Erasmo Gamboa - Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947

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Columbia Northwest Classics

Chris Friday, Editor

Columbia Northwest Classics

Columbia Northwest Classics are reprints of important studies about the peoples and places that make up the Pacific Northwest. The series focuses especially on that vast area drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries. Like the plants, animals, and people that have crossed over the watersheds to the east, west, south, and north, Columbia Classics embrace a Pacific Northwest that includes not only Oregon, Washington, and Idaho but also British Columbia, the Yukon, Alaska, and portions of Montana, California, Nevada, and Utah.

Mountain Fever: Historic Conquests of Rainier

by Aubrey Haines

To Fish in Common: The Ethnohistory of

Lummi Indian Salmon Fishing

by Daniel L. Boxberger

Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros

in the Pacific Northwest, 19421947

by Erasmo Gamboa

Mexican Labor & World War II

Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 19421947

ERASMO GAMBOA

With a Foreword by Kevin Allen Leonard

and a New Preface by the Author

For Paula, Gumecindo, and Armando Gamboa

Copyright 1990 by the University of Texas Press

University of Washington Press paperback edition published in 2000

Foreword by Kevin Allen Leonard and new Preface by the author

copyright 2000 by the University of Washington Press

Printed in the United States of America

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any form or any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gamboa, Erasmo.

Mexican labor and World War II : braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947 / by Erasmo Gamboa ; with a foreword by Kevin Allen Leonard and a new preface by the author.

p. cm. (Columbia Northwest classics)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-295-97849-X (alk. paper)

1. Migrant agricultural laborersNorthwest, PacificHistory20th century. 2. Alien labor, MexicanNorthwest, PacificHistory20th century.

3. World War, 1939-1945ManpowerNorthwest, Pacific. I. Title. II. Series. HD1527.A19G36 1999 99-42805

331.5440896872079dc21 CIP

The paper in this book is acid-free and recycled from 10 percent post-consumer and at least 50 percent pre-consumer waste. It meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

Contents

Photographs follow page 47

by Kevin Allen Leonard

Foreword to the 2000 Paperback Edition

More than 600,000 people of Hispanic originthree-quarters of them of Mexican ancestrylived in the Pacific Northwest states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington in 1997, according to U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates. Although this group accounted for only 6 percent of the regions population, for several decades the number of Hispanics in the region has increased more rapidly than other segments of the population. According to the 1980 census, about 200,000 Hispanics lived in the Northwest; in 1990 more than 380,000 Hispanics lived in these three states. Hispanics constitute the regions largest minority group.

The recent and dramatic growth of the Hispanic population in the Pacific Northwest has attracted the attention of many of the regions residents at the same time that it has obscured the fact that Mexicans and Mexican Americans have lived and worked in the Northwest since the nineteenth century. The dearth of publications about Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans in the Northwest also contributes to the continued ignorance of this history. A search of regional university library catalogs yields only a small number of scholarly studies of Mexicans in the Northwest, especially when compared to the voluminous literature on American Indians and, to a lesser extent, Asian Americans in the region.

Mexican Labor and World War II represents Gamboas most substantial achievement, in terms of its length and depth. It remains the only published book-length study of the people who came to the region from Mexico under a federally sponsored wartime guest worker initiative known as the bracero program.

This volume examines the operation of the bracero program in the Northwest. As Gamboa points out, more than 20 percent of all Mexican workers (46,954 of 220,640) who came to the United States between 1943 and 1947 were contracted for work in the Pacific Northwest. All other studies of the bracero program, however, have focused exclusively on the southwestern United States. Gamboas examination of the program in the Northwest is especially important because he concludes that the experiences of braceros in the region differed significantly from the experiences of Mexican temporary workers in other parts of the United States.

This book is also useful because Gamboa devotes much of his attention to the experiences and actions of braceros themselves. Although Gamboa, however, was clearly influenced by social historians who recognized that even the most oppressed workers have found ways to claim power over their lives and their work. In examining government records and newspapers, Gamboa found that many braceros not only complained about their treatment but also took action to change working and living conditions on Northwest farms. Braceros in the region went on strike on numerous occasions in efforts to increase wages, to eliminate discriminatory wage differentials, and to improve the quality of the food served in the camps.

Gamboa also shows that braceros did not spend all their time working and protesting. They celebrated Mexican holidays such as Independence Day and Cinco de Mayo. These celebrations sometimes offered braceros the opportunity to educate the residents of local communities about the braceros and about Mexican history and culture. Braceros also attended mass, watched Mexican films, took classes, and participated in sports. Some went to nearby towns to socialize. Braceros were men with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and interests. In its examination of the social lives of braceros, this study reflects a growing interest in the leisure-time activities of workers.

Mexican Labor and World War II was well received by other scholars when it was first published in 1990. All of the books reviewers recognized Gamboas contribution to a topic that had been almost completely ignored. Nearly a decade later, the book remains valuable in part because it has been joined by so few other book-length studies of braceros, other Mexicans, or Mexican Americans in the Northwest. Readers today, however, may more fully appreciate aspects of Gamboas research that received little comment from reviewers. Since the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, for example, there has been increased scholarly attention to resentment of and open hostility toward the federal government in the West. Some scholars have also begun to look more critically at U.S. nationalism during World War II. Although Gamboa did not emphasize these themes as much as he might have if he were writing the book today, they are clearly addressed in

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