Viewfinder; Los Braceros; Yakima

If that's what you want to sit next to the first trip I want us to take your life. Like I say the first question first of all that what part of that

and how and why and how to program it. OK. The night that I drew in when he said I was sad to see him make one of the movie that come and say look at it let me have a division a poet has a square leg or another. Simba did in a court but are going Oh yeah another guy had that. I was kind of her work on a movie nickel more and

let me quit and they're in a coma and then I would have gone thought that's when as it is a pimple they're not going to be on this morning fussin you're not because you're not going to put us in this room when I put it to a Korean reporter. Mother Country to me. But I want to complain Yeah. Remember. And disappear people see what other drugs same account that their mistress. Newness.

Capitalism had a cut that is complete. I called up the army it was to the minister. And that's more than most. That's a quote from your arrest was a. Not because I mustn't. The end of the uptick is a

kick. But honest up I got a book reading it is up going to put him in the bicycle get up and get better and mic on a residence and on at least a month or a million in a memo on that day. Tourism I'm assuming the comp were going to oppose you I'm going to preserve the neck but I was going to settle. It has been spec us

to put a limit on. No. And I sort of called the most part I love being down with people but almost doesn't give it a dose and I went to the border. Yes he was meant to be here with some concrete is going up to see a couple more womanly one. But when it came with it one of them is going to go in. Better yet then Mia led her to having this

particular one and let them throw out that the onus is on. Yes. So. He had a problem and he was having these people fight right off the board successfully and started this for a while and see what it was.

You KOMO you might know how you know where they fit in to how the Yakima Airport Authority one of Saturn in California nor a one my you and sometime a kind of order for this tell you that I was and I did a lot of us supported. We have yet the neighboring up that have Democratic proposal meant for Muslims here. I don't let a part of the process. And as for your point. Yet this is sent by your job and done for support. He had a plan for support. I k. I value and

one call you mean Winston to Penta and. Report me for mean and mean us and when we're going to have this year again and I've been up in a commune it's on the site. In cut the homeowner just for trying yes. The workers in the pub or to mean a set of a man and as. No no no not a commune. Well I had a chemist who was just to the out and got out when I caught sight of it and give you get on the skin is going to nickel one of me and it up don't mean that it's those hundred krones pimple gotten into that or

condone over them but even if it were me by media that entity if you're Joe you're screwed in there can't be two hundred dollar temple. Yeap I got to you have 25 and Syria their guns had on us for the outer I've ever met and a cut in I wanna put a kick when they're nowhere near you or not but nearly a month ago and it's on the ground in Syria. None consider it a spoiler then the chick was just a nipple It was a sickly. Let's hear it. He came right into that meeting. California right. So when he said it's time to get US

passports you know it's just so you know if you are trying of your continued work in agriculture use your company. Don't let them put in a couple months to get their work on the roof. And one thing to watch from working with. What would you like to get. But if I were afraid of a mine of course. They

don't trust what I say to the city I went to when I get on of the public and a couple if we women they don't import them a quarter of us are well look at this but it come yet if that broken lives in that the kind of getting them to where is that good. But it doesn't I met us at the moment has said have you seen what I when I thought of you still look at up and. I don't want to get it nice and so this is it. Just when we're in the mind of what I said all those people lost their lives and stuff.

But I mean just think of them in making the other news only as a time when US put it. I never knew in the middle. I mean you know they didn't know but I bought it. So you give me kind of an arena and we win with or let's. Get unstuck if you get what I needed. Mandela Pena put it there and I will be made a young one and get upset and I was vocal. Fair to bad. But I'll give you a member of the media. I mean it meant it is out there.

Green stickers pieces stay clear because he got it because you about put it here but OK. Yes I know it's going to get an idea I may go and going to use it as it when when you have to the wind screens and of course I want is that adequate are going to get MTV though. It can we are seeing MTV in the Better yet OK has rebounded could but I can't. Yes because how they use I mean you'll get a complete contrary analysts say when we see their. Brand of yours with skin or put to me that it's because they're going to be and. And it's going to turn the scale of MIA. You could OK as it is when ever I say to drive ahead of you that's what you mean.

He just told you I want to. Because if I do something I'm still with my camera. What a problem. I would want to become an interpreter guide part time historical site. Great part time job and be a bum which is pretty sure of course but you are about to get correct right. OK it's a boy right. And your official title associate professor of history

university of Washington Watch a look at what it's like him. Yes and also yes in the context of what it is. Let's just talk a little bit about you and your interest in the process. How did you become interested in it. I became interested in the in the setup program as a graduate student and it came out of an interview I did and actually in top condition that a nursing home was a man who had come to the Aqua Valley 1007 His name is Juan Salinas. And when I was interviewing him I was writing my master's thesis and set up an interview with him. And in the course of the interview he said well when do you want to start the timeframe I said How about 1015 which is the the time for that I was familiar with and he said Oh my goodness that was yesterday why don't you ask me about the earlier times and it turns out

he had had arrived to the activity 1007. And then his in the interview he he mentioned the World War Two period in the dust settles and that sort of sparked an interest as a graduate student I decided when I had written my master's thesis then to develop a dissertation on the program and I didn't want to focus on the program nationally because others had already written about it. It messed up a lot so I had written his books on the program in California but the assumption was that the saddles only were contracted to the Southwestern states. When I knew well that places like Yakima County had hired a lot of it to settle so the state of Oregon State Idaho and so forth in that symbols had the rescuers in it here in the valley how great a need was there for them and how many were there. Will something unique about this valley is that it's one of this country and one of the nation's premier valleys in terms of agricultural production it rivals the San Joaquin Valley in California the

Salt River Valley and in Arizona that are with underbelly in Texas and the only limitation here is the short growing season. Latitude is perfect here. You can grow almost anything in Yakima County and it's a cornucopia of sorts of alley and as I said you can literally grow anything there. The only limitation is the short growing season 180 days six months and a second limitation is labor. Because this is a very sparsely populated area in the 1940s it was even more so. And then when the war begins in the 1980s. There is a population drain that occurs in Yakima County as companies like Boeing in Seattle shipbuilding in Portland. The tri city areas begin tri city area which is located close to here begins to develop the atomic energy project and it draws the small number of people away from the roll areas. Exacerbating the labor shortage. And that's how the program

develops very quickly. But I said I was going to arrive in top nation in the fall of 1982 right after they arrived to the state of California. And but it's prompted by high levels of our culture production during the war in particular. But then this labor shortage I think it was only when it was still harvesting going on. Right. Yes. During the exam period. Well as I said the initial group of us said those that come are contracted to sugar beet producers particularly you and I sugar company. There used to be a big sugar beet factory and in the city of top nation. And that's sort of the the the end of sort of the agricultural cycle in the valley because by October or the beginning of fall winter sets and then sort of all there's no need for labor. So these are these initial this initial group of vessels were coming for the sugar beet harvest of the time. It's largely manual it's not mechanized it's it's all done by hand.

And at the time as well there's a racialization that is evident in agriculture work and that is that mix and people were largely confined to field labor and white migrant labor is. Found in an orchard about food packing companies and and there are also the hard research of of apples and so for today. Make some people do all of this. But in the 1040s there's a segregation by race with regard to the different types of jobs that are available so that I settles our are contracted primarily to do stoop labor to do stoop labor we have to physically is much more than absolutely what comes out. One of the things we found that when we were in the southwest parts of southwest right along the border and I'm talking specifically about Southern Arizona southern New Mexico

and the area in and around itself. Was that because of the binational nature of those areas while things were perfect. Life seemed to be a little bit better a little bit easier for the Liberal selves that we spoke to because a lot of the farmers folks than it used to do people see some of the persons who go over cross over the border to see their families and so the experience didn't seem all that bad nothing's perfect to me. Things are still true memory makes them better than they are different here. Is it harder for very different I think there is something unique about the experience up there and if I just go back on on some of the points you made there was not a lot of. Acculturation in the Pacific Northwest that isn't coming from lawyers and contrast to the areas you had mentioned. Spanish is not spoken by a lot of the employers and in some of the records that I have looked at the

employers communicated with these but I settles because they didn't speak Spanish in the US adults didn't speak English they communicated with a lot of gesture and and surprise. It became so difficult and the employers became exasperated that resorted to pushing the workers and it was a serious serious problem because by a couple of years into the US federal program. The land grant colleges like UC Davis in our state it's Pullman Washington State University begin to publish these manuals describing the work that has to be done with very little text but a lot of pictures and they would show it to the press at us as a way of solving that that language issue. It was difficult in another way and that is in the 1940s unlike what he saw in a California house the communities in the valley were just beginning to coalesce.

Remember that ahead of the of the operator of the war nine hundred forty one there's that entire decade of the Depression where there are no jobs anywhere in the country. And with regard to Mexican labor it's not a flow from Mexico into United States. It's the reverse. People are going back to repack created sometimes forcefully back to Mexico so the population declines in the United States now the war breaks out and there's a sudden influx of people. But the communities in Yakima County unlike those of the American Southwest are just beginning to sort of germinate if you will. So with regard to the but I settle as you can imagine the life of a man like Mr. Elie Wiesel if he had come to a place like top a nation what community was there that he could interact with. In contrast to a bus settle in California or Arizona there are no Mexican restaurants to speak of. There is

no entertainment for Mexican people. There is no there's the social fabric that is in the communities today was nonexistence and existed in the 1040s finally. The weather can get very severe here. It oscillates between very intense heat during summer and then bitter cold. Beginning early fall. October November December and it is very very difficult. There were concerns with hypothermia that I know from working in the National Archives for men who were sheltered in tents and worked outside with with lacking appropriate clothing and so forth. So I think those are the major differences between the work experience of these men and they work experience. But I settles in other parts of the country. Cultural identity change.

One thing is this right. What kind of cultural. Even last night even you know less United States participation in our lives. Why I think that I know that the impact is sort of at two levels one is that unlike the current debate over Mexican immigration that is going on at the present time with a lot of settlers arrived they were greeted and farmers describe them as a godsend because they were in such a difficult situation there was no one to do the work and they were allotted for their efforts are featured on the front page of the aqua Herald the Aqua Chamber of Commerce wrote to the president of Mexico applauding the efforts of these men initially and essentially said you have saved us from ruin. And the governor wrote When the governor of Oregon wrote.

And that's the manner in which they were greeted. So I think that that that. The appreciation for the work that these men performed in their contribution to the war effort was recognized at the time. Perhaps more so today less so today but the time they are praised. That's one level on the other level. Twelve percent of all of the men that came to the Pacific Northwest and only California hires more but I said it was only California hires more Brussels than the Pacific Northwest. One out of five of all but a settles are contracted for one thousand forty two. And the end of the program in the Pacific Northwest are destined for the Pacific Northwest. Gives you an idea of the magnitude of the bus at a labor force up here. Twelve percent of all of these men deserved they don't go back. They desert and they stay back they stay here when they don't stay here.

They go back to Mexico. They turn right around and they come with their families and they begin to establish themselves. But I have interviewed enough of these elderly men from Pocatello to Oregon Pocatello Idaho to Oregon. And that's the story they say. They say also employers invested in these men and they invested in these men in this way. These workers were coming from Mexico and they had no idea what a sugar beet looks like. They had no idea what hops looks like. They were familiar with cotton for example. They were familiar with with other work in agriculture. Also the one familiar with with some of the machinery that is being used there and you can't walk a man through a door and say do this job and do it well without some background some acquisition of skill. So the employees invested in these

men. They taught them. They showed them how they wanted the work done. And once this this investment in these workers occurs these employees were employees were quick to identify the ones they wanted back and they didn't want them back. Yes but I said those they want they want them back as free the laborers. And we know of employers who actually provided funds for these men where their contract was over said go back to Mexico come back with her family and you have a job. Yes and that is important I mean that's how the culture begins to be embedded in communities like the Pacific Northwest. And they recognize the value of what the dissenters did and they found a lot of instances where growers bring help people bring their families in.

Absolutely. When it occurs it occurs today that they're good employees are hard yes good employees are hard to find and I think I might just reiterate that these messages are very good workers very good workers. We know that. As historians we look at this and we look at the in the production by different ethnicities and generally in the Pacific Northwest. But I said a labor war was preferred over other types of workers. And now that we live by Little many times 10 percent what is your life right. Anything else you would like. TIME What do you want your viewers to walk away with your ultimate contributions a mysterious anything I haven't asked you that you want to know. Well I think that that one of things that I ain't that I work and sort of at that center of my work as a story and

is the absence of recognition for really the sacrifice of these men. If you look at the description of these men they are described as soldiers. Soledad I was in federal court for you. For example the railroad workers because they are there are many engaged in winning the war. And they may come in incredible and significant a very critical contribution nationwide you find a settlement in Minnesota in Ohio in the East Coast and in Alabama Arkansas Texas and so forth. But that recognition the recognition for the effort of these men which is an entire generation. It has not come about. We have very little understanding and I felt historians for that. We

we study the war and we study the war in very peculiar ways. Is the military involvement in Europe in the Pacific and then the involvement of other ethnic groups but seldom are Mexican but I saddles referenced when I said job that needs to be done. Referring to the 10 percent. Can you imagine that it takes almost 60 years for the government of Mexico to recognize that something is still owed to these men 60 years and the United States government has not even stepped forward to recognize that maybe something is owed to these men. So that's the one thing that I want to believe what the prognosis is. They said it will and it will tell you so much.