Human Sperit

The Fruits of California: The Fate of the Migrant Labor Force

By: Sarah Shin

As the Great Depression came to an end, John Steinbeck unveiled what many consider to be his greatest novel, The Grapes of Wrath. The public’s response to this novel was astounding. People were shocked to learn about the discrimination and cruelty faced by many people at the hands of their fellow Americans, especially in such a time of need and suffering. During the Great Depression, thousands of people, like the Joad family, and their ancestors were driven out of the Great Plains. They lost the land that they fought for, worked on, raised their families on and died on when the soil lost its ability to retain moisture and eroded, while savage dust storms blew away the farms leaving nothing but an endless sea of sand. Farmers had become financially overburdened and banks foreclosed on their properties. Families then decided to pack up and move westward to California where they hoped they would live a better life and gain happiness. Because Grampa Joad believes California to be a land so abundant in fruit, he fantasizes, “An’ by God, they’s grapes out there, just a-hangin’ over into the road. Know what I’m a-gonna do? I’m gonna pick me a wash tub full a grapes an’ I’m gonna set in ‘em, an’ scrooge aroun’, an’ let the juice run down my pants,” (pg 100). Many of the Okies were given the impression that California was a land of bountiful plenty - with more than enough land, fruit, and crops to go around for everyone. No one would be without work or food and no one would be unsatisfied. They heard rumors of rows and rows of orange trees on hundreds of acres of land that was just waiting to be worked. Families, like the Joads, then made their way across the Mother Road, Route 66, to take advantage of the opportunity. During the Great Depression, California sounded like a paradise that could provide easy living and happiness. However, California growers were far from ecstatic in welcoming the families; upon arrival, these American families were discriminated against and treated unfairly, especially by Californian growers and law enforcement officers. For those who managed to get past the border faced a dog eat dog world in which the labor pool was extremely disproportionate to the number of job openings. As a result, it was incredibly difficult to obtain a steady job and even with a job, the salary was not sufficient enough to support an entire family. Oftentimes, families camped on the roadsides and were sometimes abused by police. Despite the fact these families came from several different Midwestern states, they were all categorized under the derogatory term “Okies.” Eventually, the group of migrant workers had been expanded to include not only Anglos, but also Filipinos, Chicanos, and Black workers while the state of California’s agriculture, economy, and industry became increasingly dependent on the system of migratory labor, giving rise to even more problems, such as imported agricultural workers, while continuing other problems like unfair wages and poor working conditions. After WWII, California had not changed; growers attempted to create and maintain programs like the 1951 Bracero Program long after the war was over. They wanted to replace domestic workers with the temporary imported agricultural workers from Mexico. Local migrant workers attempted to go on strike in 1965 when Coachella Valley grape growers paid the local workers less than the imported workers. That same year, grape pickers made an average of 90 cents per hour plus 10 cents per basket picked. Besides low salaries, farmworkers had very poor working conditions. Growers ignored working standards set up by state laws. Ranches did not have portable field toilets. Workers were charged more than $2 per day to live in segregated housing which consisted of unheated metal shacks with no indoor plumbing or cooking facilities. Labor contractors also played favorites with the workers or accepted bribes. In one of his essays, Steinbeck wrote, “Is it possible that this state is so stupid, so vicious and so greedy that it cannot feed and clothe the men and women who help make it the richest area in the world? Must the hunger become anger and the anger fury before anything will be done?” César Chávez, once a migrant worker himself, fought to protect migrant laborers and secure proper rights for them. Chávez became a migrant worker after graduating from the 8^th grade to support his family; his father had recently been in an accident and he didn’t want his mother to work in the fields. In 1962, Chávez founded the National Farm Workers Association, which would later become the United Farm Workers. Although there were very few union dues paying members, by 1970 the NFWA was able to organize the majority of the grape industry and claimed 50,000 dues paying members. This was a result of Chávez’s strong leadership and tireless efforts. In 1965, farmworkers in Delano demanded $1.25 per hour and went on strike. When the growers brought in illegal immigrants to work instead, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, headed by Dolores Huerta, and the National Farm Workers Association, headed by Chávez, united with the Filipinos and Chicanos in the surrounding areas. Together they went on strike at 30 farms and persuaded many others to join. In previous strikes, the growers had always been able to end the strikes after agreeing to a salary raise, but this time the workers wanted union recognition as well. Chávez then organized a boycott on grapes. This became effective because of other events occurring on the eastern side of the United States: the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement had spread awareness across the United States concerning racism, low standards of living, employment, education, voting and more. This helped make the migrant worker’s boycott successful: since the situation in the South was similar enough to that in California, more people were aware of the atrocities at hand and therefore understood enough to sympathize with the migrant workers and participate in the boycott. Two large Delano growers, Schenley and DiGiorgio, were threatened the most by the boycott; it could hurt sales in other types of produce and harm labor relations with other workers. When Schenley sprayed workers on strike with agricultural poisons, Chávez and 70 strikers marched to Sacramento in 1966. Upon arriving at the capitol building, Chávez spoke to some 10,000 supporters. DiGiorgio tried to make an agreement with another union in the fight for union representation but failed when NFWA strikers boycotted their representation election. In the end both Schenley and DiGiorgio became employers of union labor. A persistent problem many migrant workers as well as Americans have is illegal immigration. Undocumented laborers often are able to work in the fields of California where growers don’t care whether their workers are U.S. citizens or not so long as their fruit is picked on time and without trouble. However, this creates competition for local migrant workers. An increase in work force decreases wages and working conditions, for which local migrants such as César Chávez worked hard to improve. He once said migrant workers were “human beings who torture their bodies, sacrifice their youth and numb their spirits to produce this great agricultural wealth, a wealth so vast that it feeds all of America and much of the world. And yet, the men, women and children who are the flesh and blood of this production often do not have enough to feed themselves.” An approximate doubling in illegal alien population would result in the doubling of the number of jobs lost by American workers and costs of displacement. Illegal immigration is also a burden on taxpayers who subsequently end up paying to educate the children, any emergency medical care provided, and the incarceration for those arrested for crimes. However, this is the faulty system that was set up in California and has been used for decades. It is not about to change. Californian agriculture and industry depends on farmworkers, and this dependence is nationwide. The population of local farmworkers alone isn’t sufficient enough to reap the profits that local and illegal farmworkers produce today: as many as 70% of 1.6 million farmworkers in America are illegal immigrants. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox says, “What some people don’t understand is that Mexican immigrants make it possible for the U.S. to compete in the global market. If they can’t get to work, who is going to do their work, build the roads, the houses, pick the crops?” Meanwhile, there are plans to build a 2,200 mile wall on the U.S. - Mexican border, costing an estimate of $2.2 billion, in an effort to prevent the illegal entrance from Mexico into the U.S. Others have tried to come up with immigration reform bills, such as the AgJobs Bill. The AgJobs Bill allows undocumented agricultural workers to receive a temporary resident status and later be allowed to earn a permanent resident immigration status. It will protect such agricultural workers, their families, and certain employment rights. Politicians like Congressman Brian Billbray opposed such reform, claiming “You’d be rewarding them for breaking our laws.” As of now, it seems like there is no reasonable and moral compromise for both sides to agree on, yet it cannot be denied that the American economy cannot be sacrificed to satisfy the American prejudice and the immorality of illegal immigrants.

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