progress that has been made by the

ISES… in regulating the flow and direction of migrants. He pointed to the great value of

having the workers where they are needed, when they are needed, in the numbers which are

needed.”59 For many ISES employees, farmworkers were statistics, pawns to move and control

to meet Illinois growers’ labor demands. The purpose of the ISES and other SES was to ensure

the efficient production of crops by securing growers’ labor needs, not to guarantee equitable

deals between migrants and employers. ISES reports did not address the working or living

conditions of migrant farmworkers or the failure of employers to follow state and national labor

and housing laws. Instead, State Employment Services served as a controlling agency designed

to serve the needs of growers and canners instead of migrant familias.

57 Illinois Occupational Information Quarterly, prepared by the Bureau of Employment Security, State of Illinois

Department of Labor, Research & Analysis Division, (Fall 1977).

58 Breen, Labor Market Politics and the Great War, 151-152. The government deemed the “neutral” solution was

to insist on being told when a strike happened, and though still referring employees to the company, inform the

referrals of the strike.

59 Summary Meeting on Health Problems Associated with Migrant Workers.

In negotiating the state bureaucratic network of assistance and regulations, gender

norms and family structure among Mexican and Mexican American migrants shaped who

interacted with different state offices. For many migrant familias, cultural and family structures

in the migrant stream dictated family members’ involvement with the ISES and other Midwest

State Employment Services. Often traveling and working as family units or within crews,

Mexican and Mexican American migrant families usually worked under the name of one or

more adult males.60 Men with families usually served as the contact for the family and the only

individual on the payroll with additional family members working under his name.61 This

system allowed growers and contractors to pay one individual for a whole family’s

accumulated labor, which also allowed for the employment of minors in agricultural fields. As

such, men likely had the most contact with the ISES, as they served not only as the head of the

household in most traditional Mexican and Mexican American migrant families, but also as the

sole official employee. ISES statistics in 1977 showed large numbers of references made to

male workers and few to women.62 Though statistics indicated primarily male migrants used

the ISES system, in reality gender and migrant family norms hid the employment of entire

families in the fields.

60 Anne Power, "An Analysis of the Family System Among Spanish-Speaking Migrant Labourers in the State of

Wisconsin," 15:6, Governor's Committee of Migratory Labor Records, Wisconsin State Historical Society,

Madison, Wisconsin; John Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega, Reflections of a Mexican Migrant Boy: Growing

Up in the Fields of Iowa,” 2003, Iowa State Special Collections and University Archives, University of Iowa, Iowa

City, Iowa; Crew Membership Listing- Luis Hernandez, August 3, 1973, 1:64, Wisconsin State Employment

Service: Farm Placement Clearance Orders and Worker Schedule, 1970-1973, Wisconsin State Historical Society,

Madison, Wisconsin; Agricultural Worker Schedule- Tomas M. Gomez, 1:24, Wisconsin State Employment

Service: Farm Placement Clearance Orders and Worker Schedule, 1970-1973, Wisconsin State Historical Society,

Madison, Wisconsin.

61 Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush, “The Migrant Labor Problem in Wisconsin,” Governor’s Commission on

Human Rights, Madison, WI, April 1963, 43, 13:10, Wisconsin Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor:

Records, 1960-1972, 3:3, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

62 Illinois Manpower Review, prepared by the Illinois Bureau of Employment Security, Department of Labor,

Research and Analysis Division, (August 1977), 47.

Working through ISES, Mexican and Mexican American men and their familias had to

navigate the linguistic and bureaucratic barriers constructed in part by the SES. Comprised of

English speakers, the ISES and other Midwest SES often failed to break down the language

barriers necessary to serve migrants.63 The ISES rarely offered information, in person or in

print, in Spanish.64 A Chicago Sun-Times undercover investigation indicated a Spanish-

Speaking employee sought a bribe for a work referral.65 In an undercover investigation of life

as a migrant worker in 1978, the Chicago ISES office referred a Chicago Sun-Times reporter to

the only Chicago Job Service Spanish-speaking employee, who then offered a job referral

through her brother for a fee.66 An illegal action, the newspaper confronted the ISES employee

and her supervisor, but both claimed she tried to help “the migrant” because few jobs were

available.67 A state employee assisting her brother, along with the general lack of Spanish-

speaking employees, exemplifies how state employment services did not always serve the

interests of farmworker families. Despite state and national laws, ISES and other SES

departments and employees ignored whether or not growers provided the pay and work

promised or the housing legally required.68 Not only an Illinois issue, the Alton Evening

Telegraph reported that Mexican farmworkers avoided the ISES and other state employment

63 Refugio I. Rochin, "Farm Worker Service and Employment Programs," in Seasonal Agricultural Labor Markets

in the United States, ed. Robert D. Emerson (Ames, IA: The Iowa State University Press, 1984), 435.

64 Illinois State Employment Service, “Job Facts”, Migrant Problems Study Commission, 1950-1957, Commission

on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

65 Manuel Galvan and Bonnie Gross, “State Investigates Job Referral,” Chicago Sun-Times, North/Northwest

Supplement, 6:1, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

DeKalb, Illinois.

66 Galvan and Gross, “State Investigates Job Referral.”

67 Ibid.

68 Brian Wiersema, "Nobody Takes Care of Migrant Worker," Alton Evening Telegraph, October 27, 1971, B3;

Valdes, Al Norte, 81.

services because of the tight collusion between growers and the agency.69 A 1971 lawsuit filed

by individual farmworkers, their representatives, and migrant advocates claimed that the United

States Department of Labor's USES offices were “grower staffed and oriented.”70 The case

claimed, and subsequent studies noted, that the USES provided referrals to growers that broke

housing and other laws and preferred giving referrals to alien workers who worked for less

money.71 The court mandated a thirteen-point alteration to the USES program.72 By 1977, state

offices finally started to comply with the court order to make the USES program more

accountable to farmworkers, with slow and questionable results.73

The ISES and other Midwest SES’ shift away from a “grower staffed” organization

resulted in a shifting patchwork of usage that exasperated SES efforts to control the agricultural

labor system. A questionnaire about the employing practices of growers in Illinois found that

few smaller growers actually acquired employees through the ISES, with the exception of

asparagus growers.74 Primarily larger grower operations, usually associated with canneries and

corporations, used the ISES.75 The various degrees of use of ISES reflected differences by

state, as Ohio growers extensively used the Ohio State Employment System, only half the

migrants who came to Wisconsin used the WSES in 1973, and, in a study of over three hundred

69 Ibid; James L. Terry, “The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor and the Farmworker Movement in the

Midwest,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Purdue University, 1988), 63-64.

70 Rochin, “Farm Worker Service and Employment Programs,” 435; Terry, “The Political Economy of Migrant

Farm Labor,” 63-64; Valdes, Al Norte, 81.

71 Rochin, "Farm Worker Service and Employment Programs," 436-437.

72 Ibid, 437.

73 Ibid.

74 Don E. Bauer and William T. Cammack, "The Competitive Structure of the Illinois Seasonal Farm Labor

Market Specific to the Vegetable and Fruit Industry," (M.S., Southern Illinois University, 1971), 59.

75 Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life, 174; Wiersema, “Nobody Takes Care of Migrant Worker.” Large,

corporate growers are not necessarily a large contingent within the state of Illinois- one newspaper article noted

four large corporations.

migrant farmworkers in Michigan, eight used the Michigan State Employment Service.76 The

different uses reflected not only regional differences, such as Ohio’s larger tomato and pickle

canning industry and the OSES’ long successful history, but also changes over time.77 After the

Farm Labor Contract and Regulation Act of 1974, Ohio growers specifically avoided the

previously grower-friendly Ohio Bureau of Employment Service (OSES) because the OSES

attempted to ensure crew leaders complied with the act.78 Used to the OSES overlooking illegal

acts, growers circumvented the OSES so they could not be held liable if crew leaders failed to

comply with the law.79 State agriculture, history, and compliance with state and federal

regulations all influenced and changed the use of the Midwest’s State Employment Services.

Exasperated by the changing patterns of use, the ISES agency blamed “free-wheeler”

farmworkers for the agency’s inability to control the migrant stream. Ignoring growers and

canneries’ own usage of the system, ISES and national SES employees blamed “free-

wheelers,” individuals who drove around in their own vehicles and negotiated their own

contracts outside the USES structure, for the migrant stream’s chaotic nature.80 Viewing their

job as controllers of the migrant agricultural network within their state, the ISES made little

76 Rochin, “Farm Worker Service and Employment Programs,” 10; “Migrant and Local Seasonal Farmworker

Questionnaire,” 23:2, Michigan Farmworker Ministry Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan; UMOS Inc. FY 1974-1975, United Migrant Opportunity Services, Inc., United

Migrant Opportunity Services, Inc., Milwaukee Area Research Center, UW- Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

The ISES also reportedly discriminated against African Americans, preferring to assist Mexicans and white

farmworkers. As few migrants were white and some Mexican migrants did not have papers to be in the United

States, growers easily exploited migrants.

77 Breen, Labor Market Politics and the Great War, 21-23, 80.

78 Valdes, Al Norte, 81; Terry, “The Political Economy,” 63-64.

79 Terry, “The Political Economy,” 63-64.

80 Letter to Mr. A. W. Motley from Walter Parker, January 23, 1962, Migrant Problems Study Committee II, 1958-

1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives,

Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; Norris, North for the Harvest, 113-140; Kathleen Mapes, “ ‘A Special Class

of Labor’: Mexican (Im)Migrants, Immigration and Industrial Agriculture in the Rural Midwest,” Labor Studies in

Working-Class History of the Americas 1, no. 2 (2004). Kathleen Mapes also notes that some sugar companies

discouraged car ownership by threatening to withhold credit advances.

attempt to provide an easy, usable service that growers and farmworkers would use. Despite

their negative portrayal by the ISES, “free-wheelers” were just migrants who learned about jobs

by word-of-mouth from relatives and other Spanish-speakers aside from other well-established

tactics.81 Working together as a migrating community, many migrant farmworkers navigated

the national USES system, understanding when to circumvent or use the organization. In 1977,

ISES reports indicated that the service provided many referrals for agricultural employment,

but made significantly fewer job placements.82 This suggests that either the ISES made referrals

to jobs already filled by “free-wheelers,” or farmworkers used the agency to obtain information

about possible jobs, but carefully chose which referral to accept. Even more telling, poor

weather and harvests in other states led to a reportedly “urgent” situation in Illinois, as

farmworkers desperate for money diverted their usual route to enter Illinois for work in 1977.83

While the influx of workers who commonly did not come to Illinois likely increased the use of

the ISES, these workers carefully made decisions and did not always take any employment

referral offered by the ISES. Though demanding the right to control migrant farmworkers as

pawns in the agricultural state structure, many migrant farmworkers, through ‘free-wheeling’

and other methods, traversed the Midwest migrant stream outside the efforts of the State

Employment Services.

Ultimately the ISES, like the Committee on Agricultural Migrants, discounted the voice

of migrant farmworkers in their effort to control the migrant stream. In defining their charge as

81 Bauer and Cammack, “The Competitive Structure,” 59; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Committee, Meeting

Tapes, 1969-1970, cassette audio recordings, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State

Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

82 Illinois Manpower Review, 47.

83 Illinois Department of Public Health division of Sanitary Engineering, “Rules and Regulations for Migrant

Labor Camps,” 1962, Public Health Migrant Advisory Committee, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers

Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

solely ensuring the labor needs of state growers and canners, SES services ignored the unequal

power relationship between agricultural employees and employers. Lumping uncooperative and

independent migrant workers under the term “free-wheelers,” the ISES defined what they

deemed good migrant workers, those who allowed the ISES to control their movements, and

bad migrant workers, those who refused to be completely dictated by the bureaucratic agency.

Though the Committee on Agricultural Migrants’ use of English instead of Spanish and

English suggested half-hearted attempts to placate public concern and racial bias, the ISES

made no claim that they served migrants. Rather, the State Employment Services’ few Spanish

speaking staff represented the groups’ unwillingness to address unequal power relationships

between the employees and employers. Blatant disregard for the migrant men seeking decent

jobs for their families, and the violation of state and national laws, only led to the decreasing

and uneven use of the State Employment Services as employers and migrants sought more ideal

conditions.

Illinois Departments

Successfully finding employment in Midwest agricultural fields, migrant farmworkers

faced poverty conditions that necessitated their navigation of the Illinois state bureaucracy and

welfare agencies. Illinois legislators estimated that migrant farmworkers made an average of

$1,580 in a year in 1970, significantly less than the $1,732 a year in 1969.84 Even the $1,732

high remained well below the poverty index for a farm residence in 1969 where the

government defined a female-headed household with one child making less than $2,117, in

84 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Committee, Meeting Tapes.

poverty.85 With such meager wages, and usually lacking health insurance, many migrant

farmworkers in the Midwest needed state government assistance to survive. However, as the

story of the Guerra family in the introduction suggests, language, residency, and racism

restricted farmworkers’ use of state services. Unlike committees such as the Committee on

Agricultural Migrants, various Illinois state departments had pre-existing programs based on

English-speaking permanent residency. The state departments’ failure to provide meaningful

programs for Spanish-speaking migrant farmworker families, as language and residency

restricted aid to farmworker familias, evinced the state of Illinois’ continued view of

farmworkers as a temporary concern of the public.

Faced with public pressure, the Illinois state government, along with other Midwest

states in the 1960s, tried to mitigate negative publicity regarding farmworkers’ housing plight.

Newspaper articles, organizations, and legislators commonly used “hovels” and “sprawling

ghettos” as descriptors of the housing that growers provided migrants.86 Housing could lack

anything from toilet facilities and running water to stoves and air conditioning.87 Like most

Midwest states, Illinois law enacted regulations for farmworker housing well below the

standards for permanent residences, accepting outside water supplies and toilet facilities. Not

only relegating migrant housing well below non-migrants, most Midwest states’ migrant

housing regulations failed to cover a majority of growers and thus lacked enforcement. Illinois

law only established housing regulations for growers employing at least ten migrants or four

85 "Poverty: Income Thresholds at the Poverty Level in 1969 by Sex of Head, Size of Family, and Number of

Related Children Under 18 Years Old, by Farm-Nonfarm Residence," prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau

(Washington, DC, 1969), accessed 2009, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh69.html.

86 John Gilbert, “Okay Migrant Housing Law,” Bensenville Register, August 18, 1968; Charles Hayes, “Migrant Is

Local Issue,” Daily Herald, November 5, 1959.

87 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Committee, Meeting Tapes.

migrant families, allowing numerous growers who employed only a few migrant families to

legally provide “hovels” for their workers.88 In the 1960s, the investigation of two-year-old

Ernesto Perez’ death because of pesticide exposure in DuPage County drew public attention to

the Panaglotaros’ farm where Ernesto died, leading to newspaper articles and public outrage

over migrant housing.89 Under the Illinois Department of Public Health, the Illinois state

government attempted to appease the public’s concern for migrants’ appalling living conditions

through limited legislative actions.

For migrant farmworker familias, language barriers and policies that discriminated

against migrant farmworkers marred the Illinois Department of Public Health’s efforts to

investigate and improve migrant housing. Although laws established specific housing

regulations, the Illinois Department of Public Health rarely inspected housing and provided

only a limited avenue for migrants to report housing problems.90 Due to a shortage of staff, the

Department of Public Health claimed it could not see all the facilities multiple times or when

migrants worked during weekdays, which restricted investigators’ access to housing due to

privacy issues.91 This issue occurred throughout the Midwest, as Michigan’s Department of

Public Health rarely checked facilities twice, even if they had violations, even though sixty

88 Ibid.

89 Steve Franzmeier, "County Vows Action on Migrant Plight," Around and About Addison, August 13, 1960;

“Farmers Rush to Better Quarters for Mexican Workers,” Bensenville Register, August 11, 1960; Gilbert “Okay

Migrant Housing Law.”

90 Fall Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission; Fall Issue Report, prepared by the

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Fall 1972), 17, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; “Task Force on Migrants,” prepared by the Spanish

Speaking Peoples Study Commission, 10, 17, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State

Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

91 Fall Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission; Ransom and Gross,

“Housing.”

percent of migrant camps in Michigan had six violations per camp.92 In addition, few of the

Department of Public Health’s migrant housing investigators were bilingual.93 Language

barriers made Health Department inspections ineffective, as migrants could not report unseen

problems. Even with a rare Spanish-speaking staff member, inspectors failed to report or note

problems resulting from the Illinois government and Department of Public Health’s

unwillingness to inconvenience growers. In a booklet designed to tell growers and canners

about the housing regulation of Illinois, the Department of Public Health consistently assured

the employer that the policies and laws would be followed under “reasonable” guidelines,

arguing that regulations would not be systematically followed in a way that would cause

hardship for employers.94 In another booklet, the Department tried to describe themselves as

reasonable individuals who could ensure migrants, and by extension the Illinois public’s health,

while also ensuring that the regulations did not negatively affect the agricultural economy. The

Department’s desire to not inconvenience growers apparently extended to ignoring rat holes in

mattresses, leaks in roofs, and flooding during their inspections.95 Preference for growers, lack

of funding, lack of bilingual staff, and racism characterized the Illinois Department of Public

Health’s role as housing regulators.

Not only did the Department of Public Health fail to properly investigate housing

violations, but also the Department of Public Health’s system failed to accommodate non-

permanent or Spanish speaking residents. The Illinois Department of Public Health made it

92 Valdes, Al Norte, 174-175.

93 Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Summer 1975).

94 “Rules and Regulations for Migrant Labor Camps,” i-ii; Ransom and Gross, “Housing.”

95 Fall Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, 10; Report, prepared by the

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Summer 1975), 18.

difficult (if not impossible) for migrants to file complaints about their housing, with limited

office hours and a long process that usually lasted well after a migrant had left Illinois.96

Although the expansion of the Voting Rights Act in the 1970s and 1980s ensured non-English

speakers received access to certain rights, such as election ballots in their language, legislation,

and court decisions, it did not ensure that all state departments could adequately speak with its

non-English speaking residence.97 The Department of Public Health’s inflexible programs

reflected not only a bureaucratic but also a class and racial propensity to ignore the facts on the

ground. The Department designed their policies and forms for stationary English-speaking

residents. Although not intended by the creation of the policies, the department’s policies

reflected an anti-foreign, anti-migrant mentality. In creating a lengthy and complicated process

for English speakers, the Illinois Department of Public Health provided limited assistance to

migrants to placate public concern for farmworkers.

The dangerous nature of migratory farm work: pesticides, inadequate housing and

water, working with knives at a hurried pace, and dangerous machinery, complicated farm

laborers’ already inadequate access to medical help. Migrant familias often made poverty

wages that made nutritional food and doctor visits almost impossible. Only large company

growers and canneries offered any health insurance, though it was still inadequate.98 Illinois

legislators could do little to aid workers until significant financial backing from the national

government came in 1962.99 With national funds, Midwest states created and co-funded a

96 Fall Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, 10.

97 Del Valle, Language Rights, 105.

98 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Hoopeston Hearing, July 24, 1970, cassette audio recording,

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

99 Valdes, Al Norte, 170-172.

variety of programs to provide medical assistance and food provisions to migrant workers.

National legislation allowed for the creation of migrant health centers in “high-impact” areas,

where a large number of migrants went, and migrant health projects in “low-impact” areas,

where migrants could receive limited medical resources in the areas that employed fewer

migrant workers.100 Illinois founded the Migrant Medical Program in 1977 to provide financial

medical assistance to migrants; however, a newspaper claimed that of the fifty-three

applications for help within the first year, the Migrant Medical Program denied twenty-two,

suggesting the restricted nature of state assistance.101 Hospitals’ limited funding and lack of

translators restricted migrants’ ability to seek medical assistance in the Midwest.102

Like the Illinois Department of Public Health’s involvement in migrant housing, racism

and residency requirements restricted state and county programs that provided food and

medical assistance to migrant farmworkers. In Illinois and throughout the Midwest, residency

restrictions excluded migrants from receiving aid. Migrants who did not regularly reside in a

community were ineligible for Medicaid, food stamps and welfare, all of which were of vital

aid to migrants.103 Several 1976 pamphlets from the Illinois Department of Public Aid noted

that the state required aid recipients to live in the state or expect to remain in the state, which

100 Patricia C. Ramirez, “Migrant Health Care: A Mixture of Hope and Despair” Health, 7, no. 2 (March/April

1977), 6:2, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern

Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

101 Bonnie Gross and Jane Ransom, “Chronic Health Problems Afflict Migrant Families,” Chicago Sun-Times

North/Northwest Supplement, 6:1, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders

Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

102 José Martinez, interview by Mark DePue, July 31, 2008, transcript, 5, Agriculture in the Modern Era,

Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

103 Ramirez, “Migrant Health Care.”

was certainly an issue for migrant farmworkers.104 In some cases, state and local officials

inaccurately denied migrants aid. An organization, Food and Nutrition Services, insisted in

1980 that the United States Department of Agriculture investigate local and state failures to

provide bilingual services and occurrences of offices refusing migrants assistance because of

inaccurate calculations of income and “misinterpretations” of citizenship requirements.105 The

Food and Nutrition Service claimed local and state offices around the nation often harassed

migrants about their citizenship, insisted on using uncertain future income in calculating need,

and used confusing and “misleading” forms.106 Whether due to racial discrimination or

residency requirements, farmworkers struggled to receive assistance from state governments

because of the migratory nature of their life.

As migrants navigated the linguistic and residency barriers in food and medical aid,

most migrants’ first encounter Illinois bureaucracy through the migrant educational programs,

offering the opportunity to bridge the language gap for the next generation. For Illinois and

most of the Midwest states, programs for migrant farmworker children often started before

programs focused on adults. By 1968, the federal Bilingual Education Act (BEA) offered

financial assistance to school districts to promote and establish bilingual educational

programs.107 In the Midwest, summer educational programs created by local communities and

104 “Aid to Families with Dependent Children,” prepared by the Department of Public Aid, 1976, 6:2, DeKalb

County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University,

DeKalb, Illinois; “State Supplemental Payments to the Aged, Blind, or Disabled,” prepared by the Department of

Public Aid, 1976, 6:2, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

105 Community Nutrition Institute, “USDA Pressed on Farmworker Problems,” X, no. 8 (February 21, 1980), 6:1,

DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois

University, DeKalb, Illinois.

106 Ibid.

107 Del Valle, Language Rights, 226.

funded through state and national monies offered bilingual and ESL programs. Funding came

from a variety of sources, with two Illinois migrant educational programs receiving funding

from at least three government sources: HEW, Illinois Department of Children and Family

Services, and CETA.108 In DeKalb, Illinois, the Children’s Learning Center, and in Kankakee,

Illinois, the Little Star Migrant Center, offered summer educational opportunities to migrant

children in the hopes of bridging the gap between their education in the Midwest and in their

Southern homes of Texas, Florida, or Mexico.109 In addition, the DeKalb school district

established a program for Spanish speakers. Though not a bilingual program, as the Director

John Cassani strongly insisted to the local newspaper, the DeKalb School District program

focused on teaching children English while also respecting Mexican culture.110 As one of the

initial forms of state involvement, migrant education offered the opportunity to break the

linguistic and cultural barriers that divided migrant children from others, and, for some

educators and migrant parents, the hope that the next migrant generation would permanently

settle.

Language within education played a divisive role, as state offices did not always respect

parents’ language difficulties, and state agencies and the public debated the role of bilingual

education and special programs for migrant children. Some Illinois departments, such as the

108 Mike Krey, “Migrant Student Program Strives for Continuity,” Daily Chronicle, July 19, 1978, 6:1, DeKalb

County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University,

DeKalb, Illinois; Roberta Rempfer, “History of the Children’s Learning Center,” February 19, 1975, 1:7, DeKalb

County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University,

DeKalb, Illinois; Mrs. Vernon Rempfer, note on history, 1:7, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History

Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Roberta Rempfer, Little Star

Migrant Center 1979 Season Summary, 5:2, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders

Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

109 Krey, “Migrant Student Program Strives for Continuity;” Rempfer, “History of the Children’s Learning

Center;” Rempfer, note on history; Rempfer, Little Star Migrant Center.

110 Krey, “Migrant Student Program Strives for Continuity.”

State Board of Education, at least partial accepted the importance of breaking down language

barriers between state institutions and parents as they published a Directory of Services for

Migrant Families in 1977 in Spanish.111 Yet not all state governments and local communities

accepted bilingual education. By 1979, members of the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study

Commission (SSPSC) feared House Bill 169, as initiated by Representative Donald E. Deuster,

would set bilingual education “…back ten years if not more.”112 In Wautoma, Wisconsin, the

local community failed to create an education program for migrant children, ignoring the

problems of migrant children and the national and state funding available to assist migrants.113

Controversy regarding bilingual education divided the nation. Few Midwest school districts

offered BEA-funded bilingual education, with four programs each in Illinois and Michigan, two

in Indiana, and only one in Wisconsin and Ohio during the 1973-1974 school year.114 The

limited bilingual programs in the Midwest reflected the tension between pacifying public

concern for migrant farmworker children and public resistance to non-English languages. As

programs such as the Children’s Learning Center in DeKalb sought parental involvement,

linguistic barriers between parents and teachers meant that, in the case of education,

farmworker children themselves had to maneuver through the opportunities and restrictions of

state and nationally funded educational programs.

111 Directorio de Servicios Para Familias Migrantes; Título I 89-750; Programas para Migrantes Oficina Estatal

de Educación de Illinois, 1976-1977, 5:10, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders

Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

112 Letter to Friends of the Commission from the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, January 31, 1979,

5:13, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois

University, DeKalb, Illinois.

113 Patricia Ann Pogre, Letters, migrant workers, 2:54, Wisconsin State Employment Service: Farm Placement,

Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

114 Lawrence Wright, “The Bilingual Movement at the Crossroads,” The Phi Delta Kappan, 55, no. 3 (November

1973), 184.

In migrant farmworkers’ interactions with state and state-funded local agencies, migrant

families negotiated the state bureaucracy within their own gendered and family ideology and

structures. State funded programs in Illinois and other Midwest states often failed to provide

the assistance they were supposed to provide. As previously noted, migrant men often handled

any interaction with the State Employment Services; but all family members interacted with

state agencies, as families went to the hospital for medical treatment or agency offices for food

assistance. With different family members interacting with different groups and different

programs, migrant familias debated within their own cultural and gendered norms how best to

handle state and local programs that often discriminated against them. While a migrant woman

felt comfortable going to a local Michigan hospital to deliver her baby because of the available

translators, a farmworker in Michigan did not want his wife to go to a local hospital because of

rumors the local hospital discriminated against migrants.115 The occasional lack of translators at

hospitals discouraged yet another migrant male, this time in Illinois, from seeking medical

help; instead, he avoided medical treatment until he returned to Mexico.116 Different migrant

familias rejected and accepted assistance based on perception, fear and their role in the family.

Though one migrant male dictated his wife’s interaction with state and local services,

many other migrant women had to negotiate state and local programs, such as food stamps,

education, and medical assistance, by themselves. Gloria Ortega went to a health service office

115 “Texas-Michigan Public Health Service Migrant Health Project, 1957-1958: Summary of Findings Based on

Interview at End of Migration Year,” Migrant Problems Study Committee Illinois, 1958-1963, Commission on

Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois.

116 Jose Martinez, interview by Mark DePue.

in Ottawa, Ohio alone with her children to receive powdered milk.117 Unfamiliar with the

system and possibly dealing with a language barrier, Gloria Ortega waited for two days at the

Putnam Regional Health Services as the office’s employee racially insulted Gloria.118 Office

staff continually ignored Ortega throughout the two days and the manager criticized her for the

mess her children caused. The manager of the facility commented that the facility was “not just

for the Mexicans.” In reaction to the treatment she received, Gloria Ortega responded by

writing a letter to the editor of the Nuestra Lucha, a Chicano community newspaper in Ohio.119

In some families, men dictated family members’ interaction with state organizations, yet in

other families women dealt with state agencies. In either case, whether women faced

discrimination and language barriers in fulfilling traditional female caretaker roles or men

protected their families from discriminating organizations, all migrants had to decide how best

to handle language barriers and discrimination, whether through avoidance or confrontation.

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission

With increased public concern for minorities throughout the 1960s, Illinois in 1971

established the Illinois Spanish Speaking People’s Study Commission (SSPSC), which

investigated all Spanish speakers’ concerns, including those of migrant farmworkers.120 Created

only a few years after Illinois made English the official language of the state, the SSPSC’s goal

was to ensure the rights of “Spanish speakers.” Similar to the committees created by other

117 Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Organizing Report, January-October 1976, 4:19, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid.

120 Illinois State Archives, “Spanish Speaking People’s Study Commission,” Archon database, accessed February

15, 2014, http://archon.ilsos.net/?p=creators/creator&id=188.

Midwest states, the SSPSC, like the Committee on Agricultural Migrants, investigated and

suggested new and improved legislation to better conditions in the migrant stream and

throughout the state.121 However, the SSPSC and similar Midwest committees remained

largely ineffective because much of the legislation did little to better migrants’ lives. Instead of

bettering migrants’ lives, SSPSC members worked to placate agricultural interest groups while

providing little to no avenue for migrant involvement.

Outside pressure from agricultural interest groups, and legislator’s racial and gendered

perceptions of migrant farmworkers, influenced the effectiveness of the SSPSC and similar

Midwest groups. Agricultural influence manifested itself sometimes in the brazen coalition

between growers and government committees on migrant farmworkers. The Governor’s

Committee on Migratory Labor in Indiana included the president of the Indiana Canners

Association, a person who had a vested interest in maintaining the agricultural system of

power.122 Though the Illinois SSPSC did not consist of known canner or grower affiliates,

SSPSC members faced pressure to appease public concern by assisting migrant farmworkers

without actually creating any real change that would anger powerful agricultural interest

groups.123 For some committee members, legislation and investigations simply quelled protest

and outrage over farmworkers’ plight until the entire migrant system ended.

121 Valdes, Al Norte, 190, 196, 163, 143-144, 179; Letter to Dr. Frank Finch from Naomi Hiett, February 27, 1961,

Migrant Committee Evaluations, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963,

Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois. Other committees in the Midwest include:

Wisconsin’s Governor’s Migrant Committee, Ohio and Indiana’s Governor’s Committee on Migratory Labor.

122 Valdes, Al Norte, 179.

123 Fall Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission (Fall 1974); Spring Issue Report,

prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Spring 1973); Report, prepared by the Spanish

Speaking People’s Study Commission (Summer 1975), 1-5; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Meeting Tapes.

Created in 1963, the SSPSC investigated and suggested solutions to issues faced by

Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and other “Spanish-speakers” in their everyday lives, both in rural

and urban Illinois.124 The committee formed several subcommittees: Employment, Housing,

Consumer Protection, Education, Agricultural Migrants, Political Representation, Justice and

Police, Health and Welfare, and a subcommittee on the “Implementation of existing

legislation.”125 The main committee consisted primarily of state congressmen while the SSPSC

encouraged subcommittees to include persons who were experienced in the area of the

subcommittee and were persons of Puerto Rican, Mexican, and Cuban backgrounds. Records

on the SSPSC committee members included numerous persons of Puerto Rican descent, and

several others with Spanish surnames, which comprised the non-congressional members of the

committee.126 Some of the Latino members actively took part in ethnic organizations, such as

the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and the Puerto Rican Political

Committee, with a few who had union backgrounds.127 Biographies described no one as a

migrant or former migrant, and although the committee sought to represent the state of Illinois,

almost all the committee members came from the Chicago/Northern Illinois area. The makeup

of the SSPSC and its subcommittees suggested that the SSPSC focused primarily on urban

124 Fall Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission (Fall 1974).

125 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Summary of January 28th Meeting of the Spanish Speaking

Peoples Study Commission, 1972, Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton

Building, Springfield, Illinois.

126 Fall Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission (Fall 1974); Spring Issue Report,

prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Spring 1973); Report, prepared by the Spanish

Speaking People’s Study Commission (Summer 1975), 1-5; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Commission Meeting Tapes; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Minutes, cassette; Spanish Speaking

Peoples Study Commission, note with handwriting.

127 Ibid.

areas, improving the life of “Spanish speakers” in the main center of Illinois’ permanent Latino

population, Chicago.128

The Northern, urban focus, and the failure of the Agricultural Migrants subcommittee to

provide a migrant or former migrant representative, continued to subjugate migrant

farmworkers’ issues. By creating a subcommittee under a large umbrella committee called the

Spanish Speaking People’s Study Commission, the Illinois government allowed the

complicated issues of the migrant stream to become secondary to the general issues faced by

all, but most importantly to the SSPSC, urban “Spanish-speakers.” Unlike the other issues

addressed by the SSPSC, such as police relations and urban housing, migrant farmworkers

were a part of a national structure shaped not only by racism, but also by powerful corporations

on a local and national level. In treating the problems of the migrant stream under general

issues represented by the SSPSC and in failing to give farmworkers a voice, the SSPSC could

not accomplish real change in the agricultural system.

The type of change the SSPSC members sought partially reflected their gender.

Between the Committee on Agricultural Migrants and the SSPSC, the Committee on

Agricultural Migrants consisted of large numbers of women concerned with children, while the

SSPSC consisted of legislators and representatives from organizations and activists, most of

whom were men. The SSPSC’s gendered makeup influenced the type of efforts they focused

on, as they offered little comment in the way of migrant education; rather, they left early

women-dominated groups to deal with migrant education and focused solely on general

128 "Illinois - Race and Hispanic Origin for Selected Large Cities and Other Places: Earliest Census to 1990,"

prepared by the U.S. Census Bureau (Washington, DC), accessed May 4, 2009,

http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0076/ILtab.pdf. By the 1970s, the Chicago

population was 14 percent Hispanic.

migrant problems. Although the SSPSC’s mission did not restrict the committee to children like

the ICC subcommittee, its male and urban composition, in combination with a lack of migrant

farmworker’s involvement and broad scope of concern, shaped SSPSC efforts.

Tempering public criticisms of the migrant stream, Illinois politicians and the SSPSC

addressed migrants’ problems, sometimes with benevolent intentions, but never through

empowerment. SSPSC efforts to fix the “migrant problem” in the 1970s and 1980s happened in

a time period where farmworkers’ issues intersected with the movements for change at the

national level, as consciousness of issues influenced political agendas that promised change.

State legislators and organizations tried to end the problems inherent in migrant work when

public forums and the press raised the daily difficulties migrants faced in the stream. The

Illinois government/SSPSC viewed migrant farmworkers along two interconnected

frameworks, describing migrant workers as both helpless victims in an agricultural power

structure and defenseless minorities who could not better their own lives. The SSPSC, as an

institution, acknowledged the racial aspect of the agricultural power structure, but they ignored

the state government’s own collusion through legislation and committee structure. The Illinois

government, like the rest of the Midwest, founded legislation and committees based on a

racialized interconnected framework that safeguarded legislators’ authority to shape

farmworkers’ fates with minimal input from farmworkers themselves.

Migrant farmworkers had limited opportunities to influence the SSPSC. One time came

when the SSPSC committee visited a migrant camp, and another when they held hearings in

different locations throughout Illinois where locals spoke about issues of concern.129 The last

129 Spring Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, (Spring 1973).

opportunity came when the SSPSC sent out a questionnaire in both English and Spanish.130 The

speakers at the hearings included Latinos and non-Latinos on issues ranging from police

harassment, to housing discrimination, to migrant farm labor. At the hearings, people offered

their varied opinions ranging from those speaking on behalf of ending racism and

discrimination, to migrant farmworkers, to grower representatives defending unfair practices,

as seen in the case of a Stokely Van Camp representative from Hoopeston.131 Yet the

subcommittee on migrants, feeling that previous studies adequately covered the basic

information, did not establish or create any new studies on migrants.132 Instead, the migrant

subcommittee members visited migrant camps as best they could and spoke with workers

during those visits.133 Unlike the earlier Committee on Agricultural Migrants under the ICC,

the SSPSC did provide farmworkers with an avenue to voice their concerns to the committee at

local hearings. Yet again, language would restrict farmworkers’ access to representation, as the

130 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Questionnaire Prepared by the SSPSC for the Spanish Speaking

Community of Illinois, April 28, 1978, 5:8, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders

Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; la Commission de Studio Para la Gente de Habla

Hispana, Cuestionario Preparado por la Commission de Studio Para la Gente de Habla Hispana, para Someterlo a

Consideracion de la Comunidad Hispana, April 28, 1978, 5:8, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History

Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

131 The hearings were recorded on cassette tapes and supposedly transcribed, however most of the cassette tapes

were erased or damaged. As such only a few hearings remain including part of the Waukegan hearings,

Hoopeston, and approximately one sixth of Sterling, Illinois’ hearings. The transcripts are missing. It should also

be noted that thirty-one reel-to-reels with other possible hearings or tapes of committee meetings were missing as

of 2009.

132 Fall Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, 17. I never found any

extensive study or statistics of Illinois migrants outside these statistics. The committee never reported where they

found their information except to say that the information came from non-government agencies.

133 Fall Issue Report, prepared by the Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, 17. The time frame migrants

came to Illinois, starting as early as April, did not always coincide with the congress’ schedule, so visits to the

migrant camps were initially delayed.

SSPSC offered limited translation services to non-English speakers.134 While migrants could

fill out a questionnaire or speak at one of the hearings, access and language barriers

complicated their ability to make their opinions heard; yet when they did, they had to voice

their frustrations with state bureaucracies that limited the migrants’ rights.

When the SSPSC examined migrants’ problems, they used gendered language that

depicted the migrants as incapable of helping themselves. In a section of the SSPSC’s report

entitled “The Visit,” the subcommittee described a migrant camp as follows:

From the road we could see in the distance the farms with their small white

houses. It was one of those views that had made famous the fields of Illinois.

Suddenly, amidst this natural beauty, a fence, a graveled road and a crowded

view of shacks on top of a small hill as they were on top on one another. They

brought to the memory the concentration camps that one has seen in so many

documentaries… On the very top of the hill, women shivering with cold were

washing dishes and clothes. The clean shacks with flowers here and there

helped to disguise their ugliness. The room with a partition as a kitchen,

without sink, only with a small stove in which coffee and bacon were being

cooked…Outside, young men walk on the dusty road toward the cold looking

common showers. As we drive away an old lady sweeping in front of her shack

smiled at us…A feeling of hopelessness invaded us as we drove away from a

Migrant Camp.135

The SSPSC described migrants’ problems in hopeless terms and the migrants themselves

appeared not as agents, but as individuals unable to change their living and working conditions.

The SSPSC also described migrants in gendered language, as seen in the above paragraph. The

SSPSC described the women as cooking and cleaning as the male migrants walked outside to

134 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Sterling hearing, September 27, 1978, cassette audio recording,

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois;

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Waukegan hearing, September 23, 1972, cassette audio recording,

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois;

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Hoopeston Hearing, July 24, 1970, cassette audio recording,

Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois..

135 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Sterling hearing; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission,

Waukegan hearing; Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Hoopeston hearing.

the showers. Yet the paragraph makes no suggestions as to what the men just did as everything

in this paragraph depicted either an inactive person or an activity overshadowed by a miserable

predicament and gendered as “inactive.” Sweeping, cooking, and cleaning are rarely viewed as

active, instead they are usually degraded as feminine actions. The paragraph never depicted the

migrants as laborers in fields or canneries, or as capable and willing to change a degrading

system. Like their other reports, the SSPSC’s “visit” publication was not available in Spanish,

making the committee unaccountable for their biased view of migrants’ helplessness.

The language used by the SSPSC to describe migrants, and the failure of the SSPSC to

establish open linguistic communications with non-English speakers, portrayed farmworkers as

passive, despite evidence to the contrary. By the time of the SSPSC “visit” to the camp in 1971,

farmworkers had already created several farmworker unions and organizations, even achieving

some success; the most widely known case being the United Farm Workers in California, a

union of primarily Mexicans who organized themselves and gained national attention and

support throughout the 1960s.136 More local geographically speaking to Illinois, the Obreros

Unidos (OU) in Wisconsin and FLOC in Ohio both originally organized in the late 1960s by

farmworkers and ex-farmworkers to better the lives of migrants.137 While the OU failed to

achieve their objectives in 1968, and FLOC had only brief success in the 1960s, FLOC’s strike

initiated in 1978 and OU’s efforts still demonstrated the possibility of farmworkers actively

changing their situation.138 Like their brethren in other Midwestern states, farmworkers in

Illinois made small efforts to gain a certain level of control over their lives. Farmworkers spoke

136 Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers

(New York: Verso, 2011).

137 Valdes, Al Norte, 190-191; Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest.

138 Valdes, Al Norte, 188-190. FLOC’s strike is further described in Chapter 5.

at SSPSC meetings about the issues they faced, avoided or partially used the ISES to their

benefit, reported housing violations to authorities, and refused to work for growers with

horrendous conditions; all of which demonstrated migrant farmworkers’ agency. Not all SSPSC

members necessarily knew about farmworkers’ activism, yet several of the members must have

been aware of these unions and organizations, making the committee’s view of helpless

farmworkers unrealistic and unfortunate.

Without the power to change existing laws or provide greater funding to enforce

existing laws, the SSPSC’s legislative efforts merely provided temporary solutions to the

“migrant problem.” The SSPSC recommended several laws, which the Illinois government

passed in 1975, including an amendment to the Child Labor Law to include agricultural

workers and raise the working age to twelve years old for non-family members of farmers.139 In

addition, the Illinois state government passed a law that forced employment and private

agencies to provide the work recruitment paperwork to the individual in English and the

language the worker spoke, as well as increased the violation from a Class C to a Class A

misdemeanor for private employment offices.140 The state also passed the Illinois Farm Labor

Contractor Certification Act that required crew leaders to register with the state.141 However,

the Illinois Congress tabled, or killed, SSPSC recommendations to include agricultural workers

in the Unemployment Compensation Act and for the addition of farmworkers in the

139 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Enacted Migrant Laws, 1975, 5:8, DeKalb County Migrant

Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

140 Ibid.

141 Ibid.

Workman’s Occupational Disease Act and the Fair Employment Practice Act in 1975.142 Other

acts killed included requiring educational and recreational facilities as well as first aid stations

in migrant camps, and providing $25,000 to the Department of Public Health so they could hire

bilingual migrant camp inspectors.143 SSPSC legislative suggestions failed to radically change

the system of power, as they focused on creating minor changes that only supported faulty state

aid systems.

The Conclusion or the Continuación of the Migrant Stream?

Facing mounting public pressure to address the appalling situation of migrant

farmworkers throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Midwest state governments, like Illinois,

established committees, agencies, and legislation. Despite public pressure, state government

responses characterized a resistance to radically altering or investigating the problems inherent

within the migrant stream, instead subsuming migrant problems under other issues and ignoring

the language barriers that divided many migrant farmworkers in the nation from the permanent,

English-speaking public and government of Illinois. As Mexican and Mexican American

migrant farmworker familias navigated the various Midwest state groups and legislation meant

to better their lives, linguistic barriers allowed governments to ignore the voices of migrants in

favor of English-speaking, white, permanent residents. Throughout the Midwest during the last

half of the twentieth century, permanent, English-speaking residents manned the agencies and

committees created to assist migrants, defining the “migrant problem.”

142 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Proposed Commission Bills: Tabled Migrant Legislation, 1975,

5:8, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois

University, DeKalb, Illinois.

143 Spanish Speaking Peoples Study Commission, Proposed Commission Bills.

Just as public pressure initiated apathetic Midwest state government efforts in the 1960s

and 1970s, so too did the dissolution of this interest lead to the disbandment of committees and

legislative efforts in the 1980s and 1990s. Shifting migrant streams and cultural changes within

the nation diverted public sympathy and attention away from migrant farmworkers. The 1980s

backlash against welfare efforts, minority concerns, and unions created an atmosphere that

slowly extinguished the public outcry and compassion over migrant farmworkers’ plight.144

The SSPSC ended in 1984 because migrant numbers decreased enough that the public could

easily forget and ignore migrant issues.145 These changes characterized shifting patterns in the

migrant stream rather than the increase in mechanization that many argued would totally

replace farmworkers. Mechanization did increase in the 1960s and 1970s, but land issues and

increasing undocumented workers in the late 1970s decreased grower compulsion to totally

replace farm laborers with machines.146 The shifting migrant route meant that the

disappearance of migrants in some areas of the Midwest occurred at the same time as public

concern and aid committees disappeared from the Midwest social and physical landscape.147

With shifting migrant streams and changing social concerns came changes in state

government efforts. Like Illinois, many of the Midwest state committees focused on

farmworkers eventually disappeared as farmworker numbers and public interest decreased, and

144 Joseph A. McCartin, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controller and the Strike that Changed

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Guadalupe San Miguel, Jr., Contested Policy: The Rise and

Fall of Federal Bilingual Education in the United States, 1960-2001, (Denton, Texas: University of North Texas

Press, 2004); Del Valle, Language Rights.

145 Illinois State Archives, Spanish Speaking People’s Study Commission, Archon.

146 James W. Parker, "2 Worlds Collide," The Plain Dealer, September 23, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

147 George Gutierrez, interview by Lucille Aikins, March 16, 1981, transcript, 14, 2.31, Oral History Collection:

Town Gown Relations in DeKalb, 1955-1980, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern

Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Anderson, “P’urépecha Migration into the U.S. Rural Midwest.”

as fewer groups and individuals debated legislation and the actions of state departments.

Largely rural populations, influence of growers and large canneries, the power of urban versus

rural interest, and farm labor unions impacted public sympathy and, as a result, state efforts.

The Illinois government’s concern for migrants diminished significantly in the 1980s, but the

farmworker union FLOC made migrant farmworkers a prevalent issue in Ohio throughout the

1980s.148 Started in 1977, Ohio’s Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs addressed a broad

range of “Spanish Speaker” concerns.149 With declining and varied public interest came

different state responses, as some Midwest states continued commissions focused on “Spanish-

Speakers” and others dissolved similar committees.

The disintegration of public concern in the Midwest 1980s and 1990s mirrored the

intensifying language debate in the United States. Despite the failure of groups such as US

English to make English the official language of the United States in the 1980s, statewide

efforts to restrict the use of languages other than English, in addition to a backlash against

bilingual education, became common throughout the nation and the Midwest.150 Mexican

Americans fought for linguistic rights within the Midwest and the nation during this backlash.

In Illinois, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF)

investigated and sued the Illinois Board of Education for their failure to enforce and provide

148 “Zimmers Propose Negociaciones Cole Colectivas,” Nuestra Lucha, July 1982:2, 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

149 Ohio Latin Affairs Commission, “What We Do: Advise, Connect, Build,” accessed January 22, 2014,

http://ochla.ohio.gov/AboutUs/WhatWeDo.aspx.

150 David A. Badillo, “Litigating Bilingual Education: A History of the Gomez Decision in Illinois,” Latinos in the

Midwest, ed. Rubén O. Martinez (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2011) 207-226; San Miguel, Jr.,

Contested Policy.

directions on how to analyze Mexican American students’ English proficiency.151 Onarga,

Illinois in Iroquois County schools’ perfunctory examination of students led to a low estimate

of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) students that ultimately meant the school district could

avoid a state law requiring a bilingual program, jeopardizing children’s education.152 Gomez vs.

Illinois Board of Education forced the state of Illinois to provide a standard by which testing

would determine LEP and enforce the 1971 state law that legislated a bilingual program for

twenty or more LEP students in a school and fulfilling the national Equal Educational

Opportunities Act (EEOA) of 1974 to provide “appropriate action to overcome language

barriers” in education.153 In 1988, bilingual education came under attack nationally as

President Ronald Reagan decreased federal funding and legislators weakened the BEA in the

1980s and 1990s while state and national organizations tried to enact English only laws.154

Mexican and Mexican Americans’ rights to bilingual education, citizenship status, affirmative

action, and basic rights and services came under attack and criticism. In the Midwest and the

nation, language continues to be a point of contention, with the ability to either empower and

facilitate, or repudiate and disparage, the rights and culture of transitory and settled Mexican

and Mexican Americans.

The Midwest migrant stream has continued to this day despite estimates to the contrary.

In reality, Mexican migrants like the Guerra family still travel from their homes in Texas,

Florida, or Mexico to the northern states, finding jobs through agencies like the State

151 Badillo, “Litigating Bilingual Education;” Gomez, et. al v. Illinois State Board of Education 811 F.2d 1030

(1987), Justia, accessed May 5, 2014, http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/811/1030/205943/.

152 Ibid.

153 Ibid.

154 Badillo, “Litigating Bilingual Education.”

Employment Service, financially scraping by as weather conditions destroy or delay work, and

facing the constant threat of injury or poisoning. And, as before, linguistic barriers continue to

shape migrant familias’ interaction with Midwest state services and governments. Though state

committees such as the SSPSC ceased meeting, and although legislation increased and state

departments still dispense aid, farmworkers in the Midwest still struggle. As The Chicago Sun-

Times stated in 1978 about their investigation on migrants, “…peering behind the honeysuckle

curtain to see what life there is like. And what they found should prick the conscious of the

comfortable to greater compassion and stir bureaucracies toward more resolute dedication to

their obligations. What’s there is shameful.”155 And it still is.

155 “Harvest of Shame: 1978 Crop,” Chicago Sun-Times, August 19, 1978, 6:1, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry,

Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

CHAPTER 3

"BITTER HARVEST"1: AGRICULTURE, GENDER, AND GROWER-FARMWORKER

RELATIONS IN A CHANGING LANDSCAPE

“All of them were caught in something larger than themselves.

Some of them hated the mathematics that drove them, and some

were afraid, and some worshipped the mathematics because it

provided a refuge from thought and from feeling.”2

-The Grapes of Wrath

Marching along the cold paved streets in 1985 Iowa, men and women held signs

demanding change in the agricultural system of the nation. As one protester argued, “It’s a big

change…People here are getting tired of getting stepped on. We’re learning how to fight

back…This is the only way to get what we deserve.”3 The angry protesters were not alone.

Labor unions and clergy throughout the nation supported the protests.4 Television crews and

journalists stood nearby watching the spectacle and interviewing the protesters, noting the

people’s anger and frustration at the current agricultural system and the momentous nature of

1 I picked “Bitter Harvest” because it appears to be a relatively popular phrase used to describe both growers and

farmworker’s stories throughout the world in addition to the recent phenomenon of consumer worries about what

is happening with the food we eat. Interestingly, many of these newer books focus on consumer safety with little

comment on farmworker or meatpacker workers’ safety.

2 John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1988), 42.

3 Eillen Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt Together,” Chicago Tribune, March 11, 1985.

4 Laurie Cohen and Christopher Drew, “Farmer Protests Gaining Steam as Crisis Worsens,” Chicago Tribune,

January 27, 1985; Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt Together.”

100

the protest.5 Two years before the Iowa march, another group of individuals marched, this time

from Toledo, Ohio to Camden, New Jersey protesting the role of corporations in the

agricultural system.6 This group specifically protested Campbell Soups’ ability to control the

system of production in their region.7 As a core group traveled with tired feet across the

landscape, members of the public, clergy, and labor unions joined the protesters’ demands for

change.8 The media wrote about the protesters tired journey like they did about the protest two

years later.9 .However, there existed major differences between the two protests; the Iowa

protest consisted of angry growers and the second of farmworkers boycotting and striking both

the Campbell Soup Corporation and the growers in Ohio that sold tomatoes to the company.10

Like the Joads in Grapes of Wrath, the agricultural structure trapped growers and farmworkers

in a system much larger than themselves, a system where corporate interests created divisions

between growers and migrants while sanctioning growers’ abuse of farmworkers. Though the

similarities in protests and the shared support network suggested ties between the two different

groups, growers and farmworkers remained divided within public perception and often, within

their own viewpoints.

Despite the similarities between both marches, migrants and growers rarely understood

their common position within the agricultural system while public perception contained

farmworker’s struggles for a better life and the Farm Crisis, as two distinct stories. The 1960s

5 Ibid.

6 Eric Harrison, “Farm Workers’ Long Trek to Camden Reflects the Passion of a 5-Year Strike,” 5:14, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

101

and 1970s were a time where farmworkers unionized and gained the attention of the public,

government officials, and church leaders. For growers, the 1970s was a time of prosperity,

especially for grain growers, as land values and crop prices rose.11 Encouraged by the

economy, the government, and banks, growers bought more land and more machinery.12 When

the economy faltered in the late 1970s and throughout most of the 1980s, growers struggled to

maintain ownership of their farms.13 Though a vast majority of farmers did not employ

farmworkers, the narrative of Midwest growers in the 1980s ignored the limited, but important

vegetable and fruit growers and the farmworkers they employed. For the public, the 1960s and

1970s emphasized the role of migrants in the agricultural system, while the 1980s Farm Crisis

highlighted corporate and government power over growers, but many in the public failed to see

the entire pyramid of power to understand the complicated role of growers, farmworkers,

corporations, and governments in the system. Despite the connection between growers and

farmworkers and the intimate association between the economic situation of growers and the

migrants that worked in the fields, the Farm Crisis narrative remained disconnected from the

farmworker narrative.

Growers, migrants, and the public separated the narrative of farmworkers and growers

from each other, and in so doing overshadowed the role of the landscape as a factor that shaped

11 Mark Friedberger, “Women Advocates in the Iowa Farm Crisis of the 1980s,” Agricultural History 67, no. 2

(Spring 1993), 227-228.

12 Timothy J. Conlan, “Bitter Harvest: Intergovernmental Dimensions of the Farm Crisis,” Publius 17, no. 3

(Summer 1987), 145-161; Cohen and Drew, “Farmer Protests Gaining Steam as Crisis Worsens;” Friedberger,

“Women Advocates in the Iowa Farm Crisis of the 1980s,” 227-228; Barry J. Barnett, “The U.S. Farm Financial

Crisis of the 1980s,” Agricultural History 74, no. 2 (Spring 2000), 366-380.

13 Barnett, “The U.S. Farm Financial Crisis of the 1980s,” 366-380; Jim Hightower, “The Case for the Family

Farm” in Is There A Moral Obligation To Save The Family Farm? ed. Gary Comstock (Ames: Iowa State

University Press, 1987); Steve H. Murdock and F. Larry Leistritz eds., The Farm Financial Crisis: Socioeconomic

Dimensions and Implications for Producers and Rural Areas (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988).

102

and was shaped by the interaction between migrant farmworkers and growers. The Midwest

landscape shaped the crops grown, the work performed by farmworkers, farmworkers’ route

through the Midwest, and growers’ financial situation. At the same time, the facade of the

Midwest, specifically of Midwest family farms and the agrarian ideal, influenced growers’

perception of themselves, their interactions with farmworkers, and the public understanding of

growers’ troubles during the economic crisis of the 1980s. The Farm Crisis of the 1980s

narrative focused on the loss of family farms in the nation, especially in the Midwest where the

mythos of the small, male-led, family-labor centered farm still pervaded public and even

grower imaginations.14 In fact, family farms had previously changed from the envisioned ideal

as many vegetable and fruit family farms in the Midwest employed Mexican and Mexican

American migrant farmworkers. The narrative of farmworkers in the Midwest became largely

separate from the narrative of Midwest family farms, ignoring the reality of the land.

In the Midwest, the land connected the disparate migrant and farmer narratives. Migrant

farmworkers moved across the land, toiling on land with their families as they struggled

sometimes against growers and corporations. For growers, the land was what they struggled to

produce enough on to survive in an environment where corporations increasingly gained power

and government and banks pushed growers to risk more. The imagining of the landscape also

shaped growers understanding of their place in the agricultural system, and as a result, their

perception of migrant farmworker’s place and the gender dimension of agricultural labor.

Similarly, the Midwest agrarian ideal shaped public perception of what Midwest farms were,

14 William Adams, “Natural Virtue: Symbol and Imagination in the American Farm Crisis,” The Georgia Review

39, no. 4 (Winter 1985), 695-712; Mark Ritchie, “Our Loss: The Family Farm” CALC Report, April 1982, 10,

24:3, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Frank Tobias Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest,

1880-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 5-7.

103

family-oriented institutions threatened by corporate interests and not also employers that

defended the agricultural system’s abuse of migrant farmworker families. The landscape not

only influenced the interaction between growers, migrant farmworkers, and the public, but

migrant farmworkers and growers also shaped the land. Farmworkers provided the means

through with growers could expand acreage, necessitating the creation of migrant camps to

house farmworkers. With migrant camps came negotiations between growers and migrants over

the meaning of private property when migrants demanded the right to organize a union in their

migrant homes owned by growers. Land determined the type of crops, which in turn influenced

the gender composition of workers and therefore the housing provided by growers as single

men could be housed in a large bunker and families could not. In analyzing the landscape of the

Midwest, both the real and the imagined, the narratives of growers and farmworkers in the

Midwest comes into focus and allows for a greater understanding of their interaction and

provides an analysis of how migrant farmworkers became so disconnected from the agricultural

narrative of the Midwest in the late twentieth century.

Sowing the “Bitter Harvest”

The public imagining of Midwest agriculture had long been at odds with reality. The

idyllic public perception of rural society and farmers in the United States as moral, stronger,

family oriented, male, and inherently possessing the democratic ideals of the nation, had a long

history.15 Thomas Jefferson praised and envisioned the United States as a nation of small

farmers, with the male farmer working with his entire family on the land and where male hired

15 Jack Temple Kirby, “Rural Culture in the American Middle West: Jefferson to Jane Smiley,” Agricultural

History 70, no. 4 (Autumn 1996), 581-597; James H. Shideler, “The Farm in American History” OAH Magazine

of History 5, no. 3, 18-23; Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts, 4-10.

104

farm hands could eventually realize their own desire of land ownership.16 This idealism quickly

faced different agricultural realities as national racism against Asians, African Americans, and

Eastern Europeans restricted land ownership and led to large-scale abuse of farm laborers in the

East Coast, West, and South, and as large scale, industrial farms created “factories in the

field.”17 In addition, the realities that women labored in the fields and provided much needed

income through chicken, egg, and milking operations countered the classification of farmer as

“male.”18 Yet the male ideal became strengthened through the corporatization of farming as

women became marginalized in agriculture operations.19 While slavery, racism, and “factories

in the fields” marked other parts of the nation, the Midwest agrarian ideal remained largely

intact into the twentieth century despite the eventual shift from family and community labor, to

reliance on male transitory hobo labor at the end of the nineteenth century.20 Despite relying on

outsiders, first Anglo hobos and by the early to mid-twentieth century, Mexican and Mexican

Americans, the Midwest maintained its idyllic rural image.

Though the imagined Midwest fields consisted of grains, the nature of the Midwest

landscape determined the crops grown and therefore the type of work and the structure of the

migrant stream that developed in the twentieth century. Most Midwest growers grew corn and

soybeans for large powerful processing corporations such as Archer Daniels Midland and

16 Kirby, “Rural Culture in the American Middle West;” Shideler, “The Farm in American History;” Higbie,

Indispensable Outcasts, 4-10.

17 Cary McWilliams, Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California. (Boston: Little,

Brown and Company, 1939); Cindy Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and

the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1997); Steinbeck, The

Grapes of Wrath.

18 Friedberger, “Women Advocates in the Iowa Farm Crisis of the 1980s,” 224-234.

19 Jane Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life: Southern Illinois, 1890-1990 (Chapel Hill: The University of

North Carolina Press, 1994), 188-192.

20 Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts, 10-13.

105

Cargill, crops that rarely required migrant labor.21 Though grain crops required little in the way

of hand labor, agribusinesses and processing corporations like Cargill could dictate prices and

products just like the corporations that bough fruit and vegetable crops. For this reason, all

farmers in the Midwest worked within an agricultural system dominated by corporate interests.

In addition to grain crops, Northern Ohio and Southern Indiana contained large numbers of

tomato and cucumber fields, while Southern Illinois and Northern Michigan land successfully

produced fruits.22 Growers produced various other vegetables in central parts of Ohio, Northern

Illinois, and Wisconsin, as Minnesota and Michigan growers grew sugar beets.23 These

different types of crops determined the migration stream for farmworkers and the role of

agribusinesses. The growth and harvesting of cucumbers and tomatoes around Ohio offered

migrants the ability to switch between the two crops with ease. At the same time, sugar beet

companies as well as tomato and pickling companies, usually sold the seed to a contracted

grower and processed the products after harvest.24 Yet the types of crops also influenced the

gender dimensions of work. For one migrant family that worked the cucumber and tomato

21 Brewster Kneen, Invisible Giant: Cargill and its Transnational Strategies. (London: Pluto Press, 2002);

Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: The Secrets Behind What You Eat (New York: Penguin Press, 2006).

22 Illinois State Employment Service, “What Type Farm Job Do You Want?,” Migrant Problems Study

Commission I, 1950-1957, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois

State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; Joy Hints, “Seven Families: A Two Year In-Depth Study of

Incomes and Job Experiences of Seven Ohio Migrant Farm Worker Families, 1974-6,” 1976, 20:3, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Migrant

Labor Camps 1984, 19:45, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan; Kathleen Mapes, Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and

Imperial Politics (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 141-142, 221; Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte:

Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Jim

Norris, North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry (St. Paul, Minnesota:

Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009).

23 Ibid.

24 Mapes, Sweet Tyranny; Valdes, Al Norte; Norris, North for the Harvest; W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The

Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers, with a

forward by Baldemar Velásquez, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).

106

fields from June to October, the fieldwork allowed the whole family to work together, but in

October and November, the man of the house could work packing sugar beets, a job considered

too difficult for women and children.25 Similarly, the father of the Delgado family, who worked

in Ohio during 1974, loaded tomatoes as the wife and other family members picked tomatoes.26

For all farmworkers, the farmland played a vital role in grower, migrant relations as the land

dictated the type of crops grown, and therefore the gender dimensions of the labor and migrant

family’s decisions on how to negotiate the migrant stream.

By the mid-twentieth century, the increasing numbers of Mexican and Mexican

American migrant farmworker families working in the Midwest brought government, church,

and journalist’s scrutiny of the system. Between 1960 through the 1970s, this fervor reached its

peak with state and national regulations on migrant farmworker housing, pay, insurance, social

security, and crew leaders.27 In the Midwest and throughout the nation, the public reacted to the

horrible conditions of migrant families in the nation as reports such as the nationally televised

Edward R. Murrow special Harvest of Shame depicted the struggles of men, women, and

children.28 In the Midwest, Churches and a few Latino groups created organizations and

programs to provide assistance to farmworkers through legislation, negotiating between

growers and farmworkers, and through programs that assisted farmworkers with leaving the

stream.29 Simultaneously, farmworkers themselves fought the agricultural system by unionizing

25 Ibid.

26 Joy Hints, “Seven Families.”

27 Federal Legislation on Migrants Prepared for the Agricultural Migrant Committee, circa 1961, Migrant Problem

Study Commission II, 1958-1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963,

Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

28 Edward R. Murrow, Harvest of Shame, directed by Fred W. Friendly, (CBS Report, November 24, 1960),

videocassette.

29 See Chapter 4 for more on aid organizations.

107

and striking, with the two most well known Midwest unions being the short-lived Wisconsin’s

Obreros Unidos and Ohio’s Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC).30 In the case of

FLOC, the union drew on the cooperation and strength of entire farmworker families to not

only strike, but also convince the public of the powerful role of corporations such as Campbell.

Yet despite some public awareness about the role of corporations in the agricultural system,

growers remained the focus of public and government policies and regulations regarding the

treatment of migrant farmworkers. With more regulations, public scrutiny, and farmworker

unionization came grower’s frustration with migrants as they struggled to survive.

Growers’ frustration over increased public scrutiny and farmworker unions became to

some growers, an obstacle to stay on the land that had been in their family for generations. For

some growers, national regulations and public support of farmworker unions restricted the

independence so inherent to the agrarian ideal. To these growers, state and national regulations

proved that the nation ignored the struggle of family farmers by supporting costly policies that

benefitted migrants to the detriment of small growers.31 Federal regulations such as the Crew

Leader Registration Act that required crew leaders to register, the Migrant and Seasonal

Agricultural Worker Protection Act, Child Labor Laws, state laws that provided certain

requirements for migrant housing including the registration of migrant housing; and state

workman comp laws all established complex rules governing policies regarding migrant

30 Valdes, Al Norte, 190-192; Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 55, 59-60; James

Terry, “The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor and the Farmworker Movement in the Midwest” (Ph.D.

dissertation, Purdue University, 1988) 141-143.

31 Frank E. Martinez “Migrants: Legal Status of the Farmworker in Minnesota,” (Seminar, Fall 1970), Al

Wroblewski Papers, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; American Crystal Labor Agency, 8:10,

Red River Sugar Beet Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library,

Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota; Letter to Bill Dosland from Stewart Bass, January 10, 1974, 20:13,

Red River Sugar Beet Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library,

Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

108

employment. Mechanization brought relief from unions and public scrutiny of farmworker

conditions, yet scientists and corporations failed to totally mechanize fruit and vegetables

crops, and existing mechanization required expanding acreage and increased debt for

growers.32 For fruit and vegetable growers that also grew grains during the early to mid-1970s,

the increase in grain crop value in addition to the increase in farmland value in the 1970s made

expansion easier.33 Yet the land dictated what could be grown, restricting many growers to

grain crops when grain prices fell in the late 1970s.34 No matter what crops growers grew, all

growers struggled to survive when land and grain prices fell in the late 1970s.35 Many small

grain growers had to sell or foreclose on farms in their family for generations as larger,

corporate, growers with capital survived the 1980s “Farm Crisis.”36 Growers that combined

grain with fruits and vegetables found a slight reprieve in the 1980s as fruit and vegetable

prices did not plummet, yet these growers faced costly regulations that made the family farm’s

survival difficult.

Growers not only faced more farmworker regulations, but also laws concerning

undocumented immigrant in the 1970s and 1980s. Public outrage at the increasing number of

undocumented Mexican immigrants resulted in greater regulation, more stringent border

enforcement, and Immigration Naturalization Service (INS) raids. Although the United States

government did not know the number of undocumented migrants who worked in Midwest

32 “Mechanization-Another View,” Nuestra Lucha 2, no. 5 (July 1979), 5, 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

33 Ibid; Barnett, “The U.S. Farm Financial Crisis of the 1980s,” 372-375.

34 James W. Parker, "2 Worlds Collide," The Plain Dealer, September 23, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

35 Conlan, “Bitter Harvest,” 145-161.

36 Hightower, “The Case for the Family Farm,” 205-206.

109

agricultural fields in the latter half of the twentieth century, the public’s anti-immigrant

sentiment in the 1980s and 1990s had a profound effect on Midwest agriculture. Undocumented

workers provided growers, canneries, and meatpacking plants a cheap source of labor that

greater border enforcement and regulation threatened.37 Though Midwest agriculture continued

to employ undocumented immigrants, public concern altered the power relationship between

growers and farmworkers. Employers could contact INS to counter unionization while

simultaneously regulations that demanded proof of citizenship before employment encouraged

some growers to work through crew leaders to avoid legal responsibility.38 For family farm

growers of the mid-twentieth century, regulations and laws concerning undocumented

immigrants restricted grower’s freedom regarding employment practices.

As some in the nation feared undocumented workers took jobs from citizens and used

benefits paid for by taxpayers, others demanded undocumented immigrants be given rights, and

all the while growers demanded the continuation of cheap labor. As a solution, the Immigration

Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 provided an avenue for citizenship to undocumented

immigrants already in the country, though simultaneously creating stricter regulations and a

stronger border system.39 To pacify growers, Congress added the Special Agricultural Worker

(SAW) provision that allowed for an easier path to citizenship for workers employed briefly in

U.S. agriculture while the Replenishment Agricultural Worker (RAW) allowed the importation

37 Matt Garcia, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker

Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 150.

38 Letter to Agricultural Manager and Agriculturalist Stew Bass, July 25, 1979, 20:13, Red River Sugar Beet

Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University,

Moorhead, Minnesota; Chris Eckert, interview by Mark DePue, July 31, 2008, transcript, 22, Agriculture in the

Modern Era, Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

39 Linda C. Majka and Theo J. Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, (Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 1982), 23, 33.

110

of foreign workers under a documented labor shortage in the fields.40 Though the government

never implemented the RAW provision, SAW allowed for the legalization of millions of

previously undocumented immigrants who saw brief agricultural employment as an easy means

to permanently live in the United States.41 Despite initial grower fears, many SAW immigrants

remained workers in the agricultural fields of the United States and many more came because

of SAW, essentially flooding the agricultural labor market.42 The employment of Mexican and

Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the Midwest began to alter the construction of the

Midwest agricultural landscape and public perception of farming as growers and the public

struggled to find a place for farmworker hovels within the envisioned agrarian ideal.

Jefferson’s Agrarian Ideal and the Harvest of Shame

The involvement and influence of growers in the national policies of the United States

government demonstrated growers’ power over the migrant farmworker streams, but the notion

of the Midwest family farm would continue to cloud public acknowledgement of Midwest

growers’ role in farmworkers’ lives. The 1980s Farm Crisis added an existential crisis to the

agrarian ideal with the new threat to the family farm. Many envisioned parents and children

forced off land that had been in their family for generations.43 Hidden within public imagining

of the Midwest rolling fields were grower’s tomato, cherry, apple, cucumber, mushroom, and

other numerous fruit and vegetable fields grown and harvested in the Midwest. Though many

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State.

43 Country, directed by Richard Pearce (Walt Disney Video/Mill Creek, 1984); Places in the Heart, directed by

Robert Benton (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 1984); The River, directed by Mark Rydell, (Universal

Studios, 1984).

111

fruit and vegetable growers operated family farms, they also employed migrant farmworkers

that traveled from their homes in Texas, Florida, or Mexico to work in various northern fields.44

As 1960s Midwesterners came to realize that the Harvest of Shame happened in their own

backyards, the agrarian ideal that envisioned small, noble, traditional family Midwestern

growers, clouded the public’s ability to see the Harvest of Shame happened in family farmers

fields. Though some Midwesterners would come to realize that the violence and oppression of

farmworkers in California happened to a degree in the Midwest, the vision of the small family

farm would forever shape the public vision of the Midwest landscape as one free from the

divisions and racism.

The social, racial, and economic divisions inherent in the migrant stream affected the

relationship between growers and Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers and

shaped the layout of the rural Midwest. Scattered throughout the Midwest were rural

communities made up of growers, canneries, and small local businesses. Most growers housed

migrants on their land or in facilities built by several growers, usually far from the

community’s center.45 For growers Steve and Nancy Turnow in Ohio, they housed fifty

individuals in several cramped houses that lacked running water.46 While most women became

increasingly disconnected from farming operations, Nancy managed the migrant camp located

far from the local community of Lindsey, Ohio, making her an important contact for

44 Valdes, Al Norte, 136-137.

45 Minnesota Department of Health, Migrant Health Services 7, no. 2 (March-April 1969), 10:2, Red River Sugar

Beet Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University,

Moorhead, Minnesota.

46 Gary Pakulski, “Worried About His Future, Says Farmer 27,” Catholic Chronicle, July 12, 1985, 20, 24:58,

Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan.

112

farmworkers and an integral part of the farm operation.47 Physically separate from towns and

living on grower land or in housing paid for by growers, growers could dictate not only the

living conditions of farmworkers, but also their contact with local communities and other

migrants and ex-migrants. Claiming ownership of the land, growers barred, sometimes

violently, both farmworker unions such as FLOC and even individuals trying to offer aid to

farmworkers.48

Yet the farming landscape’s inclusion of farmworker housing sometimes established

familial ties between growers, farm families, and migrant families. While the controlling,

paternalistic relationship between growers and farmworkers did occur, other growers attempted

to treat farmworkers more like family. Correspondence between a DeKalb County Illinois

grower, Joe Lanan, and migrant workers like Severa Fraga, suggested a fairly cordial

relationship where they asked about each other’s health and Severa Fraga referenced inside

jokes for the name of Lanan’s car or a migrant worker talked about a birth of a baby.49 Though

Lanan might have felt close to some of the migrants he employed, other growers specifically

noted feeling close to some of the farmworkers that came to their fields. The existence of

farmworker families on family farms offered more ties between farmworkers and farmers as

women and children could initiate friendships between women and children. Karen Dawson of

Hartford, Michigan felt close to the migrant family, the Avilas, she and her husband employed

while Irene McGuire described a close relationship with the wife of the migrant family who

47 Ibid.

48 "FLOC: The Second Five Years," Nuestra Lucha 1, no. 11 (November- December 1977), 5, 5:20, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

49 Letter to Joe Lanan from Juan Felipe [Reyneu,] October 31, 1967, 4:4, Guy Lanan Collection, Regional History

Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Letter to Joe Lanan from

Severa Fraga, 4:4, Guy Lanan Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois

University, DeKalb, Illinois.

113

worked on their farm, noting that she insisted the migrant wife call her by Irene not Mrs.

McGuire.50 Dawson and other growers respected the migrants’ family relationship, specifically

male-headed households and respect for parents.51 Yet one grower that called the migrants he

employed “his kids” because they “were like family” suggests even when growers compared

farmworkers to family, they did not necessarily view their employees as equals.52 In addition,

cordial and family-like relationships did not lead to changes to the physical landscape of most

family farms or a significant financial benefit for farmworkers, resulting in a strained

relationship as migrants lived and worked in poverty conditions next to their employer

“friends.”

Housed on farms away from local cities and towns, farmworkers became outsiders to

rural communities. Rural small towns and cities depended on the canneries, growers, and large

businesses for the community’s survival and community members felt a strong desire to

maintain the status quo.53 Many rural communities considered the migrant farmworkers that

came to the Midwest as outsiders not only because migrants were racially, linguistically, and

culturally separate, but also physically separate from the community center. Though the

Turnow family farm accepted migrants’ right to determine the visitors in their “home,”

50 Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1998), 65; Irene McGuire, interview by Mike Maniscalco, May 27, 2008, 8,

Agriculture in the Modern Era, Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed

August 2014, http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

51 Rothenberg With These Hands, 65; Dan Waste Jr., “Appleton Goes to Bat for Migrants” Minneapolis Tribune,

June 22, 1969, Migrants, 1945-1976, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State

Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

52 Article, 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

53 “Update on FLOC Related Legal Cases,” 24:9, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

114

migrants remained separate from the local community.54 Nancy Turnow argued to the Catholic

Chronicle that local perceptions of migrants changed since her husband grew up on a farm, in

that their children played with migrant children, yet she also emphasized how the FLOC strike

would hurt the permanent local community far more than farmworkers, distancing migrant

issues from the concerns of the local community.55 For migrant farmworkers, “Private

Property” signage provided a psychological signal that they were outsiders to the local

community and that growers controlled their temporary homes.

Any efforts by reporters, unions, churches, or a few community members to address the

poor housing and working conditions of migrant farmworkers met with general anger as

growers and other community members fought for the continuation of their picturesque land

and psychologically distanced “do gooders” from the community.56 When some locals or

nearby community members noted the conditions of farmworkers, grower and even the local

community depicted them as “do-gooders” and more importantly “outsiders.” Growers

especially argued that individuals outside the community riled up migrants and that churches

and reporters failed to speak with growers about their struggles, instead these “outsiders” just

agitated state and national officials to create more regulations.57 Growers argued these

regulations in turn forced them to cease growing the fruits and vegetables that employed

farmworkers, hurting farmworkers.58 In Putnam County, Ohio where FLOC initiated a strike

54 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future.”

55 Ibid.

56 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future;” Letter to J.C. Tanner from R.A. Krabbenhoft, August 9, 1971, 20:10,

Red River Sugar Beet Growers Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library,

Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

115

against the Campbell Corporation so central to the community, the entire community reacted

with rage and supported the local violent sheriff Robert Beutler.59 In declaring “do gooders” as

outsiders, some rural communities maintained a peaceful, idyllic image of rural society and

family farms, ignoring how the beautiful vegetable and fruit fields hid shacks and stooping

migrants.

Though opposition to outsider “do gooders” characterized numerous Midwestern cities

and towns, other communities displayed a more complex dynamic to the insider/outsider

division. With the fervor of public concern for migrants generated in the 1960s, some local

community members actively analyzed the living and working conditions of migrant

farmworkers. However, the involvement of various growers and cannery businessmen on some

of these committees resulted in a complex understanding of migrants’ role in communities. In

Michigan, Malivina Holvorsen who, with her husband, ran a farm argued that migrant aid

committees had to address grower concern when considering farmworker problems.60 Both

Holvorsen and another Michigan fruit grower in Grand Junction, both held positions in

organizations concerned with migrant farmworker conditions.61 In arguing that growers

struggled to provide adequate housing when they lacked the money, both the Holvorsen and the

fruit grower described migrants as disrespectful, dirty individuals who did not respect or

59 “Update on FLOC Related Legal Cases;” “Sunday Demonstration for Law and Order,” Putnam County Sentinel,

October 10, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

60 Letter to Reverend Isaac Igarashi from Mrs. Malvina Holvorsen, March 2, 1966, 1:5, Michigan Farm Worker

Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Larry Hills, “The Migrant Ministry Can Help the Michigan Fruit Farmer,” Michigan Christian

Advocate, 10, 3:43, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

61 Ibid.

116

understand the housing and facilities provided.62 In doing so, these rural residents differentiated

farmworkers from the rest of the clean rural community by blaming the dirty blight of migrant

camps on the migrants. The residence of some cities and towns, like the local communities in

Putnam County, Ohio where the FLOC strike started, resisted efforts to radically better

farmworkers’ lives, especially when it threatened to modify their economic base. For various

Midwest areas, “helping” migrants meant minor assistance that ensured the maintenance of the

racially based agricultural system.

Growers and rural residents not only categorized migrant supporters as “outsiders” and

“insiders,” but farmworkers as well. As an Illinois report of a Study Committee on the Church

and Agriculture exclaimed: “The public acknowledges the existence of migrant workers, but it

declines to accept them as member of the community. As soon as crops ripen, farmers

anxiously await their coming; when the harvest closes, the community with equal anxiety

awaits their going.”63 Local growers and entire cannery communities labeled individuals like

ex-farmworker and FLOC leader Baldemar Velasquez, an outsider because he raised public

interest and concern on farmworker conditions.64 Yet, Velasquez grew up in the local fields and

his transitory life made him no more or no less an outsider than every other migrant

farmworker.65 Similarly, California growers labeled United Farm Worker members as

outsiders in comparison with “our workers” who refused to unionize.66 Northern Ohio

62 Ibid.

63 Elgin World Ministries Commission Church of the Brethren General Board, Illinois, " ‘This Land: Ours for a

Season’: Report of a Study Committee on the Church and Agriculture,” February 1974, 19:38, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

64 Terry, “The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor,” 167.

65 Ibid.

66 Marshall Ganz, Why David Sometimes Wins: Leadership, Organization, and Strategy in the California Farm

Worker Movement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 145.

117

communities saw FLOC migrant families who worked in the area as outside agitators, yet they

viewed Campbell as a part of the local community. Though Campbells’ cannery in Napoleon,

Ohio employed many in the local community; locals defended the company over individuals

who constantly migrated to the area and sought better conditions.67 One grower described

migrant farmworkers that worked and never pushed for unionization or better conditions as

“kids” or “our workers,” reflecting a paternal relationship with migrants he viewed as

acceptable.68 Some growers spoke of unionization as a threat to happy worker’s lives,

differentiating farmworkers that agitated for change with farmworkers that refused to speak

out, creating an “insider” “outsider” dynamic even among migrants.69

Grower’s relationship with farmworkers, though paternalistic at times, did not

necessarily reflect rural communities’ portrayal of migrants. If farmworkers tried to leave the

migrant stream and live in local towns or cities, they met rural residents hostility as many

viewed migrants as a blot on their ideal community with their dilapidated housing and

uncultured life. In Walworth County, Wisconsin, the vegetable fields brought an influx of

workers, but over time, the Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers came to settle in the

area in the late 1960s as food processors and factories offered more remunerative

opportunities.70 The Milwaukee Journal’s description of the influx of farmworkers in the city of

Delavan in Walworth County depicts the physical change of Delavan’s landscape. “Dark faces

67 “Campbell Employees Regret Boycott Backing,” Catholic Chronicle, June 28, 1985, 22, 24:58, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

68 Article.

69 Letter to J.C. Tanner from R.A. Krabbenhoft.

70 Loren H. Osman, “Migrants Stop Wandering, Settle in Walworth County,” Milwaukee Journal, March 12, 1969,

Wisconsin Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor: Records, 1960-1972, 3:10, Wisconsin State Historical

Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

118

of [migrants’] children dot the classrooms, Singsong Spanish is heard on the streets. Pinto

beans and tortillas are on grocers’ shelves. Old, dilapidated houses are crammed with these

families…”71 The description of physical changes within Delavan all leading to dilapidated

housing suggests the disturbing physical changes that locals believed social and cultural

outsiders, or migrants, brought to the landscape.

Though fearing the sight of dilapidated housing on their street, only some Midwest

communities had issues with dilapidated housing when it existed far in the outskirts of town,

hidden from the community and the picturesque image of the rural scene. The death of a young

migrant child, Ernesto Perez, in DuPage County, Illinois and the public scrutiny of the horrible

living conditions by the investigation that ensued, brought attention to this blot on the local area

and resulted in newly built housing facilities created by local growers.72 The negative publicity

from the event forced the local community and growers to deal with the shame and negative

publicity, forcing growers and other community members to repair their damaged public image.

Not all communities reacted negatively to farmworkers, as one rural town offered a celebration

for the local migrant farmworkers for their hard work and some other communities had

members that truly desired to better farmworkers’ lives in the 1960s and 1970s. Yet in

numerous Midwest communities, residents viewed migrants as unwanted “outsiders” that

forced residents to acknowledge that the agrarian ideal rang hollow.73

Midwestern communities' concerns that migrant farmworkers lived too close for

comfort reflected the changing physical and psychological distance between growers and

71 Ibid.

72 Molly Wiseman, "On Three Area Farms: Migrant Life Improving," Roselle Register, August 11, 1968.

73 Rohda Miel, “Blissfield Host Picnic for Workers,” Daily Telegram, 19:3, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry

Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

119

migrant farmworkers in the Midwest. The late nineteenth century practices of male farm hands

sleeping in the main house and laborers eating supper with the farm family suggested a sense of

comfort between worker and employee.74 Over time, the more migratory and “outsider” the

labor, the more likely farm laborers slept, ate, and worked away from the family home. By the

1960s, laborers became minority migrant families who lived and ate outside the farm house as

female farmers successfully negotiated farm laborers out of the farmhouse where farm women

previously cooked and or cleaned for workers.75 The continued separation between the farm

family and the migrant family, as in the case of Steve Turnow who rarely played or interacted

with migrants as a child growing up on a farm, demonstrated social separation.76 By the 1950s

and 1960s when Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers worked in the

vegetable and fruit fields of the Midwest, growers’ relationships with farmworkers was

categorized by separate physical spheres within the physical landscape of the family farm.

Housed away from the family farm home and characterized as children and socially inept, some

growers ensured migrants remained distanced both psychologically and physically from

growers’ ideal family farm.

“You Can Only Push the Farmer So Far”77

“You can only push the farmer so far,” argued the cucumber grower Rosendale to the

FLOC leader Baldemar Velasquez, “Things’re marginal now.”78 These two sentences

74 Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life, 113-115.

75 Adams, The Transformation of Rural Life; Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts, 10-13.

76 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future.”

77 Article.

78 Ibid.

120

summarize the struggles of growers during the start of the Farm Crisis in the late 1970s and

into the 1980s. However, growers struggled not only with the crisis, but also changes pushed by

farmworker unions, new regulations and laws regarding farmworkers and undocumented

immigrants, and the shattering of the independent agrarian farmer image. Most growers

vehemently opposed greater regulations on migrant housing and strict enforcement of

employment of undocumented immigrants because it raised their costs during a time where

they were barely surviving due to the increasing cost of seed, machines, and chemicals and

their decreasing income from products.79 Many growers strongly opposed the influence and

power of agricultural corporations, in so far as they influenced and controlled grower’s fate, yet

growers failed to see farmworkers’ common struggle versus agricultural corporations or their

own complacency in migrants’ struggles.

As opposition to FLOC demonstrated, growers also feared their increasing lack of

independence that was so pivotal to the agrarian image. FLOC wanted to work with growers to

ensure the Campbell Company paid for increased migrant expenses while providing growers a

better price for their product, yet most growers strongly resisted working with farmworkers.80

As Baldemar Velasquez argued, “Unfortunately, the farmer considers himself an independent

businessman protecting his petty-profit margins…Committed to a misguided notion of ‘rugged

individualism’ sadly enough, he superexploits our people and what he cannot get from the

79 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future;” Letter to Richard Krabbenhofdt from Alex Dexter, August 7, 1979,

20:13, Red River Sugar Beet Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library,

Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

80 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 61; "Ohio Catholic Bishops Urge Campbell

Boycott," The Blade, June 18, 1985, 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

121

multinational he gets it from the sweat of our back.”81 Growers resisted any threats to their

independence, as loss of power threatened the primarily male growers’ ability to control their

land that was so important to the growers’ self-image and masculine identity.82 The agricultural

system relied on abusive labor practices by growers to maintain the illusion of grower

independence, and in the process, hide the role of stooped laborers and agricultural

corporations in the fields.

With the advent of Mexican and Mexican American migrant families working in

Midwest fields came public criticism and questions about the picturesque image of the family

farm long characterized by a hardy work ethic and the moral and physical strengthening of

family members. Farmers argued that children especially benefitted from working on farms,

building muscle and character. In a short educational video from the 1960s, city children visited

relatives on a farm for a summer where they became stronger, had fun, but also developed a

strong work ethic.83 Growers argued that living and working on farmland benefitted children

and they used this argument to fight against the inclusion of agriculture in child labor laws.84

One Wisconsin article about child labor legislation affecting cherry pickers described the “do-

gooders” concerned about migrants and demanding child labor laws as lazy individuals

unaccustomed to a little hard work and was responsible for destroying family togetherness by

81 Baldemar Velasquez, “Farm Labor Organizing Committee Report Fourth Quarter” (International Conference

Presentation, November 1978), 3, 4:21, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne

State University, Detroit, Michigan.

82 Eric Ramírez-Ferrero, Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming. (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2005); Michael R. Nusbaumer, “Rural Masculinity in Context: When Going Bigger

Risks Your Manhood,” Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences (October 2009), 33-45.

83 “Uncle Jim’s Dairy Farm,” produced by Jam Handy (National Dairy Council, 1963), DVD.

84 Jim Robertson, “Minimum Age on Cherry Pickers Viewed as Blow to Initiative, Family Effort,” Wisconsin

Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor: Records, 1960-1972, 3:3, Wisconsin State Historical Society,

Madison, Wisconsin; Anne B. W. Effland, “Agrarianism and Child Labor Policy for Agriculture,” Agricultural

History 79, no. 3 (Summer 2005), 281-297.

122

stopping children from working with their families.85 The author’s portrayal of cherry picking

as a means for family fellowship and a way to instill good hard work ethic into children ignored

the basic problem that children of migrants sometimes missed school to assist their family in

the fields all day.86

The family farm ideal not only glorified the value of children’s labor but also the value

of hard labor in farming culture. Arguing that modern society devalued hard work, Karen

Dawson of Hartford, Michigan, argued that the public felt sorry for growers and migrants who

worked all day on the land and got dirty.87 Dawson felt that people in the United States did not

respect hard labor, implying public concern for migrant farmworkers lay in lack of respect for

growers’ hard work, not the deplorable living and working conditions of migrant

farmworkers.88 This argument expounded the virtues of working the land but ignored the fact

that most farmworker families had to work in the migrant stream to survive. Various

congressional members extoled the virtue of the family farm, specifically their importance to

the nation, equating family farms with American values.89 These arguments ignored the

changing and gendered nature of agriculture, as corporatization and crop centralization pushed

women out of agriculture and led to farmworkers, rather than farm families, working on the

farm. Support for the agricultural ideal failed to acknowledge farming’s male dominance and

85 Robertson, “Minimum Age on Cherry Pickers;” Effland, “Agrarianism and Child Labor Policy.”

86 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 101.

87 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 66.

88 Ibid.

89 The Spreading Impact of the Farm Crisis: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, September 19, 1985,

99th Cong. 13, 24-25 (1985); Farm Crisis: Growing Poverty and Hunger among America’s Food Producers:

Hearing before the Domestic Task Force of the Select Committee of Hunger, House of Representatives, June 24,

1987, 100th Cong. 4 (1987).

123

that the only familial aspect of farming left was the migrant men, women, and children working

in the fields to survive.

As growers defended the agricultural ideal, their relationship with the land changed, and

some growers remained blind to their own changing relationship with the land. Corporations

and banks pressured growers to “get big, or get out,” and to grow limited types of crops on

massive scales, usually year after year. To do so, growers used chemicals to enrich soil

depleted from producing the same crop constantly, while fruit and vegetable growers employed

larger numbers of farmworkers or bought machinery to harvest their expansive fields.90 The

family farm grew from a small family operation to a large operation that increasingly required

outsiders, which also led to growers continuously poisoning the land and the people on it.91 At

the same time, these efforts failed to provide for farm families, forcing family members to find

waged work. Instead of growers relying on the labor of their family for survival, they relied on

migrant farmworker who in turn relied on their own families for survival.

Meanwhile, the changing demographics in the field paralleled the changing

demographics in the family farmhouse. With the beginning of the Farm Crisis of the 1980s,

male and women’s relationship with farming, the land, and farmworkers changed. The farming

ideal focused specifically on men as farmers while women remained “helpers.” With the

corporatizing of farming, women’s roles in poultry, dairying, gardens, and egg production

90 Steve Franzmeier, "County Vows Action on Migrant Plight," Around and About Addison, August 13, 1960;

Letter to Pat Whelan from Frank I. Meinen, September 19, 1973, 1:14, UFW Wisconsin-Milwaukee Boycott

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Dana L. Hoag, Agricultural

Crisis in America: A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara, California: ABL-CIO, 1999), 20-50.

91 “FLRP Organizes Pesticide Task Force,” 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Randy Shaw, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW,

and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 121-141; Crop-

Dusted Farmworkers File Suit, October 19, 1977, 2:11, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History

Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

124

became marginalized as farming operations became large, masculine endeavors.92 By the

1980s, some women became arguably disenchanted with farming, with many seeking off-farm

employment for both financial and personal reasons.93 More and more farms survived because

of off-farm employment, occasionally by men, but more often by women. Women’s

employment outside the farm represented the professionalization of farming within the confines

of the family farm narrative, making men the sole “farmers,” an occupation that required an

increasing amount of capital and debt subsidized in part by women’s off-farm employment.

With the gendered professionalization of family farms, family farms became industrial

centers. The farming landscape became a masculine center of science and industry and no

longer a small, family-focused operation. These changes shaped grower relations with

farmworkers as the relationship became one of a man managing a large operation with

employees, not a man working with family and friends. The male industrial nature of farming

emotionally distanced growers from farmworkers as migrant and farm families no longer had

an opportunity to interact daily. In addition, the employment of men and women outside the

farm weakened the family farm myth as farmland no longer provided all that a family required.

Instead, farm families expanded their reality to include waged labor in towns and cities, not

only among their family members, but also those employed on their farm. Expanding the

farming landscape to include waged labor also shattered part of the farming ideal as waged

labor meant the inability of growers to provide for their family. This inability shattered the

traditional male and farming idealism that positioned men and farms as providers, and as such

encouraged growers to resist regulations, laws, and policies that diminished their other powers

92 Katherine Jellison, Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1963. (Chapel Hill: The University

of North Carolina Press, 1993), 165-180.

93 Ramírez-Ferrero, Troubled Fields.

125

in regards to farmworkers. Grower strategies to resist farmworker regulations within the

farmworker/grower relationship became an ever-important part of many growers’ lives in the

last half of the twentieth century.

The effect of the modern family farms ultimately damaged the land and people. The

public image of the family farm centered on the assumption that it brought a family together

and that each generation passed the land down to future generations. However, the massive

scale of farming usually involved more than a single family, economic times forced family

members to find jobs off the farm, continuously expansive acreage offered less opportunity for

the children of farmers, and the poisoning of the land and water only made it less likely that

future generations could profitably use the land.94 All the while, pesticide poisoned growers

and farmworkers and thousands of individuals moved around every year to live in shacks with

little pay.95 Growers fought for a stretch of land, arguing that regulations imposed on them

jeopardized the family farm, as farmworkers not tied to a piece of land had the mobility to

leave the area for work.96 Unlike growers who lived on the land they owned, migrants were not

tied to one piece of land; yet migrants depended on the land, and the methods of production

affected their survival. In reality, the family farm that growers fought for had long since

disappeared, and the agricultural industry’s ideal of a scientific, business utopia rang hollow to

the people in the fields and in the farmhouse.97

94 Hoag, Agricultural Crisis in America, 20-50; Conlan, “Bitter Harvest,” 150.

95 Franzmeier, “County Vows Action on Migrant Plight.”

96 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future.”

97 It should be noted that there are growers who refused the mentality of bigger is better and the use of chemicals.

In fact, organic crops have a niche.

126

“And on His Farm He Had a …”

The popular “Old MacDonald” song with verses containing various animals represented

the diversity of family farms so prevalent in the pre and early twentieth century. By the mid-

twentieth century, “Old MacDonald” grew only a few types of produce and/or raised only a

couple types of animals. For vegetable and fruit growers in the mid twentieth century, the farm

also contained migrant farmworkers and migrant camps with outhouses and outside shower

facilities, adding several unsavory additions to the Midwest’s “MacDonald” farm. The

increasing number of regulations, the farmworker union FLOC in Ohio, and the

implementation of IRCA all led to shifts in the landscape of the Midwest family farm. A more

realistic song for fruit and vegetable “MacDonald’s” farms in the 1960s would contain verses

for migrant houses, communal showers, and migrant farmworkers; but only a couple of decades

later, national policies and agricultural changes would permanently alter “Old MacDonald’s”

farm.

With the onset of FLOC’s strike and boycott campaign against Campbell and their Ohio

growers in 1978 and 1979, some Midwest growers faced pressure to mechanize or abandon

planting fruit and vegetable crops while, concurrently, the Farm Crisis of the 1980s offered few

alternatives to growers.98 Campbell tried to avoid unions by forcing growers to replace

farmworkers with machines, refusing contracts to growers who continued to use hand labor.99

Many growers also sought to fill their fields with machines instead of farmworkers to avoid

unionization and regulations; yet with the decreasing land value and financial difficulties of

most growers in the 1980s, most growers faced difficulty mechanizing. Aside from the

98 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 57-58, 64.

99 Ibid.

127

financial hardship, the Midwest landscape itself also restricted growers’ use of machines

because frequent rain and the Midwest soil often made it almost impossible to use the machines

sometimes.100 Both FLOC and growers acknowledged that unlike California, another major

tomato producing area of the time, Ohio soil could easily clog machines when wet.101 For this

reason, tomato growers in Ohio could not reliably replace farmworkers with machines.

Ultimately, few growers could totally avoid farmworkers through mechanization as machines

did not always work on Midwest soil and most growers’ finances severely restricted their

ability to purchase machines.

As mechanization proved only partially successful for Midwest growers trying to avoid

the issues inherent in employing migrant farmworkers, the other alternative, switching crops,

proved even less successful. The financial Farm Crisis hit popular Midwest crops such as corn,

wheat, and soybeans, offering little alternatives to vegetable and fruit growers wishing to avoid

farmworker regulations. In addition, numerous vegetable and fruit growers, such as the

Turnows, already planted these other staple crops alongside their vegetables.102 For many Ohio

tomato growers affected by the FLOC strike and boycott, tomatoes and cucumbers, though not

very remunerative, buoyed farms’ other failing crops, soybeans and corn.103 For Midwest

growers, land and the economy affected their ability to reshape their land from fields with

Mexican and Mexican Americans migrants working in vegetable and fruit fields to rolling

fields of grain and corn.

100 Parker, "2 Worlds Collide."

101 Ibid.

102 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future.”

103 Ibid; Barger and Reza The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, ix.

128

For growers who could not successfully switch crops or mechanize to avoid farmworker

regulations, changing the physical landscape of the farm established greater physical and

psychological distance between the farm and farmworkers. To avoid government oversight on

farmworkers, numerous growers stopped providing housing to migrants.104 Since state and

national governments highly regulated migrant housing, some growers simply informed

farmworkers that they would no longer provide housing. This forced migrants to use their

meager earnings to find their own housing, usually in local towns. A few migrants, such as

Jesus Sanchez Jr. in Minnesota, argued that he and his father in the late 1960s and 1970s did

not complain about the poor housing since they were there to work and they understood the

financial hardship of growers.105 However, many migrants condemned housing conditions, and

the presence of women and children in dilapidated housing only brought negative public

attention to farmers’ fields. In reaction to public attention, some growers diverted housing off

the farm, sometimes becoming an in-town landlord who catered to migrant farmworkers. The

Minnesota sugar beet grower Larry LaHaise switched from housing twelve to thirteen

farmworkers in dilapidated houses built for laborers in the 1950s near his farm, to a four-

bedroom apartment in town by 1990.106 Even grain corporations that directly hired and paid a

few farmworkers refused to pay for housing by the end of the 1990s.107 In the end, grower and

104 Dorthea Ann Weaver, Migrant Ministry State Report, 1959, 2, Migrant Problem Study Commission II, 1958-

1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives,

Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois; Norris, North for the Harvest, 188-189.

105 Jesus Sanchez Jr., interview by Terry L. Shoptaugh, July 25, 1990, transcript, 19, Red River Sugar Beet Grower

Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead,

Minnesota.

106 Ibid.

107 “Migrant Housing Reported to be Dwindling in Iowa,” Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2004, 9, accessed June 9,

2014, http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/docview/420081436?accountid=12846.

129

corporate changes regarding housing at the end of the twentieth century helped draw public

attention away from the dilapidated shacks in the fields.

For growers who altered their migrant housing during the 1980s and 1990s, they could

recondition the ideal family farming landscape, free from migrant housing, while also

reinstating greater freedom from state and national regulations. This change altered grower,

farmworker, and community relations, as the physical distance between migrants and growers

meant local communities adjusted to a greater migrant presence in town. In physically

distancing migrants from the farming landscape, growers psychologically distanced themselves

from any responsibility for migrants’ conditions and from socially interacting with migrants or

seeing them as anything more than laborers. Yet in reshaping the physical land formation to

reinforce the agrarian ideals, migrant housing changes adjusted relationships in rural societies

and farmworkers’ survival strategies, forcing rural communities to deal with temporary influxes

of poor migrants, reinforcing an employer/employee relationship between growers and

farmworkers, and forcing migrants to pay rent from their limited income. Forced into the rural

towns and cities, new migrants in the 1980s faced a different relationship with growers and the

local community.

For growers still employing farmworkers, the decreasing number of migrants also

changed growers’ relationships with migrants and the gender composition of the stream.

Though mechanization failed to totally replace farmworkers, minor genetic changes to crops

such as dwarf trees, in addition to small mechanical changes in the fields, reduced the numbers

of migrant farmworkers needed.108 Jesus Sanchez Jr., who had worked in Minnesota sugar beet

108 Philip Martin, Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America, (New York: Yale

University Press, 2009), 150-152.

130

fields since he was a child, noted how plant spacing technology and chemicals reduced the need

for migrants to thin the fields; ultimately, this reduced the number of migrants needed, but it

also provided some migrants with the ability to negotiate pay based on the level of thinning

required.109 Not all farmworkers willingly worked in fields where growers used fewer

chemicals and therefore had more weeds, allowing willing workers to ask for greater pay.

Changes in work not only reduced farmworker numbers, but also impacted the gender

dimensions of the Midwest stream. Various growers in Illinois and in Lake Mills, Wisconsin

vegetable fields refused to hire families because of the cost of and likely the public attention to

family housing.110 In addition, the increasing use of the H-2(A) program in the 1980s and

1990s decreased the likelihood of migrant families working and living together as the program

primarily employed men.111 In restricting family housing, men left their families in their homes

of Texas, Florida, or Mexico to travel up North for work.112 To avoid family housing which

attracted public inquiries into the living conditions of women and children, growers or grower

organizations provided cheap barrack housing for men.113 The changing gender composition

and number of migrants thus altered farmworkers’ interaction with growers.

Though publicity, regulation, unionization, and costs encouraged growers to partially

mechanize fields, major changes happened in the 1970s and 1980s to counter this shift.

109 Jesus Sanchez Jr., interview by Terry L. Shoptaugh; Batriz Castillo, interview by Terry Schoptaugh, July 21,

1992, transcript, Red River Sugar Beet Grower Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord

Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

110 Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers: Experience in Advocacy,” 8:25, PADRES Collection, University of

Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

111 Francesca Coin, "Pickles and Pickets After NAFTA: Globalization, Agribusiness, the US-Mexico Food-Chain,

and Farm-Worker Struggles in North Carolina" (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007), 131.

112 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue, July 20, 2008, Agriculture in the Modern Era, Agriculture in

Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

113 Minnesota Department of Health, Migrant Health Services; Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers.”

131

Through the implementation of SAW, and to a lesser degree the foreign importation program

H-2(A), the demographics of Midwest farmworkers and the rural landscape changed.114 The

government legalized a significantly larger number of undocumented individuals through the

SAW program than the government estimated worked in United States agriculture, as SAW’s

only requirement was a brief note from a grower.115 In addition, mostly males applied for SAW

and despite fears of growers that newly documented SAW individuals would find better jobs

with their citizenship, many SAW workers worked the agricultural fields, essentially flooding

the labor market.116 Though Midwest growers did not extensively use the H-2(A) program,

both the H-2(A) program and SAW, coupled with growers’ desire to avoid public attention to

family labor, slowly altered the Midwest farmworker demographics as more men labored in

Midwest fields without families.117 By the late 1990s, the Eckert’s apple and peach farm in

Illinois employed only H-2(A) workers from Mexico, with only a few of these H-2(A) workers

being women. The H-2(A) program, along with the physical demands of carrying baskets

weighing forty pounds up and down ladders, restricted the employment of women in the Eckert

field.118 The shift to a more predominately male labor force in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time

when Churches and organizations struggled to even generate concern for women and children

114 Majka and Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State, 33; Coin, "Pickles and Pickets After NAFTA,”

133.

115 Ibid.

116 Mark A. Grey and C. Anne Woodrick, “Latinos Have Revitalized Our Community: Mexican Migration and

Anglo Responses in Marshalltown, Iowa,” in New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States, eds.

Victor Zúñiga and Rubén Hernández-León (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005).

117 Chris Eckert, interview by Mark DePue; Coin, “Pickles and Pickets After NAFTA,” 1-2.

118 Chris Eckert, interview by Mark DePue.

132

in poverty and when the beloved “Old MacDonald’s” farm went bankrupt, drew attention away

from the disparity between the ideal family farm and its reality.119

With the alteration of the physical landscape and the gendered composition of migrants

distancing “Old MacDonald’s” farm from the regulations and public scrutiny of migrant family

housing came a different relationship between growers, farmworkers, and rural areas. With

some migrant farmworkers no longer isolated on grower land, migrants could become members

of the rural community; but as previously noted, local residents did not always accept

farmworkers.120 In addition, shifting housing off the growers’ lands or shifting the labor force

to an all-male group changed the farm dynamics and growers’ interactions with migrants. In so

doing, grower families and farmworkers would no longer interact as much. Several growers

respected migrant family structures and came to know migrant families within familial terms as

fathers, mothers, and children. A cucumber, corn, and soybean grower in Hartford, Michigan,

Karen Dawson, respected how the Avilas migrant family, who had worked on her family’s field

for years, had “rural values” that emphasized the family and respect for parents, especially the

father.121 She saw the male head of the Avila family, Gustavo, almost as a son, though

acknowledging he and his wife were her age.122 In another example, Irene McGuire of Illinois

and her husband visited with the migrant couple who worked on their farm for ten years, even

119 Joseph A. McCartin, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controller and the Strike that Changed

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); James T. Bonnen, William P. Browne, and David B.

Schweikhardt, "The Economic Roots of Reaganism: Corporate Conservatives, Political Economy, and the United

Farm Workers Movement, 1965-1970," Western Historical Quarterly 41, no. 1 (Spring 1996).

120 Proyecto Adelante, 4:22, La Raza Records, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; Tim Kane

“Village Allows New Quarters for Migrant Workers Lake In Hills Oks Tree Farm’s Bid,” Chicago Tribune

(McHengry County Edition), January 14, 2000, accessed June 9, 2014,

http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/docview/418997336?accountid=12846.

121 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 65.

122 Ibid.

133

after they retired.123 Without migrant families living on grower land, grower and migrant wives

could not socialize with each other as occasionally happened, and growers had fewer

opportunities to see farmworkers’ family and social values.124 The intersection of shifting

migrant housing, H-2(A) labor, and changing labor demographics, both in the fields and in the

farmhouses, preserved the ideal family farm in the minds of the public as growers further

distanced themselves from farmworkers.

The Other America: Farmworkers or Growers?

When Michael Harrington’s work The Other America: Poverty in the United States

came out in 1962, the United States public came out of the complacency that permeated the

1950s, which had made the poor, as Harrington argued, invisible.125 In Harrington’s added

Introduction to the 1969 version, he argued that the political fervor of the 1960s to confront

poverty had faded and portended a grim future for the poor.126 Almost ten years after the

release of his added introduction, a Farm Crisis forced scores of growers off the land and added

to the poverty already noted by Harrington twenty years earlier. As the successes of the United

Farm Workers’ boycotts in California faded from public memory, the 1980s Hollywood

portrayals of the struggles of family operated farms endeavoring to survive against the cold,

calculating agricultural system replaced the concern for farmworkers generated by the UFW’s

123 Irene McGuire, interview by Mike Maniscalco.

124 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 65; Pakulski, “Worried About His Future;” Irene McGuire, interview by Mike

Maniscalco.

125 Michael Harringon, The Other America: Poverty in the United States (New York: Macmillan, 1969).

126 Ibid, xi-xxx.

134

efforts, newspaper articles, and specials like the Harvest of Shame.127 Hollywood portrayed

family farms in crisis as struggling families with strong wives and mothers, working with

husbands and children to save the farm.128 The portrayal of the idyllic family farm in jeopardy

on movie screens throughout the nation, concerts put on by famous country musicians, and

newspaper articles about the loss of the family farm, all competed with the voices of FLOC

members and supporters who understood that the “family farm” also hurt farmworkers.129

Public focus centered on the importance of family to the farm; all the while, growers argued

they were at the bottom of the food triangle, ignoring the reality that the agricultural system

and growers abused farmworker families.130 The 1980s Farm Crisis, which shaped and was

shaped by the agrarian ideal of the family farm, influenced the public’s understanding of the

farm landscape, and ultimately, the role of farmworkers in the agrarian narrative.

“Victimized,” unable “to control their own destinies,” “feeling of injustice,”

“losing…their whole way of life,” and “independent-minded farmers” were just a few phrases

and quotes used by journalists to describe Midwest growers and their impressions of the Farm

Crisis in the 1980s.131 For many Midwest growers, these descriptions aptly described how,

despite their view of themselves as independent toilers of the land working alongside their

family members in a job that defined their whole way of life, growers were in fact increasingly

127 Prairie Farkas, “Hollywood and the Farm Film,” North Dakota Quarterly 53, no. 4 (Fall 1985), 115-134.

128 Country, directed by Richard Pearce; Places in the Heart, directed by Robert Benton; The River, directed by

Mark Rydell.

129 Patrick H. Mooney and Theo J. Majka, Farmers’ and Farm Workers’ Movements: Social Protest in American

Agriculture (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 111-112.

130 Farkas, “Hollywood and the Farm Film,” 115-134; Janet Galligani Casey, “ ‘This is YOUR Magazine’:

Domesticity, Agrarianism, and ‘The Farmer’s Wife,’” American Periodicals 14:2 (2004), 179-211.

131 Cohen and Drew, “Farmer Protests Gaining Steam as Crisis Worsens;” Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt

Together.”

135

male-dominated and controlled by powerful government, economic, and corporate forces that

destroyed the family farm. Though Hollywood films such as Country established a strong

woman’s role in the farm, public imagination continued to characterize “Old MacDonald” as a

man working alongside his family members.132 In reality, by the 1980s, women and sometimes

men worked outside the farm, and expanding vegetable and fruit farms often employed migrant

families. However, the public continued to envision the family farm as a male-dominated and

family-centric operation, as they ignored the many families who did work in the fields. The

large corporate farms, common in California, replaced the family farms in the Midwest as

growers and the public began to contrast the perceived independence of growers with the

reality of growers’ helplessness against economic and corporate forces.133 Though most

Midwest growers might have described the 1960s and 1970s as a time of increased and

unwanted government involvement and regulations that restricted their freedoms, growers

could characterize the 1980s as a time when they demanded the government did something

about the economic crisis that destroyed independent small growers and left massive, corporate

growers as the sole survivors.134 To combat government, corporate, and economic forces, both

male and female farmers stopped viewing themselves as independent islands and joined farm

coalitions, help groups, rural churches and businessmen, and even labor unions in protests and

direct actions to protect the family farm.135 Hollywood films and concerts focused on the loss

of the family farm in addition to new protest and aid farmer groups contrasted with past

132 Country, directed by Richard Pearce; Farkas, “Hollywood and the Farm Film,” 115-134.

133 “Fewer Jobs for Farmworker…,” 18:10, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

134 Cohen and Drew, “Farmer Protests Gaining Steam as Crisis Worsens;” Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt

Together.” It should be noted that there was little consensus on what growers wanted the government to do.

135 Ogintz, “Hardships Pulling Farm Belt Together.”

136

emphasis on individual grower’s independence, helping to bring public focus to the rural “other

America” during the 1980s.

Hidden within this 1980s rural “Other America,” seen by the public in movies and

concerts, was the “Other America” that contained farmworkers, unsanitary housing, pesticides,

and degenerated soil commonly found on fruit and vegetable family farms, destroying the

agrarian mythos so ingrained within society. The Grapes of Wrath tied the narrative of

migrants with growers, just as the special Harvest of Shame and the UFW in California also

destroyed the agrarian myth that ignored farmworkers; yet, as the 1980s Farm Crisis

progressed, few growers acknowledged farmworkers’ struggles. How after the UFW and

Harvest of Shame raised public awareness in the 1960s could the Other America that shattered

the agrarian ideal be so forgotten in public memory? Long before the UFW unionized

farmworkers in California, Cary McWilliams described 1930s California farms as “factories in

the fields” that destroyed the land and abused people.136 Grapes of Wrath and Harvest of Shame

also presented abusive growers as large or under the control of large, agricultural groups.137

The description of growers in Grapes of Wrath and the UFW as large or cooperative farming

organizations, allowed the public to envision Midwest family farms as free from corruption and

farmworker abuse. Instead, Hollywood films in the 1980s presented Midwest farms as small

family operations, in sharp contrast to the corporate farming long depicted in the Eastern and

Western United States.138 As Hollywood and news channels reported the struggles of Midwest

136 McWilliams, Factories in the Field.

137 Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath; Murrow, Harvest of Shame.

138 Farkas, “Hollywood and the Farm Film,” 115-134; Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath; Murrow, Harvest of

Shame.

137

family farms, the most public examples of migrant farmworkers’ struggles took place outside

the Midwest, maintaining the Midwest family farm’s image.139

Though the 1960s social activism and the farmworker unions of the 1970s and 1980s

brought limited attention to farmworkers in the Midwest, the public differentiated the Midwest

from the rest of the nation. Despite FLOC’s efforts, the cries of growers and the retaliation

against aid programs in the 1980s resulted in a limited support network for the concerns of

farmworkers. In addition, rural communities and growers, already threatened and powerless

against the Farm Crisis, vehemently opposed any unionization or negotiating efforts by FLOC,

arguing that corporations would never negotiate and any attempt would destroy growers and

communities’ ties to the land.140 Though some Ohio tomato and pickle growers eventually

learned the value of cooperation with farmworker unions, most growers in the Midwest

remained hostile to organized efforts to better migrants’ lives, especially since it meant

spending more money. In the end, public focus lay on the survival of the family farm.141

The public and grower focus during the Farm Crisis not only ignored the struggles of

farmworkers and the effect of the crisis on them, but public imagining reshaped the agricultural

landscape into a historical, agrarian myth. As the Midwest grower Karen Dawson argued, the

changes in agriculture propelled by the Farm Crisis brought irresponsible tenants to agriculture

who answered to no one since the corporate agricultural system offered no real responsible

party, similar to the argument made in Grapes of Wrath about the system involved in farm

139 Murrow, Harvest of Shame; Ganz, Why David Sometimes Wins; Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts, 4-11.

140 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future;” Terry, “The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor,” 158.

141 Thomas A. Lyson, “Who Cares About the Farmer? Apathy and the Current Farm Crisis,” Rural Sociology, 51,

no. 4 (Winter 1986).

138

foreclosure.142 Dawson blamed these outsiders for the poisoning and overuse of the land and

the lack of concern for the local community, in so doing describing the better family farm as

one concerned about the community and concerned for the land.143 Yet this ideal ignored the

fact that most growers operated large farms and that the concern for community specifically

excluded farmworkers, as growers and local residents depicted farmworkers as “outsiders.” As

growers, the public, and even political individuals decried corporate farms, their ideal farm

harkened back to a historical and fictitious ideal long since dead.144

For a few people, the “for sale” signs among rolling fields depicted in movies and on

television in the 1980s did not overshadow the dilapidated housing near the fields, but rather

the housing became a part of the rolling fields and “for sale” signs. Decrying the agricultural

system supported by the United States government that benefitted large, polluting, corporate

farms that destroyed the family farm, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times, a report by the

Agribusiness Accountability Project Task Force on the Land Grant College Complex,

investigated the role of the United States government.145 Unlike many written accounts of the

Farm Crisis, Jim Hightower in Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times noted the struggles of farmworkers

in the abusive agricultural system, focusing primarily on how mechanization slowly replaced

migrant workers and how the Extension Service, created to help the rural area, should provide

training programs to farmworkers forced out of the stream.146 In focusing on mechanization and

142 Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath; Rothenberg, With These Hands, 66.

143 Rothenberg, With These Hands, 66.

144 Jim Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times; A Report of the Agribusiness Accountability Project on the

Failure of America’s Land Grant College Complex (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1973); Steven

V. Roberts, “The Farm Issue Personified,” New York Times, February 28, 1986; Rothenberg, With These Hands,

66.

145 Hightower, Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times.

146 Ibid, 125-126.

139

retraining, Hightower avoided some of the problems inherent in the “us vs. them” relationship

between growers and migrants, as growers and grower organizations understood that migrants

lived in horrible conditions and lost jobs because of mechanization, but refused to see their own

complacency in accepting the converted chicken coops, stooped laborers, and inadequate

outdoor toilets, as a natural extension of the system and land. Though written before the Farm

Crisis, Hightower’s mention of migrant farmworkers within the overall agricultural system,

brought migrants out of the shadows and into the light, at least for a brief moment.

Puncturing the agrarian myth that separated the Midwest farm from farmworkers’

struggles, church organizations that supported FLOC in the 1980s also occasionally described

the struggles of migrants in relation to the Farm Crisis. Though growers and migrants hinted at

the importance of the Farm Crisis in grower-migrant relations, few described the FLOC strike

directly in relation to the Farm Crisis. In one case, the Turnows noted how the success of their

tomato and cucumber crops were vital to their survival as the grain crop prices plummeted in

value; and Baldemar Velasquez, leader of FLOC, similarly noted the importance of tomato and

cucumber crops because of the poor value of popular grain crops.147 However, few others noted

the intersection between growers and migrants’ consciousness of the agricultural system that

entangled both groups. In one rare instance, the National Farm Worker Ministry, an inter-

denominational religious organization that assisted migrants, sent out a position statement

arguing that the public should be sure to keep farmworkers in mind in their concern for the

family farm.148 It also noted that religious attention to migrants’ issues led to religious groups

147 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future;” Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest.

148 National Farm Worker Ministry, “Position Statement about Farm Workers in Relation to the Rural Crisis in

America,” unprocessed at time of access, Jane Heckman Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial

Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

140

awareness of farmers’ problems, and that three-way deals, as demanded by FLOC, benefitted

all.149 As the statement noted, “Consumers benefit from the fruits of cheap labor and the risks

of marginal farmers. The same economic forces that squeeze small growers also squeeze farm

workers.”150 The National Farm Worker Ministry understood that only when the migrant

farmworker and Farm Crisis stories lived in the same narrative could the agricultural system

change.

Though barriers still continued to divide the Farm Crisis from the farmworker narrative

in the UFW and FLOC’s “other America,” numerous growers did change their vision of

agriculture. Despite growers’ inability to pay for better migrant housing and pay or negotiate

better deals with the Campbell Corporation, growers refused to work with FLOC in 1978 to

provide growers and farmworkers an avenue to negotiate together with a major corporation.151

Some growers, such as the Turnow family growing tomatoes and cucumbers, argued Campbell

would not negotiate.152 Other growers, such as Frank Meinen, saw organized farmworkers and

their supporters as a threat to their survival, arguing they were “anti-farmer and anti-

business.”153 After FLOC’s success in numerous tomato and pickle fields in Northern Ohio

during the late 1980s, growers who contracted with Campbell and Vlasic entered into three-

party negotiations with farmworkers and the companies Campbell and Vlasic. Initially resisting

the intrusion of migrant influence and farmworker unions on their agricultural practices, the

149 National Farm Worker Ministry, “Position Statement about Farm Workers in Relation to the Rural Crisis in

America.”

150 Ibid.

151 Mike Steere, "Farm Labor Strike Against Canneries, Growers Seen as Almost Inevitable," The Blade, July 28,

1978, 24:42, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

152 Pakulski, “Worried About His Future.”

153 Letter to Pat Whelan from Frank I. Meinen.

141

three-party negotiations eventually reshaped grower/farmworker relationships. Some Northern

Ohio farmers eventually realized the financial benefits of negotiating within grower

organizations and alongside farmworkers. Seeing greater profits and experiencing a less

controlling relationship with companies, many Northern Ohio growers realized the freedom

that came with seeing their world beyond their personal fields, where they had merely imagined

power, and instead worked alongside farmworkers to reshape the farming landscape.

Yet for most of the public, the Farm Crisis and farmworkers’ struggles were two

separate stories. In the 1980s Other America, Harrington depicted the Midwest family farm as

the rural “other America,” that is, the Anglo individuals in rural communities struggling to

survive against a heartless government and agricultural system. In another chapter, Mexican

and Mexican American migrant farmworkers traveled to the Midwest, organizing with growers

against corporations, refusing to live in dilapidated houses and scratching a meager living on

land owned by growers. Two chapters. Two separate narratives. Yet, migrant farmworkers

were rural; they lived, though disconnected, in these rural communities and made it possible for

growers to make an income. Even in the 1960s, the public struggled to come to terms with the

role of the family farm in migrant farmworkers’ lives, a struggle which became even more

difficult when so many saw the American agrarian ideal, which was so important to United

States mythos, “for sale.” Though family farms in the Midwest had long become more

industrial, growing fewer types of crops on more land using farmworkers’ labor instead of the

family, the family farm continued to capture the imagination of the public in film, books, and

television, forever hiding the realities of migrant farmworkers crouched in the fields. Instead,

the families who worked the fields and took part in the rural community on a transitory, limited

142

basis remained disconnected from the public imagination of farm and rural society made up of

male farmers and hardworking family members.

Concluding “Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers”154

Though public perception did not define the 1980s as a time of protest in regards to

agriculture, the 1980s was a time of marches and tractorcades as people demanded changes to

the structure of the agricultural system.155 When FLOC members and supporters marched from

Toledo, Ohio to Camden, New Jersey in 1983, and Iowa growers and supporters marched in

1985, they joined the agricultural revolt. However, public focus on the agricultural upheaval of

the 1980s largely ignored the tie between farmworker and grower struggles against an

agricultural system that benefited only a few. Unlike the 1930s, the 1980s United States public

did not awaken to the struggles of both small growers in a system that benefitted only large and

powerful growers and corporations and the struggles of the workers in the fields. The story of

the Joad family’s struggle to keep their farm against the power of corporations, government,

and banks became the focus of the 1980s public, instead of the Grapes of Wrath’s additional

depiction of the Joad’s struggles as farmworkers. Though shaken by the protests and conscious

raising events of the 1960s and 1970s, Midwest growers and public support reinvigorated the

agrarian mythos of the wholesome, American family farm, which encouraged the public to

ignore the role of Midwest farmworkers. Spurred to protect the loss of the family farm against

154 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops-Committee on Domestic Policy, For I Was Hungry & You Gave

Me Food: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers. (Washington, D.C.: United States

Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2003).

155 Ritchie, “Our Loss: The Family Farm;” William P. Browne, “Farm Organizations and Agribusiness,”

Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, 34, no. 3 (1982), 210; Gregg Easterbrook, “Making Sense of

Agriculture: A Revisionist Look at Farm Policy,” in Is There A Moral Obligation To Save The Family Farm? ed.

Gary Comstock (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1987), 19.

143

uncompassionate, unethical, and distant grower corporations; rural communities, growers,

churches, and even labor unions, fought for the family farms’ survival. Yet hidden beneath the

picturesque image of rolling fields so important to the Midwest agrarian myth were the racism

and inhuman conditions of migrant farmworkers living on family farms that employed the use

of pesticides and the industrial reasoning so prominent in large farms. Grower protests and

concern for the welfare of the family farm drew public attention away from the interconnected

lives of Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworker families and the family farm.

Though still an important part of United States agriculture and rural communities, the

ideal family farm envisioned in films and public imagination had ceased to exist, replaced by

fruit and vegetable family farms developed through the negotiations between growers and

migrant farmworkers. For growers and the public, land and the perception of the land, was an

important part of the agrarian mythos. For many vegetable and fruit Midwest growers, their

landscape reflected negotiations and conflicts over land ownership, human rights, public

perception, economics, and independence. The existence or lack of existence of housing and

bathroom facilities, the gender makeup of growers and migrant communities, the presence of

FLOC officials in migrant camps, the type of crops grown, and the presence of children in the

fields, all represented struggles between growers, migrant farmworkers, and even government

officials over the structure of the family farm landscape. Changes in farmworker regulations,

economics, and immigration policy also contributed to the negotiating process, as rural

residents and growers came to terms with rural insiders and outsiders and growers’ perceptions

of their own independence. Though these negotiations over the nature of the landscape

established a tie between migrant farmworkers and growers’ struggles, the narrative of migrant

144

farmworkers in the 1980s remained largely separate from the narrative of growers during the

Farm Crisis.

Three decades after the Farm Crisis, books and documentaries now decry pesticides in

food, unhealthy diets in the United States and the world, the poverty conditions of small

growers, and the large industrial growth, harvest, and slaughter of agricultural goods.156 Hidden

beneath these narratives are the laborers in the fields, slaughterhouses, and canneries.157

Current works and documentaries highlight the upper echelon of the food pyramid of power,

realizing the role of the national government, corporations and international power structures in

controlling growers and, therefore, what the public eats. Few currently tie these issues together

into a cohesive story about the use and abuse of land and people, specifically migrant

farmworkers. In one of the few exceptions since FLOC’s success with Ohio growers in the

mid-1980s, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops specifically tied the family farm,

migrants, and the land together. The 2003 booklet, “For I was Hungry & You Gave Me Food:

Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers,” noted that small growers around the

world deserved the right to sell their products for a fair, livable price, the land should be treated

with respect and not abused in an attempt to industrialize agriculture, and farmworkers

deserved the right to be paid livable wages and provided decent housing.158 Despite the small

voices in the wilderness arguing for the commonality between growers and farmworkers, most

156 Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001);

Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner (Magnolia Pictures, 2009), DVD; Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi,

Food Justice (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2010); Belinda Martineau, First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr:

Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods (McGraw Hill Co., 2001).

157 Ibid.

158 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops-Committee on Domestic Policy, For I Was Hungry & You Gave

Me Food.

145

growers and farmworkers in the Midwest and the nation at-large still struggle against each

other to shape the land as the public remains oblivious to the farmworkers in the fields.

CHAPTER 4

“I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPE VINE”1: CATHOLICISM, GENDER

AND AID IN THE ERA OF ACTIVISM

“The pastoral care of the migrants has always attracted the motherly attention

and the solicitude of the church.”2

-Stephen Solis

In 1968, Cesar Chavez ended a twenty-five day fast by taking Communion in a massive

outdoor Catholic service. Bringing attention to the striking United Farm Workers (UFW) and

their grape boycott, Chavez and the UFW made national news after his fast and the subsequent

communion that included presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy.3 Religious leaders, including

Catholic priests, served communion to workers and politicians, marking a social and religious

change in the nation.4 The United States and Midwest public previously saw the intersection of

Catholicism, unions, Mexican and Mexican Americans, and farmworkers with the former

unionizing struggles of the Depression, but the combination of all these elements in 1968 was

notable. The historic ties between Catholicism, Mexican Americans, and unions built the

1 Gladys Knight and the Pips, “I Heard it Through the Grape Vine,” by Norman Whitfield and Barret Strong, in

Everybody Needs Love, Motown Records, 1967.

2 Stephen Solis, “Migrant Farmworkers and the Church: A Report to the NCCB Ad Hoc Committee for the

Spanish Speaking,” November 17, 1974, 8:22, Midwest Council of La Raza, University of Notre Dame Archives,

Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

3 Alan J. Watt, Farm Workers and the Churches: The Movement in California and Texas, (Texas A & M

University Press, 2010), 84.

4 Ibid.

147

foundation for Chavez and the UFW’s relationship with the church. Though the United States

Catholic Church’s rocky association with Mexican Americans and unions continued even after

the Church offered its support to the UFW, the publicized tie between the Church and the

Mexican American farmworker union marked an important transition not only in California,

but the Midwest.5 With Midwest Catholics, farmworker unions, and Chicanos demanding

changes in the church and in the fields, the historic ties and ideas that manifested into the

publicized endeavors of the UFW grape boycott and the Catholic Church’s support, spread

through the grape vine to the Midwest.

Realizing that the farmworker conditions in California’s grape fields happened in their

own backyards and spurred to action by new social movements, church officials and laypersons

in Midwest cities and universities became active participants and advocates for local migrant

farmworkers.6 Though numerous churches created aid programs for migrant farmworkers, the

connection between Mexican Americans and Catholicism and the important role the Catholic

Church played in the UFW and the Midwest’s Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC),

made the United States Catholic Church a key factor in the development of services for

Midwest migrants. The effects of Vatican II in Catholicism, the Chicano Movement which

generated Latino pride, the farmworker rights movement initiated by the public attention to the

UFW grape fields of California, and the Feminist Movement in the United States, all induced

the Church to assist Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the Midwest. The

5 For ease, I will be writing “Catholic Church” or “Catholic Church hierarchy” throughout this chapter. However,

it should be noted that when I write “Catholic Church,” I am, unless otherwise noted, referring to the United States

Catholic Church. Though a world-wide Church under the leadership of the Pope, I do not attempt to state that the

racism, actions, or ideas found in the United States or United States Church hierarchy reflected the entire Catholic

Church. This being outside the scope of this work, I leave other scholars to analyze the international differences in

the Catholic Church.

6 Edward R. Murrow, Harvest of Shame, directed by Fred W. Friendly, (CBS Report, November 24, 1960),

videocassette.

148

Midwest rural landscape and urban centers became sites of negotiation between the general

public, religious organizations and individuals, and farmworkers as each side had various

opinions about the role of aid societies, women, and the rights and ability of migrants to affect

radical change in the stream. Although the Midwest lay outside the Chicano and UFW centers

of power in the Southwest, these movements in addition to the Feminist Movement and Vatican

II motivated Midwesterners, especially women, to develop support networks to empower

farmworkers within the food pyramid of the Midwest. The movements of the 1960s and 1970s

brought attention to minority farmworkers while also shaping and transforming over time

religious efforts to better farmworkers’ lives as the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s

forced negotiations over gender, ethnicity, and human rights. As farmworkers came to the

forefront of public discourse at a time of social change, Midwest Catholic Church members’

religious beliefs, social concepts, and gender ideals shaped and changed their understanding of

the “migrant problem,” ultimately influencing the assistance offered to farmworkers and its

effect on migrants.

Vines and Signs

The 1960s and 1970s was a time of radical ideas, as men and women of different colors

and religions marched down streets with protest signs demanding changes within the nation. In

the 1960s and 1970s, minorities demanded the freedoms and rights of the American dream

denied to them because of their sex and color. Of the various social movements of the 1960s

and 1970s, the Feminist Movement encouraged women to subvert the gender norms of society

while Latinos in the Chicano Movement called for an end to inequality and proudly identified

149

with their cultural heritage.7 Both groups demanded change not only within society, but also

within the laws and systems of power entrenched in the procedures of the nation and religious

institutions. At the same time farmworkers rose up to demand changes in the power structure of

the agricultural system that forced migrants to live and work in poverty conditions.8 With the

popularity of the UFW grape boycott in California spreading “through the grape vine,”

farmworkers’ living and working conditions became an issue of national concern and debate.

Midwesterners already learned about migrants in their nearby fields after the airing of The

Harvest of Shame in 1960, but farmworker unions like the UFW and FLOC brought

farmworkers’ demands and activism to Midwesterners’ televisions, newspapers, grocery stores,

and even churches.9 Due to their concern for farmworkers, Catholics and young Chicanos in

Midwest urban cities and universities established relief efforts in the late 1950s and early

1960s, and eventually took part in the UFW and FLOC boycotts in the 1960s, 1970s, and

1980s. Meanwhile, Midwest cities and entire states developed boycott support groups as

happened in 1975 Chicago when almost 700 Chicago residents marched three miles to a Jewel

grocery store to entreat the store to support the UFW’s boycott.10 The women inspired by the

Chicano and Feminist movements to alter power relationships in the Church and society also

gravitated towards empowering farmworkers. The intersection of the UFW, Chicano, and

Feminist movements coupled with the changes of Vatican II in the Catholic Church, altered the

7 Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism in the U.S. Catholic Church

(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004); John C. Hammerback, Richard J. Jensen, and Jose Angel

Gutierrez, A War of Words: Chicano Protest in the 1960s and 1970s, (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,

1985); Richard Edward Martínez, PADRES: The National Chicano Priest Movement, (Austin: University of Texas

Press, 2005).

8 Hammerback, A War of Words; Lorena Oropeza, Raza Sí!, Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and Patriotism During

the Viet Nam War Era, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005); Medina, Las Hermanas.

9 Murrow, Harvest of Shame.

10 Emmet George, “Anti-grape, lettuce campaign gets boost,” Chicago Tribune, May 15, 1975.

150

power structures of society as women, Mexican Americans, Midwesterners, and migrant

farmworkers protested up and down streets, on campuses, and in front of grocery stores,

demanding change in the Church, the fields, and in society.

The social movements of the 1960s and 1970s intersected with events within the

Church to create a time of contestation and change in the United States Catholic Church.

Vatican II alongside the Feminist, UFW, and Chicano Movements inspired various Catholic

minorities to demand ideological changes in society and the Church. Social movements

encouraged students, nuns, and priests to pressure the Church to back farmworker unions while

all debated the role of gender equality within the farmworker and Chicano struggles.11 While

social movements in the United States spurred these demands, doctrinal changes decided by

Vatican leaders fueled these larger demands as the changes altered the United States Catholic

Church’s relationship with parishioners. Vatican II was an international meeting of Catholic

hierarchy that discussed and edited Catholic policy and doctrine to make Catholicism more

relevant in modern times. Some of the most doctrinal innovations of Vatican II included Lumen

Gentium, which encouraged lay participation and involvement in mass and the church.12 Other

changes included Sacrosanctum Concilium which accepted local and ethnic practices of

Catholicism and allowed mass to be conducted in a language other than Latin, and Guadium et

Spes and Pacem in Terris which encouraged Catholics to speak out for the basic rights of all

individuals, especially the poor and abused.13 These changes had a profound effect on women

like Yolanda Tarango, who eventually helped start Las Hermanas and extended her radicalism

11 Colleen McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II: A History of Catholic Reform in America (New York: Basic

Books, 2011), 141-8, 170.

12 Ibid, 91.

13 Ibid, 78, 82, 96-101.

151

regarding women and Chicano’s rights, to farmworkers’ rights. Joining a convent in the 1960s,

Yolanda experienced the changes of Vatican II, including her new-found freedom to read about

national events in Time and Newsweek. No longer secluded from the outside world, nuns like

Yolanda learned about Cesar Chavez and attended college. For Yolanda, this meant attending

Chicago’s radical Jesuit Theologate at Loyola University.14 These changes in the Catholic

Church combined with existing and developing social movements such as the Chicano

Movement, Civil Rights Movement, Feminist Movement, and the UFW in California, to create

a time of contesting power relationships as Chicana women and Mexican Americans sought to

empower Chicanos in the Church, Latinos in the field, and women in society.

Church laypersons, nuns, priests, and the public’s involvement in migrant aid programs

built on the publics’ awareness of migrant farmworkers. With the advent of the Harvest of

Shame in 1960, Midwest nuns, priests, Mexican Americans, and the general public developed

programs and supported union boycotts, all of which addressed the Midwest power structure

that placed farmworkers on the bottom. The Migrant Ministry relied on religious individuals to

provide food, clothes, and religious guidance to the families in nearby migrant camps. A

national organization, the Migrant Ministries’ state and local chapters developed in the 1960s

throughout the semi-rural Midwest communities. In Michigan, the Migrant Ministry offered

services as early as the 1920s because of the state’s early sugar beet industry, but like other

parts of the Midwest, Michigan’s early efforts did not extend beyond food and shelter.15 Many

Midwesterners’ early efforts focused primarily on the issues that The Harvest of Shame

14 Sr. Yolanda Tarango, interview by Sr. Maria Eva Flores, October 4, 2008, Chicano History, University of

Incarnate Word, accessed May 15, 2015, http://www.uiw.edu/chicanohistory/interviews/sr-yolanda-tarango.

15 Michigan Migrant Ministry, Report, 1959, 2:17, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers,

1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. The Migrant ministry would

later be renamed the Migrant Farm Worker Ministry in 1971.

152

presented: poverty, dangerous working conditions, and migrants’ separate living and working

conditions, not the structure of the migrant stream that was the cause of the farmworkers’

problems.

Pre-1970s programs offered basic assistance to farmworkers, but when the Chicano,

UFW, and Feminist Movements combined with Vatican II to partially radicalize some

Midwesterners, the Catholic Church faced public pressure to shift their understanding of “the

migrant problem,” women’s roles in the church and society, and the rights of Chicanos.

Drawing on earlier aid services for farmworkers and on some Hispanic priests and nuns’

personal experiences in the fields, nuns, laymen, priests, and the public attempted to alter the

food pyramid. Faced with intersecting external pressures from the largely Catholic Mexican

American farmworkers unionizing in the Midwest and in California, and internal pressure from

Chicanos and women in the church, the United States Catholic Church had to address the

poverty conditions of the predominately Catholic farmworker population and the treatment of

Mexican American and women within the Church.16 Numerous Christian churches already

offered support for the UFW in the early 1960s, making the Catholic Churches’ hesitation to

stand alongside predominately Catholic workers as they used communion, Catholic mass, and

the Virgin of Guadalupe in marches, difficult for some in the Church to understand.17 The

general public pressured Catholic leaders to react to farmworkers’ issues, resulting in Catholic

male leaders’ taking on roles as negotiators or supporters of the UFW and FLOC unions while

those not in positions of authority, including women, provided more direct assistance to local

migrants. Simultaneously, the Catholic Church faced internal pressure to promote some

16 Marco G. Prouty, César Chávez, The Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice

(Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2006), 4-5; Martínez, PADRES, 130-133.

17 Martínez. PADRES, 122.

153

Mexican priests to Bishops and to ordain women.18 While early efforts characterized concern

for surface level issues, Midwest Catholics radicalized by the social movements of the time felt

Vatican II justified the church’s greater role in farmworker unions and Chicanos’ greater role in

the Catholic Church. As Caesar Chavez’ massive outdoor communion and the Chicano

movement combined with women’s demands, Midwest Catholics developed more services to

better Midwest migrant farmworkers.

Inspired by the movements of the time, nuns in NAWR and Chicanos in PADRES and

Las Hermanas, as well as the Midwest public, all pressured the Catholic hierarchy to change its

relationship with migrant farmworkers, Mexican Americans, and women in the church, with

varying success. Change stemmed from the time period, where people increasingly turned to

activism to address issues instead of providing assistance to deal with the symptoms of the

problem. As Raymond J. Spatti of the National Catholic Reporter aptly described, food and

clothes addressed only the symptoms, not the basic issues of migrant poverty.19 Nuns, priests,

and the general public often became involved in migrant activism due to their involvement in

the UFW’s Midwest boycott support groups. In Detroit, Michigan, police arrested Reverend

Joseph Melton, Sister Rose, Ricardo Guzman, a Brown Beret, and the Michigan boycott

director, Hijinio Rangel, and his family, along with several other adults and children when they

took products off a grocery store shelf after the store owner refused to support the grape

boycott.20 The ideas of the 1970s inspired some Catholics to rethink the church’s obligation to

assist Latinos in the church and the Mexican American farmworkers that labored in the

18 McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II, 183-184; Martínez, PADRES.

19 Raymond J. Spatti, “Why Gift Baskets Don’t Help,” National Catholic Reporter, February 17, 1987, 17:1,

Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

20 “Detroit Grape Protest Group Grab Groceries; 16 Arrested,” Chicago Tribune, July 13, 1969.

154

Midwest. Priests like former migrant Patrick F. Flores became Latino Bishops who supported

farmworker rights while women like Consuelo Covarrubias and Dolorita Martinez in the

Midwest joined Las Hermanas to demand a role for Latina nuns in the Church.21 All the while

Flores, Covarrubias, and Martinez assisted farmworker boycotts.22 Freed in some religious

orders from wearing traditional habits and staying secluded in convents, some nuns found

themselves drawn to public issues and influenced by notions of empowerment for women,

Chicanos, and the poor, translating these ideas to farmworkers’ issues. Women in the Sisters of

Humility of Mary in the Midwest and Las Hermanas members became involved in the UFW

and FLOC boycotts because of radicalized Chicana members who extended their notions of

changing gender and racial power dynamics to the farm power structure.23 Yet, local Bishops

and Vatican did not always consent to nuns’ greater freedoms as not all within the Catholic

Church sought changing gender power relationships within society and the Church. The

Immaculate Heart of Mary resisted their own Archbishop James McIntyre’s control when he

required they keep their strict clothing, bedtimes, and other traditional rules that many nuns in

the United States changed after Vatican II.24 The Vatican backed the Archbishop, demanding

the nuns obey the Archbishop or leave the Church.25 Similarly, not all priests and nuns believed

unions or secondary boycotts solved farmworkers’ problems, disagreeing with a major avenue

to effect change. As the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s mobilized Catholics to

21 “The Church and the Migrant,” 5:11, La Raza Records, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison,

Wisconsin; Medina, Las Hermanas, 19.

22 Ibid.

23 Medina, Las Hermanas, 35.

24 McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican II, 170, 222.

25 Ibid.

155

support farmworker services and unions, not everyone shared the same ideas about men,

women, and migrants’ rights.

Nuns, Priests, and Tomatoes

As farmworkers came to the Midwest to work in the tomato, cucumber, onion, and fruit

fields of the 1950s and 1960s, religious and non-religious groups developed programs to

address what each group perceived as the “migrant problem.” Catholic concern over the

“migrant problem” stemmed from public interest and characterized Midwesterners’ changing

perspective of society. In Wisconsin, the once religious United Migrant Opportunity Service

(UMOS) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin became a Latino-lead organization in 1969 after local

Mexican Americans protested the lack of Latinos or former migrants in a group created to

assist Latinos and migrants.26 UMOS’ change exemplified changes in Midwest universities as

school groups in the 1950s and 1960s initially offered basic assistance, hosting Christmas

parties or providing educational assistance for migrant children, while later programs provided

Hispanics with a college or vocational education and students organized boycott support

groups. Supporting farmworker boycotts and efforts to better Latinos’ lives characterized many

Midwesterners’ changing views of society. Newspapers like The Chicago Sun-Times published

a multi-part series in the summer of 1978 about farmworkers in the Chicago vicinity, and state

legislators started investigating and changing the laws that dictated farmworkers’ living and

working conditions, while some religious organizations shifted focus away from clothes, food,

26 United Migrant Opportunity Services, 1965-1985, 20th Anniversary Album, United Migrant Opportunity

Services, Inc., Milwaukee Area Research Center, UW- Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

156

and church services.27 At the same time at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, young and

old occupied Chancellor J. Martin Klotsche’s office to demand Hispanic’s right to a higher

education.28 Likewise, CHANCE at Northern Illinois University assisted minority students

seeking a college education.29 At the same time, students began to back farmworker unions,

calling for universities to stop buying grapes, lettuce, and Campbell products. The increased

concern and involvement of the public and students in the lives of Latinos and farmworkers in

the Midwest developed from the public awareness of migrants’ conditions and the activism of

the UFW’s grape and FLOC’s Campbell boycotts.

As word of the UFW spread “through the grape vine” during the 1960s and 1970s,

boycotters and the general public pressured the Catholic Church to address farmworker issues

beyond providing basic goods to migrant families. Spurred by the social movements of the

1960s and 1970s and concerned with local issues, most Catholic migrant aid programs started

in the 1960s. The Migrant Ministry was a notable exception as the national and inter-

denominational Migrant Ministry started in the 1920s in reaction to the conditions of Italian

immigrant family farmworkers on the East Coast.30 Though not a Catholic organization, the

massive and important nature of the Migrant Ministry in the UFW and FLOC boycotts made

27 Bonnie Gross, Manuel Galvan and Jan Ranson, “Migrants Live and Work like Slaves in the Shadows of

Affluent Suburbs,” Chicago Sun-Times, Suburban Week- North/Northwest supplement, August 17, 1978, 6:1,

DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, DeKalb,

Illinois.

28 Frank A. Cassell, J. Mart Klotsche, and Frederick Olson, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; A Historical

Profile, 1885-1992. (Milwaukee: UMW Foundation, 1992), 81, in UW Digital Collections, accessed October

2015, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu.

29 George Gutierrez, interview by Lucille Aikins, March 16, 1981, transcript, 2.31, Oral History Collection: Town

Gown Relations in DeKalb, 1955-1980, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois

University, DeKalb, Illinois.

30 Linda C. Majka and Theo J. Majka, Farm Workers, Agribusiness, and the State (Philadelphia: Temple

University Press, 1982), 108; Cindy Hahamovitch, The Fruits of Their Labor: Atlantic Coast Farmworkers and

the Making of Migrant Poverty, 1870-1945 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 147, 151;

Watt, Farm Workers and the Churches, 40.

157

the Migrant Ministry another important part of the Midwest tale worth noting. The influx of

Mexican American migrant workers in the Midwest sugar beet fields spurred the creation of the

statewide Michigan Migrant Ministry in the 1920s, yet other local Midwest churches would not

create state divisions and local chapters until the 1950s and 1960s when migrant farmworkers

started working in other Midwest fields in large numbers.31 Like the Catholic Church, the

Migrant Ministry’s early support of the UFW in California developed into general support for

all farmworkers and farmworker unions in the Midwest.

Public support for migrant unions and farmworker services often led to the formation of

Catholic aid efforts or organizations. Traveling to the Midwest states of Illinois, Wisconsin,

Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana, the large number of family units in the

Midwest migrant stream contrasted sharply with migrant streams along the West and East

coasts.32 These Midwest migrant families eventually compelled local Churches and laypersons

to action as consciousness-raising local and national events such as the UFW union and the

local FLOC and Obreros Unidos unions, encouraged groups to develop services for the men,

women, and children who labored in the fields. Religious groups eventually offered vocational

training for men and women, educational services for children, and health and welfare

assistance for the entire family. UFW boycott networks not only radicalized Midwest locals and

brought awareness to the national struggles of farmworkers, but also resulted in support for

local farmworkers. In Indiana, the Saint Joseph County Grape Boycott Committee and the Fort

31 Michigan Migrant Ministry, Report, 1959; Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz, August 8,

1964, unprocessed, Salem Lutheran Church, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern

Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

32 Baldemar Velasquez, “Farm Labor Organizing Committee Report Fourth Quarter,” (International Conference

Presentation, November 1978), 4:21, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan; Migrant Labor Population 1984, 20:3, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

158

Wayne Grape Boycott Committee combined around 1970 to create the Farm Labor Aid

Committee that not only assisted farmworker boycotts, but also attempted to organize local

workers.33 Catholic individuals developed both Indiana boycott support groups because of local

support for the UFW boycott, but like other Midwest UFW support networks, Catholic

organizations expanded their understanding of migrants’ plight to include local farmworker’s

struggle to unionize.

Concern for migrants occurred at the same time as religious and non-religious groups’

addressed labor, race, and gender issues, often intersecting within the Church as Latino and

women’s groups called for both outward support for farmworkers, and internal support for

Latino culture and/or women’s rights. Numerous religious organizations developed to support

Latino and women’s issues during the 1960s and 1970s. Two Latino Catholic organizations,

PADRES, an organization of Latino priests, and Las Hermanas, an organization of Latina lay

persons and nuns, began in 1969 and 1971 respectively.34 Aside from the Latino/a

organizations, the Catholic nun organization, NARW, and the nun organization, Poor

Handmaids of Jesus Christ, also began to assist farmworkers in the late 1960s and early

1970s.35 While the Poor Handmaids did not agitate for a different relationship between the

Catholic Church and women, NARW women addressed women’s lack of power within the

33 Dustin McLochlin, "American Catholicism and Farm Labor Activism: The Farm Labor Aid Committee of

Indiana as a Case Study" (Ph.D. dissertation, Bowling Green State University, 2008).

34 Martínez, PADRES, 51, 59; Medina, Las Hermanas, 2.

35 Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers: Experience in Advocacy,” PADRES, May 15, 1974, 8:25, PADRES

Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana; NAWR Trends, December 1974, 14:8, National Association of Religious Women Collection, University

of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Nursing Services

Marshall County Migrant Workers County Migrant Workers 1968, October 21, 1968, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus

Christ Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana. The organization eventually changed names from the National Association of Women Religious to the

National Association of Religious Women.

159

church and farmworker’s lack of power in the stream. Not only national organizations in the

Midwest, numerous local Catholic programs also developed during the late 1960s and early

1970s to address the problems faced by Midwest migrant farm laborers, including St. Paul

Minnesota’s Guadalupe Area Project (GAP).36 In the Midwest religious, social, and labor

issues collided, as PADRES priests like Alberto Galagos struggled with a racist Anglo priest in

Chicago’s Holy Rosary Parish while assisting farmworker unions, and as Tess Browne worked

as a UFW boycott organizer in Wisconsin while working with Las Hermanas to better

women’s’ rights in the Catholic Church and society.37 Developing organizations to work for

betterment of society, Latino men and women saw the Church as an avenue for change, not just

for farmworkers, but for Latinos and women.

Extending beyond the Catholic Church, the Midwest public took part in religious and

Chicano organizations becoming active participants in farmworker unions, programs targeting

Latinos’ concerns, and gender equality efforts. Students not only protested the conditions of

local Latino workers in their universities, as Notre Dame El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de

Aztlán (MeCHA) students and local activists like Olga Villa Parra and Ricardo Parra did in

reaction to the poor pay of the largely Latino university groundskeepers and cafeteria workers

36 Paula Hirschoff, "Mexican Market to Help Two Communities," The North Minneapolis Post, July 17, 1975,

Guadalupe Area Project, 1965-1977, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State

Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; "Worthy Plan Dies on Desk," St. Paul Sunday Pioneer Press, January 2,

1966, Guadalupe Area Project, 1965-1977, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota

State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Donald Demarest, "Bridging the Gap: Sister Giovanni Brings

Individualized Education Techniques to Chicano Dropouts," Guadalupe Area Project, 1965-1977, Mexican

American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Dorothy

Lewis, "Smiles Greet Migrant Worker," August 3, 1967, Guadalupe Area Project, 1965-1977, Mexican American

Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Margo Hayes, "Nuns,

Coeds, High Schoolers Push 'Head Start' for Area Youngsters" St. Paul Dispatch, October 8, 1970, Guadalupe

Area Project, 1965-1977, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical

Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

37 A Statement by the Spanish Speaking Community of Holy Rosary Parish, January 17, 1974, 5: Albert Galagos,

PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South

Bend, Indiana.

160

in 1977-1978, but Chicano and non-Chicano students organized boycott support groups for the

UFW and even the lesser known FLOC union.38 Midwest Chicano university students often

went on to assist farmworker unions and Latino community organizing, tying together the

various movements as the Midwest public, like Catholic men and women, were radicalized to

change power dynamics in society. One such interconnected example was that of José Gamaliel

González who helped start MeCHA in Notre Dame, worked as a Northwest Indiana coordinator

for the UFW boycott, and eventually formed a neighborhood organization in Lake County.39

Outside the Church, youth often served as radical agents of change, sometimes connecting the

efforts of the Catholic Church to other social movements.

Yet students, churches, and the general publics’ reaction to boycotts publicized on TV

and farmworkers in the field often reflected people’s gendered perspectives as each interpreted

the “migrant problem” and developed services accordingly. Although the nationally televised

UFW boycott forced Midwest locals to acknowledge the degrading and dangerous working and

living conditions in the Midwest migrant stream, church members did not agree on the ultimate

cause of these conditions. Catholic and other Church programs in the 1950s and 1960s

especially, focused on poverty conditions: providing food, clothes, education, and medical help,

often provided by women’s groups that usually were not major members of other radical social

movements of the time period. The Migrant Ministry in DeKalb, Illinois arranged to provide

migrants with clothing and food.40 Similarly, seven church members in Chicago, Illinois aided

the Hermosillo family with food, clothing, and housing when an incoming highway threatened

38 Alberto López Pulido, Barbara Driscoll de Alvarado, and Carmen Samora, eds., Moving Beyond Borders:

Julian Samora and the Establishment of Latino Studies, (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 85, 170.

39 José Gamaliel González, Bringing Aztlán to Mexican Chicago: My Life, My Work, My Art, ed. Marc

Zimmerman (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 44-52.

40 Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz.

161

to leave the family homeless.41 While these groups focused on lack of food and clothes, other

groups in the church and public saw the “migrant problem” in terms of isolation. Migrants’

isolation coupled with poverty compelled groups like the Migrant Ministry to provide movies,

games, and religious guidance, while NIU university students hosted a Christmas party for

local migrant children sometime in the 1960s or 1970s, and the Handmaids of Jesus Christ

provided medical assistance.42 Midwest service organizations’ diverse programing exemplified

early groups’ understanding of the “migrant problem.”

As social movements radicalized some churches, students, and the public’s

understanding of power relationships for minorities and women, so too did individuals’

involvement or lack of involvement shape people’s perception of “the migrant problem.”

Womens changing role in the Migrant Ministry from its founding in the 1920s to the Ministry’s

shift to male leadership in the 1960s, led to significant variations in the goals and services. The

Migrant Ministry, though a national organization, had statewide Migrant Ministries with local

chapters made up of local individuals.43 Women’s important position in the early Migrant

Ministry, starting with the Ministry’s creation by women in the 1920s to the local women like

Olga Sanchez in 1977 Edgington, Illinois and the 1970 League of Catholic Women in Alpine

41 Julie Ann Lyman, “A Shack on a Canal: Seven Who Care,” Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1964.

42 17.007b, Quick Reference photos, Audio Visual Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial

Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

43 "Migrant Work Report, August 9- October 2nd", circa 1965, 1:2, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional

History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Michigan Farm

Worker Ministry, Report, 5, 2:22, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

162

County, Michigan, started to change in the 1960s.44 While the lack of overarching leadership

on the national level meant that efforts could vary significantly by state, many services initially

focused on the educational, health, and religious needs of farmworkers, essentially perceiving

the migrant problem in terms of isolation from religious institutions and abject poverty. While

the Illinois Migrant Ministry, which started no later than 1959, had several clearly defined

social programs by the mid 1960s, Illinois’ DeKalb County Migrant Ministry initially focused

in 1964 on Christian education, church services, and family nights where volunteers provided

religious and recreational programs.45 Women served as important leaders of the Migrant

Ministry’s early aid programs in time periods largely before the era of activism.

After men came to dominate the leadership of the national Migrant Ministry in the

1960s, Migrant Ministry programs and policies shifted to legislation, job training, and union

support.46 The switch from religious, health, and educational services to programs that

promoted changing the food pyramid signified the changing public idea of the “migrant

problem” and women’s role. As the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s called for action

and change, the Migrant Ministry like other religious groups, shifted to become more active,

seeking to change the migrant stream. Yet, with public interest also came increasing male

44 Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz; Outreach Workers, Migrant Day Care Program, 1977

Season, 2:11, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Collection, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

DeKalb, Illinois; Project reviews, Michigan Migrant Ministry, 1970, 5:24, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry

Coalition Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Letter to Friends

from Michigan Migrant Ministry, May 1, 1955, 1:5, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers,

1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

45 Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz.

46 National Farm Worker Ministry Objectives & Strategies, circa 1981, 1-2, 13:44, PADRES Collection,

University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Letter to

Mr. President Carter from Arturo Lopez, Illinois Migrant Council, February 9, 1979, 2:11, DeKalb County

Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb,

Illinois; Lucia Quintanilla, Trabajo, 1973-1974, 4:Organizations and Activism- Area Board for Migrants- Trabajo,

1973-1974, LULAC Council 93/4, Iowa Women's Archives, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.

163

membership as active change apparently required male leadership while women continued to

serve on the ground.47 Though women proved capable of demanding change within other

religious organizations, the changing perception of the “migrant problem” reshaped and

masculinized the Migrant Ministry.

Not just within the interdenominational Migrant Ministry, some other Catholic groups

also assisted instead of empowering farmworkers with their charity services. The Poor

Handmaids of Jesus Christ established numerous health and educational programs including the

El Centro Day Care in South Bend, Indiana in 1969; nursing services in Marshall County,

Indiana from 1968 to at least 1977; and summer volunteer programs in Ohio and Michigan

where participants made crafts with farmworkers unable to work in the fields.48 Many

Handmaids were registered nurses, which resulted in strong attention to health services.49

Besides doctors and professors, women’s predominance in health and education in the

twentieth century fits comfortably within traditional gender norms, both within society and the

Catholic Church. The continued focus on education and health remained within the confines of

women’s gendered roles while also safely addressing outward symptoms of poverty, but never

the cause. Though the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ’s efforts continued throughout the 1960s

and 1970s, no Handmaid notes or reports indicated an involvement in farmworker unions or

47 Letter to Friends from Michigan Migrant Ministry; Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz;

Marjorie H. Royle, "Women Pastors: What Happens after Placement?," Review of Religious Research 24, no. 2

(December 1982). Men dominated most churches in the nation during this time as women made slow inroads into

Protestant, Episcopal, Baptist and other Church leadership.

48 Summer Volunteer Migrant Program Ohio and Michigan, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, University of Notre

Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Myra D. Young, Evaluation

of El Centro Day-Care and Educational Development Program 1969 in Greene School South Bend, Indiana from

June 9, 1969- August 1, 1969, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh

Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

49 List of Migrant Registrants, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh

Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

164

programs that encouraged farmworker agency, instead accepting existing power relationships

in the field, the temple, and society. While other Catholic women’s organizations moved

beyond the welfare relief, the Poor Handmaids remained focused on addressing some of the

basic symptoms of poverty instead of migrants’ lack of power within the agricultural system.

Praying and Marching over Sour Grapes and Rotten Tomatoes

As the social movements of the era shaped the men and women of the Midwest,

assistance programs for local farmworkers began to change. Though the social movements of

the last half of the twentieth century failed to radically shape some organizations, several other

religious organizations came to understand the “migrant problem” within the contours of

gender and power norms. These groups helped change the Midwest’s food pyramid just as they

sought to alter power relationships in society and the church in regards to gender and race. The

new ideas that encouraged change and activism in Vatican II, the Chicano Movement, the

Feminist Movement, and the UFW Movement inspired nuns, priests, students, and laypersons

to demand change within their own organizations and societies as well as for farmworkers.

Women like Olga Villa Parra and priests like Juan Romero described moments where they

heard a speaker, met a group, or read a book that inspired them to push for change.50 Maria

Elena felt a religious call to help fellow farmworkers, first creating a dance group as a means to

educate people about farmworkers’ plight and Mexican culture; but she soon became more

active in farmworkers’ struggles, creating a UFW Service Center in Onagra, Illinois, boycotting

Illinois grocery stores, and eventually organizing for FLOC as the 1970s and 1980s

50 Pulido et al., Moving Beyond Borders; Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers.”

165

progressed.51 Maria Elena sited Olgha Sierra Sandman, the director of the Illinois Farm Worker

Ministry, as a guide to her activism, encouraging her and even getting her involved in FLOC.52

Like Yolanda Tarango, who went from being inspired by articles to becoming an activist

encouraged by fellow radical women, men and women inspired the individuals they came in

contact with in the fields, the classroom, and the Church. Personal experience, in addition to

religious ideology, especially Guadium et Spes and Pacem in Terris, served as a guiding point

for Church groups, students, and laypersons’ religious involvement in the farmworker

movement; but the Chicano and Feminist Movements in addition to farmworker unions, forced

these groups to adjust their understanding of “the migrant problem.”

Inspired by the times and learning from their Midwest experiences, Catholic groups like

PADRES offered more than food or clothing. PADRES, an organization of Spanish Speaking

Catholic priests, provided written support of FLOC through resolutions while also providing

vocal and organizational assistance to the UFW by arranging meetings with interested parties to

garner support for the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.53 PADRES also worked to

improve undocumented farmworkers’ lives through legislation.54 While PADRES’ primary

goal remained providing Latinos with a voice in the Catholic Church, the group also viewed

assisting the UFW and FLOC as critical to improving the lives of Mexican Americans within

51 Maria Elena Ortega, Forged Under the Sun/ Forjada Bajo el Sol: The Life of Maria Elena Lucas, ed. Fran Leepa

Buss (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 182, 187, 195.

52 Ibid, 185, 187, 216, 225.

53 Letter from Trinidad Sanchez to Rev. Dick Notter, March 23, 1979, 15:13, PADRES Collection, University of

Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Si Se Puede, October

18, 1976, 15:13, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre

Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Letter to PADRES members from Rev. Manuel R. Martinez, December 1, 1976,

15:13, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame,

South Bend, Indiana.

54 Letter to Friends from Rev. Juan Romero, 17:24, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives,

Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

166

the nation, extending their desire to change power relationships in the Church to farmworkers.55

Father Gallegos, who worked in Chicago in the 1960s, realized how important organizing for

social justice was because of his experience witnessing Chicago’s Civil Rights Movement.56

For other priests in the PADRES movement, the Midwest region proved to be a source for

empowerment, as Chicago’s Saul Alinsky provided the important training for social movement

activism, which was accepted by numerous PADRES, Chicanos, and union farmworkers like

UFW’s Chavez.57 While many PADRES members served in parishes outside the Midwest, the

Midwest served as a place to gain important skills necessary to assist the farmworkers and

Chicanos of the Midwest and nation.

PADRES’ ideology encouraged members to support farmworker unions and Chicanos,

but did not always support other ideas regarding power. As PADRES member Reverend Juan

Romero stated in an article in 1974, the church should not just stop immorality, but seek

“authentic liberation” and end “oppressive situations.”58 For some members of PADRES,

“authentic liberation” came from their experiences meeting UFW leader Cesar Chavez and

learning about the struggles of farmworkers, ultimately radicalizing these Latino priests.59

Despite PADRES’ progressive stance on the “migrant problem,” the PADRES organization

failed to always support gender changes within the Church as some Catholic men disagreed

with Chicanas who saw renegotiating gendered power structures as important to society.

PADRES, while working alongside Las Hermanas for similar goals, never had a permanent

55 Ibid.

56 Martínez. PADRES, 45.

57 J. Craig Jenkins, The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movement in the 1960s. (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1985), 134; Gonzalez, Bringing Aztlán to Mexican Chicago, 52; Martínez, PADRES, 84.

58 Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers.”

59 Ibid.

167

association with Las Hermanas because PADRES remained an all-clerical and, therefore, all

male group that sometimes rejected women’s rights.60 While unions and the Chicano

Movement motivated PADRES to demand changes in the agricultural system, their all-clerical,

all-male structure demonstrated their restricted acceptance of changing power structures.

Seeing the stooped laborers in the fields of the United States, different religious groups

debated how best to respond to the “migrant problem,” but consistently within the dialectic of

gender and power. Organizations became more aware of farmworker unions and altered their

understanding of the “migrant problem” because of Vatican II and the radical social

movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In providing nursing services, the Poor Handmaids of

Jesus Christ noted farmworkers’ desire to independently control their own medical care, pick

their doctor, pay medical bills themselves without using free vouchers, and decide whether they

could afford time off from work for a medical visit.61 Despite recognizing this desire, some

RNs took individuals to dentists and other medical appointments to ensure they went and

sometimes insisted that farmworkers follow their dictates, essentially refusing to let

farmworkers make their own judgments.62 Similarly, the Handmaids’ El Centro Day Care in

Indiana taught citizenship and English while also celebrating the Fourth of July.63 These groups

contrasted with Catholic groups and programs such as PADRES, Las Hermanas, and GAP that

were inspired to renegotiate power for minorities or women as well as farmworkers. While the

60 Medina, Las Hermanas, 4, 76.

61 Sister M. [Richilde], Report on Migrant Nursing, Summer 1976, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, University

of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Sr. Kathleen Quinn

R.N, Sr. M. Richilde Detmer R.N., and Sr. Helen M. Watkins, “Nursing Services Marshall County Migrant

Workers 1968, Summary of Migrant Nursing Service, Marshall County,” June 15-August 15, 1971, Migrant

Nursing in Marshall County, 1977, 30:21, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, University of Notre Dame Archives,

Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

62 Sister M. [Richilde] et al., Report on Migrant Nursing.

63 Young, Evaluation of El Centro Day-Care.

168

Handmaids offered much needed medical and day care assistance that fit within women’s

gendered norms, their focus on medical and day care help and their failure to respect

farmworkers’ choices and culture suggests they perceived the “migrant problem” as solely an

issue of poverty, not a racialized lack of power.

The patriarchal and racially based aid that assumed farmworkers’ dependency on Anglo

outsiders contrasted with church efforts under PADRES, Las Hermanas, NAWR, the national

Migrant Ministry, and even Mexican American led movements with religious ties. Initially

focused on the religious needs of farmworkers, the DeKalb County Migrant Ministry shifted to

social and economic services as the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s shaped public

perceptions of power structures.64 One of the first programs developed by the Migrant Ministry

was Family Night, which provided entertainment and religious instructions to migrants, but

later programs included job training, assistance finding housing and jobs for migrants who

wanted to leave the stream, legal assistance for farmworkers who were cheated out of their pay,

and medical and educational help for farmworkers.65 By 1972, the DeKalb County Migrant

Ministry’s programs included: Health Services, Settling Out, Family Night, Legislation, Child

and Adult Education, Legal Aid, and a Vocational Scholarship Fund.66 Statewide, the Illinois

Migrant Ministry supported a mushroom workers’ union in Princeton, Illinois after workers

64 DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information Sheet, 1972, 1:2, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional

History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

65 Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz; Migrant Ministry, "Migrant Work Report, August 9-

October 2nd;” DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information Sheet, 1972.

66 DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information Sheet, 1972.

169

initiated a strike in 1989.67 National and local Migrant Ministries also supported the UFW and

FLOC boycott.68 As the Migrant Ministry, nationally, state-wide, and locally, supported

programs meant to better migrants’ lives, Migrant Ministry members became increasingly more

radical, assisting farmworker unions.

In addition to the interdenominational Migrant Ministry, PADRES, Las Hermanas, and

NAWR provided help to address union struggles and feminist and Latino issues. PADRES

supported UFW legislative efforts and Las Hermanas support programs that brought Latino

women together to deal with Latina female issues such as sexuality.69 In addition, PADRES,

Las Hermanas, and NAWR continued to assist farmworker unions, including UFW and

Midwest’s FLOC. NAWR programs directly supported farmworker women’s agency and

empowerment while simultaneously assisting farmworker unions fighting the agricultural

system. Sr. Pat Drydyk, a nun paid by NAWR to directly assist the UFW in their boycott,

exemplified some NAWR members’ endorsement of farmworkers’ self-sufficiency. Drydyk

believed the agricultural system of power should be changed, and questioned California nuns

who preferred to donate and provide temporary solutions to farmworkers’ living conditions

67 Illinois Conference of Churches: The Illinois Farm Worker Ministry Summer of 1989 Newsletter, 38:9,

PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South

Bend, Indiana; Prouty, Cesar Chavez, The Catholic Bishops, 119; Pat Hoffman, "Gaining Justice Ground,"

Sojourners, October 1977, 17:1, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information

Sheet, 1972.

68 National Farm Workers Ministry, “Cesar Chavez Calls for Boycott of All Galo Wines Until Elections Are

Held,” 1975, 5:5, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

69 Lara Medina, “The Challenges and Consequences of Being Latina, Catholic, and Political,” in Latino Religions

and Civic Activism in the United States, eds. Gastón Espinosa, Virgilio Elizondo, and Jesse Miranda (Oxford

University Press, 2005), 103.

170

rather than “think in terms of changing the system.”70 Sister Drydyk, PADRES, Las Hermanas,

and some local and statewide Migrant Ministries understood the “migrant problem” in terms of

farmworkers’ lack of power, ultimately refusing temporary solutions and instead seeking more

meaningful change.

As national and regional programs and organizations provided much needed support,

locally developed efforts also provided avenues for farmworker agency. Sister Mary Giovanni,

SSND, with the assistance of other local nuns, created the GAP in St. Paul, Minnesota in

1965.71 GAP sought “to serve people of Mexican American ancestry who struggle to preserve

their cultural heritage while assimilating into a new culture (and) all people in need whose

education and training do not prepare them for an equal opportunity in society.”72 Sister

Giovanni acted as an important local supporter of farmworkers and argued for the continuation

and respect of Mexican culture. Contacted by other nuns, Sister Giovanni arranged for a

migrant farmworker to receive necessary medical surgery in Minnesota and a non-agricultural

job in the area that did not threaten the woman’s recovery.73 A respected Anglo within the

Latino community of St. Paul, Sister Giovanni’s emphasis on respecting Mexican culture

exemplified the changes in the Catholic Church, as Latinos demanded the Church respect their

different cultures and as Vatican II provided an avenue by which the international Church could

70 Letter to NAWR from Sr. Pat Drydyk, RE: Farmworker Initiative Campaign, April 1-30, 1976, May 9, 1976,

5:17, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library,

University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

71 Hayes, “Nuns, Coeds, High Schoolers.”

72 Demarest, "Bridging the Gap.”

73 Lewis, “Smiles Greet Migrant Worker.”

171

adapt to ethnic practices.74 Sister Giovanni questioned the hierarchy that relegated Mexican

Americans and migrant farmworkers to the bottom of the food pyramid by creating relief

services that supported farmworkers and Latino culture. Encouraging self-determination and

pride in one’s culture, the female-led GAP program, like other Catholic women’s

organizations, reflected the changes that occurred due to Vatican II, the Chicano Movement,

and the farmworker unions of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Religious groups and individuals worked both within and outside religious

organizations designed to assist migrants. Olga Villa Para, a member of Las Hermanas, took

part in both religious and non-religiously based organizations. Parra worked as the director of

the Institute for Urban Studies for the Midwest Council of La Raza in Notre Dame University.

Although Parra worked to better all Latinos lives, she specifically continued to be actively

concerned with farmworkers, even being arrested around 1970 for refusing to leave with her

Sisters of Kalamazoo friends when they protested the local food stamp office for refusing

assistance to farmworkers who traveled to Michigan to work for a grower that over-estimated

his labor needs.75 Similarly to Parra, who labored in Michigan and Indiana to better all

farmworkers and Latinos’ lives, Tess Browne, a Franciscan, worked in the Milwaukee UFW

boycott office until she became the Wisconsin state director of the boycott. At the same time,

she worked with the Milwaukee Justice and Peace Center, a Catholic based group in the

Milwaukee diocese.76 Browne, like Parra, worked within the worlds of the Church and Chicano

Movement to create change for Latinos and farmworkers. The interplay of religion, unions, the

74 Ann Baker, "Brown Power" St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 6, 1969, Brown Berets, Minnesota Chapter, St. Paul

Records, 1969-1974, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical Society,

St. Paul, Minnesota.

75 Pulido et al., Moving Beyond Borders, 81.

76 Medina, Las Hermanas, 85.

172

Chicano Movement, and social activism played out in a variety of individuals’ lives from the

1960s through the 1980s, just as it had at the UFW communion rally in 1968.

While members’ involvement in the UFW, FLOC, and the Chicano or Feminist

Movements’ radicalization of some religious organizations, not all sought to change the

agricultural, social, or gender system of power. Some groups, including NAWR, PADRES, and

Las Hermanas, gave no pretense for impartiality between farmworkers’ and growers, yet other

religious groups argued that religion should instead encourage mediation and peace. On a

national scale, the Catholic Church by way of the Bishops Ad Hoc Committee fostered

negotiations between the UFW and grape growers in the 1960s, but eventually supported the

UFW fully in the UFW’s struggle with the Teamsters Union by 1973.77 In the Midwest, the

interdenominational National Council of Churches tried to bring FLOC, growers, and

Campbell’s soup, the major focus of FLOC’s boycott, to the negotiating table.78 In reaction to

this effort by the National Council of Churches, the Catholic bishops in Ohio initially refused to

support FLOC’s boycott until negotiations failed.79 In contrast, other Churches did not limit

their role to mediators of strikes and boycotts. The interdenominational DeKalb Migrant

Ministry, one year after its creation in 1964, noted its goal was “to create an atmosphere of

friendship” between growers and farmworkers.80 Although some religious groups became

staunch advocates of farmworkers’ rights to unionize, the Catholic hierarchy and other

77 Prouty, César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, 4-5.

78 Bill Osinski, "Battle Heats Up for Migrants' Loyalty," Akron Beacon Journal, June 23, 1985, 24:58, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Laura

Hared, "Ohio Catholic Bishops Back Campbell Boycott," Akron Beacon Journal, June 17, 1985, 24:58, Farm

Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

79 Hared, "Ohio Catholic Bishops Urge Campbell Boycott.”

80 Migrant Ministry, "Migrant Work Report, August 9- October 2nd.”

173

religious groups, on both a national scale and within states, resisted early attempts to support

farmworker unions over local religious individuals.

The Catholic Church’s role as peacemaker and negotiator indicated not only a possible

lack of radicalization within the Catholic hierarchy, but also contestation over the role of the

Church in labor issues. Church leaders understood that growers in their community were

church members who did not appreciate criticism and showed their anger by not attending

church, complaining to church leaders about local priests and nuns, and, most importantly,

refusing to donate money.81 One local priest in Napoleon, Ohio, where a Campbell Soup

factory was the “lifeblood” of the community, feared local Catholics’ reaction to the Ohio

Catholic Bishops’ recognition of FLOC’s boycott of Campbell Soup.82 Father Fred Duschl tried

to mediate between the two sides, arguing that the Ohio Bishops were correct to be concerned

about farmworkers, but wrong to support the boycott because of its effect on other Catholics.83

This priest felt caught between powerful forces: the wealthy donations and complaints of

permanent locals; the conditions of transient, Catholic minority farmworkers; and the public

outcry for churches to help the poor.84 The division between some within the Catholic

hierarchy and the priests, nuns, and laypersons on the ground meant that, while the church male

hierarchy acted as public mediators or as verbal advocates for unions, individuals in the

Midwest either acted as staunch migrant advocates or resisted support for local farmworkers.

81 "Campbell Employees Regret Boycott Backing," Catholic Chronicle, June 28, 1985, 24:58, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Romero,

“Ministry to Farmworkers.”

82 “Campbell Employees Regret Boycott Backing.”

83 Ibid.

84 Prouty, César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, 3-4; Sister Thomas More Bertels, "A Nun Speaks Out Against the

FLOC Boycott", 11:22, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh

Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; “Campbell Employees Regret Boycott Backing.”

174

Inspired by the Chicano movement and sometimes faced with public pressure, religious

and non-religious groups by the 1970s began to listen to the concerns and opinions of local

Latinos and migrants by having them participate in organizations. In Milwaukee, locals pressed

Chancellor Klotsche of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to create a group to encourage

and promote Latino enrollment.85 Similarly, students in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and St. Paul,

Minnesota demanded administrators listen to Latino concerns.86 Outside schools, Madison,

Wisconsin leaders faced pressure from local Latinos and the farmworker group UMOS, when

farmworkers and Latinos took over a Wisconsin governor’s session in 1972 to demand the

governor listen to the concerns and issues of migrants and promote direct change to the food

pyramid rather than working through his ineffective Committee on Migratory Labor.87 Father

James Groppi endorsed UMOS’ strategy, though radical, to pressure the Governor to give

migrants a voice in a system that controlled their lives, which Father Groppi argued was

important.88 Interestingly, Anglo religious individuals initially formed UMOS, ignoring local

Latinos’ concerns until local Latinos demanded a voice in the organization in 1969.89

Throughout the Midwest, the surge of Midwest Latino activism forced some state and religious

organizations to address the actual problems faced by farmworkers and Latinos, not an

outsiders’ perception of the problems.

85 Cassell, et. al., The University of Wisconsin –Milwaukee, 81.

86 Cassell, et. al., The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 81; Brown Berets, Mexican American Community in

St. Paul Collections, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical Society,

St. Paul, Minnesota.

87 Eileen Hammer, “Migrants Take Over Session,” Milwaukee Sentinel, August 8, 1972, 3:4, Wisconsin

Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor: Records, 1960-1972, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison,

Wisconsin; Wisconsin Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor: Records, 1960-1972, 3:3, Wisconsin

Governor’s Committee of Migratory Labor: Records, 1960-1972, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison,

Wisconsin.

88 Hammer, “Migrant’s Take Over Session.”

89 University Migrant Opportunity Services, Inc., 1965-1985, 20th Anniversary Album.

175

Though pressure forced some to acknowledge the voice of migrants and Latinos, other

organizations willingly accepted migrants’ ability to change their own lives. The Illinois

Migrant Council initiated within their constitution a position for local migrants to participate in

the programs meant to assist them. The Illinois Migrant Council (IMC) began in 1966 after the

Bishop’s Committee for the Spanish Speaking, the Catholic Council of Working Life, the

Illinois Council of Churches, and the Church Federation of Greater Chicago created the

organization.90 The IMC’s by-laws provided migrants and former-migrants a percentage of

representative seats on local and state committees.91 The IMC’s acceptance of migrants’ role in

the organization proved abnormal as most religious groups failed to provide farmworkers a

voice in organizations designed to assist them, categorizing the “migrant problem” as best

understood and solved by outsiders. Few Catholic groups included farmworkers in their

organizations with the exception of some ex-farmworker PADRES and Las Hermanas

members. Non-Catholic groups also ignored farmworkers, such as the early UMOS

organization and the DeKalb County Migrant Ministry, which in 1972 had only a few members

with Spanish surnames.92 The inclusion or exclusion of migrants or migrant representatives in

religious groups exemplified the extent of religious organizations’ radicalization.

For one organization, the Migrant Ministry, the lack of farmworker representation and

the relative autonomy of locals led to significant difference of opinion between locals and the

national organization. Although the national Migrant Ministry established goals in 1960 that

included increased education and vocational training, putting an end to the Bracero Program,

90 Illinois Migrant Council, Regional Advisory Council- Rochelle Region, 2:11, DeKalb County Migrant Ministry,

Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

91 Ibid.

92 DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information Sheet.

176

and maintaining “responsible and democratic organizations for economic and self help,” the

Migrant Ministry had no overarching control on local ministries.93 An example of local

ministries’ ability to counter national Migrant Ministry policy occurred in Van Buren County,

Michigan when the local Ministry denied farmworkers the use of the Migrant Ministry building

for labor organizing purposes.94 After changing their minds several times, the state-level

Michigan Migrant Ministry criticized the Van Buren County Ministry for failing to assist

farmworker unions.95 While the social movements of the time period influenced the DeKalb,

Illinois Migrant Ministry members to support FLOC and the UFW, Van Buren members

refused to support farmworker unions. Van Buren members’ lack of concern for farmworker

power mirrored the lack of farmworker representatives in Van Buren’s Migrant Ministry.

Contesting ideas on the “migrant problem” coupled with the lack of migrant farmworker

representation in aid societies limited the reach of services and revealed the inconsistencies of

the 1960s and 1970s, as social movements motivated individuals to better migrants’ conditions,

but not to change society.

Midwesterners’ complicated understanding of the “migrant problem” meant that even

when organizations accepted farmworkers’ right to have a voice, not all understood Latinos and

farmworkers’ pre-existing agency in their own lives. In the Conference of Major Superiors of

Women in 1970, individual nuns offered various prayers; while some called for Bible classes or

the UFW’s success, others prayed “that Anglos will help develop leadership programs for the

Spanish speaking and the migrant,” or “that the migrant will be helped to take a greater share in

93 Watt, Farm Workers and the Churches, 64.

94 Michigan Farm Worker Ministry, Report.

95 Ibid.

177

his development.”96 Considering that the existence of the UFW, FLOC, the little known and

short lived Obreros Unidos union in Wisconsin, and random strikes in Illinois and elsewhere in

the nation were all started by former and current migrant farmworkers, Mexican and Mexican

American migrants proved capable leaders without Anglos’ guidance.97 In addition, PADRES

and Las Hermanas helped to develop Latino/a leadership through programs that instituted

cultural pride while groups like MeCHA developed programs at Notre Dame on Chicanos’

identity and Latinos in Milwaukee and Minneapolis demanded universities make efforts to

increase Latino enrollment and establish Latino Studies programs, all exemplifying Latinos’

leadership and organizational skills.98 The blatant perception of migrant farmworkers as being

in need of Anglo guidance characterized the lack of farmworker representation in organizations

created to assist farmworkers and the continued racism that limited change in the Catholic

Church and society.

Equality in the Temple and the Fields

The Feminist Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the UFW and FLOC impelled

some religious women to question agricultural power structures just as they questioned

patriarchal power structures. Vatican II and the Chicano Movement brought increasing

questions about the structure of power within the church and society at large. For the women in

and outside the Catholic Church, these questions extended to women’s position within the

96 Sister Mary Eileen, Migrant Prayer List, Conference of Major Superiors of Women August 1970, 30:21,

Handmaids of Jesus Christ Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre

Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

97 W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation

among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1994), 55, 59-60.

98 Cassell, et. al., The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 81; Brown Berets.

178

Church, the fields, and the social movements of the era. The variety of migrant services from

female-dominated or female led organizations exemplified the variety of opinions regarding

women’s traditional roles as nurturers or women’s new position as agents of change. Earlier

women’s aid societies, such as the Migrant Ministry and Handmaids of Jesus Christ, were

largely uninfluenced by the social movements of the time, working within gendered norms and

existing power structures. Based on women’s position as caretakers, the women who

established the Migrant Ministry and the nuns in Handmaids of Jesus Christ provided basic

assistance to migrant farmworkers. Though based within traditional gendered norms, the

Handmaids of Jesus Christ’s successfully offered farmworkers aid because of their gendered

positions as nurses and teachers. Many Handmaids trained as registered nurses, a largely

female occupation, allowing handmaids to provide medical assistance as they embraced the

gendered depiction of women as caregivers. Not just in Churches, the UFW and FLOC

boycotts relied on women protesting outside grocery stores and refusing to buy grapes, lettuce,

and Campbell’s products.99 Employing women’s reproductive labor as family caretakers and

cooks, women organizers and protesters tried to connect with local women shopping in grocery

stores to encourage them to join the boycott. Inside and outside the temple, gender influenced

the type of assistance offered to migrant farmworkers as charity organizations and unions

capitalized on women’s gendered roles and their ties to other women.

Employing women’s “natural” position as caregiver, the Migrant Ministry served as an

example of employing women’s natural role to solve the “migrant problem,” yet numerous

other women’s groups worked within and outside these caregiver ideals to improve migrants’

99 Pat Hoffman, Ministry of the Dispossessed: Learning from the Farm Worker Movement (Los Angeles: Wallace

Press, 1987), 60; Boycott Support of Ohio Farm Workers list, 11:11, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

179

lives. Women who believed it was important to empower migrants just as they themselves felt

empowered by social movements, had no official power within the Catholic Church to provide

the vocal and written recognition so desired by the UFW and FLOC, instead focusing on hands-

on active participation to effect change.100 Similarly to Sister Mary Giovanni starting GAP in

St. Paul, Minnesota to help local Latinos and farmworkers, other women like Irene and Molly

Muñoz successfully got their local sisters to back farmworker unions.101 Women like Olga

Villa Parra in Michigan and Tess Browne in Wisconsin tied their farm labor activism in with

their preexisting activism. Tying together their work in Indiana and Wisconsin respectively,

Olga Villa Parra and Tess Browne, both members of Las Hermanas, also assisted farmworker

unions by serving in the Midwest Council of La Raza and working as a leader of the

Milwaukee and Wisconsin state boycott offices, respectively.102 Working within women’s

traditional roles as nurturers, both women also exemplified their growing personal strength as

women and the ideals of the Chicana and Feminist movement as they led organizations.

Mobilized by the movements of the time to change the patriarchal power structure, Las

Hermanas, a national organization of Latino nuns and laywomen, also demanded greater

equality for women and Latinos in the Catholic Church and in society at large. The Chicano

Movement, farmworker boycotts, and Vatican II radicalized Chicana religious women in the

1960s and 1970s. Yolanda Tarango began to learn about the Chicano movement and the UFW

from newspaper and journal articles she read while she was a novice. Already thrilled by what

she read, she met more radical and inspiring ideas and individuals when she went to school in

100 Letter to Fellow Ministers from Rev. Paul Paskewitz.

101 Medina, Las Hermanas, 35.

102 Ibid, 85; Pulido, de Alvarado, and Samora eds., Moving Beyond Borders, 81.

180

Chicago. Motivated by the new yet fringe theological ideas that encouraged equality for women

and Chicanos in the church and society, Yolanda helped start Las Hermanas, supported

farmworker boycotts, and took part in protests during ordinations to challenge women’s lack of

power in the Church.103 Las Hermanas members like Yolanda fought to better Catholic

Mexican American women’s experience in the Catholic Church, including arguing that the

Church should respect and properly pay Mexican nuns who were forced to work as domestics

in rectories.104 Las Hermanas members tied together the ideals of feminism, Chicano identity,

and the labor rights ideals developed by farmworker unions to demand a better life for

Chicanos, women, and migrants.

Not just radicalized to better women’s position in the church and society, Las Hermanas

assisted farmworker unions, using their newsletter Informes to inform and update other Las

Hermanas members of FLOC and the UFW.105 Many Las Hermanas members consistently

appealed to the Catholic Church and Catholic groups to respect farmworker unions by

protesting, walking out, and demanding non-union foods be banned from various religious

women’s conferences.106 Two members, Irene and Molly Muñoz, convinced their local sisters

to take an active stance in the farmworker boycotts. Irene and Molly, sisters who both entered

the Sisters of Humility of Mary in the Midwest, struggled to convince all their Catholic sisters

to take a stand on farmworker unions and not be concerned about disturbing the “status quo.”107

103 Tarango, interview by Sr. Maria Eva Flores.

104 Medina, Las Hermanas, 19.

105 Ibid, 19.

106 Ibid, 86. A 1975 NAWR conference at a university served non-union lettuce, so Las Hermanas walked out and

protested the university. Las Hermanas members demanded that no grapes be served at a Women’s Ordination

Conference, and they also demanded a college where they held a conference to not serve nonunion lettuce.

107 Ibid, 35.

181

Members like the Muñoz sisters even demanded the removal of a Campbell Soup ad in the

Catholic Directory in 1981.108 Influenced by the Feminist and Chicano Movements of the time,

and encouraged by the changes enacted in Vatican II, Las Hermanas members demonstrated

alternate ideas of power, demanding the Church listen to women and the migrants in the fields.

The women of Las Hermanas combined the ideologies of migrant farmworkers’

struggles, Catholic Mexican Americans, and women into a cohesive set of ideals that

empowered farmworkers, Latinos, men, and women. They called for an end to racism within

the Catholic Church and specifically within their religious institute, but they did so by not only

addressing lack of representation or programs for Mexican Catholics, but also by addressing the

labor rights of Mexican American Catholic nuns, the rights of women in general, and the

struggles of the Church’s Mexican American constituents: striking farmworkers. Combining

issues of gender, labor, and power, Las Hermanas members refused to be subjugated by

Catholic men, including PADRES members. In a letter sent to PADRES, Las Hermanas

members argued in 1973 that they would continue “peaceful co-existence” with PADRES as

long as PADRES did not interfere with Las Hermanas’ efforts to help their people.109 A debate

at Las Hermanas’ National Encuentro revealed that some Las Hermanas members felt held

back by PADRES members, that PADRES did not support the “struggle of [their] people,”

PADRES failed to work cooperatively with Las Hermanas, and PADRES members failed to

place themselves within any major Catholic group that could influence national religious

108 Letter to P.J. Kennedy and Sons from Sylvia Sedillo, SL, September 1, 1981, 31: Las Hermanas, 1981,

Midwest Council of La Raza, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame,

South Bend, Indiana.

109 Letter to PADRES national and Regional director from Las Hermanas National Office, received September 7,

1973, 16: Las Hermanas, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University

of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

182

politics.110 Las Hermanas’ empowerment of women and Latinas in the Church extended to their

work with farmworkers as Tess Browne became one of the few female UFW boycott leaders to

manage an entire state boycott and Olga Villa Parra labored in the Midwest Council of La Raza

in Indiana. The ideas that developed out of social movements inspired the women of Las

Hermanas to demand the Church and society listen to the issues of Chicana women.

Working alongside Las Hermanas, NAWR members in the Midwest and the nation at

large, in addition to other non-Latino religious women, worked to change the agricultural,

gender, and social power structures that relegated minorities, women, and farmworkers to

poverty. Nuns and laywomen became involved in the UFW and FLOC boycotts because of

their increasing awareness of the farmworker cause, encouraging others to see the issues of

farmworkers. NAWR encouraged the activism of nuns and other religious women in

farmworker issues, establishing a committee totally focused on farmworkers, as well as having

a paid staff member, Sister Pat Drydyk.111 Drydyk worked full-time to promote and work on

the UFW boycott and encouraged other nuns to also support farmworkers, not just in the way

of food and used clothes, but in changing the food pyramid. Like numerous Las Hermanas

members and the Illinois and Michigan Migrant Ministry, Pat Drydyk and some of her NAWR

allies realized that the early charity efforts to feed and clothe migrants did not address the real

problem. While migrant unions like UFW and FLOC petitioned for religious support, women

like Pat Drydyk believed women had the power to support farmworkers’ unionizing efforts.

NAWR leaders desired “to challenge and mobilize sisters to live out the gospel values they

110 Ibid.

111 Letter to NAWR from Sr. Pat Drydyk.

183

espouse through active participation in the struggle of the farmworkers in this county.”112

Similarly, Sister Giovanni of St. Paul, Minnesota saw empowerment as important for Latinos.

Likely influenced by her labor-organizing father, Sister Giovanni encouraged pride in Mexican

culture and provided assistance to farmworkers in the St. Paul, Minnesota area through GAP.113

Though outside the Chicano Movement, some of the women of NAWR and Sister Giovanni

understood their religious charge in terms of changing an unjust system by mobilizing religious

and public support for Chicano culture and agency.

NAWR, Las Hermanas, and GAP’s efforts to alter the agricultural system of power

often tied directly or indirectly to gender roles and Chicano identity, exemplifying the influence

and intersection of various social movements of the last half of the twentieth century. Vatican

II, the Chicano Movement, and the Feminist Movement led NAWR members to stand by Las

Hermanas and demand the Catholic Church ordain women and give minority women a greater

position in the church.114 Though unsuccessful in getting the Catholic Church to accept

women’s leadership roles, NAWR empowered farmworkers not just through unionizing, but

also by expanding the rights and freedoms of farmworkers through female migrants’

empowerment. Sister Drydyk, like the Las Hermanas members, Irene and Molly Muñoz,

criticized nuns and laywomen who focused solely on “band-aid” solutions, food and clothing.

To do more than “band-aid” programs, the Camp Health Aid Program (CHAP), established in

1985, instituted medical training for farmworker women to become health counselors who

provided non-emergency medical care and guidance to farmworkers traveling between Texas

112 Letter to the Members of the NAWR Board from S. Catherine, "Job Description of Coord of Sisters Working

with Farm Workers," August 12, 1974, 5:17, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre

Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

113 Hayes, "Nuns, Coeds, High Schoolers;" Demarest, “Bridging the GAP.”

114 Medina, Las Hermanas, 119.

184

and Michigan.115 This program encouraged female farmworker agency by giving some women

the training to better farmworkers’ lives and even ultimately “empowering” these farmworker

women to continue their own medical education.116 The CHAP program gave women the

means to potentially leave the migrant stream, if they desired, or stay within the stream and act

as a respected and important member within the migrant community. The CHAP program also

provided some traveling migrant communities with the ability to help themselves as these

traveling communities no longer had to rely on the dictates and ideas of Anglo charity. The

CHAP program especially characterized some Catholic women’s efforts to support Chicanos’

struggles to gain respect and equality in society.

Religious women’s groups consistently pushed religious women to confront the

agricultural system as radical women sought to empower all minorities and Catholics,

especially women, through unions and other avenues of empowerment. Sister Giovanni in St.

Paul, Minnesota, while not focused solely on women or farmworker issues, established along

with fellow nuns, services that encouraged agency and activism for Latinos. The program she

established, Guadalupe Area Project or GAP, helped farmworkers like Mrs. Fields find non-

agricultural jobs and local housing when her health did not permit her to continue working in

the fields.117 In addition, GAP built on the Guadium et Spes and Pacem in Terri’s teachings of

Vatican II and the Chicano Movement by encouraging respect for Latino culture and fighting

society’s attempts to “Americanize” Latinos. GAP did not offer specific programs that

addressed gender rights and roles, yet Sister Giovanni’s approach in GAP went well beyond the

115 Leslie Jackson, "Migrant Health Aides: A Downstream Pilot Project," Catalyst, 7:2, June 1988, 40:14, National

Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre

Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

116 Jackson, "Migrant Health Aides.”

117 Lewis, “Smiles Greet Migrant Worker.”

185

traditional woman’s role, encouraging and taking a stance to promote activism and agency

among farmworkers and Latinos. The ideological stance of some religious women’s

organizations meant having programs that empowered women and farmworkers to change the

system of power.

Not only within the Catholic Church, gender and social movements also influenced

Midwestern youth. The social movements of the era fueled student activism in universities with

organizations, conferences, protests, and centers established to investigate, discuss, educate,

and demand change. In Catholic universities such as Notre Dame, students like Gilbert

Cardenas and Jose Gamaliel Gonzalez and Olga Villa Parra started MeCHA.118 At the

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Chicanos in the area protested the university’s lack of

Mexican students in the school.119 Programs such as the week long Chicano Week at Notre

Dame also included a pre-event entitled “Las Mujer Chicana” focused specifically on women’s

issues in society and the Chicano Movement.120 The efforts of college students in universities

around the Midwest demonstrated the influence of social movements on the youth of the

Midwest.

While priests and nuns at Notre Dame University encouraged Chicano and non-Chicano

students to get involved in the Chicano Movement and union boycotts, social activism tied with

118 González, Bringing Aztlán to Mexican Chicago, 44-48.

119 Cassell, et. al., University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 81.

120 Wesley Vargas, “La Semana de la Raza,” Observer, April 29, 1975, Digital Collections, University of Notre

Dame Archives, last accessed July 2015, http://www.archives.nd.edu/Observer/1975-04-29_v09_124.pdf.

186

religious ideology to shape other students’ lives.121 Chicano students reacted to the combination

of their religious background and the vibrant activism they encountered in the Midwest, as

individuals became involved in groups like MeCHA, Brown Berets, and OLAS. Magda

Ramírez-Castañeda of Chicago noted a priest, Father Jim, who provided support for

undocumented immigrants, was arrested for working with local unionists alongside several

nuns. This priest's activism and his argument that women could change the system of power

encouraged Magda’s personal feminist ideology.122 For Yolanda Tarango, the Jesuit School of

Theology in Chicago connected her with more radical ideologies and individuals. During her

time at the Jesuit School, Yolanda met Etna Kennedy, the first president of NAWR, and Sister

Marjorie Tuite, a future activist for social justice issues, all the while attending a Jesuit school

so radical that the local Catholic leaders hid the Jesuits from the Pope when he came to the

city.123 Universities and churches became sites to spark youth to action, questioning religious

and gender norms.

However, not all religious groups and student groups acknowledged farmworkers’

power struggles or the role of gender, church hierarchy, and race relations in Latino’s struggles.

Chicano youth at the University of Minnesota, like other universities around the nation, became

involved in groups like the Brown Berets or MeCHA in Notre Dame where students supported

farmworker boycotts, demanded the University of Minnesota’s administrators create a Chicano

121 Amelia M. Munoz, “Major FLOC Victory Ends the Campbell’s Boycott” The Observer, February 26, 1986,

Digital Collections, Notre Dame University Archives, accessed July 2015,

http://www.archives.nd.edu/Observer/1986-02-26_v20_100.pdf; Patrick Gaffney, “Strike! The South Bend

Settlement,” Scholastic, November 21, 1969, 23, Digital Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, accessed

July 2015, http://www.archives.nd.edu/Scholastic/VOL_0111/VOL_0111_ISSUE_0009.pdf.

122 Leonard G. Ramírez, et. al., Chicanas of 18th Street: Narratives of a Movement from Latino Chicago. (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2011), 159.

123 Tarango, interview by Sr. Maria Eva Flores.

187

Studies Program, and supported Latino university groundskeepers’ demands for better pay.124

Yet for some women like Yenelli Flores of Chicago, Illinois, the Chicano Movement ignored

Latina women’s concerns because not all those radicalized by social movements believed in

focusing on women’s rights.125 Flores described her and her friend Magda’s dislike for some of

the macho attitudes of some Chicano members in the Midwest and the nation. Flores recalled

female Chicana students confined to cooking tacos in the University of Chicago’s Organization

of Latin American Students (OLAS) group.126 In the Church, Las Hermanas members met

hesitation by PADRES members to financially assist Hermanas member’s participation in the

Women’s Ordination Conference, likely due to some PADRES members’ disinterest in

women’s ordination.127 The different experiences of activist religious women and youth

characterized the contested understanding of hierarchy, rights, patriarchy, and gender in the

churches, schools, fields, and general public of the Midwest.

While organizations like NAWR and Las Hermanas and individual Chicanas in the

Midwest consistently questioned the role of migrant farmworkers and women in society, many

continually met resistance. Las Hermanas and NAWR, like several other Catholic women’s

groups in the 1960s and 1970s, questioned gendered division of labor, women’s subordination,

and the position of the Catholic Church in social movements. Las Hermanas members’ refused

to be subjugated to the kitchen by some PADRES members who relegated them to traditional

124 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota;

Pulido et al., Moving Beyond Borders, 85, 170.

125 Ramírez et. al., Chicanas of 18th Street, 109.

126 Ibid.

127 PADRES and Las Hermanas Joint Board Meeting Minutes, August 18, 1978, 16: Las Hermanas, PADRES

Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana.

188

gender norms instead of treating them as equals in the fight for Chicano rights in the Church

and in the fields. In demanding PADRES accept them as equals and insisting on women’s

rights in the stream and in the Church, Las Hermanas and NAWR members questioned the

male hierarchy and insisted that women’s rights be part of both the fight for farmworkers and

minorities. In 1972, Las Hermanas worked alongside PADRES to create the Mexican American

Cultural Center (MACC) that educated priests and laypersons about Hispanic culture and faith

and sought to empower the Chicano poor to “direct their own destinies.”128 PADRES and Las

Hermanas’ MACC relationship was strained as early as the late 1970s, but by 1980 Las

Hermanas board members considered boycotting MACC because of some of PADRES’

actions, including choosing Las Hermanas’ representative on the MACC board instead of

allowing Hermanas to choose their own representative.129 Later on, PADRES forced out the

Las Hermanas representative on the MACC board of directors and forced out or fired other Las

Hermanas members who taught at MACC because of the their strong feminist ideologies.130 A

future attempt to work in MACC in 1983 by a strong feminist Las Hermanas member, Yolanda

Tarango, had a similar ending.131 Though sharing similar concerns and ideologies regarding the

agricultural power structure, Catholic women still faced resistance from the patriarchal

structure of the Catholic Church.

128 Medina, Las Hermanas, 70.

129 Las Hermanas board meeting, August 9, 1981, 31: Las Hermanas, 1981, Midwest Council of La Raza,

University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

130 Medina, Las Hermanas, 100. Las Hermanas and PADRES had guaranteed representatives on the MACC board.

In 1979, when the Las Hermanas board member’s term was finished, PADRES informed Las Hermanas that board

members had to be elected and no organization would have guaranteed representatives on the board.

131 Ibid.

189

As several PADRES members relegated women to supporting roles based on gender

norms, they demonstrated not only a set of ideologies within the Catholic Church, but also

Mexican and Mexican American society. The Cursillo Movement was a Mexican American

male-centric religious revival where Mexican American men, who were traditionally less

religious than women, became closer to the Catholic faith by focusing on a more masculine

type of Catholicism.132 Many went through this program, including some PADRES members

and the UFW’s leader, Cesar Chavez.133 The emphasis on masculine religion arguably

compounded masculine ideas that ignored women’s role in the Catholic Church. PADRES’

acceptance of an all male structure of power in the church exemplified their approach to

farmworkers as they supported efforts to empower farmworkers through official structures

usually dominated by men, such as unions, and failed to work with feminist nuns demanding

greater equality in the Catholic Church. Some Las Hermanas members noted that in joint

meetings with PADRES some PADRES members insisted that Las Hermanas members cook

and clean.134 PADRES’ support for hierarchical and gendered structures was also exemplified

by the inclusion of only clerical persons. While Las Hermanas allowed laywomen to be in the

Las Hermanas leadership in 1976, PADRES remained an all-clerical group, maintaining men’s

influence and power as women could not be ordained.135 While PADRES sought to empower

farmworkers and Mexicans in the Catholic Church, they reaffirmed traditional gender norms

132 Frank Bardacke. Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers

(New York: Verso, 2011), 64, 30-31.

133 Ibid, 64, 30-31.

134 Medina, Las Hermanas, 94-95.

135 Ibid, 63; Martínez, PADRES, 60-65. Las Hermanas did not allow laywomen to have voting rights for many

years, but Las Hermanas eventually allowed all Chicana women to hold leadership roles in the organization.

190

and power structures based within Catholic and Mexican American social structures and

religious ideology.

The traditional gender norms within the farmworker movement, the Catholic Church,

and even the Chicano Movement within the Midwest influenced the involvement of men and

women in the farmworker movement as some excelled beyond traditional gender norms while

others felt trapped. For women in Las Hermanas, Notre Dame or UW-Madison’s MeCHA

group, or for NAWR members, gendered norms motivated their activism and involvement

within the UFW or FLOC boycott.136 While Tess Browne and Olga Villa Parra had certain

leadership positions, most other women struggled to be respected. Maria Elena Ortega argued

that she felt mistrusted by FLOC leader Baldemar Velasquez when she organized with FLOC

in the mid 1980s, making her feel unwelcome in the organization despite believing in the

union’s efforts.137 Ortega also argued that she felt discouraged by Chavez and Velasquez from

organizing Illinois mushroom workers, essentially discouraging her from taking a major

organizing role.138 In contrast to Ortega’s experience that discouraged women’s active position,

some female Mexican American were encouraged to vocalize women’s rights and women’s

experiences. A two-week “Chicano Week” event in 1975 occurred after a Chicana week

entitled “Las Mujer Chicana,” sponsored by the student group MeCHA at Notre Dame.139

Women’s experiences in the last half of the twentieth century illustrated the different forces

that discouraged and encouraged women’s participation within the Chicano Movement, FLOC,

136 Valeria Davis, ed., Wisconsin Badger, 93 (1980), digital collection, University of Wisconsin Collection,

accessed June 2015, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-

idx?type=turn&id=UW.UWYearBk1980&entity=UW.UWYearBk1980.p0253&q1=chavez.

137 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun, 229.

138 Ibid, 216-221.

139 Wesley, “La Semana de la Raza.”

191

the Catholic Church, and the general public. Different perceptions of women’s power and the

Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women perpetuated public and farmworker unions’

underappreciated view of women as the UFW and FLOC focused on gaining recognition from

the official church hierarchy, ignoring women’s positions as educators and respected

Catholics.140

While organizations like Las Hermanas, NAWR, Handmaids of Jesus Christ, and the

Sisters of Humility of Mary in the Midwest supported farmworkers in the fields and in the

picket line, women’s lack of authority and power in the Catholic Church meant women did not

have the authority farmworker unions sought. Authority meant unions could legitimate their

cause with the backing of local, state, and national religious groups that spoke on behalf of their

church. As Chavez once noted: “I go to unions for publicity and money; to the Church for

respectability; to students for bodies.”141 Religious women like Dolorita Martinez of Las

Hermanas, though important, did not provide the legitimacy or respectability that UFW and

FLOC publically sought, especially since religious women’s groups like Las Hermanas worked

outside the Catholic bureaucracy because women had no official position in the male

dominated church. As farmworker unions sought public support from Catholic leaders sitting in

committee rooms, Catholic women who wanted to support migrants changing the power

structure of society, used their hands and voices to enact radical change on the ground just as

they did in other social movements. The structure of the Catholic hierarchy coupled with

140 "Schools Reject Soup Label Program," Labor News, June 1980, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; McDannell, The Spirit of Vatican

II, 183.

141 Jenkins, The Politics of Insurgency, 167.

192

unions’ use of boycotts that emphasized public support, encouraged the subjugated women’s

public roles in affecting change.

Planting and Reaping the Seeds of Change

The 1960s to 1970s era of activism influenced the logistical, financial, and moral

support farmworkers received. The interdenominational Migrant Ministry, especially, offered

much needed financial and logistical assistance to farmworker unions, while the Catholic

Church offered moral support for migrants.142 The Catholic Church and its members offered

legitimacy to the union cause. University students radicalized by the Chicano, Civil Rights, and

Feminist Movements created an army of farmworker union allies. At Notre Dame, a Catholic

University, a student boycott group convinced enough students to vote for the university to

boycott Campbell products.143 In addition, the university encouraged discussions on social

issues, creating among other things a class that included guest speakers such as Jesus Salas, the

leader of the Wisconsin farmworker union, Obreros Unidos.144 Catholic grade schools, not just

universities, also played an important part in the FLOC boycott. The support of Catholic nuns

resulted in grade schools’ refusal to take part in the Campbell’s “Labels for Education”

financial program, as schools refused to accept money from a company that exploited its

workers.145 Catholic assistance also lifted the spirits of strikers as both FLOC and UFW

142 Letter to NAWR from Sr. Pat Drydyk; Si Se Puede.

143 Munoz, “Major FLOC Victory Ends the Campbell’s Boycott.”

144 UW News release, February 28, 1969, Industrial Relations Research Institute, University of Wisconsin

Collection, accessed July 2015, http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/UW/UW-

idx?type=turn&entity=UW.IndustrialRelations.p0054&id=UW.IndustrialRelations&isize=M&q1=Obreros.

145 “Schools Reject Soup Label Program."

193

marches and events included prayers, Lady of Guadalupe banners, and communion.146

Migrants and Campbell felt that Catholics’ support was so important that Campbell desperately

tried to receive Catholic recognition and publicized any Catholic group or individual that spoke

out against unionization.147 With the moral and boycott assistance of the Catholic Church and

nuns, FLOC successfully created the first three-party negotiations between growers,

farmworkers, and a company; while at the same time the UFW successfully unionized

California grape workers and educated the public about farmworker conditions.

In addition to providing moral support, female members of the Catholic Church also

served as a point of contact for migrants’ interactions with the feminist movement as religious

women often worked on the ground to enact change. Radical Latinas in Las Hermanas, boycott

leaders like Tess Browne, and other strong-willed women in Catholic groups like NAWR

offered Mexican and Mexican American migrant women examples of women who defied

gender norms. These ideas dovetailed into the type of union created by farmworkers, as FLOC

encouraged all family members to take part in the union and as one of the most well known

leaders of the UFW was a woman, Dolores Huerta.148 Las Hermanas, though originally led by a

president and vice-president, shifted to a more egalitarian organization with three voted to co-

lead the organization, including in 1972 Consuela Covvarubias from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.149

Notions of empowerment and egalitarianism empowered some farmworker women, such as

146 Michael Penn, image, Philadelphia Inquirer, 5:14, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

147 Bertels, “A Nun Speaks Out Against the FLOC Boycott;” Letter to Sister Mynette Tossing of St. Teresa School

from Rodger Dean Duncan, Corporate Relations of Campbells Soup, December 14, 1981, 24:2, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

148 FLOC Women's Committee First Quarter Report, 1978, 4:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

149 Report of National Coordinations, 16: Las Hermanas, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame

Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

194

Maria Elena Ortega, as they became active members of the union and adopted some feminist

ideology.150 Maria remembered a nun who worked with FLOC and fought for women to be

treated with respect and humanely within the union, fighting in one instance for Maria’s need to

miss a meeting for health reasons.151 Olgha Sandman, the female leader of the Illinois Farm

Worker Ministry, inspired Maria to actively take part in farmworker unions.152 These

inspirations led Maria Elena to push gender boundaries by organizing in the fields for FLOC.

At the same time women also used their traditional gendered roles to support organizing, such

as Maria Elena making tamales, tostadas, and taquitos to help draw people to meetings

demanding the Catholic Church provide the Mexican American residents of Onarga with a

church of their own.153 Latina farmworkers encountered feminist ideology through Las

Hermanas, other Catholic women’s organizations, and even farmworker unions that were

influenced by the social movements of the era.154

Despite Catholic and farmworker women’s attempts to effect change in the fields and

the Church, women met with resistance as power structures continued to support masculine

power and gender norms. While some religious orders and bishops accepted women’s position

in social movements, such as Tess Browne’s role as the UFW boycott director in Wisconsin,

other local Bishops forced women like Sister Rosa Martha Zárate, who created a religious self-

150 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun.

151 Ibid, 254.

152 Ibid, 185.

153 Ibid, 193.

154 “Coordinators Reports- Yolanda Tarango,” Informes de Las Hermanas, 1, no. 5, (December 1986), 16: Las

Hermanas, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre

Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Ortega, Forged Under the Sun.

195

determined community in San Diego, to resign and leave the church.155 In the Midwest, Maria

Elena felt Baldemar Velasquez, the leader of FLOC, did not have confidence in female

organizers’ abilities, and Maria also met resistance by her local priest for trying to organize and

better her fellow farmworkers’ lives.156 Similarly, Yolanda Tarango met resistance from the

Catholic Church in Chicago when her and her fellow female activists stood up during men’s

ordination ceremonies to shout “I am ready and willing” when the men being ordained were to

say the words, disrupting the service to protest the Church’s refusal to ordain women.157 Local

officials eventually made the ceremonies private and hired police to block the nuns from

handing out fliers and protesting outside the private chapels, but local officials faced public

scrutiny for arresting women who were peacefully protesting outside a church.158 Women like

Tess Browne who had leadership roles and the prominent position of Dolores Huerta in the

UFW offered migrants examples of changing gender dynamics. However, migrants also had

examples of women facing resistance to their activism as people within the Church, public, and

migrant stream negotiated how notions of women’s power and Chicano rights fit within

farmworker rights. Female activist youths faced resistance as Chicano student movements often

silenced female dissent, arguing that Chicana arguments were an Anglo-inspired divisive

strategy, essentially pushing Chicana feminists to either ignore women’s issues or be

considered by some male and female Chicanos as a destructive force within the organization.

Yet, the silencing of Chicana feminists in Las Hermanas and universities meant that migrants

155 Medina, Las Hermanas, 113-116. Sister Zárate sued the diocese and was expelled for her lawsuit. She lost the

suit.

156 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun, 258.

157 Tarango, interview by Sr. Maria Eva Flores.

158 Ibid.

196

had few such examples of women in leadership, instead most of the women in aid programs

and within Midwest unions struggled to gain respect and sometimes left programs, unions, or

religious groups after continued problems. Other women in the field and in the temple

continued to face resistance to their feminist ideology, though many continued to persevere and

inspire others. For migrant women in the field, the experiences of female leaders in the Church

and union exemplified the tenuous rights of women who resisted the hierarchical male power

structures in the union, in the Catholic Church, and in society.

While some of the assistance programs developed in the Midwest characterized

developing notions of feminism, labor rights, and civil rights, farmworker aid also

characterized conflicting notions of agency and power. While several groups supported labor

organizing, many still relegated migrants to the secondary role when it came to decisions.

Limited migrant input in Migrant Ministries in Michigan and Illinois, as well as the prayer for

Anglo guidance to struggling Latinos, indicated a general perception that Anglo outsiders had

to enact change.159 The use of boycotts by Midwest and national unions only strengthened the

image of Anglos as agents of change and migrants as passive subjects seeking Anglo

assistance. Very few farmworkers or ex-farmworkers had leadership roles in organizations

meant to assist them. This meant that while programs provided important services their

methods did not always benefit migrants, as was the case with the El Centro Day Care Poor

Handmaid’s daycare service where migrant children learned to become good Americans.

Farmworkers needed to have input on services to ensure that programs truly helped. In one

159 DeKalb County Migrant Ministry Information Sheet; Letter to Reverend Isaac Igarashi from Mrs. Malvina

Holvorsen, March 2, 1966, 1:5, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Larry Hills, “The Migrant Ministry Can Help the

Michigan Fruit Farmer,” Michigan Christian Advocate, 10, 3:43, Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition

Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

197

example, Wisconsin’s La Raza established an English language program that few ex-migrants

attended. Only after talking with the migrants did they learn that migrants preferred to learn

English, since this was a skill that would help them leave the stream.160 No such encounter or

discussion exists in other program records. The hierarchical and racial based power structure of

some organizations meant leaders made the decisions on how to define and solve “the migrant

problem,” ultimately failing to work with migrants to provide some of the assistance

farmworkers actually needed.

Social movements of the 1960s and 1970s shaped the religious, gendered, and social

perspectives of organization members, influencing the variety of programs Mexican and

Mexican American migrant farmworkers found in the Midwest. While 1950s and early 1960s

organizations such as the Migrant Ministry focused on providing needed basics and religious

services, future Migrant Ministry programs and services by organizations, such as NAWR and

Las Hermanas, empowered farmworkers to change their lives. The social movements of the

1960s and 1970s radicalized the public’s understanding of power, gender, and ethnicity. Yet the

different composition of organizations, the changing influence of various social movements,

and the different gendered and ethnic composition of organizations led to a variety of services

that exemplified the beliefs of the organizations’ members rather than the actual needs of

farmworkers in the area. The Handmaids’ medical assistance to farmworkers exemplified their

interest in providing assistance to farmworkers using their medical knowledge. While the

Handmaids’ efforts helped farmworkers, other groups like NAWR’s CHAP gave basic medical

training to farmworker women to specifically empower female farmworkers so they could

160 “Project self-help for settled out migrants,” 4:49; La Raza Collection, Wisconsin State Historical Society,

Madison, Wisconsin.

198

assist each other without the assistance of Anglo outside groups. The organizations of the

1960s through the 1980s, though influenced by the social movements of the mid twentieth

century, were still influenced by traditional, racial, and gendered interpretations of society,

resulting in services that sometimes offered minimal assistance to farmworkers.

Dead Vines and the End of Aid

Aid programs in and outside the Catholic Church developed during an era of activism

and awareness. Various groups within the Catholic Church reacted differently to the struggles

of migrants, viewing the struggle of migrants in terms of the Harvest of Shame with its issues

of poverty or the UFW which attacked migrants’ lack of power within the system. For those

influenced by the notion of empowering migrants, especially women, the social movements of

the era also tied notions of women’s rights and Chicano rights to the notion of changing the

power structure of the migrant stream. Yet not all within the Catholic Church or society

accepted the combination of these social movements with the movement for change in the

stream, resulting in negotiations about how much the issues of women and Chicanos interacted

with migrants’ position in the stream. As members of the Catholic Church interacted with the

Midwest public and social movements of the era, each aid group decide whether they would

offer basic aid that failed to address migrants’ position on the bottom of the food pyramid, or

aid that supported farmworkers’ empowerment. The form of aid often characterized the

makeup of the organizations, as groups that ignored the voices of migrants often ignored

migrants’ position at the bottom of the food pyramid, while groups involved in social

movements, especially women’s groups interested in gender equality, often wanted to

199

restructure power dynamics for farmworkers, Chicanos, and even women. Yet the public

activism and awareness that resulted in this time of aid, no matter the form, made aid tied to

public sympathy. As public interest and sympathy for migrants, women, and Chicanos faded

away in the 1980s and 1990s, so too did the momentum for change. The ultimate result was a

moment of major assistance in the form of food, shelter, clothing, and empowerment that had

important ramification, but did not continue to leave a lasting impact on migrants in the stream.

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the social movements that shaped

Midwesterners, Latinos, farmworkers, and Catholics’ perceptions of society came to end just as

the geography of the Midwest stream shifted. The fervor of concern for workers that started in

the 1960s, alongside unions and civil rights movements dissipated in the 1980s and 1990s. The

tomato growers who drew migrant laborers to DeKalb, Illinois for several months throughout

the 1960s and 1970s decreased in number as farmworker regulations and economics

encouraged growers to switch to corn.161 In Ohio, some growers changed to crops that required

almost no laborers to avoid the FLOC union.162 Lack of apathy forced the DeKalb Migrant

Ministry to close in the 1980s as fewer farmworkers came to the region by the 1980s. Similarly,

local efforts to provide minimal help to farmworker children through summer education

programs or donations of food and clothing, as in DeKalb, Illinois, ceased. Throughout much of

the Midwest, fewer growers grew the vegetables and fruits typically harvested by migrants

while mechanization reduced migrant numbers, compounding the decreasing interest and

161 George Gutierrez, interview by Lucille Aikins.

162 Mike Steere, "Farm Labor Strike Against Canneries, Growers Seen as Almost Inevitable," The Blade, July 28,

1978, 24:42, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

200

concern for migrant farmworkers.163 All the while, the general public became apathetic to the

farmworkers’ plight just as the social movements faded into the background. While GAP still

existed by 1991 and Las Hermanas existed into the twenty-first century, Las Hermanas

founding members noted a greater conservatism within the organization and a struggle to

survive.164 The Catholic activism that started with Vatican II and coincided with 1960s and

1970s social movements, shifted away from a focus on social activism. The conservatism and

the union and minority backlash of the 1980s reduced national and Midwest interest in

minorities and farmworkers’ struggles while feminists faced a backlash in the 1980s.

Midwest public support for boycotts and unions, in addition to Mexican American

concerns, began to fade from the public conversation. Though student activism flared briefly in

the 1980s to support FLOC and the end of Apartheid in South Africa, and although Latino

academic programs and organizations still existed in Universities like Notre Dame, the

University of Minnesota, and other Midwest schools, universities ceased to be sites of activism

by the 1990s.165 Part of this decreasing activism came from the success, and thereby the public

disappearance, of farmworker boycotts. Midwest boycott groups existed to advocate for the

UFW or FLOC, so when unions’ boycotts came to a close, so too did these groups that brought

Midwest attention to migrants’ issues. Many organizations that supported Latino and

163 Philip Martin, Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America, (New York: Yale

University Press, 2009), 35; Philip L. Martin and David A. Martin, The Endless Quest: Helping America's Farm

Workers, (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1994), 169.

164 Ramsey County, Minnesota Telephone Directories, 1991, Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota State

Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Medina, Las Hermanas, 144-145.

165 Letter to the President from Jo, March 28, 1985, 3727: South African Concerns, Office of the President, Indiana

State University Archives, Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana; Memo

to Donald M Hilt from Orin L. Dahl, Subject: South African Concerns, May 17, 1985, 3091: South African

Investments, Office of the President, Indiana State University Archives, Cunningham Memorial Library, Indiana

State University, Terre Haute, Indiana.

201

farmworker rights either ceased to operate or disappeared from the public’s attention; for

example, PADRES ceased to meet after 1989.166 Though both the UFW and FLOC still exist

today, the UFW eventually lost their original contracts, and FLOC shifted focus to the pickle

industry in North Carolina in the 1990s, leaving the Midwest.167 The public’s increasing lack

of apathy coupled with the decreasing interest in farmworker unions meant that the Midwest

and Churches were no longer sites of activism.

The disappearance of organizations and programs at the end of the twentieth century

made it so that the “migrant problem” appeared solved, or at least no longer an issue worth

attention as migrants’ role in the food pyramid faded from public memory. Yet the “migrant

problem,” no matter how defined, remains. The general disinterest in farmworkers’ living

conditions in the 1980s weakened pressure on the government and industry to change the

system just as the United States leadership displayed strong anti-union sentiment.168 Instead of

solving the “migrant problem,” decreasing concern for migrants in the 1980s only let the

“migrant problem” disappear from public view while simultaneously making it more difficult

for farmworkers to solve their problems through unions. By the 1990s, the public did not view

the “migrant problem” as solved so much as they simply saw no migrants and thus no “migrant

problem.” Just as Vatican II, the Chicano Movement, the Feminist Movement, the UFW, and

FLOC inspired religious organizations and the Midwest public’s interest in “the migrant

166 Martínez, PADRES, 130, 132-133.

167 Prouty, César Chávez, The Catholic Bishops, 133-137; Patrick H. Mooney and Theo J. Majke, Farmers’ and

Farm Workers’ Movements: Social Protest in American Agriculture (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 209-

211; Francesca Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA: Globalization, Agribusiness, the US-Mexico Food Chain,

and Farm-worker Struggles in North Carolina,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007).

168 McCartin, Collision Course.

202

problem,” so too did the decreasing influence of these movements mean Mexican and Mexican

American migrant farmworkers faded from Midwesterners’ memories.

CHAPTER 5

"CREAM OF EXPLOITATION": AGRIBUSINESS, THE FOOD CHAIN

AND FARMWORKER AGENCY IN THE CASE OF FLOC

“The canner has the grower under his thumb and the grower has the

worker under his thumb… we want to change that relationship.”1

-Baldemar Velasquez

Walking into the migrant camp, Maria Elena Ortega felt nervous. This was the first time

she had come alone to talk about the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) to

farmworkers; and though she had met some opposition in the past, she continued. Maria knew

organizing the pickle workers in Ohio was the right thing to do. Only organizing and obtaining

more power in the migrant stream and in the field would help the migrants. Maria Elena knew

this from personal experience. She grew up a migrant worker and continued to occasionally

work in the fields as an adult.2 She knew the struggle, and she knew farmworkers needed a

voice in the farmworker system. That’s why she supported the United Farm Workers (UFW) in

California and why she started organizing for FLOC in the summer of 1985. That’s why she

walked into this camp, to get the pickle workers to sign cards making FLOC their

1 "FLOC Anticipates Strike," Nuestra Lucha, 2, no. 3 (July- September 1978), 1, 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

2 Maria Elena Ortega, Forged Under the Sun/ Forjada Bajo el Sol: The Life of Maria Elena Lucas, ed. Fran Leepa

Buss (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1993).

204

representative.3 But she also knew some had already heard of FLOC, as many pickle workers

also worked the tomato fields that FLOC had been organizing since 1975. So while she knew

there would be some opposition, she had hope that a majority of this camp would vote to make

FLOC their representative and that, with one more camp, FLOC would be able to push

companies like Campbell and Vlasic to negotiate with both FLOC and the growers. Only then

could farmworkers obtain a voice in the process and push for better working and living

conditions, and growers continue to survive and get an even better deal with the companies.

Maria Elena knew this was the best way for workers; that’s why, despite her nervousness, she

confidently walked up to the first migrant family she saw standing outside their home.4

Maria Elena’s endorsement of the United Farm Workers and FLOC exemplified the

activism of migrants in the last half of the twentieth century. Individual Midwest farmworkers

like Maria Elena and farmworker organizations like FLOC both adapted to, but also

questioned, the structure of the Midwest migrant stream. Developed during an era of social

protests, FLOC’s construction and choices reflected an awareness of power relations in

agriculture and the changing and contested gender and patriarchal dynamics both inside and

outside the migrant stream. Empowering the farmworkers who came to the Midwest, FLOC

focused on organizing tomato and pickle workers in Ohio, not just against growers, but also

against the large corporations that dictated the agricultural structure. In questioning certain

power structures, FLOC helped reshape the migrant stream in the Midwest by pushing for

three-party negotiations between growers, workers, and corporations while also developing an

3 Pickle workers grew and harvested cucumbers that were then harvested and pickled. From here on, I will refer to

the fields and workers as pickle workers and fields as FLOC’s focus lay only on workers that handled cucumbers

meant to be pickled.

4 This narrative is based on the information about Maria Elena’s life.

205

organization that empowered migrant families to defend their rights. FLOC’s strike and boycott

against Campbell Soup, the subsequent inclusion of the pickling company Vlasic and its pickle

fields, and the development of a migrant, family-centered, union provide a glimpse of the

various parties and roles within the food chain and the agency that farmworker men, women,

and children displayed. Examining the organizational formation of FLOC and the strategic

choices of FLOC and its members provides a key to understanding gender, agency, and the

organizational structure of the Midwest agricultural system within the last half of the twentieth

century.

Condensed Power

The pyramidal agricultural structure in the pickle and tomato fields in Ohio, and

partially in Michigan, developed after years of negotiation between the different forces of the

system. The story of FLOC’s struggle with tomato canning and pickling companies began in

the 1940s and 1950s with the growth of canning corporations. Already a tomato producing

region by the 1930s, major canning corporations opened facilities in Northwest Ohio in the

1940s.5 With the introduction of large canning facilities in Northwest Ohio by companies like

Heinz; Campbell; Libby, McNeil and Libby (Libby); Stockley; Green Giant; and California

Packing Corporation (Del Monte), Ohio became a major agricultural center not just for

tomatoes, but for a variety of crops.6 After the introduction of large canning facilities,

companies took greater control of the various levels of agricultural production, contracting with

5 Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University

of Texas Press, 1991), 37; W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social

Change and Adaptation among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1994), 54.

6 Valdes, Al Norte, 90.

206

growers for a fixed price per acre or bushel and thereby controlling through these set prices the

rate of farmworkers’ pay.7 In addition, corporations extended their power to the fields

themselves, providing seed and strict guidelines to grow the product.8 Corporations enticed

growers with a guaranteed price, and controlled every aspect of the growth and harvest of the

product at no cost to themselves. With fertile soil and numerous canning corporations, Ohio

became second only to California in tomato production by the 1950s, compelling growers to

find a large, cheap labor force to work in the fields.9

With the increasing amount of tomatoes grown, harvested, and canned in Ohio,

canneries and growers’ labor needs shifted to include Mexican and Mexican American

migrants. Originally employing poor Southerners, African Americans, locals, and Eastern

Europeans, Ohio growers and canneries did not start employing Latinos in large numbers until

the second half of the twentieth century.10 Instead, most Mexican and Mexican Americans who

came to the Midwest for agricultural labor from the 1930s to the 1950s worked in the sugar

beet fields of Michigan and Minnesota.11 As various crops increased in production in the 1940s

and 1950s while sugar beet production simultaneously decreased, Mexican and Mexican

Americans from Florida and Texas became the primary labor force for most Midwestern

crops.12 Usually migrating and working in family units, Mexican American migrant workers

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 136.

10 Frank Tobias Higbie, Indispensable Outcasts: Hobo Workers and Community in the American Midwest, 1880-

1930 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 105.

11 Higbie, Indispensable Outcast, 35; Michigan Migrant Ministry Annual Report 1963, 5, 2:17, Michigan Farm

Worker Ministry Coalition Collection Papers, 1950-1990, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

12 Valdes, Al Norte, 136-137.

207

travelled along a variety of migrant routes through the Midwest, working in various fields

including: apples, cherries, sugar beets, tomatoes, pickles, mushrooms, and onions.13 Although

routes varied, tomato laborers also commonly worked the pickle fields because the tomato

harvest in the summer coincided with pickle harvests shortly before.14 As Midwest growers

employed more Mexican and Mexican American migrant families in the tomato and pickle

fields, the formation of the Midwest migrant stream during the last half of the twentieth century

began to take shape.

The familial nature of the Midwest stream and the tie between the tomato and pickle

fields shaped the development of FLOC. Pickle fields’ geographic closeness to tomato fields

and the overlapping nature of the pickle and tomato growth and harvest cycles, coupled with

the familial nature of pickle and tomato work, meant many tomato workers organized by FLOC

also worked in the pickle fields. Tomato and pickle fields were so connected that FLOC,

though initially focused on tomato fields in Ohio, expanded to include the pickle fields of

Michigan and Northwestern Ohio around 1983.15 Yet unlike tomato fields, pickle growers

signed a contract with pickle companies, but gave sections of land to migrant families to

13 "Fewer Jobs for Farmworker....," 18:10, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Sister Mary Eloise Thomas, "A Study of the Causes and

Consequences of the Economic Status of Migratory Farm Workers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin"

(Ph.D. dissertation, Notre Dame University, 1960).

14 Thomas, “A Study of the Causes and Consequences;” Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the

Midwest, 73.

15 Collective Bargaining Agreement Between Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Vlasic Foods, Inc. and

Growers Under Contract to Classic Foods, Inc, March 15, 1986 to December 31, 1989, 20:24; Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Barger

and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 73.

208

sharecrop.16 Based on Mexican migrants’ family construction, farmworker families tended

sections or rows of pickles collectively, with the male head of a household receiving a

paycheck for the family’s work, usually forty to fifty percent of the profits split with the

grower.17 Growers paid farmworkers for the amount of pickles harvested, but migrants also

graded the pickles by size and weight and loaded the produce onto trucks, which were tasks

farmworkers lost harvesting time and money performing.18 FLOC’s decision to include pickle

workers in the strike and boycott meant expanding their understanding of power relations

within Midwest agriculture.

For tomatoes, the agricultural structure included canneries, growers, and farmworkers in

a system of diminishing power, yet the pickle industry further complicated power relations. The

agricultural pyramid of power was based on the backs of migrant farmworkers. Although pickle

workers remained at the bottom of the food chain along with tomato pickers, their role as

sharecroppers significantly altered their relationship to power in terms of the law. Agricultural

interest groups, legislatures, and courts continually negotiated and debated the roles of growers,

crew leaders, and farmworkers to determine the “employer” and therefore the person(s) legally

16 FLOC Winter 1978 and 1979 Organizing Campaign, 24:3, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; “FLOC Takes Exception to Madison Pickle

Contracts,” FLOC Newsletter 13 (April 1975), 1-2, 6:63, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

17 “FLOC Takes Exception to Madison Pickle Contracts.”

18 Ibid.

209

liable to follow legislation.19 The pickle industry’s use of sharecropping allowed companies

and growers to obscure power relations by giving corporations actual power and redefining

farmworkers’ power on paper. In an Ohio federal court in 1976, a judge decided that under the

sharecropping system, growers did not pay the Federal Insurance Contribution Act (FICA)

taxes for workers.20 Later, in a U.S. district Court in 1985, a judge argued that because of the

sharecropping structure farmworkers were independent contractors, making growers not liable

to follow child labor laws or pay social security.21 Based on this decision, the government and

the IRS classified pickle workers as self-employed individuals contracting out their personal

and family’s labor to growers. Unfortunately, since many farmworkers did not understand this

labor and legal construction, they eventually found they owed back taxes as tax laws required

them to pay their own taxes as self-employed individuals.22 Affecting not only taxes, the 1985

court decision also excused child labor as it could now be classified as similar to performing

farm chores for your parents. The configuration of the pickle fields and the legal ramifications

of the 1985 decision confused workers so much that FLOC created pamphlets to help

farmworkers determine if they were sharecroppers and how that affected their lives.23 The

19 Robert Jerome Glaser, "American Farm Bureau's Position on Six Federal Bills Affecting Migrant Farm Labor."

(M.S., Illinois State University, 1963). Within the various crops in the national migrant stream, crew leaders,

growers, canning and refinery corporations’ employment agencies, private or public employment agencies,

employment placement programs through organizations such as the American Farm Bureau, and in the case of

sharecropping, farmworkers themselves, could be considered the “employer” of farm laborers depending on how

any given law was written or interpreted. As the costs for following regulations as well as any punishment for the

failure to follow regulations was placed on the “employer,” many groups argued about the interpretation of farm

regulations.

20 James L. Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor and the Farmworker Movement in the

Midwest" (Ph.D. dissertation, Purdue University, 1988), 68-69.

21 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 73-74.

22 Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor."

23 “Are You a Sharecropper?” Nuestra Lucha 5, no. 3 (July 1982), 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

210

tomato canning and pickling corporations depended on an arrangement that manipulated power

as well as used leverage against growers and the family labor of Mexican and Mexican

American migrants to increase agricultural corporations profits.

Corporate Alphabet Soup

Countering migrant protesters’ claims that Campbell helped create and shape the

dilapidated houses and poverty conditions of migrant farmworkers in Ohio’s tomato fields, the

director of Campbell’s Community Relations stated, “We’re just sitting around trying to sell

soup…and they are picking on us.”24 The simple claim of “just selling soup” exemplified the

hidden power of corporations such as Campbell and Vlasic as commercials, labels, and fully

stocked grocery shelves hid the true power of agricultural corporations. The story of FLOC and

the migrant workers of Ohio’s tomato and pickle fields spoke to the construction of the migrant

stream and the power of agri-corporations in the food pyramid. When FLOC struck, they

sought to change the very structure of the food chain, thereby rearranging the system’s use of

their lives for their profits. Influenced by the social and union movements of the time, FLOC’s

efforts to rearrange the food pyramid of power exemplified their intimate understanding of the

system and provided a radical reimagining of the food pyramid.

The FLOC union encouraged and empowered Mexican migrant farmworkers and the

Latino community since FLOC began in 1967. Velasquez started FLOC in the fields of Ohio in

24 Timothy Dwyer, “Each Side Feels Like the Underdog in a Campbell Boycott,” Philadelphia Enquirer, August

5, 1983, 5:14, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

211

1967 when he organized workers against growers.25 Quickly realizing growers’ limited power,

Velasquez shifted FLOC’s attention to empowering urban Chicanos in the Toledo, Ohio area.

Embolden by the Chicano Movement, FLOC initiated co-ops and pushed for a Hispanic voice

in the organizations created to assist Toledo Hispanics.26 This idea of empowering Mexicans to

better their own lives continued when FLOC re-focused on organizing Mexican migrant

farmworkers again in 1975.27 Realizing the agricultural framework pitted growers and

farmworkers against each other as corporations dictated the conditions, FLOC focused on

providing both growers and migrants with a place at the negotiating table with corporations.

Originally trying to organize alongside growers, FLOC leaders eventually initiated a strike

against growers and corporations when growers failed to understand their common position

with farmworkers. Lacking the support of growers, FLOC initially organized farmworkers to

picket the canneries and fields of two of the larger tomato processors in the Toledo, Ohio area:

Libby and Campbell Soup.28

FLOC initially targeted two canning corporations in the Toledo, Ohio area to draw on

members’ knowledge of tomatoes and the agricultural system in order to ultimately shift power

in the food pyramid. FLOC leaders understood that winning a three-party deal with one or two

major companies in the tomato industry would provide monumental and life-altering change for

migrant farmworkers. Though targeting only one crop and a couple of companies, FLOC’s

25 “The Cry of the Harvesters: Farmworkers Fight Campbell’s Soup, Interview with Baldemar Velasquez”

Catholic Agitator (May 1984), 24:59, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

26 “FLOC: The Second Five Years,” Nuestra Lucha, 1, no. 11 (November-December 1977), 5:20, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

27 Collective Bargaining Agreement Between Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Vlasic Foods; Barger and

Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 52.

28 Ward Sinclair, “Saucy Union Battle Tomato Giants,” The Washington Post, July 8, 1982, 9:121, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

212

initial efforts held the possibility of significant change in the larger tomato industry and the

food chain because a three-party deal would force corporations to take responsibility for their

role in the agricultural power structure. FLOC initially boycotted Campbell and Libby, because

they were major companies that contracted with growers in FLOC’s area of support and also

because FLOC leaders and early members were familiar with tomato fields.29 Unlike other

crops, the few companies that canned tomatoes could set low rates for tomato growers who

risked an uncertain market by selling their product independently.30 Though FLOC leaders

eventually shifted their focus to the Campbell Corporation and the Vlasic pickle company,

FLOC’s targets represented an understanding of the Midwest agricultural system of power by

local Ohio workers.

Not only organizing farmworkers against the power of corporations in the fields, FLOC

also educated migrants and the public about canning companies’ extensive power in the

grocery store and with public opinion. In canning tomatoes and processing them into soups and

other products, Campbell created “value added products,” making the item more expensive.31

For tomatoes, the price of “value added products” increased 150% from 1959 to 1979 with

canneries and retail outlets receiving eighty-three percent of the money, growers nine percent,

and farmworkers and cannery workers a mere four percent.32 Canneries’ profits also came from

the employment of cheap, usually female, workers in the canneries, again increasing

29 FLOC Organizing Report for August, September and October 1978, 4:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

30 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 58.

31 Deborah Barndt, ed. Tangled Routes: Women, Work, and Globalization on the Tomato Trail, 2nd ed. (New York:

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008), 20.

32 Peter Downs et. al., “Tomato Industry in Ohio,” Response-Official Program Journal of the United Methodist

Women, 11, no. 6 (June 1979), 4:121, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

213

companies’ profits without sharing the extra profits with their workers and also forcing the

general public to pay higher prices.33 These factors remained largely hidden from public view.

By focusing on Campbell’s hidden power in the fields, canneries, and stores, FLOC sought to

educate the public about the agricultural structure in order to empower farmworkers in the

stream.

Campbell and Vlasic’s power lay in the many layers of the food chain that hid the

power and influence of corporations. Campbell tried to sway the public with claims that they

played no role in the “private” labor negotiations of their growers and refused to “force”

growers to create an organization to negotiate with workers.34 Campbell’s argument presented

growers and fellow corporations as independent parties not tied to each other through the food

chain system. Yet within the agricultural framework of the Midwest, Campbell had power over

growers, and therefore over farmworkers, a fact exemplified by Campbell’s refusal to sign

contracts with growers who did not mechanize, thereby cutting farmworker jobs. FLOC

successfully argued that Campbell’s power to force mechanization on growers demonstrated

their power in the system, and thus over farmworkers.35 Later, Campbell tried to confuse the

public’s perception of power by offering assistance to the migrant community. Using policies

that harkened back to their canning factories elsewhere in the 1960s, Campbell avoided the

33 Barndt, ed. Tangled Routes; Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization,

and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1987). As

Tangled Routes noted, cannery work in Mexico was predominately female, similarly Cannery Women and

Cannery Lives also noted women dominated California canneries between the 1930s and 1950s.

34 “Facts about FLOC,” The Bowling Green Review, 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

35 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 64; “Mechanization- Another View,” Nuestra

Lucha 2, no. 5 (July 1979), 5, 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; “Mud, Blood Characterize Ohio Tomato Strike,” Rural America

(November 1979), 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

214

issues of worker power by giving money to programs that aided migrant farmworkers.36

Campbell offered money to Central Valley Opportunity Center and Clinicas Migrantes

Regional, in addition to donating food to the Ohio Migrant Rest Center and the Texas Migrant

council, which gave out food to the farmworkers who tended the land but could not afford food

for their families.37 Yet FLOC convinced the Clinicas Migrantes Regional to refuse Campbell’s

aid because Campbell’s assistance alleviated the symptoms of poverty but not its cause,

farmworkers’ lack of power.38 Aid allowed Campbell to not only retain power over growers

and farmworkers through the agricultural system, but gain even more power as migrants would

come to depend on the financial assistance of Campbell’s generosity for survival. To

restructure the stream, FLOC members had to bring to light Campbell’s various means of

maintaining power over migrants and growers in the Midwest tomato fields.

In order for farmworkers and the public to understand the food pyramid, they had to

understand growers’ power and lack of power. Many farmworkers directly saw growers’ power

over migrants’ lives, but hidden beneath this display of power and control growers struggled to

survive in an agricultural system dominated by powerful corporations. FLOC tried to work with

growers in the 1970s, but growers refused out of a combination of fear and pride. Some

growers viewed unionized farmworkers as either a threat to their livelihood or a foolish group

that would anger powerful corporations that could certainly squash both growers and migrants.

36 Daniel Sidorick, Condensed Capitalism: Campbell Soup and the Pursuit of Cheap Production in the Twentieth

Century. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009), 163-164.

37 Letter to Sister Mynette Tossing of St. Teresa School from Rodger Dean Duncan, Corporate Relations of

Campbell Soup, December 14, 1981, 24:2, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; "Clinic Rejects Campbell's Money" Nuestra Lucha 5, no. 2

(April 1982), 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

38 Ibid.

215

Other growers held on to their fictitious masculine power and independence, so pivotal to the

grower self-image, refusing to accept their common position with migrants.39 Independence

drove growers to resist government interference in their labor relations with migrants in various

ways, from ex-growers and their children trucking agricultural goods outside government

regulation and control to refusing cooperating with farmworkers.40 Despite the ever-present

interference and control of agri-corporations on their operations, growers had a degree of

independence dealing with farm laborers on their farm, but the growers held all financial

liability to pay for farmworker housing or comply with government regulations. FLOC wanted

to make companies more liable for farmworkers’ conditions because of their major role in the

system, but some growers continued to view themselves as private businessmen, thus refusing

to work with farmworkers.41 FLOC leader, Baldemar Velasquez, reflected this idea when he

stated:

Unfortunately, the farmer considers himself an independent businessman

protecting his petty-profit margin not seeing the potential power of his unity

including his collaboration with the farmworker against the company.

Committed to a misguided notion of ‘rugged individualism’ sadly enough, he

superexploits our people and what he cannot get from the multinational he gets

it from the sweat of our back.42

39 Eric Ramírez-Ferrero, Troubled Fields: Men, Emotions, and the Crisis in American Farming. (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2005); Michael R. Nusbaumer, “Rural Masculinity in Context: When Going Bigger

Risks Your Manhood,” Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences (October 2009), 33-45.

40 Shane Hamilton, Trucking Country: The Road to America's Wal-Mart Economy (Princeton, New Jersey:

Princeton University Press, 2008), 99-163.

41 Letter to J.C. Tanner from R.A. Krabbenhoft, August 9, 1971, 20:10, Red River Sugar Beet Growers Records,

Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead, Minnesota.

42 Baldemar Velasquez, “Farm Labor Organizing Committee Report Fourth Quarter,” (International Conference

Presentation, November 1978), 4:21, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

216

Initially failing to educate and convince growers of their common position with farmworkers,

FLOC members continued to educate other farmworkers and the public about the expansive

power of corporations “just trying to make soup.”

FLOC’s efforts and knowledge extended beyond the basic structure of the stream

consisting of farmworkers, growers, and canning corporations, into the larger food chain that

included consumers, banks, and stockholders. Canning companies like Campbell not only

shaped how growers and farmworkers worked in the tomato fields, but food corporations had

ties in financial industries and power in grocery stores with “value added products” that easily

sold to an expanding number of busy women cooking for their families after a hard day of

work. In addition, subsidiaries allowed corporations to extend their influence into different

crops and products, such as Campbell’s subsidiary, Vlasic pickles, yet another tie between the

tomato and pickle fields of Ohio.43 In order for FLOC members to understand and fight

corporate agriculture power, they had to understand the larger food chain that involved Board

of Directors members all the way down to women buying a can of tomatoes and a jar of pickles

for dinner.

Corporations like Campbell extended their power through stock ownership and Board

of Directors that often connected different corporations to each other. Utilizing the corporate

campaign union strategy that attacked financial ties due to board membership and stock

ownership, FLOC targeted Philadelphia National Bank, Equitable Life, and Prudential

43 Helen Fogel, "Profile: Robert Vlasic, Pickle Magnate and Hospital Chairman," 20:21, Michigan Farm Worker

Ministry Coalition Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

217

Insurance for protest.44 Starting in 1984, FLOC worked with Roy Rogers and Ed Allen, who

established the corporate method, to attack Campbell through stock ownership, board members,

and loans.45 By understanding the corporate framework, FLOC members targeted individuals

like John T. Dorrance, who owned two million shares of Campbell stock, served as chairman

for Campbell, and was associated through family and business to Philadelphia National Bank,

and the President of Campbell, Gordon McGovern, who served on the Board of Directors for

Philadelphia National Bank.46 FLOC noted these ties in the hope that public pressure on those

involved with Campbell, could influence the company. As FLOC argued,

The FLOC Corporate Campaign program is based on the premise that farm

workers are not simply being challenged by Campbell or any single corporation.

Their struggle is with the interlocked web of powerful banks, insurance companies

and other large corporations who form the power structure behind a company such

as Campbell Soup. These institutions, by virtue of their financial ties and position on the

Campbell Soup board of directors, represent the corporate decision maker

controlling the lives of farm workers.47

In utilizing the relatively new corporate campaign strategy, FLOC members encouraged the

public to pressure Campbell and the individuals and companies financially associated with and

benefitting from Campbell’s power in the Midwest agricultural system.

FLOC not only employed a boycott, strike, and the corporate campaign, but established

public support for itself from within the Campbell company. FLOC encouraged supporters and

owners of Campbell stock to voice their concerns about migrant farmworkers at Campbell’s

44 James Asher, "Fight with Campbell is Expanded to PNB," The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 14, 1984, 24:1,

Michigan Farm Worker Ministry Coalition Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Campbell Chart, 24:59, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne

State University, Detroit, Michigan.

45 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 75.

46 Asher, "Fight with Campbell is Expanded to PNB."

47 FLOC- Corporate Campaign Action Plan, 24:59, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

218

stockholders meeting between 1983 and 1986.48 In addition, stock owners who backed FLOC

allowed migrant union members to represent them at the meeting which led to picketers outside

Campbell’s annual stockholder meetings, protesters in the meetings, and even a nominated

resolution to endorse FLOC’s goals at the 1983 meeting.49 FLOC members understood and

utilized strategies that targeted Campbell and later Vlasic’s entire power structure, from

stockholders all the way down to the men and women buying pickles and tomatoes at the

grocery store.

Changing the Tomato and Pickle Pyramids

To succeed, FLOC drew on their association with other farmworker unions, specifically

the UFW, as well as current social movements, to establish FLOC’s configuration and to

develop the tactics they used to alter farmworkers’ power. The success of UFW’s grape boycott

and the general success of the UFW to unionize farmworkers, which many considered

impossible, was an important influence on FLOC tactics. Baldemar Velasquez’ choice to use

the boycott played to the success of UFW and allowed FLOC to engage the UFW advocates for

FLOC’s cause. A boycott to better farmworkers lives drew on the already existent conscious-

raising efforts of the UFW and the social movements of the era. At the same time, FLOC drew

on the feminist movement by engaging and empowering both men and women to participate in

the union and encouraging whole families to work in the union together. Not only drawing on

the Feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the inclusion of women also drew on old union

48 "Farmworkers Take Their Case to Campbell Shareholder," AFSC Women's Newsletter, 6, no. 1 (Winter 1985),

24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Campbell Signs!, February 1986, 19:45, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

49 Campbell Signs!.

219

tactics used in changing the mining industry that employed families.50 FLOC’s demands for

social justice were closely linked to the Civil Rights and Chicano Movements of the 1960s and

1970s, drawing on the social movements’ ideologies and public networks. Drawing on social

movements and successful union tactics as a basis for FLOC’s social union movement,

Midwest tomato and pickle farmworkers campaigned for change.

Initially starting with a strike campaign, FLOC drew on the men, women, and children

who worked in the fields and adapted strike strategies to the wide geographic landscape of the

scattered farms and canneries. Since strike locations existed across vast spaces and in different

settings, FLOC used various strategies to address the different settings of the strike: fields and

canneries. Factory unions would usually position strikers near the few access points to a

factory, but farms’ wide-open spaces forced unions to adopt different methods of protest.

FLOC members drew on past agricultural union practices by adapting their strategies to fit their

specific situation. FLOC transported workers and their families to farms and the canneries that

processed the tomatoes and pickles.51 Men, women, and children traveled to various growers’

farms to encourage other farmworkers to leave the fields, staking out near field entrances and

near the edges of fields where migrants worked. These workers and their families formed

picket lines to block tomatoes from getting to the canneries and shouted information to workers

in the fields encouraging them to join the strike.52 At the same time, FLOC drew on and altered

gendered roles as FLOC women prepared food for the workers on strike as well as caravanned

50 Thomas G. Andrews. Killing for Coal: America’s Deadliest Labor War. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,

2008), 238, 276.

51 "One Day of the 1980 Strike," Nuestra Lucha, 1980, 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

52 James W. Parker, "2 Worlds Collide," The Plain Dealer, September 23, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

220

and protested at different fields.53 Midwest Mexican migrant farmworkers thus adapted gender

norms and union strategies to the physical landscape of the strike.

While FLOC’s strike against Campbell and Vlasic technically continued until 1986, the

focus of FLOCs efforts shifted in 1979 to a boycott, shifting FLOC’s tactics.54 Using consumer

power, FLOC’s members sought greater control over the migrant system and the food chain.

Though FLOC initially struck Libby, the international boycott of Nestle products and their

subsidiaries, which included Libby, pushed Libby to leave the cannery business.55 This left

FLOC to focus on Campbell and eventually Vlasic pickles in their strike and boycott

campaigns. The boycott ultimately meant a reorganization of FLOC as members began to

educate the public about the living and working conditions of migrant farmworkers and the role

of the tomato canning industry in the stream. FLOC’s boycott campaign meant a focus in part

on women who shopped for groceries and schools that used the Campbell’s “Labels for

Education” program.56 To this end, FLOC focused on portraying women and children’s

helplessness and poverty, appealing to the public’s sympathy for helpless workers and using

gender norms and union networks to target possible boycott supporters.

To combat the Campbell Corporation and educate the public about the pyramid of

power in Midwest agriculture, FLOC established a public presence by attacking iconic images

of Campbell and highlighting the poverty of migrant families. Posters with the well-known

53 “One Day of the 1980 Strike.”

54 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 57-58.

55 Ibid, 68. Nestle faced an international boycott because the company encouraged women in poorer nations to use

their instant baby formula, which had negative economic and health effects. With Nestle’s additional problem,

Libby ceased their involvement in tomatoes.

56 Rev. Juan Romero, “Ministry to Farmworkers: Experience in Advocacy,” May 15, 1974, 8:25, PADRES

Collection, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend,

Indiana.

221

image of Campbell’s basic soup label, altered by FLOC to read “Cream of Exploitation,”

became commonplace among strike and boycotting unions.57 In addition, the “Campbell soup

kids” and Campbell’s “Labels for Education” became prime targets for attack. Similar to a

1968 strike by United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) Local 80 in Campbell’s

Camden, New Jersey plant, FLOC adorned the iconic “Campbell kids” with pro-union clothes

and signs.58 However, FLOC took this tactic further by also educating the public about migrant

farmworker children. FLOC described the hypocrisy of Campbell for using the figures of

children as their mascots while migrant children worked in the fields to harvest produce for

their products. In addition, FLOC attacked the Campbell “Labels for Education” program, by

which Campbell provided supplies for schools based on how many Campbell labels schools

saved.59 FLOC contrasted the “Labels for Education” program with the farmworker children

who went to school without a good meal and/or missed school to work in the fields that

provided Campbell’s products.60 FLOC refused to accept Campbell’s argument that they played

no role in the migrant stream. They actively encouraged schools, especially Catholic schools

with whom FLOC had a close connection with due to Mexican Americans’ ties to the Catholic

57 Rainbow Coalition photo, 1984, 24:1, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

58 Sidorick, Condensed Capitalism, 191; Consumer Reports: Soup, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; "Farmworkers are asking you to

Boycott Campbell's: Facts about Campbell's Labels," 24:59, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

59 Baldemar Velasquez and D.Y. Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate by Letter, revised December

1980, 11:11, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

60 Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate by Letter.

222

Church, to end their participation in the “Labels for Education” program.61 FLOC was

relatively successful, especially among Catholic schools, as twenty Indiana schools agreed to

stop the program by 1980 with several others contemplating ending their Campbell

association.62 FLOC effectively manipulated Campbell’s visual symbols to their benefit by

manipulating Campbell’s likeable children mascots into FLOC protesters, demonstrating the

poverty of migrant children and drawing on the compassion and sympathy of teachers and

mothers.

FLOC leaders’ choice to use a boycott exemplified the conflicting message of

farmworker power and agency. Turning to tactics successfully used by the United Farm

Workers in California, FLOC used boycotts, placing greater emphasis on the public’s support

than farmworkers’ perseverance. The boycott depended on portraying farmworkers as victims

instead of activists. Boycott success came from garnering sympathy for migrants, which drew

on images of children, poverty, and helplessness, directly contrasting with strikes that

demonstrated men, women, and children marching, protesting, and demanding a voice. Many

news articles from and about FLOC often presented saddened families or children clad in rags

with protest signs, conflating migrants’ self-determination and agency with their

vulnerability.63 As FLOC leaders and members stressed farmworker demands and agency, they

simultaneously portrayed farmworkers as weak and in need of public endorsement.

61 "Schools Reject Soup Label Program" Labor News, June 1980, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Raphael Marie Clifford “Ban on

Campbell Soup Labels and the Catholic Church,” Sisters of St. Joseph Third Order of St. Francis, 3, no. 3 (Spring

1980), 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

62 “Schools Reject Soup Label Program.”

63 David I. Anders image, The Plain Dealer, August 5, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records,

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

223

Though public sympathy developed from FLOC’s depiction of farmworkers’ poverty

and helplessness, FLOC also empowered farmworkers within their own ranks. The public

image of farmworker helplessness often conflicted with migrants’ own empowerment. FLOC

offered men, women and children opportunities to effect change in their own lives, working as

organizers, strikers, and even public speakers, all working to the success of FLOC’s campaign

to empower migrants in the Midwest. Organizers like Maria Elena Ortega felt empowered, not

just in her personal life to become strong and independent woman working as an organizer, but

also as a farmworker fighting for a voice in the agricultural structure. Yet the experience of

migrants like Maria Elena or FLOC Vice President Cuevas’ entire family, who worked as

picketers, strikers, organizers, and even public speakers, often occurred at the same time as the

public viewed migrants as helpless victims.64 The young Fernando Cuevas, Jr. toured the nation

telling others about his experiences in the migrant stream and encouraging assistance for

farmworkers’ rights as FLOC circulated an image of a child in tattered clothes holding a FLOC

sign.65 Sympathetic images of helpless women and children, used by FLOC to garner public

sympathy, coexisted alongside migrants’ own experience of activism that positively contributed

to FLOC’s goals of empowerment.

The empowerment of Midwest tomato and pickle workers came from FLOC’s efforts to

change the food pyramid despite FLOC’s emphasis on creating a sympathetic image of

farmworkers for the boycott. FLOC’s insistence on farmworkers having a voice in the food

64 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 104.

65 “Campbell Signs!;” Tom Marshall, "A Young Voice Speaks Up for Farm Migrants," Dallas Times Herald,

November 24, 1985, 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

224

chain, which a three party negotiation would create, remained a firm commitment of FLOC as

they encouraged farmworkers to organize and strike:

If what we are doing sounds outlandish or somewhat radical, it is only because

the tomato industry and the public has become accustomed to literally a

peonage system to harvest its tomato crop. It is institutionalized…it not only

deals with us as second-class citizens but also as subservient Mexican, Puerto

Rican, black and others who cannot do anything for ourselves. Well those days

are long gone because we no longer fear prevailing mentalities and no longer

accept the role prescribed to for us by economic, political and social

institutions…This is, not to be controlled and consumed by our environment

and through simple organized we seek to take control of our destiny.66

Despite using the boycott to generate public endorsement, FLOC and Midwest migrants did

not want to rely on public sympathy forever, but rather to use the public to temporarily give a

voice and empower farmworkers in the agricultural system. As Maria Elena stated, “This is

what we have to learn: We can be on welfare forever, we can receive handouts forever…but

that’s not going to solve our problems. The problem will be solved when we deal with the

growers, and they pay better wages, and we have political power.”67 FLOC’s employment of a

boycott stressed to the public farmworkers’ subjugated role in the food chain, but the individual

experiences of migrants and FLOC’s goal of a three-way deal empowered the Mexican and

Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the Midwest stream.

FLOC not only gave migrants a place at the negotiating table, but also a place in the

union. Past unions that struggled to unionize farmworkers claimed the changing and migratory

nature of farm work made unionization impossible; but in establishing a malleable structure,

FLOC leaders were able to establish a union for migrant farmworkers. Although influenced by

the UFW in many ways, FLOC differed from the United Farm Workers. The UFW’s emphasis

66 "FLOC Anticipates Strike."

67 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun.

225

on the boycott and public support, coupled with Chavez’ demands for ‘sacrificial’ union

members, distanced many farmworkers from leadership roles in the UFW.68 Although FLOC

and the UFW had single charismatic leaders for a long time, FLOC eventually developed a

participatory union with traditional union structures such as local committees.69 FLOC initially

relied heavily on union farmworkers and the public to sacrifice their time for the boycott, but

FLOC leaders also established an organization that eventually allowed for a participatory

union. Union leaders communicated with workers through summer organizers, who traveled

around to different camps, camp representatives, who looked out for the interest of FLOC

workers in a particular camp, and through meetings in different camps, as well as the FLOC

national conventions where farmworker representatives voted on issues.70 Although Chavez

resisted camp committees, FLOC’s use of camp representatives who migrated and worked

alongside farmworkers gave Midwest farmworkers and their families a level of agency and

involvement in the union that represented them.71 FLOC’s structure gave farmworkers several

avenues to voice their concerns, contrasting with the sacrificial mentality of the UFW that

separated farmworkers from the union leadership.72

68 Frank Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers.

(New York: Verso, 2011), 549.

69 Ibid, 320; FLOC Leadership, accessed February 22, 2015, http://www.floc.com/wordpress/about-floc/floc-

leadership/.

70 "FLOC- Ten Years of Struggle" Nuestra Lucha, 1, no. 9 (August 1977), 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Barger and Reza, The Farm

Labor Movement in the Midwest, 136-137.

71 Organizing Report 1975 Farm Labor Organizing Committee, 4:19, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter

P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in

the Midwest, 136-137.

72 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 88; Appeal letter by Baldemar Velasquez-rough

draft, July 17, 1981, 24:9, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University,

Detroit, Michigan.

226

FLOC’s organizational structure not only provided avenues for migrants to voice their

ideas and concerns within the union, but also ensured a sense of community that encouraged all

to work together to better Midwest migrants’ lives. FLOC leaders accepted that union

organizers and representatives had to continue working in the stream to survive since the union

could not afford to pay them. Manuel Moreno, executive board member, continued to migrate

up and down the Midwest working in non-tomato and pickle fields to support his family.73

FLOC leaders also did not require dues from union members until they succeeded in gaining a

three-party contract, ensuring more individuals could take part in the union.74 In addition, most

of the union protests and strike activities occurred solely around the harvest season. After

harvest, workers moved on to other crops, eventually returning to their homes in Texas and

Florida.75 This allowed migrant families to survive by making up some of the money lost

striking tomatoes as they continued to migrate and work in other crops.76 In the off-season,

FLOC regrouped, organizing migrant workers in their home bases of Texas and Florida so that

union members and future tomato and pickle workers knew about the strike effort before

heading back North.77 This configuration helped integrate the strike effort into the lives of

migrant farmworkers. Focusing on strike and picketing efforts during the tomato and pickle

season not only saved the union money, but this strategic choice, along with the lack of dues

73 Appeal letter by Baldemar Velasquez; “Special Section: Pesticides” Nuestra Lucha, 3, no. 3 (November 1980),

5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan;

Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 148.

74 “Farm Labor Organizing Committee -Building the Union,” 11:11, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

75 Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor," 170; Organizing Report, 1975.

76 Appeal letter by Baldemar Velasquez.

77 FLOC Winter 1978 and 1979 Organizing Campaign.

227

and efforts to organize in Texas and Florida, also encouraged a strong sense of community

among farmworkers and allowed for the involvement of all the migrants in the union.

The Public’s Power in the Food Chain

As FLOC created a participatory union that drew on the men, women, and children

working in the tomato and pickle fields of Northwest Ohio, the employment of the boycott also

meant integrating the public and outside organizations into the construction and decisions of

the union. FLOC relied on public endorsement by political, union, and religious individuals and

groups as the boycott drew power from outsiders’ influence and purchasing power. Seeking

public aid meant drawing on important national and local figures and organizations to carry

FLOC’s message and encourage assistance. FLOC successfully received endorsement from

Jesse Jackson during his presidential bid in 1984 in addition to various union organizations:

UFW; American Federation of Teachers in Toledo, Ohio; Communication Workers of America

in Cleveland, Ohio; West Coast International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union in

San Francisco, California; and many others.78 Yet not all unions assisted FLOC, including the

United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) that represented many Campbell

cannery employees.79 Support for FLOC varied within and among unions and religious

institutions, but FLOC successfully garnered enough public endorsement to pressure Campbell

and Vlasic.

78 Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate by Letter; “Rainbow Coalition” photo.

79 "Campbell Employees Regret Boycott Backing," Catholic Chronicle, June 28, 1985, 24:58, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; "UFCW

Says FLOC Move Is Harmful," The Crescent-News, August 10, 1982, 24:41, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

228

FLOC needed union endorsement because it provided important financial assistance and

legitimacy amongst the working class. Though a conservative backlash in the 1980s hindered

unions, FLOC pushed for union assistance to gain working class support for the farmworker

cause.80 Union assistance to the farmworkers’ cause gave FLOC legitimacy as a real union

champion for hard working individuals abused by a corporate system. Because of the

legitimacy unions provided, Campbell emphasized the UFCW’s dismissal of FLOC’s campaign

as Campbell tried to convince the general public to question whether FLOC was a real union.81

Separating the interests of migrant farmworkers from the working class cannery workers,

Campbell and the UFCW tried to diminish FLOC’s power by diminishing FLOC’s base of

support. Understanding the power and influence of the working class consumers in grocery

stores, FLOC and Campbell competed for the hearts and minds of the public.

To reach more of the public important to FLOC’s boycott, FLOC leaders and members

shaped their tactics and decisions to effectively encourage and influence financially powerful

organizations. To garner public support, FLOC members presented themselves in sympathetic

terms that often focused on migrants’ helplessness and the numerous women and children who

labored in the fields, instead of migrant families organizing farmworkers in order to better

everyone’s lives. FLOC understood the need for sympathy as well as the endorsement of

religious and secular organizations with prominence and networks. FLOC used its connections

with the UFW and the Farm Worker Ministry, as well as their own FLOC groups throughout

the nation, to establish a network of aid and information. FLOC’s common goal with the UFW,

a popular union with a charismatic public figure, gave FLOC a well-established infrastructure

80 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 663.

81 Fiction v. Fact: A Message from Campbell Soup Company ad, New York Times, January 1, 1984, 24:1, Farm

Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

229

of communications. The commonality between FLOC and the UFW allowed FLOC to use the

public success and interest generated by the UFW.82 In addition, FLOC members also availed

themselves of UFW training.83 FLOC’s aid network built upon the UFW’s own small boycott

groups in cities across the nation, including Chicago.84 Allying with Chavez’ union provided

FLOC members with an infrastructure of aid while simultaneously demonstrating the

importance of farmworkers working together across state, crop, and union boundaries.

For both the UFW and FLOC, the United Farm Worker Ministry became the key to

obtaining the logistical aid and manpower necessary to reach and influence the public; yet

unlike the UFW, FLOC sometimes struggled to gain the Ministry’s attention.85 As an

interdenominational religious organization focused on bettering farmworkers’ lives, the UFWM

had the finances, manpower, and connections to make a significant difference in FLOC’s

boycott campaign. Yet the Migrant Ministry, like other national groups, paid considerably more

attention to the UFW than FLOC. Except for the Ministry’s vocal and written endorsement, the

Migrant Ministry did nothing to initially assist FLOC, yet they provided the UFW with paid

82 "Human Billboard Line to Launch Toledo Farm Worker Week Monday July 29- Saturday August 3," Released

July 26, 1985, 24:59, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan; Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor and the Farmworker

Movement in the Midwest," 178; Farm Labor Organizing Committee: Organizing Report, January- May 1979,

4:21, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan; Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 66, 70.

83 Farm Labor Organizing Committee: Organizing Report, Fourth Quarter, October, November, December 1978,

4:21, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan.

84 Letter to Sister Merle Nolde of NAWR from Martha McFerran the Chicago Boycott Coordinator, June 24, 1981,

10:42, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library,

University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

85 Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor," 219-220.

230

personnel.86 This contrast spoke to FLOC members’ struggles to make people and

organizations respect their efforts with the same zeal as they did the UFW. Though the UFW

provided inspiration to the FLOC boycott, it also overshadowed FLOC’s efforts. Local

organizations and churches proved crucial to FLOC’s campaign, yet national organizations’

resources remained largely tied to the UFW’s campaign. The result of this disparate assistance

arguably accentuated farmworker helplessness, as FLOC used more marches, fasts, and other

measures similar to those of the UFW to create the kind of sympathy, attention, and ultimately

resources FLOC needed to succeed with the boycott. When the Ministry did offer more

manpower in the early 1980s, it came curiously after a long fast by Baldemar Velasquez, a

tactic popularly done by Chavez.87 In addition, the Ministry offered manpower assistance only

after the UFW arguably no longer needed significant assistance and after Velasquez

demonstrated his sincerity and piousness in a fashion similar to Chavez.88 Though FLOC

members did not make every decision based on how to gain public support, the need for public

and organizations’ aid shaped the way FLOC leaders interacted with the public it so desperately

needed. In relying on other organizations to get the public endorsement critical to a boycott,

FLOC had to shape their tactics to compete for the attention of groups like the Migrant

Ministry.

86 National Farm Worker Ministry Objectives & Strategies, circa 1981, 13:44, PADRES Collection, University of

Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; National Farm Worker

Ministry Board of Directors Meeting, May 13-15, 1981, 13:44, PADRES Collection, University of Notre Dame

Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

87 Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor," 219-220; "Mass to Celebrate the Breaking of Baldemar

Velasquez's Fast at St. Peter & Paul's Catholic Church," September 30, 1982, 24:41, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

88 Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor," 219-220.

231

FLOC leaders and members focused on gaining religious support because of the

financial assistance religious group could offer and because of the impact religious

organizations had on union members and public endorsement. Religious organizations and

unions shared a tenuous history of aid, opposition, and indifference, but the religious nature of

Mexican and Mexican American culture, along with the religious symbolism in FLOC’s

marches and Baldemar Velasquez’ fasts, pressured religious organizations to react to the FLOC

boycott. Set within a time period of social awareness and activism, many Churches reacted to

UFW and FLOC farmworkers’ demands for a better life and equality.89 Not only drawing upon

Christian faith, FLOC also specifically drew on Mexican Americans’ strong tie to Catholicism.

For the Catholic Church, institutional aid did not come until public pressure arose from the

UFW and FLOC’s continued use of religious symbolism in their strikes and boycotts. FLOC

and the UFW’s choice to use religious symbols, whether solely tactical, sincere, or both,

strengthened the resolve of striking farmworkers and encouraged the involvement of churches

that could see the poverty and faith of farmworkers.

Marching with the image of the Lady of Guadalupe, fasts, Church services, and other

religious symbolic acts provided inspiration and strength to the largely religious FLOC and

UFW farmworkers, encouraging religious organizations to assist the farmworkers’ cause.

FLOC and the UFW’s use of religious symbols in their protests and demonstrations made

public the faith of farmworkers and the poverty and injustice they faced in the food chain. For

Churches to ignore farmworkers’ cries for justice as they paraded with crosses would reflect

negatively upon the religious institution, especially in the case of the Catholic Church as many

migrant farmworkers were Catholic. Being FLOC’s leader, Baldemar Velasquez’ fast not only

89 Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate Letter.

232

drew parallels between himself and Chavez, but more importantly it drew on religious

symbolism that provided an air of sincerity, piety, and conviction that encouraged public

approval and strengthened migrants’ resolve. The importance of FLOC’s Catholic ties can be

seen by Catholic schools’ boycott of Campbell.90 Even the student population of Notre Dame

University, a Catholic university, voted for the university to boycott Campbell products.91

Religious symbols like the Virgin of Guadalupe brought hope to many farmworkers, but it also

maintained a tie to a powerful and financially fluent institution that could bring legitimacy to

FLOC’s struggles and influence the masses.

Not only working to garner aid from the Catholic Church, religious organizations, and

unions, FLOC also sought support from the population primarily responsible for grocery

shopping and education: women. Women played key roles in the food chain as they often

served as the individuals who bought and cooked food for their families.92 In addition, women

traditionally served as teachers, influencing children and possibly school policies regarding

Campbell’s “Labels for Education” program.93 In encouraging farmworker women’s

involvement and demanding Catholic endorsement, FLOC established a group of women

farmworkers, ex-farmworkers, nuns, and Mexican Americans who became strong supporters

and influential leaders for the FLOC movement. In addition, FLOC and its supporters targeted

grocery shoppers by providing them with an “un-shopping list,” a list of Campbell’s brands to

90 "Schools Reject Soup Label Program.”

91 Steve Askin, "Notre Dame Joins FLOC Food Boycott," 34:28, National Association of Religious Women,

University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana. Notre

Dame students had the right to vote on boycotting products offered and served on campus.

92 Margaret Rose, “ ‘Women Power Will Stop Those Grapes’: Chicano Organizers and Middle-Class Female

Supporters in the Farm Workers’ Grape Boycott in Philadelphia, 1969-1970,” Journal of Women’s History 7, no. 4

(Winter), 16-17.

93 "Two Tiffin Women Attend CWU Ecumenical Assembly," The Advertiser-Tribune, August 11, 1984, 24:58,

Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

233

avoid purchasing, and even a recipe for cream of tomato soup.94 Targeting women because of

their roles as educators, mothers, and homemakers, FLOC sought public support for the union

cause.

Families, Food, and FLOC

FLOC made men, women, and children an integral part of its boycott efforts,

organizational structure, and overall campaign against Campbell. Since migrant farmworkers in

the Midwest traveled together as family units, FLOC leaders understood families had to be the

backbone of the union. FLOC’s construction supported and drew upon the rhetoric of family

involvement, yet it would be individual migrant farmworkers who negotiated the role of men,

women, and children in the Midwest workers’ struggles for change.

Based in the Midwest where most farmworkers migrated in family units, FLOC made

families a pivotal part of their strike and boycott efforts. FLOC members encouraged men,

women, and children to participate in strikes, protests, and marches, with much success. Since

the beginning of FLOC, FLOC materials and local newspaper articles depicted migrant families

as active participants in the union. Men, women, and children took part in marches, told

strikebreakers about FLOC, and educated the public about farmworkers’ lives. In one of

FLOC’s three marches, a migrant mother and her children marched five-hundred-sixty miles

from Toledo, Ohio to Camden, New Jersey, the home of Campbell Soup in 1983, to bring

94 "Um-Umm Good Alternative" Quick Cream of Tomato Soup recipe from Mennonite More with Less Cookbook,

National Farm Worker Movement Newsletter, 13, no. 1 (March 1984), 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee,

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; “Un-shopping List,” Women and Global

Corporations AFSC Women's Newsletter 5, no. 1-2 (1984), 24:58, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

234

attention to the demands of farmworkers.95 The women of FLOC, in addition to other FLOC

members, pushed for the involvement of farmworkers of all ages and the ability of all members

to participate in FLOC to better their lives. FLOC had skit teams that gave creative FLOC

members the ability to educate others about farmworkers in addition to Spanish and English

classes.96 At least one child, Fernando Cuevas Jr., the son of FLOC’s vice- president, toured the

country speaking with different groups about his experience growing up as a farmworker.97

Influenced by the feminist movement of the time and reflective of FLOC’s push for women’s

involvement, FLOC women also demanded greater training and empowerment. As some

female FLOC members watched Salt of the Earth to learn about past women’s role in a farm

union, another FLOC woman, Sara Rios, wrote and received a grant to engage more women in

the strike.98 Understanding that Midwest farmworkers migrated and worked as a family unit,

FLOC leaders encouraged the involvement of all family members to empower and change the

migrant stream.

For FLOC members and leaders, migrant families served not only as the union’s

foundation, but also played a key role in the union ideology and rhetoric on farmworker rights.

FLOC leaders often placed families visibly on the front lines of FLOC protests and marches. In

one incident, men, women, and children physically blocked machines from harvesting in the

95 Scott Kirschman, "Farm Union Marches Against Campbell," Second Front Page (July 10, 1983), 24:42, Farm

Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan;

Terry, "The Political Economy of Migrant Farm Labor," 166-167, 184.

96 FLOC Women's Committee Report, circa March 3, 1976, 4:19, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P.

Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

97 Marshall, "A Young Voice Speaks Up for Farm Migrants."

98 FLOC Women's Committee Report, 1976.

235

fields of Napoleon, Ohio.99 The familial nature of the Midwest migrant stream meant FLOC

leaders often argued and described the financial struggles of farmworkers in terms of the

family. FLOC described wages in rhetoric similar to the idea of the “family wage,” noting that

farmworker men and women should make enough as parents to raise their family. Though

some FLOC members suggested that both parents should be able to provide for a family, at

other times, FLOC rhetoric hinted to a more traditional “family wage,” men making enough to

provide for the entire family. In one of FLOC’s convention resolutions, FLOC called for

farmworkers to be trained and receive jobs working mechanical harvesters, receiving a family

wage for their labor.100 Yet in arguing for a family wage, FLOC members also stated that this

would mean that the elderly, children, pregnant women, and mothers of young children would

not need to work.101 FLOC’s inclusion of mothers in the list of those that should not have to

work suggests that under the ideal of a family wage, mothers would stay at home to raise the

children. The resolution did not state specifically that women’s roles lay in the home and it did

not define “young children,” yet the resolution suggested a somewhat traditional role for

women. A newspaper article on FLOC reflected this idea when it stated of FLOC’s position on

mechanization and a family wage, “…with adequate wages, women and children would be

freed to establish a permanent home. The men could travel to where the work is; the children

99 “27 FLOC Supporters Seized," The Blade, September 2, 1979, 5:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan. This incident was also one of the

many cases of violence committed by local Sheriff Robert Beutler and his deputies. In this situation, farmworker

parents attempted to intervene on their children’s behalf when the police moved to arrest the group blocking the

machines. The Sheriff and his deputies then beat and arrested several of the parents.

100 Dee Car, "Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly," Crescent-News, June 29, 1982, 9:121, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Velasquez

and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate by Letter; FLOC, Resolutions, no date, 11:11, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

101 Car, "Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly;” Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle:

A Debate by Letter; FLOC, Resolutions.

236

would be home to attend school year-round.”102 It is unknown how accurately the author

reflected FLOC’s stance, but the similarity between this statement and the FLOC resolution

suggests the complicated nature of gender and family roles. Though FLOC often used the

struggle of migrant families in their rhetoric, not all FLOC members shared the same

interpretation or goals regarding farmworker families.

Family provided not only the foundation for the FLOC movement, but also a rhetorical

tool for FLOC leaders to use in the boycott. Velasquez noted several times that children worked

in the fields. Velasquez promulgated FLOC’s ability to better the lives of farmworker children

and argued that Campbell’s success came on the backs of migrant children.103 Velasquez

commented,

The tomato industry is the last industry in which the government (through

inaction) and the public (through not caring) has accepted child labor, low

wages, no benefits, bad housing, and no enforcement of protective legislation.

We as farmworkers have put our meager resources, whatever little security

we have, our families, and our lives on the line to win this struggle and

rearrange the tomato industry into a system that will give us justice. All we

ask is that if you are concerned with quality education, please do not attempt

to obtain it for your school children at the expense of farmworker children.

We are asking you to be concerned for one of the most violently exploited

groups of workers in this country, whole life expectancy is 49 years, whose

infant mortality is double the national average, whose wages are the lowest

of any group of workers. We ask you not to patronize the Campbell Soup

company.104

FLOC leaders and members argued that family was important, not just because families served

as the backbone of the union, but because families represented the very reason for FLOC

members’ struggles and provided a sympathetic image for the public to rally around. FLOC

102 Car, "Velasquez Sees FLOC Victories Coming Slowly.”

103 Velasquez and Robinson, The Farmworker Struggle: A Debate by Letter.

104 Ibid.

237

members and leaders could emphasize the importance of better wages to improve the

conditions of all farmworkers or highlight children working in the fields or migrant children

going to school hungry, as both created a sympathetic image that could not easily be ignored by

the public. FLOC members stressed the poverty of migrant children by using images of

farmworker children protesting in tattered clothes or drawings of the Campbell Soup Kids

holding a sign publicizing child labor in the field.105 FLOC’s rhetorical emphasis on migrant

children not only drew on farmworkers’ desires for a better life for their children, but was also

a tactical decision to draw on the sympathy of the public to generate boycott support.

FLOC’s emphasis on children and family coincided with the union’s efforts to include

farmworker women as active organizers and members, as individual FLOC members mediated

the role of women in the union and families. Since the beginning, FLOC encouraged women’s

involvement, creating a woman’s committee to spur farmworker women’s involvement. Some

of the first women involved in the women’s committee understood that they had to encourage

women to speak out and participate because many women felt timid around men.106 Not only

encouraging women’s voice in the FLOC union, FLOC women also demanded opportunities to

attend meetings as men often expected women to raise children and perform household

chores.107 The gendered construction of Mexican and Mexican American farmworker families

in the migrant stream was such that, though economics necessitated women working in the

fields, there remained a gendered division of labor at home. As some younger farmworker

families shifted to a more egalitarian family unit, there remained gender divisions of labor

105 Campbell Signs!; Marshall, "A Young Voice Speaks Up for Farm Migrants."

106 FLOC Women's Committee First Quarter Report, 1978; "Lucy Duran Wife, Mother and Organizer," Nuestra

Lucha, 1, no. 6 (April 1977), 5:20, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan.

107 FLOC Women's Committee Report, 1976; FLOC Women's Committee First Quarter Report, 1978.

238

within most migrant families.108 As Lucy Duran, a FLOC organizer, stated, “but if you are a

woman farmworker, your work doesn’t end at sun down. You have to prepare dinner, do the

laundry, get the children ready for bed, fix lunches for the next day, do the dishes, and all of the

other things that need to be done.”109 She went on to note women’s difficulty talking about

labor issues around men, but stressed the need for change and women’s participation in

FLOC.110 FLOC women did not necessarily push for a change in gendered roles, but rather a

loosening of these roles and alternate organizing avenues so women could comfortably

participate. Lucy Duran’s comment reflected the negotiation within FLOC and Mexican and

Mexican American society during the 1960s and afterwards as the Feminist and Chicano

Movements encouraged activism and changing notions of freedoms, rights, and roles. FLOC

leaders did not encourage and demand radical changes in family units or within the union, yet

the call for female organizers created an avenue for negotiation and discussion about gender

roles in both the home and the union.

The resulting gender negotiation occasionally led to dramatic changes within family

structures and norms. As vice-president of FLOC, Fernando Cuevas noted how he used to make

the decision in his family as the male head-of-the-household.111 After his family became

involved with FLOC, with all family members picketing, organizing, and marching, the family

dynamic changed.112 FLOC sought to give farmworkers a voice in the system that controlled

their lives by giving farmworkers the ability to vote on individuals to represent them in FLOC

108 There will be greater analysis of changing gender roles in migrant families in Chapter 6.

109 "Lucy Duran Wife, Mother and Organizer."

110 Ibid.

111 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 104.

112 Ibid.

239

conventions. These types of democratic ideals influenced the Cuevas family, encouraging

family members to demand a voice in the decisions that affected the family, resulting in family

votes on major issues. Of the various issues the Cuevas family voted on was who in the family

would go on tour to speak about the migrant stream, with the family voting on Fernando

Cuevas, Jr. to speak to the public.113 FLOC encouraged men and women to work together, with

women like Berna Romero becoming coordinator for Field Operations.114 For some, the result

of FLOC’s inclusive organization created massive changes to family dynamics.

Yet, for most FLOC members change was not so dramatic as union leaders and

individual migrant farmworkers negotiating gender, family, and union roles. For Maria Elena,

who organized pickle workers in the 1980s for FLOC, not all union leaders fully endorsed

women’s roles in the union. She felt that, when interacting with Baldemar Velasquez, he

seemed “dictatorial” and almost untrusting of women organizers because he did not want

women organizers to talk to one another after a day of solo organizing.115 In contrast, other

women such as Amelia Nava, Alicia Patino, and Berna Romero made no mention of their

gendered struggles in the union.116 Migrant women’s different experiences reflected women’s

different gender expectations and the dynamics within their families and the union as they

113 Marshall, "A Young Voice Speaks Up for Farm Migrants."

114 FLOC, "Brothers & Sisters Join Our Struggle: Sustaining Membership Program," 24:59, Farm Labor

Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

115 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun, 229.

116 "Brothers & Sisters Join Our Struggle: Sustaining Membership Program;” Audrey Mackiewicz, "Fremont

Woman Helps Because She Remembers," Sandusky Register, February 10, 1985, 5:14, Farm Labor Organizing

Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

240

experienced them.117 Maria Elena contrasted her feelings on FLOC with her brief experiences

working with the UFW, which had at least one notable Chicana in a leadership role, Dolores

Huerta.118 The UFW embraced organizing women, in direct contrast to its predecessor,

Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a primarily Filipino union.119 Though

FLOC encouraged women and children to take part in the union, many women had to negotiate

their involvement with family members, such as Gloria Chiquita who had to ask her husband

for permission to train to be an organizer and brought her children to the training.120 FLOC and

UFW leaders encouraged women to become organizers, yet women had a variety of

experiences as they mediated gender roles with union leadership.

For both the UFW and FLOC, encouraging women to become organizers did not mean

a large-scale acceptance of feminist ideology or a radical change in migrant families and

traditional gender norms. Traditional Mexican American culture did not necessarily embrace

the more radical Chicana or Feminist ideology of the 1960s and 1970s. The inclusion of women

in union organizing often meant the alteration of gender norms, but without totally changing

women’s traditional gender role in the home. Despite the inclusion of all ages and sexes, FLOC

women struggled with finding the time to organize alongside their domestic responsibilities.121

For this reason, FLOC women insisted on the creation of day care facilities and TV rooms for

117 Maria Elena noted that she felt unsure of criticizing FLOC’s leader and the union in general regarding the

treatment of female organizers. She feared discrediting the union and its mission. Similar hesitation existed within

the UFW as some came to question the tactics and choices of Chavez, as well as within the Chicano Movement as

both men and women retaliated against Feminist Chicana’s who demanded gender equality in the Movement. In

all cases, people feared criticizing a part of a movement or its leader, believing it would give traction to its

opponents. In so doing though, these movements and unions faced internal fissures.

118 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 173.

119 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 115.

120 Ortega, Forged Under the Sun, 225.

121 Ibid.

241

children, giving women the freedom to attend meetings.122 Yet, within FLOC, farmworker

women acted within both geographic spaces: the house in addition to the public spaces of union

organizing and protest. FLOC provided a space and avenue for women’s involvement, but did

not necessarily seek to radically change gender norms within families or Mexican American

cultures. Instead, migrant families negotiated gender roles as men, women, and children

debated the roles that family members should have within the home and in the union.

Family and union negotiations of gender roles often meant FLOC members had to

reshape union strategies. As noted by Maria Elena and other FLOC women, women had to

work together to draw on each other’s strengths.123 For some Midwest farmworker women,

such as one friend of Maria Elena, they required permission from a male relative to become an

organizer.124 In other cases, entire families voted equally on issues that affected the family,

providing men, women, and children equal shares in family decisions.125 These differences

represented the variety of personal experiences of migrants and their experience and connection

with feminist and democratic ideology and traditional gender norms. The Cuevas family’s

involvement in FLOC through the father’s role in the union, influenced the family to adapt a

democratic ideal that gave all family members a voice.126 In contrast, other farmworkers

remained largely divorced from these ideologies. Even the UFW’s leader, Cesar Chavez,

though encouraging women’s involvement, took part in the very male-centric and gendered

122 Ibid; FLOC Women's Committee Report, 1976; Organizing Report 1975; Sara Velasquez, "New Series on

Family Issues," Editorial, FLOC Newsletter, 11 (November 1974), 6:63, Farm Labor Organizing Committee

Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

123 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 225-229.

124 Ibid, 203, 225.

125 Marshall, "A Young Voice Speaks Up for Farm Migrants;" Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the

Midwest, 104.

126 Fernando Cuevas served as the first Vice President of FLOC.

242

Cursillo Movement that emphasized traditional masculinity.127 The different experiences and

beliefs of FLOC members and leaders meant that, though FLOC encouraged men, women, and

children’s involvement, leaders did not put any emphasis on gender equality or Feminist

ideology. Instead union leaders encouraged women’s participation, but usually within safe

confines. As Maria Elena and other farmworker women came to realize, they had to negotiate

the varied interpretations of gender roles in migrant families and unions within the changing

social landscape of the nation.

Ending the “Cream of Exploitation”

In early 1986, FLOC won a three-way deal with Campbell and grower associations,

ultimately establishing a commission, the Dunlap Commission, to regulate and enact three-

party agricultural deals.128 As a separate deal in 1987, Vlasic pickle growers in Ohio signed a

deal, several months after another company, Heinz, signed a deal with FLOC.129 In the tomato

and pickle fields, workers won set wages, a paid holiday on Labor Day, a grievance procedure,

and promises to investigate health care options, better housing, and numerous other issues.130

While FLOC did not immediately eliminate the pickle sharecropping system, the different sides

agreed to conduct studies on how to better organize pickle harvests.131 In 1987, FLOC

represented over three thousand workers in the pickle and tomato fields of Ohio and

127 Bardacke, Trampling Out the Vintage, 64, 30-31.

128 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 80-82; John Nichols, "FLOC, Heinz Hold Labor

Talks, Officials Confirm," The Blade, August 8, 1986, 4:8, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther

Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

129 Barger and Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest, 80-82, 128.

130 Ibid.

131 Ibid.

243

Michigan.132 Afterwards, FLOC expanded the geographic space of the tomato and pickle

industry by talking with a Mexican agricultural worker union, the Mexican National Union of

Salaried Field Workers (SNTOAC), as well moved to Florida pickle workers in the 1990s.133 In

addition, other farmworker unions adapted FLOC’s technique of attacking corporations within

the larger power structure as other migrants throughout the nation attempted to alter the power

system of the migrant system. The geographic expansion of FLOC’s coverage and their tie to

SNTOAC allowed FLOC to expand their success in Midwest fields to other farmworkers in the

nation, demonstrating FLOC’s understanding of the international and national structure of

agriculture.

The success of FLOC at the negotiating table empowered and shaped farmworkers like

Maria Elena Ortega not only in her experience in the fields but also in her life. In integrating

the family framework into the FLOC organization, FLOC notions of family and gender roles

influenced the migrants in FLOC. Social movements of the last half of the twentieth century in

addition to the gender norms within families and unions influenced farmworkers’ perceptions

of gender and family. The negotiations between these different forces and ideas led to a variety

of results. As some families gave adults and children of all sexes a vote on family issues, other

FLOC women had to demand childcare to be able to participate in organizing, and some

women had to request permission from their husbands to become a FLOC organizer. For Maria

Elena and other migrant farmworkers, family participation in the union did not necessarily

132 Ibid, 81.

133 Altha J. Cravey, "Cowboys and Dinosaurs: Mexican Labor Unionism and the State," in Organizing the

Landscape: Geographical Perspectives on Labor Unionism, ed. Andrew Herod (Minneapolis, Minnesota:

University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 92.

244

mean a radical change in gender equality, but rather a way to encourage families and

individuals to negotiate gender roles.

Though FLOC members did not agree on gender roles, the activism of FLOC, coupled

with the social movements of the time, transformed the Midwest migrants in the tomato and

pickle fields. For Maria Elena, the UFW and FLOC movements encouraged her to organize

Illinois mushroom workers. Neither FLOC nor the UFW initially agreed to organize Illinois

mushroom workers in Princeton, but farmworkers like Maria Elena propelled Princeton

mushroom workers to go on strike in 1989.134 Encouraged by the unionizing efforts of FLOC

and the social movements of the time, Midwest farmworkers like Maria Elena and some Illinois

mushroom workers organized themselves against other agricultural corporations, asking

afterwards for FLOC’s assistance.135 In addition, other farmworkers outside the Midwest

adapted FLOC’s strategies to force corporations involved in the food pyramid to negotiate with

growers and farmworkers, drastically changing power dynamics in other parts of the nation.136

The FLOC union, coupled with other social and union movements of the time, empowered

workers in the Midwest and throughout the nation to rethink labor and power structures.

FLOC depended on a foundation of empowered farmworker families, but the union’s

strategic choice to use a boycott made the union dependent on the public’s capricious support.

134 FLOC –pamphlet/ flyer, 37:47, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives,

Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Illinois Conference of Churches, The Illinois

Farm Worker Ministry Newsletter, (Summer of 1989), 38:9, National Association of Religious Women, University

of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana; Letter to friends of

the Farm Workers from Illinois Farm Worker Ministry, re: Solidarity Days with Princeton Mushroom Workers,

May 18, 1989, 38:9, National Association of Religious Women, University of Notre Dame Archives, Hesburgh

Library, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana.

135 Illinois Conference of Churches, The Illinois Farm Worker Ministry Newsletter (Summer 1989). The

mushroom strike started after the Princeton Mushroom Farm fired Juan Villegas for starting to organize in 1989.

Workers walked out in reaction and sought assistance from FLOC.

136 Silvia Giagnoni, Fields of Resistance: The Struggle of Florida’s Farmworkers for Justice, (Chicago:

Haymarket Books, 2011).

245

When Campbell signed the deal with growers and FLOC, the 1980s backlash against welfare

programs and unions had started.137 In other Midwest states, social organizations created to aid

migrant farmworkers and Mexican Americans declined in numbers. St. Paul, Minnesota’s

thriving community of organizations created to assist migrants and Mexican Americans

disappeared by 1981, when only one still appeared in the phonebook.138 Some of the decline

reflected the shifts in agriculture as growers changed to crops that required little or no

farmworkers, as mechanization eliminated the need for larger numbers of farmworkers, or as

growers left the farming business altogether.139 Yet, the wider trend represented the backlash of

the 1980s with even the UFW fading from public memory, as the UFW faced anti-union

pressure and as the union unraveled internally.140 With the changes in 1980s United States

society, FLOC faced a greater challenge in employing a boycott campaign that depended on

public endorsement.

The three-party deals between FLOC, growers, and the Campbell and Vlasic companies

were significant to the Midwest migrant stream. Despite FLOC’s boycott, which gave

significant power to the public during a time of significant social changes in society, FLOC

successfully garnered enough public aid to succeed. FLOC used members’ understanding of the

food chain and agricultural system to achieve their goal of a three-party deal and a voice for

137 Joseph A. McCartin, Collision Course: Ronald Reagan, the Air Traffic Controller and the Strike that Changed

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

138 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota.

139 "Fewer Jobs for Farmworker....;" Mike Steere, "Farm Labor Strike Against Canneries, Growers Seen as Almost

Inevitable," The Blade, July 28, 1978, 24:42, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; “Church and Agriculture: Answer of the Church of the Brethren

General Board,” circa 1974, 19:38, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library,

Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

140 McCartin, Collision Course; Matt Garcia, From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar

Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 145, 217-256.

246

farmworkers. After their success in the late 1980s, FLOC continued to learn and adapt to the

changing food pyramid of power, shifting their focus to the pickle fields of Florida. FLOC’s

intimate understanding of the agricultural system of power, and their success in changing the

food pyramid, encouraged future farm unions to attack the higher echelon of the food pyramid

as FLOC itself organized workers elsewhere in the nation. FLOC later organized not just

Mexican and Mexican American farmworkers but also the predominately male H-2(A) foreign

workers.141 FLOC's focus on H-2(A) workers meant a shift away from a family-centered

framework, but FLOC’s focus in the 1990s continued to demonstrate their understanding of the

power relations in the agricultural system. Using a greater understanding of the power of

corporations in the food pyramid, FLOC provided avenues for the empowerment of Mexican

and Mexican American migrant farmworkers in the Midwest.

141 Francesca Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA: Globalization, Agribusiness, the US-Mexico Food Chain,

and Farm-worker Struggles in North Carolina,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007).

CHAPTER 6

COLONIAS AND BARRIOS IN THE NORTH: FAMILY, HOME AND THE

MIDWEST IN MIGRANT FARMWORKERS' LIVES

“…I always will call home Texas though, even though I’ve been here longer than there.”1

-Sylvia Garcia

“Migratory farm laborers move restlessly over the face of the land…They pass

through community after community, but they neither claim the

community as home nor does the community claim them.”2

- U.S. Migrant Problem Study Commission

For most of their lives, both John Ortega and Sylvia Garcia were migrants. Though born

in different generations, both experienced similar struggles within the Midwest migrant stream.

Traveling from Texas to the Midwest in 1920s and 1930s and 1960s and 1970s respectively,

the Midwest was the place that offered both generations the financial security needed for their

family’s survival. Despite the necessity for migrating, both felt the label of “migrant” and felt

culturally isolated. Even when Sylvia was an adult with her own family, this sense of isolation

still defined her identity and resonated across time. Racism, the lack of culturally relevant food,

as well as separation from extended family made it difficult for some migrants to feel

1 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza, December 22, 2010, transcript, Lideres Latinos Oral History Project,

Minnesota Immigrant Oral Histories, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota, accessed April 17, 2014,

http://collections.mnhs.org/cms/display.php?irn=10872845.

2 National Consumer Committee for Research and Education, Inc., Migratory Labor in American Agriculture,

Migrant Problem Study Commission II, 1958-1963, Commission on Children: Migrant Workers Study Research

Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building, Springfield, Illinois.

248

comfortable in the Midwest. Some urban areas of the Midwest offered non-agricultural

employment and some cultural comforts, like Mexican grocery stores, but migrants in smaller

cities sometimes felt more at home in Texas than the small Midwest communities where they

settled. Though John and Sylvia eventually settled in Iowa and Minnesota respectively, John

felt out of place in the Midwest throughout his childhood while only Sylvia’s children felt at

home in Moorhead, Minnesota. Feeling isolated in the smaller Midwest cities and towns where

they worked or settled, migrants like Sylvia and John relied on their immediate family for basic

and cultural survival, cooking traditional Mexican dishes to retain their culture in their new

permanent home or adapting traditional gender norms to survive in the Midwest migrant

stream.3 Though cooking traditional Mexican food helped maintain Mexican culture in the

North, some children still felt ashamed and different because of their Mexican lunches like

John Ortega did as a child. For these reasons, some migrants and former migrants, like Sylvia

and her husband, continued to call the South, instead of the North, home.

For farmworkers like Sylvia Garcia and John Ortega who traveled between their homes

in the South to the fields of the North and for the families permanently settled in Northern

communities, home shaped their experiences as migrants. For some, home was a physical

space, where you lived throughout the year, or a feeling of safety and belonging, a place where

the family resided. Home was the place where family relationships developed and where family

defined gender roles within the house and as a result, outside the confines of the physical

house. Home, whether as a physical space, a place of belonging, or a place for family, defined

the gender and family dynamics within the Midwest farmworker community. While the 1963

3 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza; John Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega, Reflections of a Mexican

Migrant Boy: Growing Up in the Fields of Iowa,” 2003, Iowa State Special Collections and University Archives,

University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.

249

Migrant Study quoted at the beginning depicted all farmworkers as unbound to any community

and without any sense of home, most Midwest migrants felt aimless and unwanted in the

communities in which they traveled, but not from where they started. Like the growers that

argued that the migrant stream fit workers natural transient nature, so too did this writer suggest

migrants were incapable of creating a home.4 Yet, finances drove Midwest migrants to leave as

family units to work in the Midwest. In contrast to the West coast or Eastern stream, Midwest

migrants traveled as a family unit with pre-designed gender norms, to a region that did not

support Mexican culture. In contrast to other parts of the nation, the Mexican American migrant

and ex-migrant farmworkers men, women, and children struggled to establish a sense of home

in a region largely devoid of Mexican culture and Mexican Americans, adapting gender roles in

the migrant stream and emphasizing Mexican culture to create both temporary and permanent

homes in the Midwest.

Background

Since almost the beginning of the Midwest migrant stream, Mexican and Mexican

Americans worked and travelled alongside their family members. Though some areas of

Minnesota and Michigan employed Mexican migrants in sugar beet fields since World War I,

most Mexican migrant families did not start their migrate treks until after the Second World

War.5 Forced to migrate to survive when few employment opportunities existed in their

Southern cities, farmworker families left their homes in Texas as well as Florida and Mexico,

4 Edward R. Murrow, Harvest of Shame, directed by Fred W. Friendly, (CBS Report, November 24, 1960),

videocassette.

5 Kathleen Mapes, Sweet Tyranny: Migrant Labor, Industrial Agriculture, and Imperial Politics (Urbana:

University of Illinois Press, 2009); Jim Norris, North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar

Beet Industry (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009).

250

as early as April, to travel to the Midwest to harvest a variety of crops until November when

they returned to their Southern homes.6 Southern homes acted as migrants’ home base, the

place migrants consistently returned to after traveling to the Midwest. Though traditionally

traveling with immediate family members, migrating meant farmworkers traveled away from

extended family members and familiar communities to travel North with crew leaders or as a

family unit. Working for a variety of growers along the different migrant routes of the Midwest

stream meant farmworker families lived in numerous dwellings owned by growers, and

children attended a variety of schools, whether migrant summer schools or regular schools for a

few months in a year. Previous experience shaped the individual migrant group’s routes,

allowing a degree of regularity in migrants’ lives and temporary Northern homes, though

weather, changing crop patterns, and financial opportunities often led to slight alterations.7

Aside from working in the fields, farmworkers occasionally worked in canning factories or

other agricultural jobs for brief periods, such as Christmas tree harvesting in the North.8 In the

case of the Delgado migrant family in 1970s Ohio, the wife and some of the children continued

to work in the tomato fields during the summer as the husband worked in the nearby canning

factory, combining field and cannery work into their migrant route.9 No matter the fields they

6 Sister Mary Eloise Thomas, "A Study of the Causes and Consequences of The Economic Status of Migratory

Farm Workers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, 1940-1958" (Ph.D. dissertation, Notre Dame, 1960);

Kristina Lindborg and Carlos J. Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition: A Case Study of Migrants

in the Midwest (San Francisco, California: R & E Research Association, Inc., 1977), 5.

7 Norris, North for the Harvest.

8 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue, July 20, 2008, transcript, 46, Agriculture in the Modern Era,

Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx.

9 Joy Hints, “Seven Families: A Two Year In-Depth Study of Incomes and Job Experiences of Seven Ohio

Migrant Farm Worker Families, 1974-1976,” (1976), 56, 20:3, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records,

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan; Anne Power, “An Analysis of the Family

System Among Spanish-Speaking Migrant Labourers in the State of Wisconsin,” 19, 15:6, Governor’s Committee

of Migratory Labor Records, La Raza, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.

251

harvested, Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers labored and migrated

alongside their family members, traveling and in some cases, leaving the migrant stream as

family units.

The Midwest migrant stream was historically distinguished from other migrant streams

because of the large numbers of women in the stream and the role of families. According to a

report conducted between 1988-1990, while many families in the migrant stream had young

children, the majority (as much as fifty percent) of migrants in the stream were between the

ages of eighteen and thirty-four years old; with only a small percentage (around four percent)

under seventeen years old.10 This means that although most Midwest migrant families had

young children, migrant families were less likely to have numerous young children in the

stream. In contrast, the Western and Southern migrant streams had significantly more single

males and reflected Western Mexican American’s ability to work in local fields instead of

migrating long distances.11 In fact, a 1989 report from the National Agricultural Workers

Survey (NAWS) found that the Midwest had a higher number of female to males than other

areas of the country.12 This study coincided with another study on the Southern stream which

noted not only how African Americans dominated the stream, but the significantly higher

10 Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), 1989: A Demographic and Employment

Profile of Perishable Crop Farm Workers, prepared by Department of Labor, Office of Program Economics

(Washington, D.C., November 1991).

11 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 26, 60; Matt Garcia, A World of Its Own:

Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: University of North

Carolina Press, 2001), 36-37; Vicki L. Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and

the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950. (Albuquerque: University of new Mexico Press, 1987);

Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882 (New York:

Hill and Wang, 2004).

12 Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS), 1989, iv.

252

numbers of men in the stream, both married with their spouses back home and unmarried.13

Eastern migrant men adjusted gender norms to survive as single men in the stream, sometimes

joining with one of the few migrant women in the stream to divide reproductive labor along

traditional lines, with women cooking and cleaning and men working for wages.14 Like

migrants in the Midwest, Eastern male farmworkers, when they could pair with women, used

gender norms as a basis for their survival strategies in the stream. For Midwest migrants,

family was a resource that with reproductive and waged labor patterns, created the basis for

maintaining a place they could call home.

Mexican and Mexican American families’ struggle for acceptance amplified the

Midwest region’s peculiarity as a region; an aspect of experience long ignored by scholars and

the public.15 Mexican American families travelling up the Midwest stream entered a region

viewed by the general United States public, and even by some Mexican Americans, as outside

the Mexican cultural sphere despite generations of Mexican American communities in some

Midwest urban centers. The immigration of Mexican nationals to the Midwest in the early

1900s and the Bracero immigration in the 1940s and 1950s created rich Mexican American

communities in some Midwest cities, while other areas of the Midwest were almost totally

devoid of Mexicans. However, recent scholars argue that the continued focus on the Southwest

region by academics, and even some Mexican Americans, forever reduces Mexican Americans

in the Midwest to the role of outsider and “immigrant.”16 Maria Elena, who was a migrant and

13 William H. Friedland and Dorothy Nelkin, Migrant: Agricultural Workers in America’s Northeast. (Chicago:

Hold, Rinehard and Winston, 1971), 122.

14 Friedland and Nelkin, Migrant.

15 Sandra M. Gonzales, “Aztlan in the Midwest and other Counter-Narratives Revealed,” in Latinos in the United

States: Latinos in the Midwest, ed. Rubén Orlando Martinez (Michigan State University Press, 2011), 18-19.

16 Gonzales, “Aztlan in the Midwest,” 18-19.

253

eventually became a union organizer, argued a pilot sprayed her with pesticide because he

likely believed her to be an undocumented worker because of her visible “otherness.”17

Although she clearly parked on the side of the road, she argued the pilot probably saw no issue

with spraying dangerous chemicals on top of her. Though migrant workers in the Western

stream had the comfort of living in a region with a large Mexican and Mexican American

population, migrants working in the Midwest were publically perceived to be outsiders. For

Maria Elena and other migrants, home provided a place of comfort and acceptance, something

at least partially lacking in the Midwest where some of the public started to view even families

that lived in the region for generations, as “immigrants” and “outsiders.”

With a predominance of families in the Midwest migrant stream, women and children

provided their families critical assistance as families survived and negotiated familial roles and

labor in the migrant stream. The reproductive labor of women and children and the allocation

of paid and unpaid labor for survival, intersected with the needs of growers for a cheap labor

force. Mexican American culture provided a framework of sacrifice that migrants based their

paid and unpaid labor patterns. Migrant families struggled not just with exploitive and poverty

conditions in work and in their temporary Northern homes, but from these conditions came

migrants’ needs for established familial roles to financially maintain the family and to perform

the reproductive labor complicated by constantly moving. In the West, women often had

opportunities to work as wage earners outside the fields, although they often worked as

secondary waged earners and still within the confines of gender roles, accepting husband and

17 Maria Elena Ortega, Forged Under the Sun/ Forjada Bajo el Sol: The Life of Maria Elena Lucas, ed. Fran Leepa

Buss (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1993), 36.

254

father’s decision on their right to work.18 In the Midwest stream, women usually followed

traditional gender norms that gave men greater authority in the family as they worked in the

fields as well as performed reproductive labor.

Adjusting the need for a house and the necessary hands in the fields was a balancing act

for many migrants. Irene Fávila’s mother cooked lunches for her husband and children every

night and labored in the fields during the day as her eldest daughter, Irene, reheated the

precooked lunches for her younger siblings. Not only reheating food, Irene also looked after her

siblings while her parents worked in the fields.19 In contrast, Lupe Serna remembered working

in the fields while her two younger brothers helped in the house.20 At the same time, women

could be the prime individual in a family to maintain important ties with others including

extended family members and establishing necessary networks of mutual assistance.21 One

woman’s kindness to offer food to a family in need or nurturing an ill neighbor, could easily

result in that person reciprocating with food for her family when they were in need, or sharing

important information about a job opportunity, making women’s reproductive roles a powerful

component to migrants’ lives.22 Migrants’ different choices regarding who labored in the fields

and who performed household chores reflected the intersection of individual family’s

composition with Mexican American cultural norms and gender changes in United States

18 Garcia, A World of Its Own, 161.

19 Irene Fávila, interview by José Angel Gutiérrez, November 4, 1998, transcript 8-9, CMAS 134, Special

Collections, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Arlington, Texas, accessed on June 2013,

http://library.uta.edu/tejanovoices/interview.php?cmasno=134.

20 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 26.

21 Brett William, “Why Migrant Women Feed Their Husbands Tamales: Foodways as a Basis for a Revisionist

View of Tejano Family Life,” in Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States: The Performance of Group

Identity, eds. Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1984).

22 Ibid.

255

society. Various migrants established different reproductive and paid labor familial roles, yet

family consistently remained pivotal to migrants’ survival strategy as they migrated away from

their Southern homes and communities to the numerous fields of the North.

Set within the backdrop of the last half of the twentieth century, migration in the

Midwest stream meant the interaction between farmworker families and the social movements

of the 1960s and 1970s and the racially charged backlash against “illegal immigrants” in the

1980s and 1990s. Migrant families traveled to the Midwest during a time of radical challenge in

United States society. The United Farm Workers (UFW) in California brought the plight of

farmworkers to public attention at the same time that the Chicano, Civil Rights, and Feminist

Movements brought public attention to the problems faced by minorities and issues in gender

relations. Social movements exposed farmworkers and the public at large to avenues for

empowerment and change in gender, labor, and social relations. With these new ideas, social

perceptions of Mexican American identity, farmworker power, and gender roles became

negotiable rather than pre-defined. Yet the backlash of the 1980s and the 1990s brought

criticism of Feminism, government support for equality and anti-poverty legislation and

programs, in addition to a growing fear of “illegal” Mexican immigrants. For migrants, this

meant decreasing support for programs that benefitted migrants and the increasing

categorization of all ethnic Mexicans as “illegal” and therefore “outsiders.”23 Though Mexican

American communities could partially shield some Mexicans Americans from the constant

outside label of “illegal,” migrants who traveled to rural Midwest regions often faced the

23 Garry G. Geffert, "H-2(A) Guestworkers Program: A Legacy of Importing Agricultural Labor," in The Human

Cost of Food: Farmworkers, Lives, Labor, and Advocacy, eds. Charles D. Thompson, Jr. and Melinda F. Wiggins

(Austin, TX: Austin University of Texas Press, 2002), 118; Ronald L. Mize and Alicia C. S. Swords, Consuming

Mexican Labor: From the Bracero Program to NAFTA (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 7, 9.

256

racially-based label of “illegal,” making migrants even more of an outsider to the local cities

and towns.24 Traveling from their homes in the South to the fields of the Midwest during the

last half of the twentieth century, farmworkers experienced changing social norms and

backlash.

“A donde el corazon se inclina, el pie camina”25

Since the beginning, farmworker’s Southern homes and towns influenced those who

traveled up the Midwest stream and the cultural and family adaption strategies used to survive.

Texas, Florida, and Mexico served as Midwest migrants’ home base, usually located in the

center of a Mexican community and near extended family networks. Extended family, festivals,

and school friends made up the migrants’ local Southern communities, making migrants call

the South home. From Jose Martinez in the mid-twentieth century to Zulema Lopez and Perla

Sanchez in the recent documentary The Harvest/La Cosecha, friends and the Mexican

American community made migrant children more comfortable in their Southern schools and

homes than the migrant schools and fields of the North.26 Though differences could make

farmworkers feel out of place even in the South, such as Beatriz Castillo who was born in

Mexico but moved with her family to Texas in the 1970s where she felt out of place in high

school because of her accent, most farmworkers described feeling comfortable and accepted in

24 Proyecto Adelante, 4:22, La Raza Records, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; LULAC,

Committee List, 1: Administration-Committees, 1973-1974, LULAC Council 93/4, Iowa Women's Archives,

University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa..

25 “A donde el corazon se inclina, el pie camina” is a Spanish proverb that is essentially equal to the English

proverb “Home is where the heart is.”

26 The Harvest/La Cosecha, directed by U. Roberto Romano (Globalvision, Romano Film & Photography, Shine

Global, 2011), DVD; Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today

(University of California, 1998), 276.

257

their native Southern homes.27 Farmworkers’ financial success in the North provided funding to

make improvements to migrants’ stable Southern homes, especially for Mexican nationals.28

The culturally similar environment meant migrants felt at home in the South as similar

language, experiences, food, and culture brought the community together and made the

physical space where they lived, home.

Within Mexican and Mexican American dominated cities and towns, farmworkers

could easily take part in significant events and daily activities centered on the home and the

local community. Quinceañeras, Day of the Dead, Spanish mass, and even traditional Mexican

food, created a sense of community in the Texas, Florida, and Mexican migrant communities.

Family, including immediate and extended family members, played important roles in these

events, as migrants also forged and maintained ties within the local and extended community.

Food itself proved a notable expression of culture, with Sylvia’s parents sending spices and

ingredients essential to traditional Mexican dishes to her when she moved up North.29 Southern

homes and communities served as a safe place that sheltered and maintained Mexican

American culture. Even for migrants who traveled up the Western stream, the existence of

Mexican American culture in the Southwest eased migrants ability to find and cook traditional

food as well as take part in traditionally cultural events. As a child in the migrant stream in his

family of ten, Jose Martinez remembered being happier in his Texas home because of the

significant number of Mexican and Mexican Americans in Texas, especially as people in the

27 Beatriz Castillo, interview by Terry Shoptaugh, July 21, 1992, transcript, 19, Red River Sugar Beet Grower

Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead,

Minnesota.

28 “Who are the Migrants, and What is Home?” The Register, June 2, 1969, 5.

29 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza.

258

Michigan area where his family migrated to yearly, treated him “differently.”30 He stated,

“When I went back to Texas, I had no problems making friends. In Texas it’s like ninety

percent raw Mexicans and Mexican Americans. I formed my group of kids... If they weren’t

migrant kids, then they’d been migrants. They’d all worked in the fields. Michigan and Texas

were two totally different worlds. Every time I went back to Texas, I felt like I was going

home.”31 Traditional meals as well as the ability to share in common cultural events, such as a

daughter’s Quinceañera, made some farmworkers feel more comfortable and at home in

Mexico, Texas, or Florida than in the Midwest.

It is within the comfortable physical space of farmworker’s Southern homes that

farmworker family and gender norms developed. Mexican and Mexican American culture often

provided a cultural basis for the division of labor within migrant families. Mexican culture

emphasized kinship and the importance of family and sacrifice.32 Helping each other and the

inculcation of individual sacrifice for the family’s welfare proved even more relevant to

migrant farmworkers who had little money and labored together as a family to survive. Migrant

families depended on members following gender and familial roles as family members

performed both paid and unpaid labor. Based on the idea that many hands made farm labor

easier, the average Mexican migrant family during the 1960s to the 1970s consisted of six to

seven individuals.33 Those old enough to work in the fields, which could be almost half of the

30 Rothenberg, With Theses Hands.

31 Ibid, 274.

32 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 55; Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner

Arauza.

33 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 5, 81.

259

family, ensured greater earnings for the family unit.34 In addition, childcare and other

household chores done by family members freed older persons to perform waged labor. For all

members of the traditional Mexican family, familial loyalty was critical to the family’s survival

in the migrant stream as they traveled without a “home” for a large portion of the year.

The sacrificial nature of the Mexican American migrant culture provided a framework

for the gender division of labor for migrants in the stream. Traditionally, women and girls

provided reproductive labor and men provided financially for the family and controlled the

sexuality of women.35 As migrants, this meant women occasionally worked in the fields, but

consistently performed reproductive labor. For example, Adelle Martinez remembered girls and

mothers left the fields to make lunch as the men continued to work.36 This division of

responsibilities extended to children as many parents raised young boys to eventually be the

head of the household with the responsibility of providing for the family and protecting sisters,

simultaneously sheltering girls to protect their valued virginity.37 For Silvia and Israel Garcia,

this meant restricting dances and dates for their daughters.38 For Lidia Curiel, boys who wanted

to take her to a dance had to ask her brother for permission.39 Despite this broad depiction of

Mexican machismo, the reality of Mexican culture and the lives of migrant farmworkers meant

a degree of adjustment. Economic necessity meant women usually had to work in the fields,

though some husbands avoided this if possible. Yet the traditional gender norms did not leave

34 Ibid, 81.

35 William, “Why Migrant Women Feed Their Husbands Tamales.

36 Adella Martinez, interview by Janet Weaver, October 10, 2006, Iowa Women's Archives, University of Iowa

Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.

37 Power, “An Analysis of the Family System,” 12, 14.

38 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza.

39 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 43.

260

Mexican women without power; women at least partially controlled finances in the family,

managing family resources to save money and using reproductive labor, like cooking or

providing medical assistance to neighbors, to create ties and support their family.40 Gender

relations in migrants’ Southern homes established the structure for the gender division of labor

that would be employed, and even altered, within the temporary homes of the Midwest migrant

stream.

Despite Mexican and Mexican Americans’ sense of home in Texas, Florida, or Mexico,

economic necessity, driven by decreasing financial opportunities in the South and racially

limited opportunities in the North, forced many to migrate al Norte year after year. Many

Mexican and Mexican Americans, especially those with less education, lacked job

opportunities in Texas, Mexico, and Florida. Migrants who grew up in Mexico or Texas

remembered their parents owning small stores, growing crops, picking cotton and performing a

variety of other jobs in their home towns, but they also remember being poor. Since childhood,

Mary Ramos recalled working in the cotton fields to help her family survive, but after her

family started migrating to the field up North, her family was able to buy a radio, a record

player, soda, and meat, things her family could not afford before entering the migrant stream.41

Mechanization and changing economies in farmworkers’ Southern homes left many without

year-round employment. Families like Mary Ramos’ heard and saw migrants’ success as

migrant farmworkers returned to their Southern homes. In reality, migrant families worked long

and hard hours, lived in shacks, experienced discrimination, made meager wages, and often had

40 Loki Thorkelson, “Migrant Concerned about Image,” Redwood Gazette, August 19, 1975, 1, Social Life and

Sports, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul,

Minnesota; Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, interview by Janet Weaver, October 10, 2006,

transcript, 23-24, Iowa Women’s Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.

41 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 56.

261

to save their Northern money to survive Southern winters, yet migrants’ apparent success

encouraged future migration. Tales of individual migrant families’ success in Northern fields

combined with former migrants visible success living al Norte, made the Midwest an appealing

option for struggling Mexican Americans. As some migrants found year-round factory or other

employment up North, some migrants even left the stream, frequently between the 1960s and

1980s, with the assistance of local agencies in the Midwest. Despite Mexican and Mexican

Americans’ established homes in the South, many families found themselves migrating al

Norte for work.

Migrating al Norte

Though migrants’ homes in Texas, Florida, or Mexico could hardly be considered

luxurious, they were often better equipped than the dilapidated temporary housing they resided

in within the Midwest. Growers provided migrants’ temporary northern homes and most

growers faced limited, if any, housing regulations.42 Growers from the 1950s to the 1970s

usually converted barns, shacks, or trailers to house large families or several families. For the

Perez family who worked in a Roselle, Illinois field, the family of twelve lived in a converted

chicken coup located near the grower’s unsecured pesticide. In addition, housing usually lacked

basic facilities like running water or toilets. An Indiana state report on migrants took note that

the Guerra family lived in a toolshed converted to a house for a few families with no indoor

42 Kathleen Mapes, "'A Special Class of Labor': Mexican (Im)Migrants, Immigration Debate, and Industrial

Agriculture in the Rural Midwest," Labor, 1:2 (Summer 2004), 65-88; “Summary Meeting on Health Problems

Associated with Migrant Workers,” Migrant Problem Study Commission II, 1958-1963, 1, Commission on

Children: Migrant Workers Study Research Files, 1950-1963, Illinois State Archives, Norton Building,

Springfield, Illinois; John Gilbert, "Okay Migrant Housing Law," Bensenville Register, August 18, 1968; Charles

Hayes, "Migrant Is Local Issue," Daily Herald, November 5, 1959.

262

plumbing.43 Because of the camps poor location and the lack of proper facilities, disease and

animal or insect infestations became common problems in some migrant camps.44 From as

early as the 1930s when John Ortega grew up as a migrant traveling to the Midwest, to the

1960s when the Perez family came to Illinois, Midwest growers provided migrants with

unsuitable housing that sometimes caused deaths. In the case of the Perez family, two year-old

Ernesto Perez died from exposure to unsecured pesticide stored next to the Perez’ shack, while

John Ortega blamed his baby sister’s death on a drafty migrant house.45 The farmworkers

unstable life as they traveled to various shacks along their migrant route, made it difficult for

farmworkers to establish a sense of “home” in the Midwest stream. For Jose Martinez who

migrated as a child to Michigan, housing was part of a constellation of factors that made him

feel as if he did not belong in Michigan, choosing to not make friends in the area. Home was a

mindset of an imagined destination, and he knew he would leave shortly.46 Whether a single

family in a converted barn or a small camp of migrant families in trailers, the poor conditions

of migrants’ Northern houses left farmworkers lacking a sense of home in the North.

Family played an important role in how migrants faced the deplorable conditions of

migrant housing and made the migrant camps a home away from home. Migrant families tried

to create some sense of home in migrant camps, working to clean the dirt in the house and

bringing some of the essentials of their Southern house to create a temporary home in the

43 “Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights,” prepared by the Indiana Advisory Committee to the

United States Commission on Civil Rights, (1975), accessed January 22, 2013,

https://www.law.umaryland.edu/marshall/usccr/documents/cr12in24a.pdf.

44 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition.

45 Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega,” 44; “Farmers Rush to Better Quarters for Mexican Workers,” Bensenville

46 Rothenberg, With Theses Hands, 274.

263

Northern fields. For farmworkers with children, developing a sense of “home” meant recreating

family structures that allowed all family members to eat, drink, find warmth, and other basic

functions. Family members cooked, found wood to burn in stoves, cleaned the house, and

raised children as each housing structure had to serve as a home for a few months in a year.47

Yet for others, establishing a temporary home was barely a necessity, as Mary Ramos

intentionally worked in the fields because she hated tending a shack to make it a temporary

“home.”48 As some farmworkers sought to clean the dirt and create some kind of “home away

from home” for their family members, others, especially the few single migrants traveling up

the Midwest stream, found it easier to view the Northern fields as a temporary stop.49 Migrants

like Jesus Sanchez and his father argued they did not need pleasant housing because they were

there to work, accepting a field or the back of a car to sleep.50 Midwest migrants’ family

structure in the stream shaped whether migrants’ viewed Northern housing accommodations as

only a place to sleep until the next work day, or as a place to care for the health, safety, and

nutrition of multiple people, especially children. Family meant migrants had to create a place,

even if only for a few months in a year, for their children to grow-up, eat, work on homework,

and play. Even in the early 2000s, the Lopez and Sanchez families came with their pots and

pans and a few basic personal items and started cleaning and arranging their temporary home in

Northern fields.51 Though single adults could easily view the North as a place only for work

47 Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, interview by Janet Weaver.

48 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 60.

49 Romano, The Harvest/La Cosecha.

50 Jesus Sanchez Jr., interview by Terry L. Shoptaugh, July 25, 1990, transcript, 19, Red River Sugar Beet Grower

Records, Northwest Minnesota Historical Center, Livingston Lord Library, Moorhead University, Moorhead,

Minnesota.

51 Romano, The Harvest/La Cosecha.

264

and sleep, migrant families had to wrestle with dilapidated Northern housing to establish a

temporary home for their children.

To survive in the Midwest stream, farmworker families sacrificed in the fields and in

their temporary homes, adapting traditional gender norms to perform necessary reproductive

and waged labor. Within the private sphere of the home and the public sphere of waged labor,

migrants of all ages faced gendered expectations of men, women, and children’s roles. Families

depended on each members’ sacrifice to survive. As one boy recalled of himself and his

siblings working in Michigan fields, “We just did it. Working was what we did to survive.”52

When children reached the age of seven or eight, they performed labor equal to adults in the

fields.53 For children in the early twentieth century like John Ortega, children rarely attended

school since local officials ignored existing truancy laws.54 Similarly, an Indiana report on

migrants in 1974 noted that the state did not even legally require migrant children attend school

as late as the 1970s.55 For Perla Sanchez who migrated with her family to Indiana and Ohio,

she missed part of the beginning and end of the school year so she could travel and work with

her family.56 Even when parents did not employ their children in the field because they were

too young, children played or slept on nearby blankets because few migrant parents had cheap

or free childcare.57 For many Mexican and Mexican Americans working in the Midwest, the

entire family either worked or played in the fields.

52 Rothenberg, With Theses Hands, 273.

53 Irene Fávila, interview by José Angel Gutiérrez.

54 Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega.”

55 “Indiana Migrants: Blighted Hopes, Slighted Rights;” Claras Backes, “The Migrants’ Union Comes to Pickle

Country,” Chicago Tribune, October 20, 1968.

56 Romano, The Harvest/ La Cosecha.

57 Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, interview by Janet Weaver, 7.

265

Since migrants first started coming north to work in the fields, family members

expected the entire family to perform some type of labor. For early migrants like Amelia Nava

who started working in the fields with her parents during the 1940s when she turned eleven,

work in the fields meant she could not attend school or play with kids, receiving only four years

of public school education.58 As some migrant parents pushed for their children to receive an

education, many children still worked in the fields for most of their life. Beatriz Castillo

labored in the fields throughout the 1970s and 1980s, migrating with her family after the school

year finished and even working with her family during breaks in college.59 Beatriz stopped

migrating only when she found full-time employment, yet even at the time of her interview in

1992, Beatriz still worked in the fields some weekends.60 Family expectations extended beyond

young children, with Lidia Curiel taking care of her elderly mother who migrated with her

daughter.61 At the same time, Lidia’s elderly mother occasionally worked in the fields, picking

a row or two to help her daughter’s family.62 The sacrificial nature of Mexican American

culture and life in the stream meant that migrant family members had to support the family,

which for many men, women, and children in the stream, meant working in the fields or the

home.

Though all family members often labored in the fields regardless of sex, the gender

division of labor played a more significant role in the reproductive labor of the home. The

58 Audrey Mackiewicz, "Fremont Woman Helps Because She Remembers," Sandusky Register, February 10, 1985,

5:14, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit,

Michigan.

59 Beatriz Castillo, interview by Terry Shoptaugh, 11-12, 16.

60 Ibid, 16.

61 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 47.

62 Ibid.

266

gender and even age division of labor provided farmworkers with a way to manage their lives

in the stream. Parents expected older children to help out and be a good example for younger

siblings.63 Young girls took on the domestic role of mother to allow their own mother to work

in the field, with older girls taking on roles with greater responsibility, like cooking and taking

care of their younger siblings. One woman in the Western stream, Irene Fávila, recalled her

mother cooked and prepared items each day for all the children to eat, and that she, at the age

of six, had to feed her younger siblings as her mother worked in the field.64 Some women

cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which they brought out to the workers in the field,

allowing field workers to take a much needed meal break before going back to work.65 Women

who grew up as migrants remember girls helping more around the house than boys: cooking,

cleaning, and baking, while boys did other chores such as collecting firewood. However, all

older children cared for younger siblings.66 In addition, migrants remember older boys taking

caring of younger sisters as guardians and protectors of sisters’ sexuality as older girls often

took on motherly roles looking after younger sibling.67 Gendered roles became so engrained

that one migrant woman, Mercedes, remembered feeling like an adult woman at the young age

of twelve because she could accomplish many of the tasks adult women performed such as

washing, cooking, and taking care of children.68 Migrants partially established a “home” in the

temporary houses of the North by maintaining their family structure through the maintenance

63 Ibid, 64.

64 Irene Fávila, interview by José Angel Gutiérrez.

65 Adella Martinez, Lupe Serrano, and Julio Serrano, interview by Janet Weaver.

66 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 26-27, 42; Ortega, “Memoirs of John R.

Ortega.

67 Irene Fávila, interview by José Angel Gutiérrez.

68 Lindborg and Ovando, Five Mexican-American Women in Transition, 69.

267

of the gender division of labor, using norms as a basis for their adaptation to work and housing

demands.

For the women that raised their children, cooked, and cleaned the shacks they

temporarily called home, the fields were either an added chore or a freedom from the

frustrations of maintaining a shack. A much younger migrant, Mary, stated, “I’ve always

worked in the fields, too. A woman doesn’t have to, just if she wants to, but she usually

does.”69 Hating to only tend to a house in the shacks provided by growers and raise two

children, Mary figured it better to help her family financially by working with her husband in

the fields.70 Another migrant woman, much older than Mary who eventually settled in

Michigan, willingly labored in the fields though her husband felt that as a man he should be the

main worker.71 Both Mary and the older migrant woman showed a willingness to work outside

the confines of the home, in the fields, even when their husbands did not feel it necessary.

These women understood that their family’s survival, especially when their family returned to

their Southern homes, depended on the income made in the fields. Migrant women’s desire to

financially support their families, notably in the case of Mary, demonstrated a consciousness to

work outside the reproductive labor roles assigned to women. Mary specifically saw herself not

only in terms of her role in the house, performing reproductive labor, but also as a paid worker.

In addition, Mary disregarded her Northern shack as a home worth caring for, instead seeking

to support her family through other means. Whether supporting the family through paid labor in

69 Ibid, 60.

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid, 38.

268

the fields or reproductive labor in the home, farmworker women worked to establish a home for

their family.

Struggling to create a physical “home” in the Midwest, farmworkers also struggled with

cultural and physical isolation in some Midwest towns and cities, relying on any local migrant

community to establish a sense of belonging. For the many migrants who traveled within

crews, lack of automobiles left migrants dependent on growers and crew leaders for

transportation into local cities. This physical isolation, though confining migrants to a small

area with other Mexican American migrants, also meant that they could not integrate

themselves in the local community or create the necessary ties to leave the stream and establish

local acceptance of a culturally different population. In contrast to the Western stream where

farmworkers likely migrated to areas with nearby Mexican American communities, Midwest

migrant workers were often culturally different in many of the rural fields of the Midwest.

When reaching local cities and towns, migrants often felt out of place, and sometimes,

unwanted. Like the example of Jose Martinez, migrant children were outsiders in Midwest

communities, facing indifference from the school system, if not hostility from teachers and

fellow students. Mexican American groups like La Raza in Wisconsin, pressured schools to do

more than place migrants’ education in the hands of one overworked Mexican American

teacher. Yet schools did not always listen, with one Wisconsin principal arguing she did not

need to solve the fact that the migrant stream left many migrant students behind on their

education.72 For John Ortega, growing up in the stream meant language, culture, and money

made him feel different from other local children, leading him to avoid eating his traditional

72 Project self help for settled out migrants, 4:49, La Raza, Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison,

Wisconsin.

269

Mexican lunch around his classmates.73 Yet, some migrants and Northern residents tried to

create better ties between the farmworkers and local community. In Redwood Falls, Minnesota,

the Migrant Parent Council organized a celebration with Mexican musicians, a large piñata, and

traditional Mexican dishes like frijoles and enchiladas to share Mexican American culture with

the Anglo residents of Redwood Falls.74 These cultural exchange events, with migrant women

using their reproductive role of food preparation to create important community ties, provided

rural Midwest towns that had no strong Mexican community with an avenue to learn about

Mexican American culture. Few rural areas had preexisting Mexican communities as previous

immigrants went to larger cities such as Chicago, Illinois or St. Paul, Minnesota, or slightly

smaller cities such as Cooks Point, Iowa, where railroad and industrial opportunities drew early

Mexican and Mexican American immigrants.75 For the many migrants who followed the

Midwest stream to the fields of small farming towns, migrants struggled against cultural and

physical isolation.

Cultural differences made Mexican American migrants’ cultural isolation in the

Midwest communities where they worked, more pronounced. For the migrants outside urban

cultural havens like Chicago or St. Paul where large numbers of Mexican Americans lived,

simple things like food proved difficult. Sylvia Garcia noted that when leaving the migrant

stream to live in Moorhead, Minnesota, her family in Texas would mail chili peppers,

73 John Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega.”

74 Lori Thorkelson, “Migrant Concerned about Image.”

75 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota;

Grace Nunez, “Voices of a Different Color: An Oral History of Eastern Iowa Mexican American Women,” (paper,

University of Iowa- School of Journalism and Mass Communication, 1993), 5, University Iowa Women’s

Archives, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa; Dionicio Nodín Valdés, Barrios Norteños: St. Paul and

Midwestern Mexican Communities in the Twentieth Century, (University of Texas Press, 2000), 137.

270

jalapeños, and other ingredients because she could not find them in local stores.76 Sylvia

mentioned food several times as an important component of Mexican culture that she tried to

maintain for her children growing up in a culturally different community.77 Though Moorhead,

Minnesota became her family’s new home, Silvia, who was born and raised in Crystal City,

Texas, and her husband, Israel, a native of Mexico, struggled with the notion of Moorhead,

Minnesota as their home, even though their children who were raised in the area felt

comfortable.78 Similarly for John Ortega’s father, who came to the United States in the early

twentieth century, a Mexican radio station provided an important tie to his old home in

Mexico.79 As some younger generations created a place for themselves al Norte, many

migrants and ex-migrants like Silvia, Israel, and Ortega’s father remained tied to their Southern

homes because of extended family and Mexican American culture.

As some farmworkers dreamed of the South, other migrants sought out Mexican

American culture in the Midwest. John Ortega’s family always took their day off of work to

visit any other Mexican Americans in the area, curbing their cultural isolation while living in

the stream.80 For migrant farmworkers living near larger cities, local Mexicans provided a

cultural haven, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when the Civil Rights and Chicano

Movements encouraged the establishments of numerous cultural organizations. The Mexican

American community of St. Paul, Minnesota created a Mexican American Cultural Center by

the 1970s which provided any nearby migrants or ex-migrants with an important tie to Mexican

76 Sylvia Garcia, interview by Abner Arauza.

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Ortega, “Memoirs of John R. Ortega,” 57.

80 Ibid, 54.

271

American culture. Smaller cities like DeKalb, Illinois, where only a few Mexican Americans

resided after leaving the stream in the 1970s, had no cultural centers to support the Mexican

American community of local and ex-migrants.81 Some of these smaller cities eventually

provided some cultural havens after some farmworkers left the stream, such as when the Balli

family established a Mexican restaurant in DeKalb, Illinois.82 Few Midwest cities and towns

provided a sense of “home” for migrants since they lacked the Mexican American culture,

community, and sense of belonging important for establishing a home.

Barrios and Migrants

The farmworkers who migrated between their Southern homes and the temporary

shacks of the North or who established homes in the North, had to negotiate between their

sense of home in the South and the opportunities of the North. Farmworkers’ Southern colonias

and barrios, though usually located within Anglo-controlled cities, still provided a cultural

haven for migrants. The Mexican American residents of Crystal City, Texas organized to win

council seats in the late 1960s and early 1970s because of Mexican Americans lack of

representation in a city with a large Mexican population.83 Despite facing racism and

discrimination in their Southern homes, farmworkers from Crystal City still had the advantage

of a large Mexican American population to organize for change. Though racism and the

81 Mexican-American Cultural and Educational Center, bulletin 4, August 1973, Mexican American Cultural and

Educational Center Records, 1971-1974, Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collections, Minnesota State

Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Luis Balli, interview by George Gutierrez, March 24, 1981, Oral History

Collection: Town Gown Relations in DeKalb, 1955-1980, Regional History Center, Founders Memorial Library,

Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois.

82 Luis Balli, interview by George Gutierrez, 5-7.

83 Marc Simon Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora: Mexican Americanism of Ethnic Politics in Texas and Wisconsin

(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), 60-125.

272

growing public fear of undocumented immigration brought backlash even in the Southern and

Western parts of the United States, the existence of Southern and Western colonias and barrios

still provided a cultural refuge for Mexican American.

In contrast to Southern barrios’ homogeneous population, the Midwest contained

anything from rural communities with limited opportunities and no Hispanic residents to urban

areas with a Mexican American barrio and numerous job opportunities. The mixture of old and

new, colonias and barrios, and Mexican American and Anglo communities within the North

made the farmworker experience in the Midwest stream markedly different than in Southern

and even Western cities where larger and more historical Mexican American and Mexican

communities existed. Migrants who left the stream to live in the Midwest often did so because

of the support of local organizations that offered assistance with housing and jobs, like in

DeKalb, Illinois and St. Paul, Minnesota. Yet these aid groups did not always exist in cities

with a preexisting Mexican American communities. The first few farmworkers who left the

stream with the assistance of some local agencies, created a home in an Anglo-dominated

community, ultimately encouraging others to live in the area. In the case of DeKalb, Illinois,

this meant a bourgeoning community after Luis Balli and Benito Alamia’s families left the

stream in 1967 and 1968. These pioneers were some of the first Mexican American migrants to

live in the area, and through their entrepreneurship they developed a few cultural institutions

including restaurants and eventually a grocery store that served future Mexican Americans that

came to live in the city.84 In contrast, other Midwest cities such as St. Paul, had extensive

Mexican American communities that supported each other, including day care centers and even

organizations that came out of the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s like the Brown

84 Luis Balli, interview by George Gutierrez.

273

Berets.85 The variety of environments in the Midwest meant migrants could either create for

their families a home in the Midwest, or struggle to not feel isolated from Midwest culture,

land, and people.

Activists during the 1960s and 1970s and scholars of Mexican American and Chicano

culture, focused heavily on the Southwest region as the heart of Mexican and Mexican

American culture, ultimately ignoring the Midwest region where pockets of Mexican

Americans resided. Though the Southwest region of the United States had the distinction of

continual Mexican presence before the current United States borders were established, the

Midwest did not have any significant Mexican immigrants until the early 20th century. Despite

the early waves of immigrants, the early Mexican and Mexican American residents of the

Midwest remained patchy and centered in urban centers. The overall perception of the Midwest

as non-Hispanic meant that the local and national community saw Midwest Mexican

Americans as immigrant outsiders even if families lived in the Midwest for generations.86 The

influx and subsequent media attention on undocumented Mexicans encouraged the perception

that all Mexican Americans in the Midwest were outsiders. The public notion that Mexicans

outside the Southwest were foreign, thwarted farmworkers’ efforts to comfortably create a

home for themselves in the Midwest as they traveled in the stream and sometimes left the

stream to live in the North.87

Outside the pockets of Mexican Americans in the Midwest, out-migrating farmworkers

also blended into small and large Northern urban centers. The Midwest often drew migrant

85 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection.

86 Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 249-250.

87 Gonzales, “Aztlan in the Midwest and other Counter-Narratives Revealed,” 18-19.

274

farmworkers to the area for agricultural employment, but Midwest urban centers also served as

a draw to the region especially for migrants that sought to leave the stream. St. Paul,

Minnesota; Chicago, Illinois; and Madison, Wisconsin offered industrial employment. In

Chicago, various industrial employment opportunities existed, including railroad work earlier

in the twentieth century and steel work in the later half of the twentieth century.88 In Madison

and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, large numbers of migrants from Crystal City, Texas left the stream

to live in Wisconsin. The transmission of culture and ideas to Wisconsin, including the activist

ideology of Crystal City residents, came from the continuation of the migrant stream from

Crystal City to Wisconsin.89 In this case, the continuation of the migrant stream between these

two points encouraged Mexican American activism in both Crystal City, Texas and Madison

and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In contrast, large and small urban centers with early Mexican

populations provided migrants and new Mexicans residents with cultural institutions, with St.

Paul having Mexican American cultural centers and Mexican American day care centers, and

Chicago had grocers and neighborhood communities.90 Yet, the existence of cultural centers in

larger urban cities and industrial employment options did not prevent migrants from leaving the

stream and landing in urban ghettos. Northern Mexican Americans and Anglos feared that

migrants who left the stream would become another member of the Midwest urban ghetto as

Midwest industrial employment, though year-round and more remunerative than field work, did

not provide enough for decent housing in urban centers. The Hermosillo family, who left the

stream on the outskirts of Chicago, lived in a shack located near a sewage canal which they

88 For Immediate Release-Save Our Jobs Committee, July 31, 1980, 2:11, Frank and Beatrice Lumpkin Papers,

1949-2013, Chicago History Museum, Research Center, Chicago, Illinois.

89 Rodriguez, The Tejano Diaspora.

90 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection; Dennis Nodin Valdes, Al Norte: Agricultural Workers in

the Great Lakes Region, 1917-1970 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991); Norris, North for the Harvest.

275

rented for ten dollars a month.91 Though leaving the stream, the Hermosillo family’s living

conditions hardly improved from the shacks in the fields. Though Carmen Hermosillo’s

employment as a janitor allowed for his family’s stable presence in the Midwest, their shack

hardly served as a stable home. Like the Hermosillo family, many ex-migrants lived in slums,

so much so that the Wisconsin’s United Migrant Opportunity Services, Inc. struggled to

remedy it through assistance for migrants transitioning out of the stream.92 For the former

migrant farmworkers drawn to year-round employment in the urban Midwest, large cities

offered the possibility of a Mexican American community in addition to the disadvantage of

urban decay and poverty.

The opportunities of the Midwest in the last half of the twentieth century would

ultimately combine with the social movements of the time to reshape the gender dimensions of

ex-farmworker families. Ex-farmworkers who found a remunerative urban job that provided for

their family, usually led to the renegotiation of gender norms. With more remunerative jobs,

women could stay in the private realm of the home with men in the public realm of paid

employment. However, not many ex-farmworkers found high paying jobs. Amelia Nava spent

a few years away from the agricultural fields of the Midwest, but as her family grew she

returned to the fields around her new home in Tiffin, Ohio to help support her family as her

husband continued to work in a Bettsville, Ohio factory.93 Year-round industrial employment

did not guarantee ex-farmworkers ability to return permanently to traditional gender roles.

91 Julie Ann Lyman, “A Shack on a Canal: Seven Who Care,” Chicago Tribune, March 8, 1964.

92 Statement of Farmworker Involvement and Board Participation, UMOS Inc. FY 1974-1975, United Migrant

Opportunity Services, Inc., United Migrant Opportunity Services, Inc., Milwaukee Area Research Center, UW-

Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

93 Mackiewicz, "Fremont Woman Helps Because She Remembers."

276

At the same time the Midwest drew migrants to the region for year-round employment,

the Feminist movement altered farmworker and former farmworker’s perception of

reproductive labor and remunerated employment. Though some migrants held relatively

traditional views about men and women’s roles in the public and private spheres, some

demonstrated a desire for change. Amelia specifically argued that she should have greater

control over the finances as she was in charge of the private realm of the home and therefore

knew the financial needs of the household.94 She then went on to talk about how a man should

be faithful to a woman as she is to him, not only because of all the cooking and cleaning she

did in the house, but also because cheating meant he would spend money on another woman.95

For Amelia, traditional gender norms provided justification for changing power relationships

between husband and wife, arguing her reproductive labor gave her the right to hold financial

power and to expect her husband’s fidelity. Not just with women, male migrants after the 1960s

and 1970s showed a changing perspective on gender relations. A migrant in the Midwest

stream, Fernando Cuevas’ family power structure changed when he accepted a democratic

voting structure to handle important decisions that affected the entire family.96 For farmworkers

living in the stream or creating a home in the North, the Feminist Movement forced a

renegotiation of gender roles. Former migrants struggled to find a place in the Midwest where

they could find year-round employment and a Mexican American community that made them

feel at home; but just as they were in the Midwest stream, ex-farmworkers also struggled to

94 Lindborg and Ovando, Mexican-American Cultural and Educational Center Women in Transition, 66.

95 Ibid, 68.

96 W.K. Barger and Ernesto M. Reza, The Farm Labor Movement in the Midwest: Social Change and Adaptation

among Migrant Farmworkers (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1994), 104.

277

adjust their family dynamics to address the changing perceptions of gender and the gender

division of labor.

Conclusion

As the fervor of the Chicano Movement, like the other social movement of the 1960s

and 1970s, slowly died away, Mexican American organizations disappeared and opposition to

programs that supported social movements and migrant legislation increased. In the Midwest,

migrant and ex-migrants faced continual discrimination from local white elites as urban

renewal destroyed some barrios.97 In addition, Midwesterners, like the rest of the public in the

United States, were filled with rampant fear about undocumented immigrants, as people around

the nation portrayed and viewed all ethnic Hispanics as undocumented persons.

Simultaneously, the national government decreased funding for important programs, leading to

the decline of programs and laws that addressed discrimination in the nation. This led to

diminished support for many of the Mexican American cultural institutions.98 Financial and

social changes led to St. Paul’s Mexican American day care center, cultural centers, and

numerous Mexican American organizations like the Brown Berets, to disappear, leaving only a

handful of organizations that supported Mexican American culture by the late 1990s.99 In

addition, urban renewal destroyed vibrant Mexican American communities in Cooks Point,

Iowa and St. Paul, Minnesota.100 Changes in agriculture altered migrant routes, forcing the

closure of aid organizations like DeKalb’s Migrant Ministry, which combined with dwindling

97 Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 174.

98 Mize and Swords, Consuming Mexican Labor, 91-93.

99 Mexican American Community in St. Paul Collection.

100 Valdés, Barrios Norteños, 174.

278

government funding and public support for legislation and regulations, meant migrants in the

1980s and 1990s received little in the way of assistance.101 All the changes of the 1980s and

1990s combined to complicate migrant and former migrants’ sense of home in the Midwest.

The Mexican and Mexican American migrants who traveled to the Midwest lived

between two worlds as they migrated al Norte for work. The Mexican and Mexican Americans

who migrated to the Midwest traveled between their Southern homes where family, friends,

and a Mexican community existed, to work and sometimes live in the North where

farmworkers would meet either cultural isolation and hostility or a supportive Mexican

American community. Unlike the East Coast stream, migrants in the Midwest had families to

divide waged and reproductive labor roles in the stream, yet family did not prevent some

farmworkers from feeling culturally isolated in many parts of the Midwest. In contrast to the

Western stream that provided migrants an opportunity to be among Mexican Americans, many

in the Midwest public viewed Mexican Americans as “immigrants” and “outsiders.” For both

Sylvia Garcia and John Ortega’s families, job opportunities drew them al Norte and allowed

them to survive in their Northern homes and communities, and in the case of the Garcia family,

to establish a permanent year-round home up North. For the farmworkers who traveled up and

down the Midwest migrant stream, home, family, and identity were an important part of their

life and survival strategies in the stream; but even as some created for themselves a permanent

home in the Midwest, the migrant identity of living and working between two worlds would

forever influence them. To live between these two worlds, migrants and former migrants’

attempted to create a home for their families, adjusting familial roles to establish a temporary or

101 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), 154.

279

permanent home in the North. Even when farmworkers eventually viewed their Northern house

as home, many still identified if not worked, as migrant farmworkers throughout their life. As

Jose Martinez stated of growing up as a migrant traveling from Texas to the fields of Michigan,

“Still, I don’t think I’ll ever stop being a migrant. Once you’re a migrant, you’re a migrant for

the rest of your life, whether or not you travel from place to place, working the fields. Even

when I have a degree, I’ll still be a migrant, on the inside anyways.”102

102 Rothenberg, With Theses Hands, 276.

CONCLUSION

THINKING OUTSIDE PYRAMIDS AND PLATES:

MIGRANT FARMWORKERS SINCE 1993

“I think if more people knew about farmworkers,

Maybe things would be different.”1

Jose Martinez

“Agriculture’s Cynical Answer to Farm Workers’ Poverty” (1999), “Migrant Housing

Reported to be Dwindling in Iowa” (2004), “Migrants’ Dry Season; Crops Falter as Gas,

Immigration Woes Shrink Workforce” (2006), “Home is Where the Harvest is; For Juan De La

Cruz, Illinois Keeps Calling” (2007), “Registering Farmworkers’ Housing Riles Landlord”

(2011).2 Well into the twenty-first century, local newspapers contained articles about migrant

farmworkers’ conditions that continued to resemble that of the early and mid twentieth century.

The migrants that traveled to the Midwest between 1960 and 1993 came at a time of increasing

1 Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers (New York: Harcourt Brace,

1998), 275.

2 Daniel Rothenberg, “Agriculture’s Cynical Answer to Farm Workers’ Poverty,” Chicago Tribune, November 4,

1999, accessed August 2014,

http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/chicagotribune/docview/418976356/CEED48455F284A3EPQ/1?accountid= 12846;

“Migrant Housing Reported to be Dwindling in Iowa,” Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2004, accessed August 2014,

http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/chicagotribune/docview/420081436/9C8B2A9ED2AC4F5CPQ/1?accountid=12846;

Ray Quintanilla, “Migrants’ Dry Season; Crops Falter as Gas, Immigration Woes Shrink Workforce,” Chicago

Tribune (Chicagoland Final Edition), September 24, 2006, accessed September 2014,

http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/chicagotribune/ docview/420520625/202E91A116AA4254PQ/1?accountid=1284;

“Home Is Where the Harvest Is; For Juan De La Cruz, Illinois Keeps Calling,” Chicago Tribune, October 21,

2007, accessed August 2014, http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/chicagotribune/

docview/420654255/F3BF794D75834469PQ/1?accountid=1284; “Registering Farmworker’ Housing Riles

Landlord,” Chicago Tribune, July 31, 2011, accessed August 2014, http://www.ulib.niu.edu:2205/chicagotribune/

docview/880092358/2F1CDC0413AB42FAPQ/1?accountid=12846.

281

and then decreasing social activism and awareness that was apparent in newspaper articles and

other media. Though national and state governments, some aid organizations, many growers, as

well as agricultural corporations did not wish to drastically alter the food pyramid, many in the

public pushed for some type of change for farmworkers. The changes people demanded during

this era of awareness and activism often exemplified what they reacted to, either the conditions

of poverty depicted in Edward R. Murrow’s Harvest of Shame or the United Farm Worker’s

call to empower farm laborer. The types of programs and legislation developed during this era

ultimately shaped the experience of migrant farmworkers in the Midwest stream as some

migrants were able to settle in the Midwest, some migrant children received an improved

education, and some farm laborers unionized. For the Farm Labor Organizing Committee

(FLOC), public sympathy was critical to transform the power dynamics in at least two crops.

Though a small success in comparison to the Midwest as a whole, FLOC’s success altered a

small part of the food pyramid as some growers discovered their common position with

migrants against a larger system of power.

Yet as the era of activism and aid diminished, so too did the momentum for change. For

this reason, the different features that made up the Midwest stream from the 1960s to the

1990s: migrant families, state and national governments, agribusinesses, gender dynamics in

the stream, unions, aid societies, the public, and growers, remained relatively in the same

position within the pyramid. Some state and national migrants developed aid programs, some

migrants were unionized, some growers worked with migrants, and some within the public

supported aid organizations or farmworker empowerment, but no massive alteration of the

entire food pyramid occurred. Since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement

(NAFTA), the almost pyramidal power structure with farmworkers on the bottom, struggling

282

growers and the misinformed public in the middle, and powerful agribusinesses on the top,

continues on within the Midwest migrant stream.

Compounding the decreasing interest in migrants’ plight in the 1990s was the changes

in the structure of the migrant stream that made it more difficult to improve migrants’ lives

after the implementation of NAFTA in 1993. A struggling Mexican economy, faltering in part

because of the United States policies and increasingly stringent United States border controls,

forced primarily Mexican males to stay for long periods of time in the United States.3 Many

Midwest growers came to rely on international laborers through the H-2(A) program or

undocumented workers, including the Eckert fruit farm in Illinois which employed primarily H-

2(A) workers in the 1990s and early 2000s.4 The increasing internationalization of laborers

failed to bring the same sympathy that news article and specials about men, women, and

children in the Midwest stream brought during the 1960s to the 1990s, sympathy that was so

critical to public awareness and activism that brought about aid and legislation. At the Eckert

farm, both Martin Mauricio who managed the H-2(A) workers and one of the workers, Jose

Martinez, both lived between two worlds, working in Illinois and living occasionally with their

families in Mexico. Mauricio had been working in the United States in some capacity since

3 Remonda Bensabat Kleinberg, “Strategic Alliances: State-Business Relations in Mexico under Neo-Liberalism

and Crisis,” Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18:1 (January 1999), 71-87; Carol Zabin, “U.S.-Mexico

Economic Integration: Labor Relations and the Organization of Work in California and Baja California

Agriculture,” Economic Geography, 73, no. 3 (July 1997), 337-355; Francesca Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after

NAFTA: Globalization, Agribusiness, the US-Mexico Food Chain, and Farm-worker Struggles in North

Carolina,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Georgia State University, 2007); Kelly Lytle Hernández, Migra!: A History of the

U.S. Border Patrol (Oakland: University of California Press), 2010.

4 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue, July 20, 2008, transcript, 46, Agriculture in the Modern Era,

Agriculture in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx; Jose Martinez,

interview by Mark DePue, July 31, 2008, transcript, 5, Agriculture in the Modern Era, Agriculture in Illinois,

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Libary & Museum, accessed August 2014,

http://www.illinois.gov/alplm/library/collections/oralhistory/agriculture/Pages/default.aspx, 5.

283

1989, yet he met a woman in Mexico and got married by 1999, returning to Mexico every year

for a few months to be with his family.5 Men like Mauricio struggled in the fields without their

families because of the masculine nature of immigration from Mexico, because they still

desired to permanently settle in Mexico, or because of the difficulty Mexican families had in

entering the United States.6 Though the Midwest remains family oriented to a greater degree

than other streams, the Midwest notably changed. While migrants in the mid-twentieth century

struggled living transcultural lives between their homes in Texas, Florida, or Mexico and the

Midwest fields, at the turn of the century, the Midwest migrant stream became increasingly

single Mexican and Central American men working alongside migrant families.

National government policies and international relations in the late twentieth century

internationalized the farmworker populous in Midwest states at a time that states’ aid budgets

shrank and state and cities struggled to handle a diverse population. Migrants in the Midwest in

the last half of the twentieth century faced a bureaucratic structure that did not wish to alter the

system of power, but rather created programs that addressed only certain issues within the

stream. National governments and international policies continued to influence the structure of

power, with state governments enacting policies to react to the changing environment caused

by national policies. Part of the increase in Mexican Americans in the rural Midwest reflected

the aid migrants received during the 1960s to the 1990s. The growing national Spanish-

speaking population at the turn of the century came at a time of public backlash against

5 Martin Mauricio, interview by Mark DePue; Jose Martinez, interview by Mark DePue.

6 Ruben Martinez, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Stream (New York: Picador A Metropolitan

Book Henry Holt and Company, 2001), 46-47, 88-89.

284

Mexicans, government spending, and equality initiatives.7 Like before NAFTA, Spanish

speakers in the Midwest stream received educational opportunities and some assistance, but

also discrimination as state governments relegated the Spanish Speaking migrants as “other.”

The growing Hispanic population in 1990s Willmar, Minnesota occurred because of

educational and job opportunities in the community, but a newspaper reported some locals

believed the influx happened because of the state’s lenient and generous welfare program.8 This

view exemplified anti-immigrant sentiments that characterized the public belief that migrants

and immigrants abused the welfare system, despite the fact that many migrants struggled

managing the aid system. Though Hispanics could receive state welfare assistance, many felt

the sting of anti-immigrant sentiment, as an ex-migrant noted locals starred at him and his

family when they spoke Spanish in a store and as other former migrants reported being denied

housing or jobs because of their ethnicity and former migratory status.9 Midwest state and city

governments faced larger numbers of Hispanic immigrants who increased the cultural stresses

in cities and states as some in the public called for an English speaking America and fewer

benefits for questionably legal residents at the same time public schools faced pressure to

educate Spanish speaking children. Despite the increasing number of Mexican Americans in

the Midwest, many still disregard the Midwest as a Latino area. Though migrant workers are

more likely to encounter a Mexican American community in the rural Midwest, many migrants

and Mexican Americans still struggle to be accepted in the Midwest. The later changes in

7 Bradford Martin, The Other Eighties: A Secret History of America in the Age of Reagan (New York: Hill and

Wang, 2011); Daniel J. Tichenor, Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control in America (Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 2002).

8 Roger Worthington, “Hispanics Drawn to Minnesota: More Farmworkers from Texas Coming and Staying,”

Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1990.

9 Worthington, “Hispanics Drawn to Minnesota.”

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Midwest demographics shifted how other parties in the food pyramid interacted with each

other, as cities and states struggled to adapt to a changing population with a different language

and culture and as current migrant farmworkers were more likely to travel to rural cities with a

Hispanic community.

As the Hispanic population increased in the Midwest, agricultural corporate power

continued to grow. In the Midwest and the nation, powerful agribusinesses forced more and

more growers to “get big or get out” leading to a significant reduction in growers in the

Midwest at the turn of the twenty-first century and decreasing migrants’ employment options in

the Midwest.10 By the turn of the twenty-first century, the United States public became

interested in their food, with public interest in farmer’s markets and organic growers as more of

the public became aware of corporate power and what they ate. Similarly, corporate power has

arguably grown, but few academics explored its effect on the food pyramid. The public support

of FLOC during this era of activism created a bond between some growers and migrants as

tomato and pickle growers around Ohio eventually realized how they could benefit from

working with migrants to realign the system of power. Yet corporations continued to

consolidate their power in the 1990s and afterwards as they patented genetically modified seed

to force all growers to pay exorbitant prices for seed each year.11 Corporations’ power after the

1990s was apparent even in the Department of Agriculture’s shift from a Food Pyramid to a

Food Plate. The Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid previously had clear divisions,

which the Department replaced with a plate where almost all groups looked evenly distributed.

10 Change in Number of Farms, 1997-2002, the National Agricultural Workers Survey, prepared by Department of

Labor, Employment and Training Administration, accessed April 2015,

http://www.doleta.gov/agworker/naws.cfm#s-regions.

11 Erik Sherman, “Supreme Court sides with Monsanto on seed suit,” CBS News, May 13, 2013,

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-sides-with-monsanto-on-seed-suit/.

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The plate speaks to hopes by those on the top of the food pyramid that few in the public would

understand the system of power, accepting instead that various parties have equal influence

over what people eat. Though more and more recent books, documentaries, and articles analyze

where our food comes from in terms of corporate influence, government decisions, and grower

rights, few in the public talked extensively about farmworkers in the fields.12

The recent interest in what we eat instead of who labors in the fields, exemplified the

decreasing activism and concern regarding migrant farmworkers in the 1990s. After the 1990s,

migrants disappeared from the publics’ perception of the land, with one Village Board in Lake

in the Hills apparently unaware of a local old farmhouse that housed migrants nearby. Unaware

migrants came to the community, the village zoning board also denied the grower’s request to

build a “ranch-style bunk house” for the approximate ten migrants that came to work at the

farm. Huntley Mayor, Charles Becker claimed, “[the housing was] incompatible and will

adversely impact the future residential and commercial uses in the area.”13 Ignored by some

Midwest communities, growers forced other migrants to live in local communities as growers

tried to disconnect migrant poverty from their farm. One newspaper article in 2004 noted how

Zenon and Isidra Zuniga’s family, as well as their neighbors the Canter family, lived in an off-

farm housing complex near Des Moines, Iowa.14 Both families paid rent for a place that had

12 Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (New York: Melville House

Publishing, 2008); Mark Winne, Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty (Boston: Beacon

Press), 2008; Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal (New York: First

Mariner Books), 2001; Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner (New York: Magnolia Pictures, 2008), DVD; Forks

Over Knives, directed by Lee Fulkerson (Monica Beach Media, 2011), DV. Interesting a few recent books actually

include the role of farmworkers in the narrative: Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, Food Justice: Food, Health,

and the Environment (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2010).

13 Tim Kane, “Village Allows New Quarters for Migrant Workers Lake in the Hills Oak Tree Farm Bid,” Chicago

Tribune, McHenry County edition, January 14, 2000.

14 “Migrant Housing Reported to Be Dwindling in Iowa.”

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bats, no hot water, and no working smoke detector.15 Farmworkers’ working and living

conditions hardly improved since the 1990s, even when they lived off the farm. The public’s

lack of interest and acknowledgement of farmworkers in Midwest fields, coupled with growers’

effort to disconnect stooped workers with their farms, ultimately led to migrants disappearing

from the public’s imagination.

The public’s unwillingness to see migrants in the fields, mirrored the Midwest public’s

disinterest in migrants. Many aid organizations that offered support for migrants in the Midwest

either totally ceased existence, or local operations closed their doors in the 1990s. Changes in

agriculture forced the DeKalb Migrant Ministry and GAP in Minnesota to close their doors,

while religious groups like PADRES and Las Hermanas ceased to operate or became

significantly less active by the late 1980s.16 Though some organizations still exist on a national

or state scale, specifically the national Migrant Ministry and United Migrant Opportunity

Services in Wisconsin, the diminishing social activism of the public decreased interest in

migrants’ plight. Instead, public concern since the mid-1990s focused on personal or

international issues, with books and documentaries on what is in our food, international

agricultural policies, genetically modified food, and animal treatment. The United States

Conference of Catholic Bishops exemplified a rare interest in agriculture and labor, referring to

the power of agricultural corporations in the world, the need for greater grower rights, better

15 Ibid.

16 Ramsey County, Minnesota Telephone Directories, 1991, Minnesota Historical Society, Minnesota State

Historical Society, St. Paul, Minnesota; Lara Medina, Las Hermanas: Chicana/Latina Religious-Political Activism

in the U.S. Catholic Church (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 144-145; George Gutierrez, interview

by Lucille Aikins, 17, Oral History Collection: Town Gown Relations in DeKalb, 1955-1980, Regional History

Center, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois; Richard Edward Martínez, PADRES: The National Chicano

Priest Movement, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005), 130.

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access to food, with some discussion on farm labor.17 Despite current FLOC and the United

Farm Workers (UFW) efforts in addition to books and documentaries about agribusinesses and

food safety, the United States public usually ignore documentaries about migrant children

produced by TV stars or specials on the 50th anniversary of The Harvest of Shame.18 Though

the public is reacting to the recent activism by fast food workers, few if any tied the meager

wages and living conditions of fast food workers in the food pyramid with the migrants in the

field that harvest the food in the food chain.19

The minimal public awareness of agribusiness and the agricultural power structure since

2000, centered more on the connection between growers and corporate interest, than

farmworkers. FLOC’s radical decision to seek a three party deal between corporations,

growers, and farmworkers, exemplified their understanding of the true system of power within

the United States, influencing future union actions by themselves and other farmworker unions

and altering power relationships in part of the Midwest. Since FLOC’s success in the Midwest

in the 1980s, the union went to North Carolina during the 1990s where they worked with H-

2(A) pickle workers and are currently working with tobacco workers.20 Though still doing

community building in Ohio, FLOC’s move down South characterized the changing agriculture

17 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Committee on Domestic Policy, For I Was Hungry and You

Gave Me Food: Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers, and Farmworkers, (Washington, D.C.: United States

Conference of Catholic Bishops), 2003.

18 Byran Pitts, “ ‘Harvest of Shame’ 50 Years Later,” CBS, November 24, 2010, accessed August 2015,

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/harvest-of-shame-50-years-later/; The Harvest/ La Cosecha, directed by U.

Roberto Romano (Globalvision, Romano Film & Photography, Shine Global, 2011), DVD; Farm Labor

Organizing Committee, “Reynolds Campaign,” accessed September 2015,

http://www.floc.com/wordpress/reynolds-campaign/; “United Farm Workers,” accessed September 2015,

http://www.ufw.org/.

19 Zachary Roth, “Low-wage Workers’ Massive Show of Strength,” MSNBC, April 15, 2015, accessed August

2015, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/low-wage-workers-plan-massive-show-strength.

20 Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA;” “Reynolds Campaign.”

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in the Midwest as Ohio diminished in prominence as a tomato producer, and as FLOC had to

address the increasing use of H-2(A) workers as growers sought cheaper labor. This shift in

focus meant an international shift as well as gender shift as H-2(A) workers are primarily

international men, though FLOC recently refocused on unionize families working in tobacco

fields, reintroducing the importance of family to FLOC.21 Yet since FLOC’s Midwest success

in the 1980s, few if any attempted to organize Midwest migrants. Though unions moved away

from organizing Midwest laborers, it was the Midwest union’s tactics that shaped union efforts

for migrants elsewhere in the country. Since the 1980s, activism drifted South with FLOC and

the Coalition of Immokalee Workers who adopted FLOC’s strategy, targeting fast food

restaurants who bought Florida tomatoes and successfully increasing wages for many Florida

tomato pickers in 2005.22 FLOC’s success in Ohio’s tomato fields not only changed the

structure of the food pyramid for part of the Midwest, but also provided future farmworker

unions like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers an important tactic. Now addressing the

increased internationalization of farm laborers, a FLOC member commented about why he

joined the pickle effort in North Carolina, “I want to change the economic life of Mexico. I

want to change farm-labor in the U.S., make sure that our rights are respected.”23 After the

success of FLOC in the Midwest, FLOC and other unions continued in the Southern part of the

United States, taking on the increased international nature of the agricultural power structure.

21 Mark A. Grey and C. Anne Woodrick, “Latinos Have Revitalized Our Community: Mexican Migration and

Anglo Responses in Marshalltown, Iowa,” in New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States, ed.

Victor Zúñiga and Rubén Hernández-León (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2005); “Reynolds Campaign;”

Steven Greenhouse, “Just 13, and Working Risky 12-Hour Shifts in the Tobacco Fields,” New York Times,

September 6, 2014, accessed September 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/business/just-13-and-working-

risky-12-hour-shifts-in-the-tobacco-fields.html?_r=0.

22 Silvia Giagnoni, Fields of Resistance: The Struggle of Florida’s Farmworkers for Justice (Chicago: Haymarket

Books, 2011).

23 Coin, “Pickles and Pickets after NAFTA,” 165.

290

Despite the changes in agriculture and the national and international policies that bring

more and more Mexican men to the Midwest for work, the Midwest is still a place of migrant

families. The documentary, The Harvest/La Cosecha, told the story of several migrant children

who worked in the nation’s fields. Released in 2011, three migrant children regularly traveled

with their family from their homes in Texas and Florida to Michigan, Tennessee, and

Mississippi.24 All three dealt with the stressors of leaving friends, missing school, working

dangerous jobs, and worrying about family members. For Perla Sanchez, her family had to

travel throughout the Midwest, including Indiana and Ohio, after a family medical emergency

delayed the family’s regular migrant route.25 All three, Perla Sanchez, Victor Huapillo, and

Zulema Lopez, hoped for a better future, but understood the importance of helping their family

to survive by working in the fields, looking after younger siblings, and helping out in the

house.26 Like the pre-NAFTA migrant stream, family and gender norms continued in the 1990s

and afterwards, serving as an important tool for farmworkers’ survival as every person in the

family worked together to survive. In the Midwest, Zulema traveled up and down the stream

with her family, often working in fields next to single men. While it was common for Zulema

to work alongside male workers who likely missed their families down South, Zulema and

other migrants in the Midwest, continued to rely on familial relationships to survive the migrant

stream.

The Midwest during the era of activism between 1960 and 1990, proved a unique

moment and place in time. In an area of family migration during an era of increased interest

24 The Harvest/ La Cosecha.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

291

and activism and an era of financial crises on farms, various parties including growers,

farmworkers, agribusinesses, national and state governments, unions, and Catholic aid

organizations interacted to adjust the agricultural system of power. The Midwest was an area

where national events stimulated change, farmworker unions developed new models for

changing the migrant power structure, and gender and family norms shaped migrants’ survival

strategies in the stream. Though the various groups that shaped the Midwest stream continued

to influence the stream after 1990, the changing nature of agriculture, national and international

policies, and social activism after the 1990s, altered the way these groups interacted in contrast

to the mid-1900s. For the Mexican and Mexican American migrants living and working

between their Southern homes and the Midwest fields, the mid 1900s was a time of struggle but

also hope as unionization and public interest supported some efforts to better their conditions in

the stream. Aid alleviated migrants’ struggles, but empowerment gave migrants the ability to

alter relationships within the pyramid and reshape some power relationships. The pyramidal

structure of power placed farmworkers at the bottom of the agricultural system, with growers,

the public, governments, and agribusinesses profiting from the labor of farmworkers. In 2011,

the Department of Agriculture’s replaced its well-known food pyramid eating guide with a

plate with very closely sized wedges and a small circle. This choice coincides with public

perception of agriculture, with some acknowledgement of the powerful few in agribusinesses

with little awareness or interest in the system of power that places growers, the public, and

most especially, farmworkers under the control and influence of the elite. As Edward R.

Murrow stated in 1960’s Harvest of Shame, “Must the two to three million migrants who help

feed their fellow American work, travel and live under conditions that wrong the dignity of

292

man?"27 As almost a response and characteristic of the era of activism in the mid-1900s,

organized Mexican and Mexican American migrant farmworkers often sang “Nosotros

Venceremos/We Shall Overcome.”28

27 Edward R. Murrow, Harvest of Shame, directed by Fred W. Friendly, (CBS Report, November 24, 1960),

videocassette.

28 George Rivera Jr. “Nosotros Venceremos: Chicano Consciousness and Change Strategies” 8, no. 1 (January-

February 1972), 21:13, Farm Labor Organizing Committee Records, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State

University, Detroit, Michigan; Stevan César Azcona, “Movements in Chicano Music: Performing Culture,

Performing Politics, 1965-1979” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2008), 77.

The food pyramid; Mexicans, agribusiness, governments and communities in the Midwest migrant stream.

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