Reimagining the Immigrant: The Accommodation of Mexican Immigrants in Rural America

Reimagining the Immigrant

This page intentionally left blank

Reimagining the Immigrant The Accommodation of Mexican Immigrants in Rural America

Brian D. Haley

REIMAGINING THE IMMIGRANT

Copyright © Brian D. Haley 2009 All rights reserved. First published in 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–61602–8 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haley, Brian D. Reimagining the immigrant : the accommodation of Mexican immigrants in rural America / Brian D. Haley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–230–61602–8 (alk. paper) 1. Migrant agricultural laborers—California—San Luis Obispo County—Social conditions. 2. Mexicans—California—San Luis Obispo County—Social conditions. 3. Agriculture—Social aspects— California—San Luis Obispo County. 4. San Luis Obispo County (Calif.)—Rural conditions. 5. San Luis Obispo County (Calif.)—Race relations. 6. Mexico—Emigration and immigration. 7. United States— Emigration and immigration. I. Title. HD1527.C2H35 2009 305.868⬘72079478—dc22

2009016797

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December 2009 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

In memoriam, Naomi Stutsman Haley (1921–1992)

This page intentionally left blank

CON T E N T S

List of Illustrations

ix

List of Tables

xi

Acknowledgments One

Introduction

Two

The Changing Farm and Town

xiii 1 23

Three Making Social Categories from Local Roots and Class

47

Four

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

69

Five

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

93

Six

“We Want Our Town Back!”

119

Seven

Sources of Local Integration

145

Eight

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal and Its Aftermath

171

Nine

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

191

Notes

213

Bibliography

223

Index

233

This page intentionally left blank

LIS T

OF

I L LU S T R AT ION S

Maps 1.1 The Shandon region 2.1 Agricultural land uses on Shandon Flat in 1970 and vineyards in 1990

8 31

Figures 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 6.1 7.1

San Luis Obispo County wheat and barley acreage and Conservation Reserve Program San Luis Obispo County cattle and calves San Luis Obispo County alfalfa hay acreage Grape vineyard development in the Shandon region by planting year Ethnicity of farmworker household heads with children in Shandon District schools The New Rural Demography A small, dilapidated house in Shandon Alley Native and immigrant teens gather around the Club Azteca table

28 29 32 34 38 45 124 166

This page intentionally left blank

LIST

OF

TA BL E S

2.1

Value of money order remittances by federal fiscal year quarters 2.2 Occupations of Shandon household heads in the mid-1960s 5.1 Occupations of the candidates for the Shandon Advisory Committee

39 44 115

This page intentionally left blank

AC K NOW L E DGM E N T S

The attitudes, events, and contradictions I portray in this book include many that are not always sources of pride to the residents of Shandon. Yet this tale of immigrant/native relations could not have been told without their willing support. My belief is that their stories give us hope, and I trust that readers will appreciate this. I express my deepest appreciation to all who welcomed me to Shandon and took an interest in my research, and I must especially thank the trustees and staff of Shandon Unified School District for their special support. My field research in Shandon was supported by the Aspen Institute and Ford Foundation through a 1989–1990 Rural Policy Fellowship from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Supplemental support was provided by the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) General Affiliates in a 1991 Dissertation Fellowship, and the UCSB Department of Anthropology in the form of a 1991 Andrew Isbell Memorial Fund Grant and Associateships in 1995 and 1996. The Center for Chicano Studies, UCSB, under Directors Juan-Vicente Palerm and Denise Segura provided infrastructural support and wonderful colleagues to discuss ideas with. Return visits to Shandon in 1993–1995 were funded by a grant, with Juan-Vicente Palerm, from the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS). I continued work on this project as a 1998–2000 UC MEXUS postdoctoral fellow. The State University of New York College at Oneonta provided a sabbatical leave that permitted some of the final work. Many people helped make the research and this book possible. The project was inspired by Juan-Vicente Palerm’s larger Transformation of Rural California Project, in which I participated as a graduate student at UCSB. Juan-Vicente has been a constant source of ideas, encouragement, patience, and criticism, and I cannot thank him enough.

xiv

Acknowledgments

Elvin Hatch, another of my teachers at UCSB, was a keen supporter and eagerly compared notes with me based on his earlier research in Shandon. My friend and colleague Victor García visited me in the field, offering guidance and sharing the findings from his own research nearby. Larry Wilcoxon and George Michaels provided crucial technical advice. The San Luis Obispo County Cooperative Extension office provided agricultural data, and Extension Specialist Richard Enfield made follow-up visits to Shandon with me in 1993–1995. Various drafts were read by Tom Harding, Don Brown, Eve Darian-Smith, and Josiah Heyman. I am indebted to Joe for a number of fine insights. Any f laws that remain in the document are my responsibility alone. Finally, I give a special thanks to Greg Reed and Julie Cramer for offering me a home away from home and, most of all, to Cynthia Klink for her enduring patience and support.

CH A P T E R

ON E

Introduction

The Shandon school board meeting in March 1990 was unusual. Lorenzo Obregón,1 a Mexican immigrant farm worker, attended through the first half hour of the meeting. Though he understood little of what went on in English around him and did not speak, his presence and the reaction to it by others signaled the changes taking place in the small farming town. Less than a decade earlier, authorities had cordoned off the town for two hours while they investigated charges that two Mexican migrant farm workers had been chased by local men with shotguns who accused them of driving recklessly and running over one man’s foot (Seager 1982). The investigation revealed that some Mexican immigrants did, in fact, feel that a few of their fellow farm workers caused trouble. But it showed even more starkly that a strong anti-immigrant sentiment existed among most established residents, blinding them to important differences among the immigrants. I had met Lorenzo about four months earlier. He had come to Shandon with two of his four brothers in 1978 from Baja California del Norte, Mexico, after a brief stay in Delano, California, where they could not find housing. They came to Shandon at the urging of their uncle, an earlier immigrant who had obtained work for them at one of the profitable new local vineyards growing wine grapes, where he had obtained a crew foreman’s position. Over the next several years the Obregón men were joined by two more brothers and three sisters, their mother, a few cousins, and the spouses and children of the eldest members. In subsequent years, two brothers returned to Mexico, investing their earnings in a cattle ranch near Tecate, Baja California. Lorenzo’s siblings moved to nearby Paso Robles where they had better luck obtaining housing. Lorenzo stayed on in Shandon. He had worked

2

Reimagining the Immigrant

his way up to a position responsible for irrigating a large vineyard, and had bought an old house in town from the manager of another vineyard. Lorenzo had been an undocumented immigrant, like nearly all immigrant farm workers I met in Shandon who had arrived in the area before 1986. Having obtained amnesty through provisions of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, he was studying English in evening classes at the local high school to prepare for United States citizenship. In the year preceding the school board meeting, Lorenzo had become a regular participant and officer in the school district’s Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee serving immigrant parents working on farms. Although Lorenzo had lived in Shandon for more than a decade, a Mexican immigrant’s attendance at a school board meeting was novel, and it was never duplicated during my twenty-two months in Shandon from late 1989 to mid-1991. Lorenzo had accompanied his young son who, along with seven other third graders, was participating in a demonstration of a recently adopted technique for teaching drawing to children. The usual board meetings attracted only the five board members, two principals, a few other staff members, and roughly four parents. This meeting included the seven children and their parents plus a few other parents who were concerned either about proposed suburban housing developments that might increase school enrollments, or the district’s efforts to assist the troubled neighboring district in Whitley Gardens. Lorenzo was visibly ill at ease and confused by the unfamiliar meeting protocols, even though he had been in the small high school library room many times for the monthly Parent Advisory Committee meetings. Since there were children present, the board chose to follow a formality they often dispensed with, and they stood to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Not having understood the English directive from the board, Lorenzo was caught by surprise, rising to his feet a moment late and not facing the f lag with his hand over his heart until he glanced around him and mimicked the other parents. He was just as surprised when everyone suddenly sat back down. Lorenzo’s son was a study in contrast with his father. Born in the United States and having lived his entire life in Shandon, Ramon was perfectly at ease, conversing in English with his student peers when he could, effortlessly following directions to perform the f lag salute and his role in the teaching demonstration. In immigrant America, there is little that is extraordinary about the contrast between father and son. Immigrant adults whose occupation has kept them separate from American institutions in their places of residence sometimes are drawn into these unfamiliar settings

Introduction

3

by their children, who surpass their parents in adapting to local customs and institutions. More intriguing was the lack of reaction to Lorenzo’s attendance by established residents of this once hostile town. Lorenzo’s dark features distinguished him from the others in attendance as someone likely having Mexican ancestry. His workman’s clothes and farm-logo cap—while clean and neat—suggested his status as a farm worker. This combination, along with his nervous uncertainty, marked Lorenzo as a likely Mexican immigrant, a category of newcomers often blamed by established local residents for what they perceived as a declining quality of life in Shandon. Nevertheless, no one tried to sit far away from Lorenzo, even though the seating made this an option. A few of the parents glanced at him a moment longer than they did anyone else, but they also met his nervous gaze and offered a nod of greeting and a friendly smile before turning their attention to the proceedings. Lorenzo received surprisingly little attention, given that this was probably the first time a Mexican immigrant had appeared at a school board meeting. Lorenzo’s life was still enmeshed almost entirely in the small town’s second social community of Mexican immigrants and the business of farm work. By attending the meeting, Lorenzo was crossing a social boundary that had endured through two decades of Mexican immigration and settlement in Shandon. Why had it taken a decade for Lorenzo to test this social boundary, and what was happening by 1990 that made him and other Mexican immigrants willing to venture into school board, Parent Teachers Organization (PTO), Lions Club meetings, high school sporting events and ceremonies, or the Memorial Day barbecue, when they had usually stayed away before? The answer, which is f leshed out over the course of this book, is that it was due less to cultural assimilation by the immigrants than to their greater tendency to settle locally and the rise of more tolerant and discerning attitudes among many established residents. As I shall show, these changes were being fostered by a complex interaction between the structure of the farm labor market, migration and settlement alternatives available to farm workers, and coexisting processes of discrimination and accommodation. The interaction of these forces was segmenting immigrant farm workers into two different working classes, one of which was acquiring a new ethnic identity by the early 1990s. In effect, its identity and presumed characteristics were being reimagined in a more positive light by established residents.2 Lorenzo had lived through the more tense years of the late 1970s and early 1980s when rapid growth in the number of immigrant farm workers living in Shandon sparked a hostile reaction by natives. He knew that

4

Reimagining the Immigrant

Americans generally disdained the kind of work he did and the immigrants who did it. He had witnessed hostile moments between natives and immigrants. He had seen family and friends unable to find housing due to discrimination against immigrants. Like other immigrants, he had lost housing when local residents used health and building codes to have houses condemned and their immigrant tenants evicted. He knew of immigrants being threatened with shotguns and an incident in which an established resident tied up an immigrant worker with a rope. He knew fellow immigrants who moved away from Shandon because they felt that established residents were too unfriendly. In short, experience taught Lorenzo that he had reason to be wary in a room full of the town’s established Anglo citizens. Yet Lorenzo was fairly upbeat about the quality of life in Shandon. He liked the fact that he never felt he had to lock his front door. “Es tranquilo,” he would later tell me when contrasting life in the peaceful small town with that in Paso Robles and Avenal, the two key alternative places of residence for farm workers in the region. Like every parent in Shandon—immigrant or native—he appreciated the absence of gangs in Shandon that were either known or thought to exist in all the county’s cities, according to television news broadcasts. He and other immigrant parents often praised the local schools and the education their children were receiving. More importantly, he was tentatively optimistic that there was goodwill among many of the established residents toward immigrants, and he was one of a group of immigrant farm working parents that was taking small steps in 1989–1991 to explore and enhance this relationship with their neighbors. Lorenzo’s attendance at the school board meeting was one of these small steps. Mexican Immigration and Immigrant/Native Relations in America National concern about Mexican immigration to the United States has grown since the 1980s, when the topic was still mainly a regional issue in California, Arizona, and Texas. Following California’s lead, those states had each developed a large scale labor-intensive form of agriculture dependent on foreign labor. Fruit and vegetable growers elsewhere soon realized the value of Mexican labor. With restructuring in meatpacking and poultry farming and processing, new areas of the country soon tapped the Mexican labor reservoir that had long served the Southwestern and Pacific Coast states. Since immigration

Introduction

5

reforms in the 1980s legalized the status of many immigrants previously lacking proper papers and created new legal means of labor immigration, Mexican immigrant workers have fanned out across the United States finding jobs in agriculture, rural industry, and urban sectors (Millard and Chapa 2004; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2005). Where once one encountered anti-immigrant rage and ballot measures only in California, now these occur in the Midwest and small-town Pennsylvania, too. Of course, Mexican workers have been coming to the United States in search of employment since the nineteenth century. Not only have they long been the backbone of Southwestern industrial farm labor, they also have been prominent in mining and railway work in the west. A relationship between American employers and Mexican workers was formed in the late nineteenth century and grew into a system of binational interdependency during the mid-twentieth century, which was reinvigorated after the 1960s and has only grown since then (Heyman 1990; Palerm and Urquiola 1993). Anthropologists have addressed contemporary Mexican immigration to the United States with a variety of ethnographic studies. These have addressed how immigrants experience such things as, for example, the strains of Anglo prejudice (Menchaca 1995), living as undocumented aliens (Chavez 1998), living transnationally (Rouse 1989), and adjusting to new areas of work and settlement (Lamphere 1992a; Stull and Broadway 2004; Griffith 2005). Others have addressed economic strategies of immigrants (García 1992), settlement and community building (Palerm 1989), social mobility within farm work (Du Bry 2007), lives based on service sector employment in wealthy urban areas (Ibarra 1998; Zlolniski 2006), and many other topics. As this very incomplete list suggests, most ethnographers have focused their attention on the immigrants themselves, with far less attention to established residents and their attitudes and responses to immigration (cf. Horton 1992; 1995; Takash 1990). 3 Even fewer have explored established residents’ reactions in a rural setting (cf. Shutika 2005; Grey and Woodrick 2005). While interest in subaltern, stigmatized, and marginalized groups typifies anthropology, such a narrow emphasis on immigrants poses a bit of a problem, anthropologically speaking. First, by seeming to focus professional attention overwhelmingly on those whom anti-immigrant activists deem to be the source of the “immigrant problem,” it almost seems to concede that this is, indeed, the proper place to look for immigration’s social problems. This surely is not how researchers see their work or intend it to be understood. Indeed, presumably all ethnographers undertake their studies

6

Reimagining the Immigrant

of immigrants to enrich popular understanding in ways that challenge anti-immigrant paranoia. A more substantive concern is that if the relationship between established residents and immigrants is so fraught with difficulty, then why are ethnographers devoting so much more attention to only one side of it? Couldn’t we shed even more light on the “immigrant problem” (if there is one) by studying the entire social context more holistically? This concern gains even more traction when the relationship between immigrants and established residents is viewed as a social boundary that both ref lects and amplifies whatever challenges are associated with immigration. Social boundaries exist whenever established residents and immigrants view one another as constituting distinct peoples. Approaching immigration in this manner is consistent with the insights of Fredrik Barth (1969), for whom the critical feature of peoplehood is the self-ascription of identity plus identity’s ascription by others. This definition of ethnicity has proven very durable, prompting Thomas Eriksen (2002:1) to write, “Ethnicity emerges and is made relevant through social situations and encounters, and through people’s ways of coping with the demands and challenges of life.” Any study of immigrant identity or ethnicity that does not take into account how natives ascribe identity to immigrants risks missing half of the relevant social data. Thus, Lamphere (1992b:17) justifiably reemphasizes the importance of studying both sides of this social boundary during ethnographic study of the “new immigration.” In keeping with these ideas, this study addresses both immigrant and established residents, but it gives greater attention to established residents because of the relative dearth of ethnographic material on that side of the immigrant/native relationship. One of the advantages of this approach is that it answers Laura Nader’s (1972) much neglected call for anthropologists to “study up” the structures of power in our own society. It forces us to discover the nature of natives’ reactions to immigration, as well as potential complexities and nuances we might not have anticipated. This, inevitably, will bring us face-to-face with popular versions of the culture concept that anthropologists over the past half century helped to make into the dominant popular framework for describing human differences. Anti-immigrant political rhetoric in western Europe already has seen a “perceptible shift in the rhetoric of exclusion” directed at immigrants by right-wing politicians. According to Verena Stolcke, this “cultural fundamentalism” abandons a racial rhetoric of unbridgeable difference in favor of one “that emphasizes the distinctiveness of cultural identity, traditions, and heritage among

Introduction

7

groups and assumes the closure of culture by territory” (1995:2). From the European cultural fundamentalist’s point of view, immigrants would be welcome if they would assimilate, but humans are viewed as being so naturally xenophobic that the cultural homogeneity of the nation must be maintained to avoid collapse into ethnic violence. Thus, only one cultural group belongs in a particular territory, an argument that articulates nicely with the territorial, linguistic, and heritage assumptions inherent in nationalism (see Anderson 1991). Publicly aired anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, such as English only initiatives, often sounds enough like this to warrant closer inspection with Stolcke’s cultural fundamentalism in mind.4 My approach to studying changes of identity in immigrant/native relations derives from a separate body of research I conducted after completing my initial research in Shandon (Haley 2005; 2009; Haley and Wilcoxon 1997; 2005). It is a generative approach to ethnicity, consistent with Barth’s definition of ethnicity and with the now abundant evidence that identities can and frequently do change as social relations change (see also Hill 1996; Wolf 1982). From this perspective, identity is not the same thing as culture, heritage, origins, or ancestry (including national ancestry) even though these are the criteria people assume that identities ref lect. In fact, there are clear-cut cases in which ancestry has been inferred from identity, rather than the other way around, and I would argue that this is much more common than either the public or many immigration scholars realize (see, e.g., Carrera 2003; Haley and Wilcoxon 1997). Indeed, numerous recent studies have shown that national origins do not necessarily dictate group identity among persons within the United States who have historical ties to Mexico. The ethnographer’s task, then, is to discover identities, and to enter the field with the understanding that both migration and labor provide contexts in which identity can change.5 Why Study Shandon? The small agricultural town of Shandon, California, lies midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the sparsely populated northeastern corner of coastal San Luis Obispo County (see map 1.1). I chose to investigate immigrant/native relations in Shandon for several reasons. One was simply because established and immigrant residents alike responded to my initial introduction of my interest in Mexican labor immigration enthusiastically, often with responses like, “You

8

Reimagining the Immigrant

Map 1.1 The Shandon region. The thick shaded line marks the boundary of Shandon Unified School District.

came to the right place!” During the 1970s and 1980s, Shandon had changed from an almost exclusively Anglo-American town to one where, by 1990, one-third of the residents were Mexican immigrants. Immigration and immigrant settlement were recent and important to the lives of everyone in Shandon.

Introduction

9

But before those first forays into the field, two other factors had drawn me to Shandon. One was that this was the site that anthropologist Elvin Hatch called “Starkey” in his Biography of a Small Town (Columbia 1979).6 Hatch conducted his research in Shandon in the mid-1960s, shortly before significant Mexican labor immigration and settlement began. With Hatch’s data in hand, I had a baseline from which I could measure change and continuity over time. Many anthropologists conduct restudies with the same expectation, only to find f laws in their predecessor’s work (see, e.g., Lewis 1951; 1953). In this case, the relevant portions of Hatch’s data proved to be more than adequate. Most valuable for me were Hatch’s detailed demonstration of the linkages between the structure of agriculture and local social relations, and his rich analysis of the role of local criteria of social merit in those social relations. Being able to see how these criteria were applied before and after the occurrence of an immigrant settlement permits me to identify the underlying contributions of class and settlement characteristics to the framing of identities more clearly than would otherwise have been possible, and to avoid the potential pitfall of interpreting the immigrant/native relationship as more unique than perhaps is warranted. The other factor that stimulated my interest in Shandon was its status as one of the “new” vineyard areas associated with the California wine boom that began in the 1970s and led to wine grapes becoming California’s most valuable crop. The immigrants came with the new crop. I already had a working knowledge of scale and structure characteristics of the California wine industry (Haley 1989), so focusing on immigrant/native relations in a new vineyard boom town would build upon that experience. Before grapes entered the picture, Shandon’s agricultural economy was dominated by dryland grain farming and cattle ranching, with a small amount of irrigated crops of lesser importance. The grain and cattle complex made Shandon less like California’s major fruit and vegetable growing regions, and more like other regions of the rural western United States, at least until the grape boom. Now that grape growing has expanded to other regions of the nation, the transformations experienced by Shandon have wider applicability. Shandon’s transition represents a step away from the land-extensive agriculture of grain and cattle toward the capital- and labor-intensive industrial agriculture for which California’s fruit and vegetable growing regions are well-known to rural anthropologists. Thus, Shandon provided an excellent opportunity to observe the relationship between established residents and new immigrant labor during this transition.

10

Reimagining the Immigrant Local Refractions of Class in Elvin Hatch’s Small Town

When Elvin Hatch studied social relations in Shandon in the mid1960s, it was an Anglo-American farming and ranching community of about 500 people, most of whom were the families of local farmers and ranchers, and their Anglo-American hired hands. Today it is a substantially different community, with a larger, and more diverse population, including Mexican immigrants and urban commuters. Hatch’s Biography of a Small Town is concerned with what made Shandon a community in the social sense of the word, and what sustained the sense of community over the course of a century in which most small towns in America experienced decline. His primary findings were that a community could be said to exist “to the extent that the locality is organized according to its own criteria of social merit, that its members seek to promote themselves within the social system, and that they use local criteria to assess one another’s standing” (Hatch 1979:263). Hatch found that residents measured one another’s social standing by a set of local criteria that changed when the post-World War II industrialization of agriculture “turned the family farm into a big business, hastened the middle-class focus on occupation in the countryside, and reduced the importance of town affairs” (Hatch 1979:271). Before World War II, residents evaluated one another based on their contributions to improving the town or their success on an “agricultural ladder” of advancement from farm hand to tenant farmer to independent landholder. Local standing could be enhanced in either manner. During World War II, some farmers were able to keep their sons at home to help farm, and, as a result, they profited from soaring commodity prices and reinvested in farm capital. Others lost their sons to the military, and they could not keep up. This increased the inequalities between farm operators, with the upper end of farm success becoming marked by a level of capitalization that was out of reach to those less fortunate. By the 1950s the agricultural ladder had disappeared, as upward mobility from farm hand to landholder became impossible due to the vastly increased costs of agriculture. Local young men no longer obtained agricultural land except through inheritance. The social merit derived from contributions to local improvement declined after World War II. Residents became less interested in establishing a good reputation within Shandon, and mass media insinuated nonlocal criteria of social merit into the mix. Farmers and ranchers joined the middle class and ceased to identify with their hired hands. Occupation became crucial to individual identity, and the principle

Introduction

11

of economic achievement became the paramount criterion of social standing. Although boosterism never entirely disappeared, some of the old local organizations that had been vehicles for its activities did cease. Local affairs shifted from a concern with local improvement toward concern with the school system. The community became primarily a special interest group oriented toward the successful education of its children, who increasingly needed to be prepared for college to join a growing number of career paths. Simultaneously, Shandon had less to offer outside of agricultural employment. The new highway bypassed the town, putting gas stations out of business and causing the garage to relocate out of town. Oil pipeline pump station staffs were reduced by mechanization and automation. Improved transportation made it possible to shop in the cities, so Shandon could no longer support its service stations, restaurant, and two grocery stores. Advancement for those who did not inherit land was achieved by getting out of Shandon altogether. Thus, by the mid1960s, a “malaise” gripped Shandon. Its buildings looked run-down, many of its institutions were failing, and the importance of local affairs had declined. Residents told Hatch that Shandon’s decline was moral as well as social and material, for the Methodist Church no longer was a central institution. Its more secular functions had been transferred to the school district. Adding to residents’ sense of decline was an inf lux of “newcomers” and a perceived proportionate decrease in the “old guard.” Old-family status was a prestigious, if imprecise, indication of descent from the region’s early settlers, and a carryover from before World War II when local affiliation was a major source of individual identity. Newcomers were those who arrived later, especially after 1940. A little less than half the residents in the mid-1960s could claim to be old family or old guard. When locals made a distinction between residents “ ‘who are a part of the community’ and those ‘who are outside everything in the community,’ ” old guard or old-family members fell almost entirely within the former “core” group (Hatch 1979:123). Newcomers became members of this core only over the course of several years of being active in local affairs dominated by the old guard. A little more than half of Shandon’s residents fell unequivocally into this core group, by Hatch’s calculation. Members of the old guard viewed the inf lux of newcomers as an undesirable change and a weakening of local control. That said, they felt Shandon had experienced much less of this than nearby Paso Robles, since Shandon’s core still consisted mostly of old guard families rooted in grain farming and cattle ranching, and the

12

Reimagining the Immigrant

same was no longer true of Paso Robles. Shandon, therefore, was still a better town than Paso Robles in their eyes. As a result of the postwar changes, Shandon stratified into the “haves” and “have-nots,” and also into a number of other named identity categories that constituted local refractions of class. The largest landholders in grain and cattle operations were Shandon’s most prominent citizens. They used their local roots expressed with the old guard and oldfamily labels to retain dominance in local affairs over less “respectable” residents, including most newcomers. The most respected of these subordinates included the irrigation farmers, teachers, oil pipeline and highway crew workers, small businessmen, and the stable and respected “foreman type” farm worker. Much lower in respect were the unstable and stigmatized “Okie type” farm workers and the few local derelicts. Seasonal farm workers seldom lived in Shandon and were outsiders who did not figure in local notions of community. As can be seen from this listing, Hatch’s all Anglo-American town of Shandon was not ethnically homogeneous in terms of its functional cultural identities. Most notable is the differentiation of a segment of the Anglo lower class as Okies, based on their status as farm workers and their residential and employment instability, material poverty, dialect, and alleged moral failings (Hatch 1996, personal communication).7 The difference between Okies and other California Anglos was credited in popular thought to the former’s real or imagined origins in Oklahoma, which was made manifest in a shared vision of separate identities, and was maintained through the rural occupational structure and a continuing development of cultural differences and markers of identity (Gregory 1989). This identity is significant, because it conforms quite clearly to Eric Wolf ’s (1982:380) assertion that capitalist agriculture “continuously produc[es] and re-creat[es] symbolically marked ‘cultural distinctions’ ” between classes of workers. Okie ethnic identity, therefore, represented one of these “cultural” ways of segmenting farm labor into more than one class (Wolf 1982:381). Here, Hatch’s story of Shandon ends and mine begins. In the 1970s and 1980s, Shandon experienced explosive development of prosperous grape vineyards on irrigated lands. There was an exodus of many of the old Anglo population, including the Okies, and an inf lux of Mexican immigrant farm workers, some of whom settled permanently in Shandon. On the heels of these changes, workers in nearby cities began to take up residence in Shandon, attracted especially by the lower cost of housing. By 1990, these urban commuters constituted roughly a third of the population, giving Shandon aspects of a “post-agricultural

Introduction

13

community” (Salamon and Tornatore 1994). Around a quarter to a third of the town’s population in the 1980s comprised Mexican immigrants, making it one of California’s new “rural Latino enclaves” (Palerm 1991), but one with exceptionally few native-born Americans of Mexican descent. To understand why so much local Mexican settlement occurred, we must review some of the scholarship on industrial agriculture. Immigration as a Component of Industrialized Agriculture One may have noticed above that Hatch credited the industrialization of Shandon’s agriculture after World War II for the solidification of the townspeople into rigid strata. This is a fair assessment, even though the industrialization he described principally represented increased capitalization. The type of agriculture more often called “industrial” represents a combination of large scale intensive land use for the specialized production of a specific commodity, high capitalization, and large inputs of labor (Goldschmidt 1978a). The last of these components was missing from the grain and cattle complex that Hatch described. Industrial agriculture is an extension of the plantation form (Wolf and Mintz 1957), which produces on a large scale for export from the region of production, requires a well-developed transportation and market infrastructure, and is vulnerable to global market f luctuations. Ownership is often financially diversified and corporate. Plantation agriculture relies on plentiful and cheap free wage labor that is hired and retained largely on an impersonal basis, and most often is imported from foreign locations. It creates entire settlements of wage workers dependent on the plantation, causes seasonal migration of at least part of the workforce, and often generates a common culture and identity within the workforce. However, plantation jobs that require greater technical expertise frequently fall to local residents, and this becomes a basis for drawing sharp social boundaries in ethnic, national, or racial terms. In the United States, the industrial form of agriculture historically is associated mostly with California, where it dates to the late nineteenth century, and its social consequences have been closely studied (see, e.g., McWilliams 1939; Goldschmidt 1978a). It is also a characteristic of the Southwestern states and Florida, and its characteristics have become more widespread since the liberalization of U.S. immigration law in 1965 (Palerm 1991; Goldschmidt 1978b). A major stimulus of

14

Reimagining the Immigrant

the spread of agriculture with industrial characteristics has been the rising costs of farm production during the 1970s, particularly associated with energy, fertilizers, and pesticides. High costs for these inputs have often forced farmers to abandon easily mechanized crops in favor of more labor-intensive crops, because the higher prices they commanded helped counter the rising operating costs (Palerm and Urquiola 1993). This shift included greater corporate and personal capital investment and new infrastructures in cooling, processing, and shipping. Another factor has been the centralization of some forms of food processing— especially meatpacking and poultry processing—under large corporations, and the vertical integration of the farms and ranches that supply them (Stull et al. 1995; Stull and Broadway 2004). The consequences for small scale producers and their towns have often been devastating (Thu and Durrenberger 1998). Nevertheless, capital and labor intensification helped some regions of American agriculture avoid the crisis of falling prices during the 1980s that befell dairy and grain producing regions (Wells 1996:19–27; cf. Barlett 1993). American consumers experienced these changes in the form of a major shift away from the consumption of canned and frozen produce to fresh produce, and it resulted in the disappearance of both local butcher stores and butchers in grocery stores. California led the nation in the specialty crop sector of these agricultural trends, sustaining and enhancing its position as the most diverse, large scale, technologically advanced, and capital- and labor-intensive leader in specialty crop agriculture in the country (Scheuring 1983). Dramatically increased production of high value fruits, nuts, vegetables, and nursery crops after the 1960s, in conjunction with the decline of California’s aerospace industry, made agriculture California’s leading economic sector, producing $20 billion in annual sales by the early 1990s (Palerm 1994). Wine grapes were one of the high value crops whose cultivation expanded dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s. First in California, then in Oregon, Washington, and beyond, vineyards replaced grain cultivation, rangeland, pasture, and row crops (Haley 1989). This did not happen without a massive increase in both the total number of farm workers employed and the duration of their employment. Moreover, farm employment opportunities in many parts of the state became spread across the year sufficiently that a large segment of the farm workforce was able to settle permanently in rural communities to a far greater degree than ever before. Thus, as California led the way in the intensification of agriculture, its rural towns experienced a dramatic growth in numbers of farm workers.8 Roughly two million

Introduction

15

Mexican immigrants entered the United States in the 1970s, with half of them settling in California where, initially at least, the main draw was agricultural employment (University of California 1989). The national and state immigrant totals doubled in the 1980s (Fix and Passel 1994) and continued to rise thereafter. Rural towns and small cities associated with either specialty crop agriculture, meatpacking, or other food processing plants have been transformed from relatively homogeneous places of national culture into culturally diverse international crossroads. In these localities, a part of the immigrant workforce comprised settlers, who put down roots and actively began to build a community for themselves and their families. Another part of this workforce lives as transnational sojourners, who maintain homes in—and a stronger association with—Mexico. Agricultural industrialization and the growth of corporate food processing produced a transnational labor system that binds the production areas in the United States to Mexico as a source of labor, creating and sustaining a continuous f low of people and money back and forth across the international border.9 The social consequences of industrial agriculture’s reliance on immigrant labor have long been of interest to scholars. Using California’s experience, scholars have developed a fairly standardized agrarian class model to characterize industrialized rural social relations. Appearing in the pioneering work of Carey McWilliams (1939) and subsequent studies, this type of rural society allegedly was divided into two classes corresponding almost perfectly to ethnic, cultural, or racial divisions in the population.10 Proponents of the model claimed that farmers and their allies were of European ancestry and English-speaking, whereas farm workers were a large, unskilled, and undifferentiated mass drawn from ethnic minority groups. This pattern created a situation in which minority status itself was equated with farm work. Almost without exception, scholars in the past viewed the ethnic diversity of this system as existing prior to the class positions within it. For example, labor was said to segment along preexisting ethnic lines only when a new, more docile immigrant group arrived seeking employment (Cheng and Bonacich 1984). While a number of scholars have shown that minorities have not been so confined to farm work as earlier researchers suggested (Chan 1986; Leonard 1992; Wells 1990), only a handful of scholars have recognized that being in the labor class of industrial agriculture both created and sustained ethnic identity. This only was noticed among the so-called Okie farm workers of the 1930s and early 1940s ( Jamieson 1942; Gregory 1989), who Hatch still found in Shandon as late as the

16

Reimagining the Immigrant

1960s. But whether plantation or industrial agriculture creates ethnic identities around class (e.g., Wolf 1982; Bourgois 1989) or merely makes use of preexisting identities to control labor (e.g., Moberg 1996) remains a point of scholarly debate. Using the Okie experience, some scholars have suggested that a minority ethnic identity is lost only after leaving farm work (Goldschmidt 1978a: 67, 73–74, 125–126; Gregory 1989). Kearney and Nagengast (1989:19–22) argue similarly that as earlier Mexican immigrants “f low through” to employment outside farm work, they are reclassified as Mexican Americans, and are replaced on the farms by new Mexican immigrants. Thus, the terms Mexican and Mexican American designate different classes having differing relationships with Anglos (Kearney and Nagengast 1989:6–8, 20–21).11 While the change of identity observed upon leaving farm work conforms to Eric Wolf ’s (1982:380) assertion that capitalism produces and re-creates cultural distinctions between working classes, leaving the matter there overlooks the fact that Wolf found these symbolic distinctions being made within plantation labor. This type of cultural segmentation of labor has not been reported within North American industrial agriculture, except for Hatch’s interesting observations about the foreman type and Okie farm workers in Shandon. Perhaps, as Wolf (1982:387–388) has suggested, researchers have been so poor at stepping outside the popular ideology of discrete, bounded, and static cultures and identities that they fail to recognize this as a significant question about the nature of capitalist social relations. In an attempt to remedy this potential shortcoming, I propose that given the popularity of the notion of discrete, bounded cultural units, a political economy with a transnational labor system stimulates cultural segmentation of labor and cultural fundamentalism. This book will attempt to show how this occurs. A View of the Shandon Region Before exploring the processes of immigrant segmentation in Shandon, a brief tour of the area is in order. Shandon is located where Cholame and San Juan Creeks join to form the westward-f lowing Estrella River (see map 1.1). The broad stream terraces at this conf luence form Shandon Flat, about nine square miles of farmland, stream bottom, and town site in a shallow valley surrounded by treeless hills. Canyons with seasonal streams open upstream to the northeast, southeast, and south, and downstream to the west. In 1990, the main older portion

Introduction

17

of the town of Shandon was a four-by-five block area bisected from east to west by Centre Street, a two-lane thoroughfare and old highway route. This part of town contained 116 homes, ranging from a late nineteenth-century adobe to frame houses under construction on the northeast edge of town. Nearly all were modest, most were wellkept, but a few were dilapidated and abandoned. A quarter mile west on Centre Street was Shandon Heights, a cluster of fifty-six equally modest homes dating to the 1960s and later, a small Assembly of God Church, and more homes under construction. Another seventy-three homes stood within a radius of several miles on Shandon Flat, clustered along roads or standing apart on farms and ranches. In the main portion of town along Centre Street were a small cafe and bar, a seldom used motel, an abandoned gas station, two small grocery stores—one active and the other boarded up while being renovated,—a small branch library, a post office, a glorious old 1890s wood-sided Methodist Church, Shandon High School, and Clark Memorial Park. Extending westward were a school bus yard, a small state highway department equipment yard, and a fire control station housing the Shandon Volunteer Firemen’s equipment and a seasonal state forestry fire crew. Vacant lots in the middle of town marked where an auto garage and several condemned houses had once stood. On the side streets were Shandon Elementary School, a large old community hall maintained by the Lions Club, a metal-sided farmer’s cooperative selling farm implements and clothing, and a beauty salon operating out of a private home. The large county park, Clark Memorial, provided cool shade during the hot summers beneath its many trees planted in years past by Shandon residents. It held the log-cabin style Senior’s clubhouse, a public pool, picnic tables, courts for tennis, basketball, and volleyball, children’s recreation equipment, and athletic fields. The Methodist Church property included a younger building for Sunday school classes that had ceased years before, and a small former parsonage that had become the site of a weekly rummage sale. On weekdays until 2:00 in the afternoon, Shandon Cafe typically had one or more pickup trucks parked in front, and there were established residents—especially growers—inside for breakfast, lunch, coffee, and conversation. On Friday evening “fish nights,” it was hard to find a place to park. The one active grocery store had come to resemble an urban mini-market. The proprietors were a Korean-American couple originally from Los Angeles, who resided outside of the Shandon area. They carried a variety of staple foodstuffs, snack foods, home products, video rentals, and a full selection of beer, liquor, and sodas that seemed

18

Reimagining the Immigrant

to account for most sales. High prices ref lected the low volume of sales and the store’s distance from suppliers. Outside, between the store and the post office, was a bulletin board for public use, containing notices of local events or items for sale. Next to that were a public telephone and a bench, which was once Shandon’s bus stop. This was the heart of the town, and Centre Street widened here to provide parking. Across Centre Street from the store, unpaved Shandon Alley ran north for one block. Along it stood a half dozen small three-room homes, some with the paint peeling away, others showing the tarpaper and wire surfaces still awaiting stucco or siding. Informally, this was Shandon’s ghetto, where only marginalized farm workers resided. In the past, it was Okies; in 1990, Mexican immigrants. Ref lecting the land-extensive nature of the grain and cattle complex, the social community of Shandon extended over a large area beyond the town itself. The boundaries of Shandon Unified School District encompass almost exactly the territory that the established residents associated with the social community of Shandon. The district lies primarily in northeastern San Luis Obispo County, but it includes the southeastern corner of Monterey County. It always has drawn from the western edge of Kern County in the areas known as Choice Valley, Bitterwater Canyon, and the former village of Annette (see map 1.1). Only two of four original villages within Shandon’s social orbit still existed by 1990. Northeast of Shandon on Highways 41 and 46 is Cholame, once a small village, post office, and school, but in 1990 reduced to a cafe, a bank of metal postal boxes, and an incongruous memorial of sculpted metal and imported Japanese stream pebbles honoring the actor, James Dean, who was killed in an auto collision at the nearby intersection in 1955. Sixteen miles north from the highway at Cholame is the village of Parkfield in Monterey County, a cluster of about twenty homes, an old community hall, one-room schoolhouse, fire station, and a well-kept bar and cafe, with its outdoor sign boldly proclaiming, “Earthquake Capital of the World—Parkfield, California—Be Here When It Happens!” Across the street, the cafe owner was building a small commercial lodge. Geologists and geophysicists were often seen near Parkfield, monitoring the San Andreas Fault that runs past the village. On the ranches outside of town and village, the landscape was marked by occasional homes, barns, sheds, and grain storage bins. The largest and most expensive residences were to be found on some of these surrounding ranches.

Introduction

19

Eighteen miles west of Shandon is the city of Paso Robles, with a 1990 population of 18,500 people. U.S. Highway 101, the freeway linking California’s major coastal cities from Los Angeles northward, passes through Paso Robles and connects it to a string of cities and towns. The portion of San Luis Obispo County north and east of the Santa Lucia Mountains—including Paso Robles, Atascadero, and Shandon—is called “north county.” Historically the county’s rural hinterland, north county had experienced substantial population growth by 1990. Shandon started catching the population overf low from Atascadero in the 1970s and from Paso Robles in the 1980s. South of the Santa Lucia Mountains on Highway 101 and an hour from Shandon by car is San Luis Obispo, the county’s seat and largest city, with a 1990 population of roughly 42,000 people.12 Most Shandon residents in 1990 obtained goods and services in Paso Robles or Atascadero, but more substantial needs were usually met in San Luis Obispo. Some government services and medical care were obtained in north county cities, but typically one went to San Luis Obispo for these. Despite its location in Monterey County, Parkfield was oriented more toward San Luis Obispo County for goods and services. Shandon lies just off Highway 46, an east-west highway providing a link of growing importance between U.S. Highway 101 at Paso Robles and U.S. Interstate 5 in the San Joaquin Valley. In the 1980s the volume and speed of traffic on Highway 46 outstripped the route’s two-lane capacity. Expansion of the highway to four lanes was ongoing in 1990. Highway 41 shares the same route from Shandon to Cholame. The two highways provide access to oil fields and agriculture in the western San Joaquin Valley, and to Avenal in Kings County where many farm workers reside. The highways continue east and northeast to the large inland cities of Bakersfield and Fresno. In the chapters that follow, I address the causes and consequences of immigrant settlement in Shandon, with particular attention to processes leading toward the segmentation of immigrants into two classes, and the accommodation of one of these under an emerging new identity. Chapter 2 describes the crucial transformations in the local agricultural economy that created the market for immigrant labor and gave it structure. There I also address suburban growth, which had unexpected consequences for immigrant/native relations. Chapters 3 and 4 continue the analysis of social evaluation and classification begun by Hatch in Biography of a Small Town, expanding it to address how established residents viewed newcomers by 1990. Chapter 3 focuses on the use of

20

Reimagining the Immigrant

local roots and the idiom of respect or quality by established residents as local refractions of class. Chapter 4 addresses residents’ categories for what they perceive to be distinct, named peoples distinguished from one another on the basis of origins, ancestry, and culture. Here the established residents’ growing tendency to distinguish different “types of Mexicans” is explored and the role of ethnic brokerage is discussed. Both chapters address the subtle inf luence of class on the construction of purportedly cultural categories. Chapter 5 continues Hatch’s analysis of how residents manage the local affairs that enable them to maintain a sense of community and to construct it anew. The focus on institutions and leadership patterns ref lects the important role Lamphere and colleagues (Lamphere 1992a) found that institutions play in structuring social relations between established residents and immigrants. Here there is a tale of community atrophy and the emergence of a second community articulated with the first through a very few select institutions. Chapter 6 examines the prejudice of established residents toward immigrant farm workers, and its principle manifestation as discrimination in the rental housing market. The presentation describes the role played by housing discrimination in helping to segment the immigrants into two classes, one of which was coming to be viewed by established residents as “members of the community,” a crucial threshold of accommodation. Integrative processes are examined in chapter 7, highlighting the role of Shandon’s small, local schools as community-building institutions that foster a local identity expressed in the phrase, “member of the community.” Shandon’s settled immigrants did not acquiesce to efforts to marginalize them, and grasped at opportunities to improve their relationship with established residents. This is illustrated in chapter 8, where a north county grower’s publicized mistreatment of farm workers created a receptive audience for a small, organized effort by settled immigrants and a skillful broker to articulate in traditionally recognizable terms interests they held in common with established residents. This drew statements of mutual respect and furthered immigrant accommodation. I include a brief epilogue here on the continuing accommodation of immigrants from 1991 to 1995. Chapter 9 summarizes Shandon’s experience with immigration, pointing out how established residents’ preexisting modes of social evaluation interacted with the new labor market, housing discrimination, and school integration to produce dual outcomes: two immigrant working classes, one that was more ethnicized, marginalized, and excluded, and the other gradually accommodated and reimagined as more similar than different. I demonstrate

Introduction

21

that past scholars, and Walter Goldschmidt (1978a) especially, produced findings consistent with my own without recognizing the process of class and identity segmentation within industrial farm labor. A Note on Methods, Data, and Terms I resided on Shandon Flat for twenty-two months from the fall of 1989 to the summer of 1991. My research in Shandon is based on data obtained from daily observations of people’s words and actions made while visiting people’s homes, regularly going to the cafe for lunch, coffee, and conversation, casual conversation on the streets of the community, visiting agricultural fields while work was in progress, and playing basketball with a number of men from the region. I regularly attended meetings of the school board, Shandon Advisory Committee, Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee, and evening English class. I attended various gatherings, including high school sporting events and ceremonies, some of the Lions Club meetings, the Memorial Day barbecues, and special events sponsored by local organizations. I conducted open-ended interviews with a cross-section of local residents, including ranchers, growers, farm workers, farm labor contractors, school employees, local leaders, commuters, seniors, housewives, youth, and others. One set of more structured interviews with seven of the region’s agriculturalists specifically sought information about the structure of grape, grain, and cattle operations. I was also able to observe daily the operations on the ranch where I lived. The choice of terms to designate social categories is always problematic in ethnography, and particularly so when identity is a central issue (see Handler 1985). Much of the time I am able to use relatively identity-neutral labels, including established resident, native, immigrant, newcomer, and occupational labels. I use old guard, old timer, and old family in a manner ref lecting local usage. Since I stress the importance of discovering identities, I generally adhere to the labels in local use. This does not resolve all problems, however, because usages are inconsistent. For clarity, I have found it necessary to consistently use Mexican for actual immigrants from Mexico and their children who remain oriented toward an immigrant social network. Mexican American identifies persons of Mexican descent born, or at least raised, in the United States, whose social ties, cultural orientation, and identity is unique to the United States. These persons employ a wide variety of labels for themselves, but this is one of the most common. Anglo-American

22

Reimagining the Immigrant

and the shorter Anglo designate United States natives of European ancestry whose self-identity is most often American and sometimes white. I reserve American for use when lumping Anglo-Americans and Mexican Americans together. Finally, I confine my use of the word community to its social meaning, favoring town, area, and region when place is the intended meaning. I am hoping this avoids potential confusion when discussing community as a form of identity.

CH A P T E R

T WO

The Changing Farm and Town

In the mid-1960s Shandon suffered from a “malaise.” Its buildings appeared run down, businesses were moving out, many farms were economically marginal enterprises, upward mobility from farm hand to farm owner had become impossible, and the strength of the community’s identity was waning (Hatch 1979:116–120). The next two decades transformed the community, however, and witnessed a turnaround from population stasis or decline to growth. Roughly twothirds of Shandon’s 1990 residents arrived during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. The causes of this dramatic change were the intensification and restructuring of a segment of local agriculture and a suburbanizing urban-to-rural migration. The major demographic shift these processes spawned restructured Shandon socially, economically, and politically. Shandon was transformed by the addition of new farm worker families from rural Mexico, as well as by the more urban focus of new commuter residents. In this chapter I describe the twin process of change in agriculture and suburban settlement, and the newcomers associated with each. These are not entirely separate in Shandon. Urban-to-rural migration and the resulting suburbanization of the rural community were linked to changes within agriculture. The 1970s were a threshold decade during which there was a substantial exodus of people from some sectors of local agriculture and from Shandon itself. This exodus contributed to the emergence of a steep differential in housing and land prices between the rural interior towns of the coastal counties and cities to the west where populations were growing rapidly. Lower housing costs in Shandon coupled with the ease of travel on the modern highway system made Shandon attractive to urban workers. Thus, changes in the

24

Reimagining the Immigrant

region’s agriculture are more fundamental than suburban growth, and I grant them more space here. Shandon’s several agricultural sectors— dryland grain farming, cattle ranching, and irrigation agriculture— experienced different changes, each crucial to the overall pattern of local change. Both grain and beef are raised on the low, nearly treeless, hills that dominate the area around Shandon. Neither of these requires the irrigated land of the narrow valley bottoms and river terraces for production. But in some locations, irrigation agriculture has encroached on former dry-farming lands on the higher terraces. Grain farming and cattle ranching were the traditional mainstays of the local economy and the sources of its highest individual prestige and inf luence. Both of these agricultural sectors experienced mild instability and decline in the 1970s, followed by a more substantial drop-off in the 1980s. In contrast, irrigation agriculture had always been an economically and socially marginal undertaking in Shandon. It experienced extreme volatility in the early 1970s, which was then followed by a complete transformation of crops, owners, and workers, from which it emerged as the most prosperous sector of the local agricultural economy and part of California’s prestigious premium wine industry. In this role, Shandon served as a node for the production of grapes destined for regional and state processors, and also for the consumers distributed across the nation and the globe. This transformation was achieved with labor from western and northwestern Mexico and with capital from throughout the United States. Nonagricultural sources of livelihood— such as pipelines, highways, and schools—were always of secondary importance to the local economy and social order. But an increase in nonagricultural residents also made Shandon a place of residence not just for those who work locally but also for those who work outside the immediate region in jobs that are unrelated to the local economy. Shandon became a place where people from diverse backgrounds with many different interests converged. Thus, what might appear to have just been shifts to new crops and the addition of new residents were in fact the economic motor for a significant transformation of Shandon’s social order. A General History of Local Farming and Ranching Agriculture in the Shandon region has changed throughout the course of more than a century of the settlement’s existence.1 Nearly each farming generation has faced unique circumstances due to changes in technology, capital requirements, agronomic practices, sources of labor,

The Changing Farm and Town

25

crops, markets, and farm policies. But throughout most of Shandon’s history, cattle ranching and grain farming have been the most stable elements, and this stability helped cattle ranchers and grain farmers earn greater prestige and inf luence than most other residents. Ranching probably began as early as 1797, assuming that the founders of Mission San Miguel grazed cattle and sheep in the Shandon area (Hester 1978). Ranching expanded under private ownership when California was a part of independent Mexico (1822–1848), but it did not become more intensive until California was incorporated into the United States after 1848 and American force ended Yokuts livestock raids from the San Joaquin Valley. Only then did colonization of the Shandon area begin.2 At that point, a number of large ranches were established in the area, ranging in size from 15,000 to 40,000 acres apiece. They were absentee-owned, and operated by resident foremen and crews of up to fifteen cowboys per ranch. The structure of these ranches was fairly stable until the introduction of the pickup truck in the twentieth century reduced the need for so many cowboys. By the mid-1960s there were only five working cowboys in Shandon (Hatch 1979:16–17, 131). Farming began in the Shandon area between 1860 and the mid-1870s on a small plot watered from an artesian well along the Estrella River west of the current town. Significant farm settlement occurred during the 1880s when homesteaders and speculators acquired most of the remaining land in the region and founded the first town of Shandon. The location of the town was moved about 1.5 miles northward on Shandon Flat in the 1890s (Hatch 1979:37). In the same decade, railroad service reached Paso Robles and San Miguel, providing an economical way to ship crops and livestock to the growing network rail centers, ports, and markets in the northern and southern cities of the state. The homesteaders established dryland grain farming as the dominant cropping pattern, spurred on by a global wheat market boom in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.3 Both the environment and technology of the time favored dryland grain farming and stock raising. Mean annual precipitation ranges between eight and eighteen inches across the region, and is only ten inches at Shandon itself. With the technology of the time, irrigation could be practiced on just the handful of small plots where there were artesian wells. In the late nineteenth century, roughly 1000 acres were needed to make cattle ranching economically viable. Few homesteaders were able to acquire this much land, and most who did so lost their herds anyway during the drought of 1897–1898. Homesteading families each acquired 160 to 480 acres. These early family farms produced wheat as a cash crop, raised chickens, hogs, a milk cow and calves for home

26

Reimagining the Immigrant

consumption, eggs and butter for barter at the store, and augmented these with wage work and exchange relationships of various kinds (Hatch 1979:20–21). Initially, a local farm family required 200 acres of arable land to make a living from raising grain. When summer fallowing to conserve soil moisture was introduced near the turn of the century, it doubled the acreage needed to support a family. Land holdings typically were much larger, though, because much of the landscape was too rugged to cultivate. As farms grew in size, they required more workers. At first, the farm family contributed this labor, but by the 1910s most grain farms employed a hired hand year-round. The landless young men of the community took these jobs to earn money with which they would one day buy their own farms. But when tractors were adopted in the late 1920s and 1930s and grain farms doubled in size again, upward mobility from hired hand to owner-operator slowed to a crawl. Farm capitalization and living standards increased dramatically after World War II, once again raising the minimal land requirements to 2,000 arable acres for grain farmers and 4,000 acres of rangeland for cattle ranchers by the mid-1960s. Grain farmers became owner-managers who hired full-time hands to perform much of the work. Most grain farms also grazed cattle on steeper lands that could not be cultivated, and on the stubble remaining after harvest. With hired labor tending the grain, farmers often devoted their own energies toward the more prestigious cattle ranching side of their operations. Irrigation farming expanded after World War I, when electric pumps came into widespread use to supply individual ditch irrigation systems on level ground (Snyder 1983:70). The introduction of aluminum pipe and sprinkler systems after World War II made it possible to irrigate gentle slopes. By the mid-1960s most of Shandon Flat and the bottom lands of the adjoining canyons were irrigated and devoted primarily to alfalfa, barley (for hay), sugar beets, and pasture for valuable breeding bulls. Irrigation farmers needed 200 to 300 acres to support their families in the mid-1960s. None were prosperous and few were financially secure. Irrigated farms changed ownership much more frequently than dryland grain farms or cattle ranches. Many irrigation farmers were relative newcomers to Shandon, and they were considered fairly transient by longer-term residents. This gave them a lower social standing than grain farmers or cattle ranchers. Irrigated farms relied on more hired labor than grain or cattle operations, since they needed workers to move irrigation pipe, thin and weed sugar beets, or harvest fruits, nuts, or vegetables. The farmer’s children were occupied with school and

The Changing Farm and Town

27

apparently contributed very little of this labor, except during summers. Irrigation farmers tended to perform the mechanized work themselves, leaving the manual tasks to established resident farm workers or immigrant and Mexican American migrant farm workers from outside the region, who were often obtained through labor contractors. Mexican immigrant workers included braceros from the federal agricultural guest worker program of 1942–1964, and undocumented immigrants who sometimes camped along creeks to reduce their vulnerability to apprehension by agents of the U.S. Border Patrol.4 By the mid-1960s, upward mobility from hired hand to farmer other than by inheritance or marriage was largely eliminated by the tremendous capital demands of modern commercial farming. So the young men of Shandon increasingly found better career options outside of agriculture.5 Farm hands were no longer the sons of the farmers or ranchers. In fact, they tended to be thought of as a different kind of person, and the less stable their employment was, the more different they were thought to be. The relatively unstable Anglo farm hands were identified as Okies and they often lived within Shandon. Farm workers of Mexican descent remained outsiders who rarely lived in the town. Land inheritance itself was a less viable path to farming. A division of the property among heirs or to resolve property taxes could reduce the holding to an economically unviable size. For these reasons, farmers and ranchers of the mid-1960s were often the last of their family, and increasingly they sold their property to outsiders when they retired. Although these problems were greatest in irrigation farming, their effects were also felt in grain farming and cattle ranching (Hatch 1979:125–133). Recent Agricultural Changes The dryland grains raised in the Shandon region are barley and wheat.6 The region dominated grain production in San Luis Obispo County up to the early 1990s. Figure 2.1 depicts the acreage and value of wheat and barley crops in the county annually from 1967 through 1991, and acreage placed in the federal Conservation Reserve Program starting in 1986, and payments from that program. Grain prices f luctuated cyclically over most of the period, with lows in 1970, 1972, 1976, 1977, and nearly all years after 1983. Production levels remained fairly stable until a boom in production and value from 1980 through 1983, associated with improved yields and strong markets. Subsequently, prices and

28

Reimagining the Immigrant

acreage declined, and the volume of production fell continuously due to severe drought conditions and implementation of the Conservation Reserve Program. Farmers and ranchers whose grain failed to mature during the severe 1986–1992 drought released their cattle into the stunted grain and were able to at least sustain their livestock longer or earn a fee by providing grazing land to others. By 1991 the production of grain was at its lowest point during the 1967–1991 period. The U.S. Department of Agriculture Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), begun in 1986, paid farmers an average of $49 per acre to keep land idle for ten to fifteen years. Only land once devoted to dryland grain farming was placed in CRP, because irrigated land was too valuable by then. Most of San Luis Obispo County’s CRP lands by 1990 were in the Shandon region. The 1986–1992 drought stimulated enrollment in the program as yields fell and crops failed entirely in some years (see figure 2.1). Many grain farmers found it was more economical to place land in CRP than to farm it during that time. CRP land comprised roughly one-third of all the dry grain farming land in the county. Payments from the program supported the grain farmers and landowners. But without work, the hired hands were displaced.7 180

Acreage (thousands)

160 8

140 120

6

100 80

4 60 40

2

20 0

Value (1967 Dollars in millions)

10

1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

1971

1969

1967

0

Figure 2.1 San Luis Obispo County wheat and barley acreage (gray columns) and value (solid line), 1967–1991, and Conservation Reserve Program acreage (white columns) and payments (dashed line), 1986–1991. Source: San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures, Annual Reports, 1968 through 1991.

The Changing Farm and Town

29

Grain farming in 1990 followed a common pattern. Grain was planted in the fall on the previous year’s fallow ground along with a fertilizer and herbicide, usually by tractor but sometimes by airplane. Winter and spring months were spent preparing the summer fallow by tilling the past year’s cropland to restrict plant growth so as to conserve soil moisture. Land was fallowed every other year. The field might need to be sprayed with a herbicide before the summer harvest. By the late 1980s, part of grain farmers’ adjustment to lower profits and drought was to do more tasks themselves that hired hands had done in the past, particularly driving combines during harvest. Grain farmers also took on custom tractor work and hauling for vineyards in the late 1980s. The cattle industry in California was restructured in the 1960s, leaving fewer but larger feedlots in which cattle were finished prior to slaughter (Albaugh et al. 1983). Shandon cattle ranchers were shaken at the same time by falling prices and a number of local land transfers.8 Large cattle ranches in the region that had existed for a century or more sold portions of their land to resolve inheritance taxes or for other financial reasons. The two largest ranches were sold in their entirety. Subsequently, from 1967 to 1973, San Luis Obispo County’s cattle industry enjoyed a relatively stable volume and value of production (see figure 2.2). Then 120

18

Acreage (thousands)

14 80

12 10

60 8 40

6 4

20

Value (1967 Dollars in millions)

16 100

2 0 1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

1971

1969

1967

0

Figure 2.2 San Luis Obispo County cattle and calves number of head (columns) and value (line), 1967–1991. Source: San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures, Annual Reports, 1968 through 1991.

30

Reimagining the Immigrant

in 1974 cattle prices fell and stayed down, except brief ly in 1979. In the late 1970s, the numbers of cattle produced began a decline that continued through 1991. The drought of 1986–1992 contributed to this decline by forcing ranchers to sell off more of their stock. Herd sizes in 1992 were roughly half of those of the 1970s, so ranches employed fewer workers. Cattle prices experienced only a slight improvement during this time, not enough to alter the general downward trend but enough to help sustain, yet not enrich, ranch owners. Not surprisingly, cattle ranching was seldom the sole livelihood of ranch owners. Most were absentee owners, and some were diversified corporations. In spite of these perturbations, the structure of cattle ranches changed little since the 1960s (see Hatch 1979:130–131). A resident owner or manager still performed much of the work, augmented occasionally by hired hands and friends for brandings. On many ranches, a permanent hired hand tended fences, looked after the herd, and irrigated pastures. The largest corporately owned ranches employed a resident manager, a foreman, and several farm workers who irrigated pasture and hay fields. A lesser element of the local grain and livestock complex is sheep, which graze on grain and grain hay stubble after harvest.9 In 1990, local landowners received a fee paid per acre of grazing land, but sheep created no local work since the Spanish sheepherder came from the San Joaquin Valley along with the livestock. A land use map of Shandon Flat and its surrounding hills prepared by County planners in 1970 illustrates the continuing predominance of livestock and grain in the local economy at that time (see map 2.1). The hills were devoted to grazing or dryland grain. Alfalfa hay, sugar beets, grain hay, and pasture occupied the irrigated lands of Shandon Flat and up Cholame Creek to the northeast. Irrigated pasture was used almost exclusively for bulls. Its acreage had declined substantially along with the retraction of cattle ranching. Small areas were planted with almonds, wine grapes, and silage corn. Changes that were begun prior to 1970 escalated after that date. These were most keenly felt in irrigation agriculture. The transformation of local irrigation agriculture was tied to the increase in capital expenses in agriculture and the increasing difficulty of transferring ownership to a younger generation within the family. As farms were squeezed between declining profitability and barriers to intergenerational transfer, the more marginal irrigated farms on Shandon Flat were sold. During these troubling times, one irrigation farmer on Shandon Flat committed suicide, and then his farm was taken over by creditors. The latter half of the 1970s was especially

Map 2.1

Agricultural land uses on Shandon Flat in 1970 and vineyards in 1990.

Sources: County of San Luis Obispo Engineering Department 1971: Plate II, and my field observations.

32

Reimagining the Immigrant

tumultuous. Twenty-five farmers, ranchers, and farm or ranch managers left the area from 1968 to 1990 before their youngest children matriculated from high school. Thirteen of these left in the six years from 1975 to 1981.10 Farm sales opened the door for new owners to change to new specialty crops needing major infusions of capital. This, in turn, favored absentee ownership, because few local residents possessed the capital needed to embark on risky new agricultural ventures. These changes ref lected major trends in California and other Southwest and Pacific Coast states at that time. From the 1950s to the 1970s, California’s farmers had to adjust to rising costs of farm inputs (McCorkle and Nuckton 1983; Snyder 1983). They did this by increasing the value of production and the value of land on which agricultural credit was based. Orchard and vineyard crops often filled these needs (Brown 1983:137).11 Alfalfa hay and sugar beets were two of Shandon’s common irrigated crops through the 1960s. After five stable years of prices and production through 1971, alfalfa growers experienced six years of extremely volatile prices until acreage dipped sharply during the drought of 1977 (see figure 2.3). Though production almost returned to earlier levels as prices stabilized, acreage and production declined steadily after 1980. 5

16

Acreage (thousands)

4 12 10

3

8 2

6 4

1

Value (1967 Dollars in millions)

14

2 0 1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

1971

1969

1967

0

Figure 2.3 San Luis Obispo County alfalfa hay acreage (columns) and value (line), 1967–1991. Source: San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures, Annual Reports, 1968 through 1991.

The Changing Farm and Town

33

For most growers, rising electrical rates made water pumping costs too high to compete with San Joaquin Valley alfalfa growers who received state and federally subsidized water. Some growers adjusted after 1984 by raising grain hay, which used less water, while others with localized higher water tables continued producing alfalfa in rotation with grain hay.12 Production and value of sugar beets fell precipitously after 1970, to the point that the County Department of Agriculture ceased to report sugar beets separately in their annual reports in 1985. By 1988, beets were a thing of the past (San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures 1968–1991). No sugar beets have been grown in the Shandon region for many years, and nearly all former beet growers have moved away. The Wine Boom Local irrigation farmers began experimenting with alternative crops during the 1960s. One farmer on Shandon Flat who had come to the area in the decades following World War II started testing several varieties of tree fruits, nuts, and grapes in 1961. Others tried chili peppers, melons, almonds, or other row crops. The climate made it difficult to raise most of the valuable vegetables grown closer to the Pacific coast, where the growing season is longer and cooler. Almonds were a common dryland crop earlier in the century on the hills southwest of Shandon near Creston and Paso Robles. Newer orchards planted on Shandon Flat were irrigated, but frost periodically lowered yields. During the 1970s there were roughly 450 acres of almond orchards on Shandon Flat. However, they were not profitable, and by 1989 only a single 35-acre orchard remained. The most profitable experimental crop proved to be wine grapes. During the 1960s, urban growth intruded into existing and potential vineyard lands in the San Francisco Bay region where California’s premium wineries had long been concentrated. This occurred just as wine consumption in the United States was beginning to grow. To maintain and expand a supply of grapes to meet rising demand, the wine industry enlisted University of California specialists to help find suitable new vineyard areas throughout the state (Winkler 1960). These factors, plus vineyard’s value as a capital investment, led to viticulture’s reintroduction into many pre-Prohibition wine growing areas and its expansion into new growing regions. A profusion of new vineyards and wineries appeared during the 1970s and 1980s, first in California

34

Reimagining the Immigrant

and then in other Pacific Coast states. Consequently, wine grapes and wine became leading commodities produced in California, and wine became an increasingly important symbol of California’s life style and identity.13 The vineyard planted on Shandon Flat in 1961 was the first of several experimental plots in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties assisted by a University of California farm advisor. Along with a Santa Barbara County vineyard established in 1964, it was the first of these new experimental vineyards in production. Their first grapes were purchased by major established wineries in the San Francisco Bay region where they yielded wines whose quality was judged superior to wine made from their traditional northern California sources. The University of California helped to disseminate knowledge of these successes, and over the course of the next decade these vineyards became well known in the industry by the names of their owner-operators. By 1970, others had taken note of these successes and local development of new vineyards began in earnest. Figure 2.4 depicts the growth of vineyards lying within or immediately adjacent to the boundaries of Shandon Unified School District. As happened elsewhere in the state, the pace of vine plantings was explosive. Within three years, 2000 acres of grapes had been planted. There was then a brief pause, then 4

Acreage (thousands)

3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5

Figure 2.4

1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

1981

1979

1977

1975

1973

1971

1969

1967

1965

1963

1961

0

Grape vineyard development in the Shandon region by planting year.

Sources: Grower interviews, field observations 1989–1991, and aerial photographs from the University of California, Santa Barbara Main Library Maps and Imagery Laboratory.

The Changing Farm and Town

35

from 1977 to 1984 another 1400 acres were planted, this time including table grapes. A third phase of planting began in 1989 and it continued past my departure in the summer of 1991. By then, there were nearly 4000 acres of grapes in the area. Of these, most were wine varieties and 400 acres were table grapes (see map 2.1). The 3000 to 3200 acres of wine grape–bearing vines in the Shandon region comprised 36 to 40 percent of the acreage in San Luis Obispo County. Given that the county’s 1991 wine grape crop was valued at nearly $35 million, the value of the wine variety grape crop alone from the Shandon region for that year was roughly $14 million. There were no wineries in Shandon during this time, so the grapes were shipped to large premium wineries in northern California and smaller premium wineries in the Paso Robles-Templeton area. The first vineyards replaced alfalfa, sugar beets, pasture, and other less common irrigated row and field crops. In a few instances, vineyards replaced dryland grain. In 1977 grape vineyards began to replace the almond orchards on Shandon Flat. The vineyards thus became concentrated on the upper terraces of Shandon Flat, but were also established on low bluffs overlooking the Estrella River west of Shandon, along the east bank of San Juan Creek, and in two major tributary canyons southwest of San Juan Creek (not shown in map 2.1). Vineyards represented a tremendous capital investment. Irrigation systems, if preexisting, had to be substantially modified by the addition of hundreds of feet of plastic pipe and sprinklers, and drip systems in later years. The capacity of individual farm reservoirs was increased to hold the large volumes of water needed to prevent frost damage during the coldest winter nights, when an entire vineyard must be watered at once by sprinklers. All but the first wine grape varieties were planted with costly two-wire trellis systems.14 Table grapes were planted with much more elaborate and costly overhead trellises beneath which the fruit is shaded by the leaves of the vine, thereby preventing sun damage and also cooling the fruit. Workers and small tractors can move beneath these trellises to perform vineyard tasks. Nearly every wine grape vineyard eventually invested in one or more grape harvesting machines. Several of the first vineyards were established by resident owner-operators with the help of borrowed financing. But as early as 1971 land acquired by nonresident owners was converted to vineyard and within a few years the majority of grape acreage was established for absentee owners by resident managers. During the second planting phase from 1977 to 1984, some locally owned vineyards were acquired by absentees. In one instance, the owner-operator sold his vineyard to

36

Reimagining the Immigrant

nonresidents, retired, and then left the community. A second, who had borrowed more heavily to finance the establishment of his vineyard, lost ownership in the process of settling his debt. He, too, then left the community. A few vineyards were controlled by absentees through long-term leases from their actual owners. By the mid-1980s, only two of the dozen existing vineyards were locally owned and operated. Resident managers operated all of the absentee-owned vineyards. There was some turnover among managers in the 1970s. The number of managers peaked between 1978 and 1982, and since then a few have consolidated several vineyards under their control. By 1990, six resident managers operated nearly all of the local vineyards. The managers have all come to Shandon from other agricultural regions, most are college-educated, and most have raised their families in Shandon. A few have come from California’s long-established table and raisin grape growing regions in the San Joaquin Valley, and one came from a grape growing background in the Midwest. Since the early 1980s, it has been increasingly common for a manager to receive a share of the crop in partial compensation for his services, and one manager whose contract lacked this feature was actively pursuing such a relationship with his employers while I was in Shandon. Several managers had also begun to develop their own small vineyards (of twenty to forty acres), and thus were becoming independent owner-operators on the side on a very small scale. On the irrigated land not turned over to grape vineyard and still locally owned, a succession of various crops continued to be planted. Besides alfalfa and grain hay, there were fields of saff lower, carrots, and, less commonly, chili peppers. Saff lower was often grown on land devoted to grain or hay crops in the past. An agent for a San Joaquin Valley firm producing saff lower oil traveled through the region in 1990 and enlisted growers with suitable land for growing the seed. The company provided the seed and guaranteed a price for the crop. The farmers were able to use their existing equipment to raise and harvest the crop. Carrot farming was brought to Shandon by an outside corporation that leased land from local owners, but used its own custom farmer from outside the region to raise the crop. Carrots’ susceptibility to nematodes limited the use of a field to one or two years in succession. Thus, the carrot grower was constantly shifting fields. Heavy irrigation was required; hence, the grower managed a mobile team of irrigation workers. The crop was harvested mechanically with specialized equipment that was trucked in and moved rapidly from field to field to remove the entire Shandon carrot crop in a few days of feverish activity.

The Changing Farm and Town

37

The Mexico Connection Although there were clear social impacts on Shandon associated with declining grain and cattle production and the rising absenteeism that accompanied the new crops, the greatest change came from the labor requirements of the new crops. Published estimates based on actual working time in other areas of California indicate that the labor requirements for grapes were at least double, and at most eighty-five times, that of the crops they replaced at Shandon (Kumar et al. 1978; Mamer and Wilkie 1990; Runsten and Chalfant 1986). The labor employed on irrigated land in the Shandon area only declined where grain hay or saff lower replaced alfalfa, sugar beets, or almonds. Coinciding with the turn to viticulture on irrigated lands around Shandon, and typical of the intensification of specialty crop agriculture throughout the Southwest and Pacific Coast after the mid-1960s, is the increased reliance on farm labor recruited from Mexico. This represented a shift away from a predominantly domestic labor source. Local school records reveal that an average of five American-born farm workers with school-age children moved to Shandon each year from the late 1960s until 1977, but after 1977 that number was halved. These same farm workers left Shandon before their youngest children graduated from local schools at roughly the same rates they arrived. Many of them departed for grain, cattle, and hay producing regions in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Nevada, which suggests that their moves likely kept them employed in the same commodities they had helped produce in Shandon.15 According to many of the region’s farmers, local use of immigrant labor began with sugar beets. The introduction of almonds and grapes on a large scale made growers dependent on Mexican labor. By 1990 immigrant workers were present in all sectors of local agriculture. While farm work had ceased to be a means of upward mobility for American workers by World War II, for workers from certain regions of Mexico—especially rural areas—farm work in the United States still offered upward mobility, though generally not until they returned south of the international border (see, e.g., Massey et al. 1987; Palerm and Urquiola 1993). Mexican immigrants accounted for all of the growth in the number of farm worker households in Shandon after 1970.16 The decline in farm workers from 1976 through 1978 shown in figure 2.5 consisted entirely of Anglo farm workers from grain and hay farms and cattle ranches leaving the region. Their departure coincided with major reductions in wheat, alfalfa, and sugar beet production, the beginning

38

Reimagining the Immigrant 50

No. of Household Heads

45 40 35

Undetermined

30

Anglo-American

25 20

Undetermined Latino

15

Mexican-American

10

Mexican Immigrant

5 1989

1986

1983

1980

1977

1974

1971

1968

0

School Year Figure 2.5 Ethnicity of local farm worker household heads with children in Shandon District schools, 1968–1990. Sources: Shandon Unified School District records and interviews.

of the decline in cattle, a temporary retraction in barley acreage, and the second phase of vineyard growth. The decline in Anglo farm workers occurred mostly in locations where vineyards were being developed: on farms and ranches around Shandon itself and along the drainages to the south and southeast. The number of Anglo farm workers declined again in the late 1980s when grain lands were enrolled in CRP. The Mexican transnational migrant, or sojourner workers (see, e.g., Chavez 1998), who maintained a home and family in Mexico, dominated the most seasonal jobs, such as crew members during spring thinning, summer harvest, and fall pruning. They rarely had children with them, and thus tended to live in group households comprised solely of adults. Some were only in the region for two months of harvest work, but others had jobs that kept them employed for as many as nine months. Because they maintained families in Mexico, they remitted portions of their earnings to Mexico (see table 2.1). Most early arrivals in the 1970s and early 1980s were these transnational or sojourner adults. Yet even at that time some workers chose to settle in Shandon with their families. These workers usually appear in the demographic data I derived from local school records. Nearly all of these settlers originally came as migrants, but chose to reunite their families locally after obtaining fairly secure employment and/or housing. A few others met their spouses after their arrival in Shandon and

The Changing Farm and Town

39

Table 2.1 Value of money order remittances by federal fiscal year quarters from Shandon Post Office to Mexico, September 26, 1988 through May 31, 1991 Fiscal Year 1988–1989 1989–1990 1990–1991 Seasonal Averages

Fall

Winter

Spring

Summer

Annual Totals

$932 $26,129 $19,715 $15,592

$19,255 $26,212 $16,551 $20,673

$40,390 $31,485 $24,190 $32,022

$48,290 $50,130 Not Available $49,210

$108,867 $133,956 $60,456

Source: Shandon Post Office. Postal Service tracking of money orders to Mexico began well into Fall 1988–1989, thus the Fall Seasonal Average and 1988–1989 Annual Total undercount actual remittances.

started families here. Although some of these settlers remitted some wages to dependents in Mexico, most of their earnings were spent in the region and a few purchased homes. Most of the workers in these families had obtained the more permanent vineyard jobs, such as tractor driver, irrigator, crew foreman, and the like. A small number of similarly settled farm worker household heads were employed on livestock ranches in Parkfield and Cholame. They also lived in nuclear or extended family households. Many such settlers housed a few kin from Mexico during the grape harvest. Vineyard wages from 1989 to 1991 were usually $4.65 to $5.50 per hour, with a piece rate bonus during harvest and pruning to encourage faster work. A crew member whose wife and five children joined him in Shandon by November 1989 earned $9,700 from nine months of work. A crew foreman with two dependents in Mexico earned $12,000 over the same period, and then he spent the three fall months in Mexico with his family. A settled family of four whose only wage earner was a tractor driver earned $14,000 during the eleven working months in 1989. He also typically obtained $900 to $2000 in unemployment insurance per year. A family of seven in which the husband worked nearly year-round and the wife for two months of pruning earned $16,000 in 1989. Nearly all of the immigrant settlers came from western and northwestern states of Mexico, with Michoacan providing the largest number, followed by Sinaloa and Durango, then Jalisco, Baja California del Norte, and Sonora. Far fewer originated in Guerrero, Colima, Guanajuato, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, Nayarit, and Chihuahua.17 This was a common pattern in the Mexico-United States migrant stream until the late 1980s (Massey et al. 1987; Kearney 1986). The first settled Mexican immigrant and Mexican American farm workers in Shandon originated in California, Texas, Arizona, Chihuahua, Sinaloa,

40

Reimagining the Immigrant

Michoacan, Durango, Nuevo Leon, and Zacatecas. After 1978 Nuevo Leon and Zacatecas were no longer part of the settler stream to Shandon, and new immigrants came from Jalisco, Baja California, Nayarit, and Sonora. And after 1986, immigrants from Colima, Guanajuato, and Guerrero arrived. Michoacan contributed roughly twice as many settled immigrants to Shandon than any other state. There have been Oaxacan farm workers, too, but none had settled in Shandon by 1992. Becoming a Suburb Nationally, the 1970s and 1980s were a period of explosive population growth in many rural towns and small cities, reversing decades of population decline (Beale 1975; 1976; 1979; Blakely and Bradshaw 1980; Schwarzeller 1979). Ethnographic studies of this phenomenon in southern Appalachia (Beaver 1992; Hicks 1992), the Northeast (Fitchen 1991), and the Midwest (Salamon and Tornatore 1994) have addressed the tensions generated by declining farm economies and rising numbers of more diverse newcomers, and the associated shifts in the economies, social life, character, and identity of rural communities. Although California’s agriculture moved in a more prosperous direction over the same period, its rural communities still experienced the same urbanto-rural migration pattern, and therefore, some similar transformations. Shandon experienced this as a form of suburbanization: growth in the number of local residents who commuted by car daily to work elsewhere. Throughout the 1960s the town of Shandon contained fewer than 100 aging houses, whose aging condition was perceived by residents as a mark of a community in decline. In concluding Biography of a Small Town, Hatch (1979:271) observed that the industrialization of farming after World War II had contributed to Shandon’s deterioration. A factor in the “malaise” gripping Shandon in the 1960s, which Hatch hinted at but never made explicit, was that each step in the transformation of local agriculture up to that time had driven people from the community (see Hatch 1979:116–120). From the introduction of summer fallow, tractors, and pickup trucks to postwar capitalization, the scale of farms grew and displaced farm families, farm hands, and cowboys. When the highway was realigned to bypass the town, businesses closed or relocated, and those destroyed by fire were seldom rebuilt. Shandon maintained a fairly constant population over the course of its history due to emigration, not due to a low birthrate. By the 1960s, emigration

The Changing Farm and Town

41

was assured for the majority of the community’s young by the threshold local agriculture had reached. Rarely could more than one child in any farm family hope to inherit a financially viable farm or ranch enterprise. There was no longer an “agricultural ladder” for men to climb from hired hand to farm owner: being a farm hand was a dead end. There was a small inf lux of newcomers in the 1960s, but with little local opportunity, the larger focus in school was on adequately preparing children to leave Shandon and compete successfully in the outside world (Hatch 1975; 1979:25–27, 100, 106, 119, 125, 263, 265). When San Luis Obispo County planners evaluated services in Shandon in 1970, they anticipated little growth over the next twentyfive years (San Luis Obispo County Engineering Department 1971). They were skeptical that a proposed state aqueduct would be built through the region or that local farming would shift to specialty crops, either of which would create local jobs. They were equally doubtful that Shandon would attract middle- or upper-class retirees, as coastal cities were then beginning to do. Therefore, the planners predicted that local population growth was unlikely to exceed 2 percent per year, it might also be nonexistent, but surely would not exceed 50 percent by 1990. They were wrong. In 1970 the county planners counted ninetyseven occupied houses in the town of Shandon west of San Juan Creek, estimating the population at roughly 300 persons. These were the initial users of a town water system constructed in the early 1970s and administered by the County. Yet in early 1991 there were 205 water hookups in town with ten more anticipated over the next two years. All but a few of these were homes, and some included lots with multiple residences. To verify this, I compared observable houses in 1990 with structures in Shandon proper, Shandon Heights, and elsewhere on Shandon Flat and the Lower San Juan on United States Geological Survey maps from 1961. The number of houses had grown from 132 in 1961 to 245 in 1990, and I counted at least another twenty-three trailers and mobile homes, although some of these were not occupied. Thus, Shandon’s population had probably doubled since 1970.18 What led to this unanticipated growth? In 1966 about 20 percent of the lots in Shandon were undeveloped, and were selling for $200 to $400 each. With the accelerating pace of change in agriculture in the late 1960s and 1970s, retired farm couples, displaced farm hands, and recent high school graduates were all leaving the area. This made many older inexpensive houses available for purchase or rent. The grain farmers and ranchers who remained purchased many of them for lease to their hired hands or other potential tenants. With the growing

42

Reimagining the Immigrant

availability of inexpensive houses, Shandon began to be recognized among north county real estate agents in the 1970s as an “entry level area,” where young families working in Paso Robles, Atascadero, and even San Luis Obispo could buy their first home. When this type of settlement began, a three-bedroom home in Shandon sold for $30,000. After others became aware of this emerging market, new home construction was begun on some of the empty lots. Houses built between 1979 and 1982 sold initially for approximately $55,000 apiece. Construction continued during the early 1980s, driving up the value of lots to $5,000–$11,000 apiece, prices that were still low for the north county region. Over a dozen houses were constructed on 1st and 3rd Streets during that time, including a half dozen self-help homes funded by the federal Farmers Home Administration and built by the families that eventually occupied them. In 1986 the undeveloped lots on 3rd, 4th, and 5th Streets started selling for $13,500. In early 1990, with a building permit, they were selling for $34,000 after being marketed at $39,500. The highest selling price of a new home through 1991 was $104,000. Older unimproved houses were rented out increasingly to immigrant farm workers. Despite the rising prices, Shandon remained a first-time home buyer’s market because the difference between housing prices in Shandon and the western cities increased. The houses built by the early 1980s sold for roughly 80 to 90 percent of the price of a comparable house in Paso Robles, but by early 1990 the difference had grown to 70 percent, because the pace of population growth—and surge in prices—had been so great in Paso Robles. As in other entry-level suburban housing markets, those who purchased new homes moved to more expensive homes in the cities to the west along Highway 101 as soon as they could afford to do so, a move that usually put them closer to their place of work. Many commuter residents lived in Shandon for as little as three years before moving to Paso Robles or Atascadero. This caused a steady turnover of residents in many of the newer homes. The newcomers who occupied these homes were commuter workers holding a variety of nonagricultural occupations outside the Shandon region: oil field workers, construction tradesmen, truck drivers, military, county and state employees, industrial workers, office, retail, and service workers, small business owner-operators, and an assortment of urban professionals. Their places of work were in the cities along U.S. Highway 101, from San Luis Obispo to King City in Monterey County; the U.S. Army installation at Fort Hunter-Liggett and the California National Guard’s Camp Roberts; oil fields along the western edge of

The Changing Farm and Town

43

the southern San Joaquin Valley and in Monterey County; and the state penitentiary at Avenal. In any given year between 1968 and 1991, from 82 to 100 percent of these commuters were Anglo Americans. The remainder were Mexican Americans and mixed-marriage households. Nearly all of these households were comprised of young families with children in, or soon to be in, school.19 Housing construction was continuing when I left in 1991, and applications to subdivide agricultural lands into house lots had been submitted for several properties near town. There were still about twenty vacant lots in town in early 1990. Although some real estate agents expected the need for subdivision to slow the rate of house construction, agricultural lands were being subdivided in 1990 and 1991. The first of these new developments produced seventeen new homes in Shandon Heights on the west side of town. A longtime resident commented, “The old timers living in the Heights have a scared look in their eyes,” because the new houses were closely spaced and the Heights originally had been where people moved who “wanted to get out of the crowding” in Shandon proper. Shandon’s growth has continued, although it remains a small, rural town. By 2000, Shandon included 986 residents, enough to qualify for the first time as a Designated Place (CDP) in the U.S. Census (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). A New Kind of Rural Community The changes in agriculture and housing in Shandon were associated with significant local social changes. The composition of the community was transformed by the decline of some farm commodities, the introduction and success of vineyards, and suburban development. Thanks to the earlier research by Elvin Hatch, we can see these compositional changes more clearly in Shandon than perhaps anywhere else in the country. A snapshot of Shandon’s occupational structure in the mid1960s is available in Hatch’s tabulation of household heads (table 2.2). He did not include in his tally the outlying and almost entirely agrarian areas of Parkfield and Choice Valley-Bitterwater. Even so, Hatch’s figures reveal the dominance of local agricultural occupations over nonfarm and nonlocal ones. Not only was agriculture the dominant occupation, but farmers and ranchers slightly outnumbered farm workers, cowboys, and miscellaneous agricultural occupations. There were twice as many people in agricultural occupations as in nonfarm occupations, and only 10 percent were nonfarm commuter workers.

44

Reimagining the Immigrant

To get a sense of the timing and extent of change in Shandon’s composition, I compared Hatch’s baseline data with annual demographic data from 1968 to 1990 compiled from local school records and interviews. The town’s growth is ref lected in the increase from 105 household heads with children in local schools in 1968–1969 to 172 in 1989–1990. There was no sustained population growth until 1974. Periods of growth occurred from 1974 through 1979 and 1982 through 1990. The second half of the 1970s was especially turbulent. During four school years from 1975 through 1979, an average of seven Anglo agricultural owner-operators, managers, or hired hands left Table 2.2

Occupations of Shandon household heads in the mid-1960s

Occupations

Agricultural Occupations Major landholders grain ranchers cattlemen Marginal landholders Irrigation farmers Farm workers (excluding seasonal workers) Cowboys Miscellaneous Farm Subtotal Nonfarm Occupations Teachers and superintendent Other school personnel Small business owners Employees of outside organizations (e.g., oil facility workers, county and state workers) Other full-time employees Nonfarm Subtotal Retired or widowed (not listed elsewhere) Work outside community (not listed elsewhere) Unemployed Grand Total Source: Hatch 1979:136.

Live and Work in Shandon

Retired or Widowed in Shandon

Live in Shandon, Work Outside Community

14 5 9 9 29

5 2 4 — —

— — — — 1

5 7

4 —

— —

77

15

1

8 3 11 12

— — 1 4

— 1 — 2

4

—

—

38

5

3

—

9

—

—

—

12

4

—

—

119

29

16

The Changing Farm and Town

45

Shandon each year before their children graduated from high school. These losses were balanced by the arrival of new owner-operators and managers during those years. Overall, however, the number of farmers and ranchers declined, while farm workers and persons in miscellaneous farm occupations (e.g., horse shoers, labor contractors, beekeepers, crop dusters, etc.) increased dramatically, as did the number of household heads who commuted to nonfarm jobs outside the district. Figure 2.6 illustrates the fundamental occupational shifts that transformed Shandon from a town dominated by owner-operator farmers and ranchers to one with larger proportions of farm workers and nonfarm suburban commuters. The number of commuter household heads grew within each phase of housing construction. The increase in farm workers with school children occurred after the vineyards were established. However, single adult farm workers and those separated from children and spouses who continued to live in Mexico are not represented in these data. In fact, the greatest increase in farm workers with children in Shandon schools occurred from 1986 onward, after the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) legitimized the immigration status of working parents already in the United States, making it possible for them to utilize preexisting family reunification procedures to bring their children north from Mexico. Thus, IRCA helped convert many exclusively adult farm worker households to settled families who then did appear in school records. This conversion

No. of Household Heads

60 50

Farmers, Ranchers, and Managers

40 30

Farm Workers Commuters

20 10

1989

1986

1983

1980

1977

1974

1971

1968

0

School Year Figure 2.6 The New Rural Demography. Major occupational categories among local household heads with children in Shandon District schools, 1968–1990. Source: Shandon Unified School District records and interviews.

46

Reimagining the Immigrant

process has important implications for immigrant/native relations, as we shall see in subsequent chapters.20 Shandon’s demographic shift typifies much of rural America where similar commodity production changes have been, and still are, occurring (see, e.g., Millard and Chapa 2001; Palerm 1989; 1991; Stull et al. 1995; Zúñiga and Hernández-León 2005). Farm workers and nonfarm suburban commuters are surpassing farm and ranch operators as the dominant population segments in many rural towns. Shandon reveals that a decline in the number of farm operators does not necessarily imply that agriculture and the rural town are also in decline. Agricultural intensification and urban-to-rural migration sparked a demographic turnaround from general decline to growth in Shandon. Farm operators and landholders became greatly outnumbered by farm workers and commuters. These were the basic changes that the old social order alternately resisted, felt overwhelmed by, f led, or adapted to.

CH A P T E R

T H R E E

Making Social Categories from Local Roots and Class

In his ethnography of Wasco, California, Walter Goldschmidt (1978a) describes a social distinction he found in each of the towns he examined during his seminal research on industrial agriculture in the 1940s. Using the terms nuclear group and outsider group to designate the main parts of this division, Goldschmidt notes that the nuclear group included the “business men, farm operators, professionals, and the regular employees of business houses, both white collar and skilled, and some semi-skilled labor,” who together comprised “the functioning members of the Wasco community.” They were “that body which grew up in Wasco and inherited the institutions of the community—that body to which Wasco belongs.” The outsiders, in contrast, constituted “the agricultural laborers, both regularly employed and seasonal, and other forms of common labor,” all of whom arrived later than the nuclear group, and “remain outside the social walls of the community, against which they are constantly impinging. They are not accepted into community life, and they are not considered in community affairs” (Goldschmidt 1978a:58, 59, my emphasis).1 Although he did not elaborate on this himself, Goldschmidt’s nuclear/outsider distinction appears to merge class with an identity of place phrased as community. The distinction pits those whose conditions of employment or relations to property have permitted permanent local settlement spanning generations from those whose conditions of employment are unstable, uncertain, and not as well compensated. The resultant social groupings ref lect a distinction between those with local roots and those without, constituting a social identity of place with

48

Reimagining the Immigrant

both explicit (roots) and implicit (class) boundary-defining criteria. In the way Goldschmidt has rendered it, this important social distinction also appears to be a collective creation of the nuclear group that they have imposed on those they perceived as outsiders. The designation community conveniently means both place and social group, thus expressing very clearly the nuclear group’s collective vision of itself and the privileged position in local affairs they hoped to retain.2 Perhaps it should not be surprising to find this type of social distinction in a nation-state of settlers with a romanticized pioneer past, and a capitalist economy subject to periodic f luctuations that often force or encourage people to move. Other ethnographers of rural America have encountered the same distinction, sometimes rendered as newcomers and old guard (see, e.g., Fitchen 1991; Salamon and Tornatore 1994). In the mid-1960s, Shandon was one American town whose residents drew an important social distinction between newcomers and the old guard or old-family residents. The distinction was contextual rather than absolute. Descendants of Shandon’s original settlers were indisputably old guard, those that joined between 1900 and 1929 usually were, and those who came in the 1930s could be. But those who settled in Shandon after 1940 were definitely newcomers. The perception that newcomers were increasing in number while oldfamily people were declining was offered by residents as one cause of a malaise they felt was aff licting Shandon during the 1960s (Hatch 1979:119–123).3 This was one of a number of dichotomous social distinctions operating within Shandon in the mid-1960s, according to Elvin Hatch (1979). Each had some relationship to the old guard/newcomer distinction. There was a distinction between members of the core and the periphery, contrasting those who were involved in community affairs and indisputably part of the community against residents who remained uninvolved and uninformed on local matters. old guard residents usually were to be found in the core. The core was divided into two quietly opposed factions: the establishment and nonestablishment. Wealth, moral respectability, and involvement in community affairs were criteria used to assign people to opposing sides. The wealthy and, hence, the old guard, more often were in the establishment, but the relationship was imperfect. Other distinctions, such as landholder versus non-landholder and haves versus have-nots, rested upon differences in occupation, wealth or property ownership, and respectability. Residents used these criteria to create a social hierarchy. At the top were the haves, foremost a small wealthy ranching elite, then the grain ranchers and old-family

Making Social Categories

49

members. The have-nots included minor landowning farmers who had to work part-time for others to make ends meet, irrigation farmers, custom operators who did not own land themselves but provided farm services to others for a fee, farm workers, small-businessmen, oil facility workers, county and state road crew workers, and teachers. Of these, the more successful farmers and small-businessmen, foreman type farm workers, school superintendent and teachers, and state road crew were respectable people who were higher in standing. Disreputable have-nots consisted of the somewhat transient Okie type farm workers and local derelicts. Seasonal farm workers, including a few Mexicans or Mexican Americans and two blacks, were completely outside the system: they were not members of the community.4 With their underlying and sometimes explicit emphasis on property ownership, wealth, and occupation, all of these distinctions constitute local refractions of class. Certainly, some deviate farther than others from classic theoretical concepts of class that have been the basis of social position related to productive processes. Most clearly, for example, the distinction between the establishment and nonestablishment exhibited both a vagueness of boundaries and some situational f lexibility, and turned partly on decidedly nonclass-like criteria of moral respectability such as whether one drank alcohol (or if they drank in excess); if they were thought to be promiscuous; if their home, clothing, and automobile were kept attractive; if one was hardworking, dependable, stable, and competent. The seemingly nonclass issue of ethnicity also entered into these distinctions, but most clearly in the case of the poorest, least settled, and least respected year-round farm hands, who were differentiated ethnically from all other residents by being characterized as Okies. Seasonally resident Mexican, Mexican American, and black farm workers could not even become peripheral members of the community in the 1960s. In the other instance of ethnic labeling of local residents, leading members of the nonestablishment faction were said to have “Indian blood.” In reality, they were descended from colonists from Mexico who arrived during Spanish and Mexican control of California.5 These brief examples suggest that local concerns with roots, quality, and even ethnicity are ways in which class is reinterpreted or refracted into other kinds of categories so that the centrality of its power is partly concealed (Kearney 1996:163). Although I am primarily concerned with ethnicity in this book, one can only understand the construction, negotiation, and relevance of ethnic categories within the broader context of a larger set of local social identities of which it is

50

Reimagining the Immigrant

part (Eriksen 2002:162–178). This approach will help to reveal whether ethnicity is the discrete phenomenon of origins it is popularly thought to be, or if it is mainly a refraction of class. In this chapter, I primarily discuss local categories that were not viewed as ethnic, and in the next I will turn more fully to ethnic categories. I should point out that the kinds of social distinctions discussed in this chapter do not yield the hard-and-fast social groups. A false sense of boundedness results from the cultural objectification that occurs during social classification and labeling (Handler 1984; 1985). People may envision clear either/or social distinctions, but, in practice, the criteria may not produce distinct groups. That said, it is particularly difficult to write about social categorization without invoking labels that seem rigid and inf lexible, and no solution to this enduring problem is to be found in this chapter or the next.6 Old Guard and Newcomers By the late 1980s the distinction between old guard and newcomers in Shandon had increased in significance. The rough relative chronology distinguishing the two reported by Hatch still obtained in the minds of the most senior local residents. Alberta, the wife of a ranch manager who had lived in Shandon since about 1950, still called herself a newcomer relative to residents descended from the earlier settlers, even though members of those old families constituted her primary social network. For example, she had been an active member of Shandon Women’s Guild, which is described further in chapters 5 and 6. Alberta was well known among longtime residents, and even persons she considered more authentically old guard referred me to her about issues of local history. Residents who were descended from the original settlers still viewed themselves as the truest and most prestigious of the old guard and still viewed everyone else as relative newcomers with less of a stake in the community. Descendants of early settlers of the north county were honored in the annual Pioneer Days festival and parade held in Paso Robles. The event is accompanied by special newspaper sections filled with family stories and old photos. An annual Pioneer Queen, Queen Attendants, and Belles are all descended from settlers who arrived in the region by the 1920s or earlier. The descendants of these settlers in Shandon identify themselves with the original founding of the town, and many of them take great interest in knowing and recounting local

Making Social Categories

51

history. Family matriarch Myrtle Hastings took it upon herself to give me a two-hour (condensed) local history, paying little heed to my questions about more recent events, except to note how the community had deteriorated in the past decade. Her own family story began with her grandparents homesteading and farming with a single plow in 1886. The old guard’s history is replete with the names of families and individuals that now are a part of the landscape, such as McMillan Canyon, Pfost Gulch, Twisselman Lake, and Truesdale Road.7 They tell stories of how various community organizations got started, who was responsible for particular improvements at the park, and the histories of the Methodist and Assembly of God churches. For old guard residents, and particularly the elderly, the local past is a Golden Age of ranchers, cowboys, and homesteaders; of roundups, brandings, and dances; of church, school, and community boosterism. They were universally disappointed that Elvin Hatch’s Biography of a Small Town was not a celebratory recounting of this history with accurate names, dates, and place-names. A few could not bring themselves to finish reading it, so great was their dissatisfaction. Myrtle Hastings and many of her friends preferred a history of the Parkfield and Cholame areas recently written by a local resident and amateur historian (Thomason 1988), because of its emphasis on the old families, their accomplishments, and their colorful stories tying people to places and one another. Other favored histories also were written by local residents, one in a newspaper column, another as part of a college project (Young 1969; Nicholson 1972).8 The large population inf lux from the 1970s onward altered the criteria for distinguishing old guard from newcomers. By the 1980s there were simply so many residents who had arrived since the mid- to late-1970s that, in contrast, nearly all the earlier arrivals could lay at least some claim to being longtime residents, and hence, some form of old guard. Like all long-established residents, Alberta and her husband knew far fewer people in Shandon than they did before the 1980s because of the constant turnover in the town’s population. Despite her sense of still being a newcomer, Alberta’s social position and interests in 1990 were more like that of the old guard. Thus, the finer distinctions noted by Hatch receded in importance after the 1970s. More important distinctions were now based on whether one measures their rootedness in Shandon in generations or in years (i.e., Were you a descendant of earlier local residents, or had you moved to Shandon?). Alberta’s teenage grandchild attending Shandon High School was considered by more recent arrivals to be old family. old guard residents still often liked to

52

Reimagining the Immigrant

discuss their local roots. For example, two elderly women carried on a running debate over which of them was the oldest living person born and raised in Shandon. A few elderly residents proudly claimed to have lived in their current residences all of their lives. One old cowboy liked to claim that he had spent only ten days away from the Shandon region in his entire life. These sorts of statements indirectly declared that one’s immediate ancestors had also lived in Shandon. At other times, as shall be illustrated below, this generational depth was explicitly stated and quantified for greater force. Spouses of old-family individuals tended to be lumped with the old guard, since they are expected to support and represent the interests of the families to which they marry. This was evident in local perceptions of the wife of an old guard family rancher when she ran for and was elected to a local leadership position. One comment on her first year in office exemplified the expectations placed on a woman marrying into an old guard landholding family: “She has a new outlook, but she struggles with being a Chandler [her husband’s family name].” For those who measured their rootedness in Shandon in generations, this was a critical aspect of their identities, as well as a justification in their minds for holding possessive feelings about the town and community. Longtime local residents routinely linked a number of major categories back to the old guard/newcomer dichotomy, so that these differing categorizations become nearly analogous or interchangeable. These categories included landowners and better quality people on the old guard side, and non-landholder categories of homeowners, renters, lowlife, and lesser quality people on the newcomer side. These usages were often a fairly transparent mode of envisioning class differences. For example, old guard residents’ common refrain by 1990 was that they no longer knew most of the town’s residents since there were so many newcomers. During one conversation with me, Bob Carlson, part of the dwindling membership of the Methodist Church, added to this standard complaint: “I don’t think the commuters have really merged with the community, except in certain school matters. . . . I don’t think the Mexicans have merged with the community, either.” He continued, stating that commuters and immigrants were “people who have gotten out of the habit of going to church, . . . [and were] a lower quality of person . . . [who did not] help keep organizations going.” Bob assumed that neither commuters nor immigrants were “committed to staying here,” which he felt helped to explain the rising rate of home rentals rather than ownership. Drawing a similar association with class, Scott

Making Social Categories

53

Brady, a former teacher of twenty years, felt that Shandon had acquired a “basic social division between the Responsible Social Order and others who are unemployed, unemployable, or marginal; in other words, welfare recipients.” It was principally “the old timers” who considered themselves the Responsible Social Order and comprised its dominant voices. Newcomers, according to Scott, were viewed with suspicion by the old guard until they demonstrated that they were not “lowlife.” The concern is not so much over the growing Hispanic population as over the growing, um, not just low income, not just welfare sponges, [but] what these people would call “lowlife.” There’s a sense that the town may be overrun by people who are, for example, truly not responsible citizens, that they have no intention of trying to be responsible; for example, that they would move into a place, be sort of semi-employed, not pay their rent and try to get away with that for as long as possible, and then move to some other place where they don’t pay their rent. There is a fear of this town turning into this haven for the lowest element in the county. There is some fear of that, and I think it’s greater than the fear of any ethnic [group]. Property To be an old guard resident who measures one’s own rootedness in Shandon in generations rather than years usually required family land ownership and a history in local agriculture. There were exceptions, such as a few households descended from former farm hands whose current socioeconomic position and reputation, either as impoverished lowlife or as reliable ranch hands, frequently had more bearing on their social position than their generational depth. And there were some households from old families who have not engaged in agriculture for the past one or two generations. Many of these households now obtain their livelihoods from urban jobs or construction. Most of the old guard members who were later arrivals still at least owned a residence, and could therefore be distinguished as property owners, not renters. Thus, property ownership as a criterion of social categorization had several levels: agricultural landholders, residential homeowners, and the propertyless. When framed in terms of the old guard/ newcomer dichotomy, the line was usually drawn in such a fashion as to place some homeowners in the old guard with the agricultural

54

Reimagining the Immigrant

landholders, and other homeowners in the newcomer category along with the propertyless. By 1990, the use of generational roots to assert prestige was scorned by newcomers, because it was used to dominate them in local affairs. Newcomers often associated old guard expressions of local rootedness with property ownership. Since so many came from urban and suburban areas, they also sometimes reacted by drawing an urban/rural contrast, and characterizing old guard residents as “hicks with cowboy hats and chew,” or occasionally as rednecks in private settings. Residents who now fell into the fuzzy gray area between old guard and newcomers, who were once newcomers themselves and had experienced this form of domination, had also seen it wane in effectiveness. Said one such resident, The old dry-farming and ranching interests are starting to lose some of their power around here. It used to be that as a newcomer if you raised a concern, they would come at you with “What’s your problem? How long have you lived here?” This practice had not entirely vanished, however. One event that occurred while I was in Shandon illustrates the extent to which local roots and class were intertwined. In 1990 members of the community had agreed to form a Shandon Advisory Committee that would provide an official voice for local residents regarding governance and services provided by San Luis Obispo County. Shandon Advisory Committee is discussed more fully in chapter 5; however, a meeting preceding the formation of the Advisory Committee is relevant here. An ad hoc task force of volunteers was formed to draft bylaws, obtain nominations, and hold an election to create the Shandon Advisory Committee. At the first meeting of this task force, five old guard landholders attended in addition to the initial volunteers who had started the formation process, a group of eleven that already included five more old guard landholders. Several participants were relative newcomers to Shandon. Few of the old guard residents and newcomers knew one another, so everyone around the table introduced themselves in turn. The first old guard resident to introduce himself stated, “I am the fifth generation rancher in my family.” Subsequently, each old guard resident introduced himself or herself in the same manner, emphasizing their local roots and status as landholders and agriculturalists. Eventually, virtually everyone present had noted how long they had lived in the

Making Social Categories

55

area as part of their introduction. The range was from a few months to five generations. One newcomer in attendance revealed that she had been there less than a year. Reacting to this, a rancher who had declared his own generational depth asked her where she came from. She named a Los Angeles suburb. After the meeting adjourned, the rancher told me that he resented the appearance of “newcomers who are opposed to growth,” who came from Los Angeles or elsewhere and tried to dominate the community. He added that he probably would run for a seat on the Advisory Committee to forestall any inf luence such newcomers might have. Another newcomer named Isabel received a friendly but serious scolding from a friend for having failed to mention that she and her husband owned their home in Shandon. Isabel had thought that stating she had lived in Shandon for two years was adequate. The friend, a former ranch hand’s daughter who had been raised in Shandon and was now a mother in her thirties, told Isabel that home ownership must not be left out in dealings with old guard landholders: “You have to tell people who you are, because they’ll think you are lowlife, not because you are Mexican,9 but because they think everyone on 2nd and 3rd Streets, or anyone who doesn’t own property, is lowlife.” A major concern voiced by old guard landholders at the meeting was the possibility that bylaws might be drafted that could subordinate the interests of those living outside of town to dominance by the townspeople. Left unsaid was that those living outside of town were mostly large landholders. A proposal several of them supported was that only property owners be allowed to vote in the election of Shandon Advisory Committee members, because “property owners foot the bill for what goes on in the county.” They opposed allowing all registered voters to vote in elections for the Advisory Committee because, as one put it, “more transient people could vote, including renters.” This movement was quickly halted by those who recognized that to obtain the official approval of the County would require adhering to the constitutional principle of “one man, one vote.” This meeting accentuated the distinction between old guard landholders and newcomer homeowners. For several of the homeowners, “the battle lines appear to be between landowners and homeowners,” or “between the redneck old timers and the newcomers.” Thus, in this event, class distinctions lay just beneath the rhetoric of local rootedness, and most participants were aware of the class interests at stake.

56

Reimagining the Immigrant Quality

Shandon residents of the 1960s had framed local social prestige in terms of respectability (Hatch 1979:135). By 1990 the new term for this was quality, and it frequently was used to characterize individual strengths or shortcomings. However, members of Shandon’s old guard worried that many of the newcomers—too many it seemed—did not measure up as worthwhile additions to their community. Concerns over individual quality, therefore, also were linked with local roots and class in social categorization and evaluation, and simultaneously provided a commentary on the state of Shandon and fears about the changes taking place there. The belief that newcomers, especially those outside of agricultural occupations, were lower in quality than earlier residents was a persistent refrain among the old guard. This belief informed the concern many had about continued growth and housing development in Shandon. As Shandon was becoming “a bedroom community type of thing” for commuters working in cities to the west, more residents were first-time home buyers “who may include some not too desirable folks,” according to old guard residents. Agriculturalists and many other locally employed persons argue that bedroomers have two f laws: they do not get involved in community affairs, and they are not the best quality of people to have in the community.10 These are “a different class of people nowadays who don’t do the work necessary to keep organizations and events running smoothly,” said one retired businessman. According to one grower, “bedroomers aren’t involved at all except where their children have school activities.” Even then they were subject to scorn, because they were described as coming to school activities still in dirty work clothes: Any employer will give a worker time to get home to get cleaned up for their kid’s school activities, so they have no excuse. Usually these guys have been home for a couple of hours before the event anyway and they still don’t get cleaned up. The appearance of clothing was not the only measure of low quality. The appearance of yards was equally, if not more, important, and was a recurring issue that I return to in chapter 6. One evening after a Shandon Advisory Committee meeting in which housing development and property appearances had been discussed, I joined a grower and a retired ranch hand who were criticizing the appearances of yards in the town. They reasoned that households in which both adults worked

Making Social Categories

57

did not keep up the appearance of their yards, so it must be mostly commuters who were at fault for this. A similar episode concerned tenants occupying two old houses owned by the school district. The tenants were behind in their rent and were not maintaining their yards. The district used to house teachers in about a half dozen houses that it owned. Those it still owned by 1990 were showing their age, and teachers were more inclined to live away from Shandon, so the houses were rented out. This situation was prompting public criticism of the district administrators and board members, so they had the houses assessed as a first step in trying to sell them. They were assessed in 1990 at $65,000 to $80,000 per house, whereas new houses in Shandon were then being valued at $100,000 to $120,000. At the board meeting when this was reported, a member of an old farming family expressed a common sentiment in the room: The buyers of new houses aren’t improving the yards. What kind of people are these? And if the buyers of new homes don’t [improve their yards], what can you hope to get as a buyer or tenant for these buildings? The concern was heightened by a sense that a disproportionate number of welfare households had entered Shandon. Indeed, some of the least expensive housing was rented to a welfare agency, and some residents suspected that welfare families who had members in penal institutions in Avenal and Atascadero had settled in these houses. Others associated the presence of welfare families with the overall economic changes occurring in local agriculture. One Shandon resident gave me the following explanation. As grain farming and cattle ranching shrank and the kids from those families moved off into new areas of work away from Shandon, the old folks moved out and the houses went up for rent. “There were a lot of welfare people coming in here then because the rent was low,” and the landlords suffered property damage from renting to “a lower grade of family.” This, in turn, led some of the landlords to sell these houses, and since newer homes were being constructed at the same time, prices began to rise and “the quality of residents increased as people were paying $60,000, and then more for houses.” Since these people were more “moral and stable,” the community benefitted. He also knew three families of welfare people who moved away from Shandon recently, because “they can’t afford to go to town where the services are.” So Shandon’s lack of services and relative isolation made it less attractive

58

Reimagining the Immigrant

to welfare recipients than it had been previously. The actual number of welfare recipients in Shandon was never very great. School records showed that the percentage of households with school-age children relying on welfare payments rose slightly after 1976. From 1968 through 1976 an average of 1.1 percent of households with school-age children relied on welfare. From 1977 through 1991 that average was 3.6 percent. At its peak in 1988, this constituted only ten households.11 Residents were worried that potential new housing developments would attract more of these kinds of people. Some expressed this view openly, while others were more guarded. The issue was discussed in meetings first of the school board and subsequently of the Shandon Advisory Committee. Outside, after one of these meetings, a landowner’s wife explained to me that these people were usually more costly for the schools, though she added that she wasn’t saying that all lowincome people presented this problem. Her comments were overheard by several of her friends who joined our conversation. One politically savvy agriculturalist responded that the woman’s comment was true— low income households did create additional costs for the schools— but you weren’t supposed to say it, he added with an ironic smile. Among old guard landholders, low income families were viewed not just as detrimental to the school budget, but to the “sense of community.” During a discussion between several ranching families over recent social changes in Shandon, one ranch wife offered an opinion that everyone in the group endorsed: [T]he County putting the low income housing out here has been just devastating, I think, to the schools and kind of a sense of community. Because I think that those lower income people have kind of less of a sense of community and pride. Concerns about the potential impact of building more low income housing in Shandon were not restricted to longtime residents. One newcomer, a homeowner and commuter who came from a poor farm working family background, said that an increase in low income housing would just bring in more “undesirable people from outside.” She allowed, however, that self-help housing, which is constructed with the labor of the future occupant, is different because the people involved in self-help housing projects are “making an effort.” In contrast, low income housing is bad and is filled mostly with undesirable people. She

Making Social Categories

59

elaborated her position on low income people by explaining that when she was growing up it was these “lazy people, people who didn’t make an effort, who didn’t want to work, who took advantage of the welfare system.” The use of property ownership and care as measures of personal quality was not directed only at real or assumed welfare recipients. Many people moving to Shandon were absolutely certain that they were being evaluated on this basis. A commuter family that arrived in the late 1980s reported a similar experience. Joe and Patricia thought that they were not favorably received in a Lions Club meeting they attended until they happened to identify themselves as homeowners rather than renters. They felt certain that this information encouraged Lions members to ask them to join the club after the meeting. Mark and Julia, a farm manager and his wife who came to Shandon in the 1970s, also were certain that renting had hindered their acceptance into the community. According to Julia, When we first came here the town consisted of just a few farmers and ranchers who were way up here [raising her hand as high as she can reach] and then the rest were poor white trash. There were no Mexicans. We rented a big house, because that’s what was available. And I started getting invited to teas [by] the Women’s Guild because they thought we had bought the house. Then they found out that I worked. In a bank! And that we had rented the house! No more invitations! Some old guard residents perceived newcomers as lacking intelligence or education. A number of college-educated landholders without recent working-class family histories expressed this worry to me. They seemed unsure whether what newcomers lacked was intelligence or education. Where one would complain that “There aren’t many really bright people here,” the next would say, “There aren’t many highly educated people in town.” But there seemed to be little difference between these views. One rancher complained to me that the overall quality of education in the local schools could not be raised because the “wrong kind of people are coming into Shandon.” Some of these college-educated individuals were critical of what they considered the “low sights” of parents who they believed did not direct their children toward college. Scott Brady, the former teacher, saw this attitude as primarily an old guard attribute: “This is in a school system

60

Reimagining the Immigrant

that was perceived by the old timers as sort of this quasi-private education that would be a one track deal where everybody was tracked to go to college, no matter what their background.” Scott felt that the more diverse and f lexible program that the school district currently had in place better accommodated the changing economy and demographics of the town. Indeed, many of the more educated residents of Shandon, especially among the major landholders, explained their withdrawal from community affairs as a consequence of the educational gulf between them and the majority of local residents. A member of the Pierce ranching family felt that many community members “talk behind their backs about the Pierces, because they are either intimidated or set off by our higher level of education.” The Pierces felt that this gave them little recourse but to locate their social lives elsewhere among people characterized as having the same level of education. The guests at a Pierce family barbecue included a lawyer from Templeton, a rancher from another part of the county, a scientist from Paso Robles, a politically active local landholder, and others from outside the region. Some of the more educated members of the community predicted that I, too, would encounter barriers distancing me from Shandon residents due of my level of education, but this did not happen to any significant degree. The wealthiest families had located their social lives outside the Shandon region among peers who could match their wealth or prestige since at least the 1960s when Hatch conducted his research. By 1990, those landholding old guard who had not been physically displaced from the community by age, divorce, death, or selling off their lands, continued to feel a strong sense of social displacement. As one middle-aged rancher put it, “Most of my original friends have moved on.” A rancher’s wife in her seventies stated this feeling this way: Well, the growth just means to me that the old timers don’t know anybody in town anymore. You have no feeling for the community. In fact, I say now, now I say I don’t really come from Shandon, I live ten miles out of Shandon. Because I think, I personally think the community has become very unattractive. Whether it’s physically unattractive, I really can’t tell, I don’t have an open mind, but I have no feeling toward the community. . . . I was just trying to think of why I feel this way. I don’t do anything in the community. As I say, I don’t even go to the grocery store. So, there is no community and I’ve turned elsewhere.

Making Social Categories

61

A Clash of Commodities The distinctions drawn above between commuters and those who worked locally illustrate a use of occupation as a marker of class difference. There are a number of other locally significant distinctions based on occupation, especially—as befits a rural locale—in agriculture. As Hatch noted in the 1960s, cattlemen and major grain farmers were the most prosperous and prestigious members of the community, and were commonly labeled ranchers, landowners, and the haves. Irrigation farmers were distinctly lower in social standing than major grain farmers and cattle ranchers, followed by the respectable foreman type farm worker. The Okie type farm worker held the lowest status of all. The agricultural changes since the 1960s altered this scheme somewhat, although its durability was striking. Largely because grape farming had been prosperous relative to many of the previous irrigated crops of the region, irrigation farmers no longer had to defer to the local leadership of cattle and grain ranchers by 1990. Grape growers had become respectable and inf luential men in the region, and, indeed, two ranching families also grew wine grapes on a large scale. Most grape growers were a kind of a newcomer. Most arrived in Shandon in the 1970s or even the 1980s, and managed vineyards for absentee owners. In the past, as newcomers and as managers rather than owners, these men would have been lower in standing than grain and cattle ranchers. At least insofar as wealth and social class are conceived, the vineyard managers remained lower in the hierarchy than large landholding families. Yet by 1990, fortune had changed sufficiently that grain ranchers periodically performed custom work for grape growers, such as hauling grapes and preparing the ground for new vineyards. Some vineyard managers drove the newest trucks and lived in some of the nicest new homes. Several vineyard managers had also acquired small amounts of land on which they established their own vineyards that they farmed in addition to the larger ones they managed. Although their wealth and standing were still far exceeded by the wealthiest ranchers, the prosperity of the grape growers had elevated their standing to rival or surpass nearly everyone else’s. The grape growers’ standing and inf luence rose partly because of the social disengagement of remaining old guard large landholders, and partly because the vineyard managers exerted control over land and labor. Grape growers were fully aware that a change in the social order had taken place, but they were equally conscious that they had not been swept to the top according to all measures of local standing. According

62

Reimagining the Immigrant

to one vineyard manager, “There are people here now who think we’re rich, but we aren’t. It’s just that we have different priorities. I’m not the Johnsons,” he concluded, naming a wealthy ranching family. When a grape grower’s wife told me that “new elites are replacing the old ones,” I asked her, “Are you the new elite?” She smiled and shrugged: “I’ll always feel working class.” Occasional conf licts and resentments marked these shifting fortunes and social positions. Producers of different agricultural commodities sometimes constitute conf licting special interests. While this ran counter to popular local assumptions of class and occupational unity among agriculturalists, it also tended to reinforce boundaries of the old guard. One minor conf lict rested on longtime residents’ fear that grape growing was a threat to local groundwater supplies, because large reservoirs not needed for previous irrigated crops had to be constructed for frost protection of grape vines. However, well-monitoring data did not clearly support their fears.12 A more serious conf lict erupted between barley and grape growers. A chemical herbicide once used on grain or hay crops, 2–4D, damaged grape vines when it drifted into neighboring vineyards. Some grape growers in northern San Luis Obispo County organized to oppose the use of the chemical, and eventually 2–4D’s use was restricted. “Damn grape growers!” and “Damn barley growers!” were comments made by the opposed camps at the height of the conf lict. Old resentments echoed in the comment of a member of the county Farm Bureau, in which grain and hay farmers participated more than grape growers: “Grape growers are just for grapes. Farm Bureau is for all farmers.” Another point of conf lict has been grape growers’ heavy dependency on immigrant Mexican labor. Some old guard residents blamed vineyard managers for bringing Mexican farm workers to the region in the first place, and for not housing them out of town on their ranches. Some vineyard managers, in turn, blamed the old guard for alternately excluding the Mexicans from housing in town or for providing only overcrowded and substandard housing to them. In this debate, old guard residents viewed themselves as “charitable” and the growers as selfish, irresponsible, and too eager to blame the farm worker housing shortage on the market. From their point of view, the grape growers saw old guard critics as “slumlords” and “hypocrites.” Each side has been certain of the rightness of their own position and the wrongness of their opponents’, and contestants on occasion anticipated a sense of guilt from their antagonists. Early in my stay in Shandon when I was still introducing myself and my research to local residents, individuals

Making Social Categories

63

on either side of this debate voiced skepticism that their opponents would ever talk to me. Grape growers had been stung by remarks conveying the jealousy and resentment of old guard residents. “They say something like ‘I see you have a new shirt,’ or ‘I see you have a new truck’ every time they see you,” one grower told me. Some grape growers avoided socializing with their critics in grain, cattle, or hay farming, despite the fact that these were their closest socioeconomic equals in the community. Yet, at the same time, vineyard managers also expressed to me an understanding of the resentment from some of the old guard, and of the strains caused by the behavior of some of the immigrant workers whom they—the grape growers—primarily employed. Acknowledging that some Mexican farm workers had behaved in an unwelcome manner, “. . . bullshit like saying things to women, drinking, and pissing outside the store and post office . . .,” one grape grower stated, “I don’t blame people downtown for resenting Mexicans.” Despite the legacy of a periodic clash of commodities, he and the other vineyard managers were more interested in “being a good neighbor” to the grain and cattle ranchers. For, ultimately, the ranchers comprised peers whose acceptance they felt was often denied them. Nearly everyone strove to avoid open criticism and conf lict. In fact, other factors mitigated actual or potential conf licts between those who raised different commodities. One such very important factor was that most of the rest of Shandon’s residents saw grape growers and grain and cattle ranchers as fellow agriculturalists with far more in common than in conf lict. Among those holding this view were school staff members and other nonagriculturalists who were not enmeshed in the old guard/grape grower distinction. They often pointed out that agriculture was the economic cornerstone of the community, and no one really wanted to offend any of the profitable agriculturalists because of this. According to one school staff member, The other thing is that these people [Mexican immigrants] are here because the agricultural industry needs them, or says it needs them, wants them. There are so many connections to the agricultural industry that it is not seemly to oppose them too openly. So it is an interesting marriage of necessity and suppression of incipient prejudice. That’s what is going on. Economic concerns contributed to old guard unwillingness to go too far in criticizing grape growers for hiring Mexican farm workers.

64

Reimagining the Immigrant

As one old guard resident told me, “You can’t discriminate against the Mexican workers because they are needed in the vineyards.” The prosperity brought by grapes also offered some direct economic opportunities for old guard residents, particularly custom work like hauling and ground preparation. The drought of the late 1980s and early 1990s caused more of the grain and cattle men to seek such custom work opportunities with the grape growers, and this helped to reduce the incidence of criticism directed at grape growers. Another factor mitigating resentment by old guard residents was a high level of participation in local affairs and institutions by vineyard managers. Grape growers had been prominent participants in the Volunteer Firemen, the school board, Shandon Advisory Committee, and the Agricultural Advisory Committee for the high school’s Future Farmers of America program. This conspicuous involvement in community life made grape growers relatively desirable newcomers. As for the grape growers, the importance of Shandon in their social lives provided them with all the reason they needed to minimize and otherwise downplay conf lict. Certainly, by 1990, tensions were greatly reduced, if not forgotten. The Okie Phenomenon More directly related to my central concern in this study with Mexican immigration is the legacy of past occupational distinctions associated with agricultural labor. Farm workers occupied the lowest rungs of the local social hierarchy in Shandon in the 1960s, and remained there in 1990. Despite the near total replacement of the workers of that earlier era by those who were seen as an entirely different people, I found considerable continuity in the characterization of farm workers. The distinction between farm workers and the Shandon community was still often verbalized in terms of roots, property, and quality, and not merely as one of occupation. For example, in June of 1990 an attempt was made to inform and solicit the opinions of immigrant farm working parents regarding the formation of Shandon Advisory Committee that was underway at that time. One of the Anglo volunteers helping to draft bylaws for the new entity told the parents that “the views of landholders are already represented,” but that the views of “those who don’t own land” needed to be expressed as well, and proceeded to offer them several avenues through which they could voice opinions or raise issues. Throughout this entire presentation, no mention was made of

Making Social Categories

65

their status as Mexicans (or any variant ethnic label), as farm workers, or as immigrants. They were simply “people who don’t own land.” In the past, farm workers were differentiated as the settled and responsible foreman type or the transient, unreliable Okie type, representing opposite poles of a gradient (Hatch 1979:129–130). In 1990, people continued to distinguish the most respected farm workers as foremen, either real or potential. The new occupational hierarchy in grapes, coupled with a belief in the potential for upward mobility that was not totally farfetched, made it possible for the very best of the foremen to be described as potential managers. Several vineyard managers in the region rose from lower positions in agriculture, and this experience may have inf luenced their descriptions of several respected Mexican farm workers as “manager types.” One such manager type was Alfredo Castillo, a Shandon resident who worked as a crew boss for a Paso Robles vineyard. One grape grower predicted in early 1990 that “Castillo will be a manager in about five years.” In fact, Castillo obtained a labor contractor’s license the year before, and was soon doing business in the Shandon area. The greatest change in the categorization of farm workers is that Okie is no longer relevant in juxtaposition to foreman. The term Okie came into use in the western United States and California, in particular, in the 1920s and 1930s when Americans of European descent from southern Plains states migrated westward in unprecedented numbers in search of employment (Gregory 1989). Displaced first by the decline in cotton sharecropping and farm mechanization, then by the Dustbowl, most were poor and embraced a plain folk Americanism, Southern racial attitude, and forms of Protestantism that set them apart in the west. More importantly, they became the dominant new labor pool in large-scale agriculture, replacing the west’s historical reliance on ethnic minorities in this role: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Punjabis, and Filipinos. In this context, they acquired a new pejorative ethnic identity as Okies, whether they were from Oklahoma or not. This part of their story was famously popularized by novelist John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. World War II drew many of them off into military and industrial work, and their replacement in the fields was provided by braceros, immigrant laborers of the wartime guest worker agreement between the United States and Mexico (Galarza 1964). The presence of Okie farm workers and the continued social relevance of the Okie category noted by Elvin Hatch in Shandon in the 1960s represents the waning days of the Okie phenomenon. By 1990, a few contemporary farm managers and custom operators in Shandon described themselves

66

Reimagining the Immigrant

to me as “old Okies,” and the term’s former pejorative connotations were lost on most residents under the age of forty. No single label had taken its place, either. Mexican was not used as consistently as Okie was once used to designate the base agricultural position, although I sometimes heard agriculturalists in grain and hay crops discuss particularly laborious manual tasks, such as fence repair or moving rocks, as the sort of work one hired Mexicans to do. Migrant was perhaps more common, with Mexican a close second, and Spanish was still heard, continuing the Southwestern legacy of romantically de-Mexicanizing the past and people of the region. Despite the change in the source of farm labor, grape growers contrasted their year-round workers with the seasonal harvest workers in terms that evoked the old distinction between foreman and Okie. Each grower noted that now most of the workers they employed on a permanent basis had worked there for many years and lived in the Shandon, Paso Robles, or Avenal areas, and were very reliable employees. The seasonal harvest workers were Mexican transnational migrants who more often found shelter outside the area—in Paso Robles, Avenal, and beyond—and were described as less reliable. It had taken time for this distinction to emerge as the local grape industry matured. The growers observed that this situation differed from earlier years of local grape growing, when settled, reliable workers were in shorter supply. Other Shandon residents were gradually drawing a meaningful distinction between permanent and seasonal workers. For example, Alberta, the ranch manager’s wife who still considered herself a newcomer after forty years, played an instrumental role in getting some housing condemned and its immigrant tenants evicted (see chapter 6). But she distinguished these tenants, whom she described as “single men” who were “a lesser class or quality of Mexican,” from several immigrant families whose members held positions of responsibility in farm work and were “conscientious about paying off loans,” and had lived in Shandon for a number of years. She knew these immigrant families through her volunteer work at the schools, and several had worked for her husband regularly. Alberta always referred to the women of these few families by their first names, and, though their English and her Spanish were limited, she recounted her conversations with them for me (see chapters 6 and 8 for other examples). This emerging distinction between different categories of Mexican immigrant workers accounts for the lack of consensus preference for migrant or Mexican to describe the base agricultural position. Migrant held a number of important meanings for local residents. A migrant

Making Social Categories

67

was not a settled person who owned property, nor a stable person with local roots. A migrant was an immigrant who did not know the customs that quality local people lived by, and probably did not care to conform to them in any event. These suppositions underlay the often repeated central complaint about migrant workers: “Migrants,” many Anglos said, “stand around outside the store and on the streets and in the park,” where “they drink” alcohol openly, “harass women,” “urinate in the alley,” and “don’t clean up after themselves as part of their normal routine.” Grape growers and others complained about the results and implementation of immigration law, particularly the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA).13 As one grower phrased it, “Its the biggest wonder to me why IRCA didn’t include teaching the American way of life.” Many residents feared or suspected that criminals were entering the country and the community; that crimes, particularly involving drugs, were increasing locally and that immigration of criminals was the cause. Residents, both in and out of agriculture, complained about the government’s failure to enforce amnesty provisions that were supposed to weed out those with criminal records. Law enforcement agencies were expected to be sympathetic to these concerns and to help eliminate or reduce the presence of migrants in the town. When law enforcers did not, as was the case in events explored in chapters 6 and 8, some local Anglos wondered why and what they themselves could do. Immigrants, then, and migrants in particular, were among the most tainted of the newcomers. By every measure employed locally to gauge social standing and construct social categories, seasonal migrant farm workers were at the bottom in 1990, and because they could only be distinguished with the passage of time, new immigrant settlers were there with them. It should not be surprising, then, that even grape growers—in many ways the most sympathetic toward immigrant workers—talked about policing and “upgrading our people.” Growers and others talked of improving worker’s living conditions, especially through some form of low-income housing for the stable members of the workforce. The acquisition of property—home ownership—was thus seen as a likely solution to the problem of being unsettled and living in crowded and degraded housing that local residents considered emblematic of “lesser quality people.” So, too, was the teaching of community participation, customs, and English thought of as mechanisms to “elevate” the immigrants. It could be said that even most newcomers to the community felt this way. Both Anglo and Mexican American newcomers shared in the perception of “elevating” and “integrating” the immigrants,

68

Reimagining the Immigrant

because they shared in making major social distinctions between social categories on the basis of property, quality, and occupation. These matters were still unfolding in Shandon, and I shall take them up again in the next chapter. Conclusion Despite the substantial changes taking place in Shandon in the early 1990s, social distinctions and the categories built from them continued to employ criteria of rootedness, property, respectability, and occupation. Each of these criteria continued to yield social categories that ref lect the underlying importance of class distinctions, some fairly transparently, and others not. Yet there was also change, as wealthy grain and cattle ranchers disengaged to varying degrees from local affairs, grape growers rose in respect and inf luence, and newcomers grew in number and confidence. Okie lost its salience as a category, leaving the definition of the base agricultural occupation in some disarray. The greatest change may be that local roots were losing their luster. Although rootedness still facilitated important social distinctions and helped to define what people meant by “the community,” its effectiveness as a tool of power for a landholding class of grain and cattle ranchers had declined as the composition of Shandon changed. It is no wonder, then, that many old guard residents had come to idealize and romanticize Shandon’s past. Retired grain and cattle ranchers and cowboys spoke nostalgically to me about “the old days” when Shandon was a “cattle town,” or how hired hands were “treated like family” by the grain farmers who hired and housed them. As they lost the prestige and inf luence of local rootedness to newcomers who found it objectionable, as their social standing slipped relative to the grape growers, as their power as landholders declined along with their numbers, and as the community was filling with people who did not seem to measure up well by the old standards, the old guard despaired, withdrew, and longed for the way things “used to be.” “We used to know everybody, now we hardly know anybody,” declared an elderly man who had spent his entire career in the community. Sitting in the cafe one evening, the sons of two old farm hands, now grown and nearing forty, talked of better places and better times: “I’d like to move to some of the small towns in northern California I’ve seen,” said one. “They’re still like Shandon was when we were growing up.”

CH A P T E R

FOU R

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

One day I asked one of my Anglo friends how he distinguished between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, and he responded with a laugh, “If they look Mexican, that’s what I call them.” Of course, I heard this remark—with its accompanying ironic laugh—from several people who, in spite of their response to my question, did regularly distinguish between immigrants and Americans of Mexican descent. The contradiction between their behavior and their responses to my question partly ref lects a problem with my question: Mexican and Mexican American were not equally standard terms used to frame a widely recognized and important social distinction. But the conf lict between their behavior and their answers to my question also ref lected genuine conceptual confusion about actual social boundaries, appropriate categories, and labels. Neither Anglos nor anyone else in Shandon expended much time ref lecting critically on the ways they made ethnic distinctions. As a result, a few criteria received most of the rhetorical attention when a larger set of criteria were actually used to draw significant social distinctions. Responses to my question like the one above denied these complications by rhetorically asserting the obviousness of ethnic distinctions that really were not so clear. This chapter addresses Shandon residents’ perception of categories of peoplehood. By this, I mean the local, popular conceptualization of groups and categories presumed to be distinct, named peoples, each thought to be characterized and distinguished from others by shared origins and ancestry, a common culture, and more internal than external interaction. Ethnic group, race, nationality, and, often, community are categories of peoplehood that vary only slightly according

70

Reimagining the Immigrant

to which of the preceding characteristics is given greater emphasis in defining it. These categories constitute powerful and important identities in peoples’ lives. Scholars have shown that the factors local people emphasize as most important to defining such groups often are not what they use to classify one another. Most famously, perhaps, Fredrik Barth (1969) demonstrated that categories of peoplehood that people recognize and use are less fixed and permanent than is implied by the emphasis on origins, ancestry, and culture. People stick with an identity as long as it remains salient to their daily experience, they abandon it when it is not, and they are welcomed into new identities when their commitment is palpable to those around them. Indeed, Barth found that the only things all examples of peoplehood share in common are the ascription of identity by group members and the ascription of identity by outsiders. When these are present, peoplehood exists. Significantly, categories of peoplehood come and go over time, ref lecting changing social circumstances that alter the meaningful social groupings. Persons who do not fit neatly into existing categories, or who fit more than one category, constitute anomalies (Eriksen 2002:62–65). If too many of these begin to appear, a new category may be devised. When the salience of an emergent group or category ceases to be questioned by its members or outsiders, a fairly consistent name emerges, marking the moment of ethnogenesis and the origin of a new people (Sturtevant 1971). Categories of peoplehood, therefore, are more f luid and fuzzy than people initially think, and their classifications of one another inevitably must confront this difficulty. The Southwestern United States is certainly a region where the f luidity and fuzziness of peoplehood is much in evidence. Nuevomexicano, Genízaro, Californio, Tejano, Spanish, Mexican American, and Chicano are some of the identities that grew out of the changing circumstances in the Southwest (see, e.g., Brooks 2002; Reséndez 2004; Sánchez 1995; Weber 1992). The region is famous for its “Spanish” identity and architecture, a label whose late nineteenth-century emergence ref lected Anglo prejudices that necessitated concealing affiliations with Mexico (McWilliams 1990:43–50; Pitt 1966:291–296). The family lines that included the people who colonized California for Spain in the eighteenth century passed through a sequence of a half dozen or more different racial, ethnic, and national identities over several hundred years (Haley and Wilcoxon 2005; see also Haas 1995; Voss 2008). Their descendants today are spread across a number of seemingly mutually exclusive categories. The subordination and marginalization of farm workers in the Southwest has produced Okie and Punjabi

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

71

Mexican American identities (Gregory 1989; Leonard 1992), and contributed to the emergence of Chicano or Mexican American identity as a “third category” between that of Anglos and Mexican immigrants (Kearney and Nagengast 1989:6–8; see also Gutiérrez 1995; Keefe and Padilla 1987; Sánchez 1993). A number of these categories are salient today in Shandon, or have been in the past. Depending on who in Shandon one asked, there were either two or three major ethnic groups in Shandon by 1990.1 Two ethnic categories had well-established names or ethnonyms: Mexican and American in English, Mexicano and norteamericano in Spanish, or similar pairings. These corresponded imprecisely to national origin and ancestry, but Americans of Mexican descent—most often called Mexican Americans—were not consistently placed on one side or the other of this simple scheme. This occurred, partly, because residents from across the local social spectrum anticipated that physical appearances—especially the color of skin, hair, and eyes—were a reasonably accurate indicator of identity. For many, this implied an underlying racial difference. Variation in physical appearances among both established residents and immigrants was so great and overlapped so much, however, that many recognized it as an unreliable indicator of ethnic affiliation. Like much of the nation, Shandon residents had come to use the culture concept as their principle means of discussing and describing what they perceived as ethnic differences, with national origins being seen as a primary source of culture. While this positioned national origins as a potentially more inf luential criterion of identity than race, it still ignored the importance of other factors, such as class differences, that pushed residents inevitably toward the use of more than two major categories. What follows is a description of how each of the three major self-identifying groups in Shandon perceived and accounted for the categories of peoplehood within their town. Perceptions of Peoplehood among Anglo Americans Members of the dominant people in Shandon did not dwell much on how they should be labeled. Those I’m calling Anglos here rarely used this term to label themselves. They favored American and white, but they did not consistently distinguish themselves from those they perceived as Mexican Americans by either of these parameters. They also lacked a consensus ethnonym for Mexican Americans. Some Anglos differentiated it as a distinctive Mexican type, while middle-aged and

72

Reimagining the Immigrant

older Anglos often continued to use the now nearly archaic Spanish to designate Mexican and Mexican Americans. Most Anglos in Shandon showed little awareness of diversity among Mexican immigrants. It was primarily those who worked with farm workers who recognized some of the internal distinctions made by the immigrants themselves, and many then incorporated the region of origin into their explanations of diversity among the immigrants. Jeff Dillehay, a vineyard manager who was often critical of anti-immigrant sentiment, found me examining a map of Mexico one day. “Let me show you the state where everyone [among his immigrant employees] says to stay away from,” he said, and pointed to Oaxaca in southern Mexico. “The ‘Oaxaquitos’ are little Indian guys,” Jeff informed me. Ben, a hay farmer who never hired Mexican workers, heard Jeff describe this division one day, and sought me out to share the groundbreaking news. He was nonplused by my familiarity with the issue: “Well, I’ll be. I just always thought they were all the same and got along with one another.” Although Ben’s remarks illustrated a common lumping tendency, more and more Anglos were differentiating between various “types” among Shandon’s population of Mexican descent using their age-old criteria of longevity, property, occupation, quality, and community membership. Traits presumed to be Mexican but actually produced in the United States—such as occupation, relative poverty, household structure, social marginalization, and stereotypes about various “anti-social” behaviors (e.g., improper trash disposal, belligerence, mistreatment of women, violence, youth gangs, overcrowded homes)—augmented differences truly of Mexican origin—such as language, music, foods, gender roles, modal physical traits, style of dress, gestures and posture, and so on—in conceptualizing Mexican ethnicity. A minority of Anglos attributed differing types of Mexicans to separate places of origin within Mexico, but the far more common explanation for diversity was differential acculturation toward American culture. Their version of acculturation had a single, almost inevitable, path of change for the immigrant group, as it gradually adopted the local majority culture. This popular model closely resembles unilineal models of acculturation that have fallen into disfavor in anthropology and sociology (see, e.g., Vogt 1951; Spindler 1955). But let us explore a few of these typologies of immigrants that Anglos devised. Dave Peters, a grain and cattle rancher who had employed a few immigrants, distinguished between “Mexican Mexicans,” or “the wetback type,” and “American-born Mexicans.” The former type, he said, “is harder on equipment,” although they “catch on the longer they stay

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

73

here.” A more widespread pattern among Anglos is the classification of families that arrived in the mid-1970s and earlier as Mexican Americans or “Americans of Mexican descent.” School personnel, in particular, categorized the acculturated children of early settlers like the Morenos as Mexican Americans. At the very least, they were Mexicans who were part of the community, and were not clear-cut outsiders. Those with deeper historical ancestry from Mexico usually were viewed as fellow Anglos or as Mexican Americans, depending upon surname, occupation, and physical characteristics. A detailed scheme of acculturative types was presented to me by Ted Harris, a contractor. Ted identified “three classes of Mexican . . . [or] Spanish people.” His first was the actual immigrant generation, whom he described as “motivated to improve themselves.” Their children received strong guidance from their parents and were “good students who respect their teachers.” Ted’s second type was the “Texas Mexican.” These he viewed as the main source of ethnic conf lict in larger farm communities. He characterized them as American-born children of immigrants raised in immigrant communities within the United States, with relatively little education, and with speech that was still nearly half Spanish. They worked in the fields, so they had not “improved.” Yet “they think they are better than” more recent immigrants. Their children were most likely to get involved in gangs, Ted argued, because they had not “blended in” and did not belong to either the Mexican or American groups.2 Ted’s third type consisted of educated people who had moved out of farm work into the regular work force. These were usually the third generation, he argued. They got involved in social events and groups such as softball. “They have acquired the culture . . . [and have] blended in.” Some were still in farm work, but only as foremen and machinery operators with year-round jobs. These were the people whom Ted assumed bought houses and settled into the community. In contrast, he said the migrants “have no stake in the community.” Accompanying the emphasis on acculturation was a strong sense that the immigrants had an obligation to assume the cultural characteristics of Americans over time. “I don’t like to think of myself as prejudiced,” said former teacher Robert Crane, “but I have to admit that I got angry when I saw voting ballots printed in Spanish on one side.” A grape grower voiced a similar opinion: What’s needed is better teaching of American language and culture. No other nation would accept immigrants without expecting

74

Reimagining the Immigrant

them to adhere to its standards of behavior! Immigrants need to learn proper behavior. They need English and citizenship classes or books. . . . Anglos felt that the presence of Mexican cultural traits in their town was inappropriate. A sign in Spanish in the post office provoked one resident to complain to the clerk, “I thought this was a U.S. post office!” Ted Harris contended that the immigrants arrived with “a survival culture” that was needed in their communities of origin due to the impoverished conditions he assumed existed in Mexico. Accordingly, what was stealing, as per our understanding, was not so to them—like “picking fruit from trees in your yard or poaching game out of season.” It was the inappropriate continuation of these “cultural” practices that made a lot of Shandon residents angry at immigrants, he suggested. According to vineyard manager Jeff Dillehay, “When the Mexicans live here like they do in Mexico, it creates some problems, because it clashes with American culture.” Jeff contended that “all the employers need to police their own people in town. If they see them behaving in ways that the community does not approve of, they need to try to stop it.” Each year, he told new workers to throw trash away properly, not to drink alcohol in public, or urinate outdoors in town. Unlike many other local observers, Jeff recognized poverty—rather than culture per se—as a critical part of this issue. “The housing situation is degrading,” Jeff growled as he continued. “Upgrading our people is one of our goals, especially in terms of living conditions, particularly by increasing wages.” Fear that acculturation would not occur was fairly common among Anglos. Like many longtime residents, Robert Crane felt strongly about this: Previous immigrant groups have had to learn the language. Why not this one? I don’t think they are committed to staying here. They are here to work, and probably will return to Mexico. At a school board meeting following a staff member’s presentation of the semester’s statistics on how many native Spanish-speaking children had achieved English f luency, a new board member reacted with surprise: “I’ve never heard of that before; does that happen often?” The astonished staff collected themselves and assured the new board member that, indeed, achieving English f luency was the norm among the children of immigrant families. The surprised board member replied, “Oh,

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

75

really? I’ve just always heard that Mexican kids won’t learn English and their parents won’t let them!” While this sentiment was common, it was not universal among Anglos. Responding to similar sentiments on another occasion, vineyard manager Jeff Dillehay used acculturation to contest the notion that few immigrants were interested in staying permanently. “Neither Lorenzo Obregón or Juan Moreno’s family are likely to ever leave here. With the kids having grown up here, they aren’t Mexican any longer!” A common fear was that immigrants would bring gangs to Shandon, because “gangs are a part of Mexican culture.” This fear was fueled by rampant news media reports in the late 1980s of “Black and Latino gangs” in California’s metropolitan areas, and even further by news reports of suspected gang activity in the smaller cities nearer to Shandon. Even residents who saw little reason to anticipate that gangs would appear locally expressed their fear to me of “the macho thing,” an allegedly uniquely Mexican culture of violence. Old timer Myrtle Hastings alluded to these fears when she told me, “Shandon hasn’t had the kinds of problems that other places including Paso Robles have had, such as knifings, which is always characteristic of the Mexicans.” Ref lecting these fears, in 1990 when a teenager from an immigrant family accused one of his teachers of hitting him, several teachers worried for a few days that the men of the family would “take care of things themselves, because that is the way they [Mexicans] do things.”3 Many characterizations of immigrants emphasized concerns with quality, paralleling the discussion in the last chapter of how a lower class boundary is experienced by those in middle and upper classes. As I noted there, past use of the quality concept extended beyond class to include the delimitation of Okie ethnicity both in Shandon and throughout western states. That practice continued in association with Mexican immigration. Assessments of the quality of immigrants were frequently paramount in the ways Anglos characterized immigrants and distinguished among them. Frank and Helen Murray were irrigation farmers from the mid-1960s until they left Shandon in 1985. One factor in their decision to leave Shandon, they told me, was that they felt the immigrants increasingly caused “social problems.” 4 As Frank noted, “About fifty percent of the pipe movers [in alfalfa and sugar beets] were Mexicans” during the 1950s and 1960s, and “These workers were good people: reliable, hard working, conscientious.” But, he added, “as the agricultural scene changed [in the 1970s and 1980s], the type of Mexicans changed with it.” Helen described the later workers as “more of a deep Mexico variety,” but Frank believed “they were

76

Reimagining the Immigrant

the Fresno type, more pachuco style, basically with more urban savvy.” These newer Mexicans were “less reliable, less clean and neat, less friendly [than Mexicans of the 1960s], not respectful, and would leer at our teenage daughter and reach out to touch her from passing cars.” According to Frank, The later ones had less fear of the law. People were reporting them to the law less often because the law didn’t respond. Earlier, the white citizens would get on the phone to warn their neighbors that the law or immigration service was on their way to make a raid so workers could take shelter. The earlier Mexicans were known individuals, but the later ones [in the 1970s and early 1980s] became a group and a society unto themselves. “The [newer] Mexicans think differently about trash,” Frank added. Helen recounted seeing farm workers dump a bag of trash under their truck in front of the Shandon store and then pull away. “I don’t understand” this behavior, she said with evident disapproval. Helen believed that a vineyard workers’ strike occurred because “the management placed trash barrels out and required the workers to place their trash in them . . . but the workers were opposed to having to do this.” In contrast to these immigrants, Frank observed that “A few families of Americans of Mexican descent are well-known and fit in better, such as the Torres’ and the Diaz’ who own property.”5 Frank and Helen Murray’s opinions were common among established residents and farmers who did not employ immigrant workers. Other established residents routinely told me, “The thing about the newer Hispanics is that they toss trash about.” In contrast to these views, a vineyard manager offered his opinion that “the Mexicans here are the better element from Mexico, and are superior people to the Okies we had on my dad’s farm when I was growing up.” Despite the widespread feeling that the immigrants were generally of low quality, by 1989 the attitude of many established residents had moderated as settled families replaced male migrants in the local immigrant population. Dorothy Jenkins, an old guard resident, drew an important distinction between the seasonal and settled workers, based on what she perceived as their degree of incorporation into the community. Dorothy: It’s a completely different group of Mexicans that come in, you know, for the crops than the Mexicans who are fairly established here in town. But it makes it real hard for the

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

77

Mexican families who are established here in town, because if their complexion is dark, all of a sudden, “Mexican” is a bad word, you know. And they’re the ones that really suffer the most. There’s this one family [the Javier family], oh, the boys, the children started school with Jeff [Dorothy’s son] in nursery school, and they’ve lived in the community all these years! But they are Mexican, you know, and when the bad Mexicans come in and get in trouble, you know, it’s rough on all Mexicans. BDH: Are there particular families that stand out in your mind as being established Mexican families here? Dorothy: I’d say the Diaz family, and the Moreno family, and there are probably others that we probably don’t think of as being Mexicans, because, you know, they are so much a part of the community. And the Mexicans that come in [seasonally] don’t really try to integrate into the community. Pretty much keep to themselves. BDH: Do you mean the seasonal workers, or all of them? Dorothy: The seasonal workers, yeah. As we talked further, Dorothy contrasted the Javier, Diaz, and Moreno families with the Castillo’s, a settled family that was less a part of the community in her opinion. Yeah, a brother lives down in one of Francisco’s [Castillo] houses there. Married a local girl and has two children. But they’re latecomers. I mean, they’ve been here four or five years. And I think Francisco’s bought property, hasn’t he? There are those houses down there, I think Francisco owns them now. I think Alfredo [Francisco’s brother] lives in one of them. But they aren’t really a part of the community. Dorothy distinguished the permanently employed, “responsible,” and stable or “established” farm working families from the seasonally employed migrant workers without families. She considered the former to be quality people who are members of the community. Significantly, those she considered members of the community were also families whose children attended school for many years with Dorothy’s own, and were well-known to her through her children. Likewise, the children of the Torres and Diaz families, who Frank and Helen Murphy described to me as Americans who fit in, attended school with Frank and Helen’s children. This was the most common way of becoming

78

Reimagining the Immigrant

well-known and accepted as a community member, but it was not the only way. The same man who said, “If they look Mexican, that’s what I call them,” voted for the lone Mexican American candidate for the Shandon Advisory Committee because, based only on word-of-mouth, he had decided, “It sounds like she’s levelheaded and communityoriented.” Old guard residents like Dorothy Jenkins could be very fickle about who was or was not a community member. Francisco and Alfredo Castillo, whom she had mentioned, actually had been in Shandon since 1979, coming to work in the new vineyards and gradually settling in with their families in the early 1980s. They were permanently employed and Francisco’s children had been in local schools for many years, but not with Dorothy’s children. Thus, she did not know them as well as the Diaz and Moreno families whose children attended school with hers. The “local girl” Alfredo married was Anglo, something Dorothy was unconcerned with. So despite also having acquired property and being known by name, Francisco and Alfredo had not yet crossed the crucial boundary into community membership in Dorothy’s mind. On the other hand, Francisco’s popular teenage son dated a girl from one established family and his best friend was a boy from another. The parents in both of these families did view Francisco Castillo’s family as quality community members. Finally, Dorothy characterized the Turners, a family that has been members of the community for four generations, as fully assimilated. Though they were not large landholders, they were part of the community’s core in the mid-1960s according to Hatch (1979), and by 1990s standards they were old guard. The Turners traced descent from a Mexican land grantee in the nineteenth century, who was a member of the military families from northwest Mexico that had colonized California on behalf of Spain between 1769 and 1820 (Mason 1998; Northrop 1984; 1986). According to Dorothy, I did grow up with a Mexican family, but nobody really realized they were Mexican. The name was Turner, and they were just one of us and always have been. But they lived here all their lives, I think even owned property. Maybe come from partly Indian, probably. Alluding to the historical Mexican ancestry of the Turners and a few other families, former teacher and longtime resident Robert Crane told me, “Prejudice by Anglos against Mexicans is often hypocritical, because many old American families here have Mexican ancestry.” This

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

79

was a recurring yet infrequent critique in Shandon, ref lecting the conceptual struggle that must ensue when ancestry is assigned primacy as a criterion for ethnic identity in popular theory but other criteria actually matter far more in day-to-day interaction and social classification. The Turners and other local families sharing historic Californio ancestry simply were not those to whom most Shandon residents applied the label Mexican, regardless of how frequently someone such as Dorothy or Robert raised the point. Even openly anti-immigrant residents distinguished between categories of immigrants in similar ways to Dorothy Jenkins. Ranch hand Dwayne Smith and his wife characterized the Javier family mentioned by Dorothy as “quality people [who] never participated in the culture of the average Mexican, [because] they were from a different part of Mexico.” Dwayne noted the Javier’s “respect for property, . . . not like these other Mexicans who are a lower quality.” The head of the Javier family was one of the highest paid immigrant farm employees in Shandon. He and his wife were still very much part of the immigrant social community, and were monolingual Spanish speakers. Their children, however, were among the most integrated and acculturated, and were widely liked and accepted by established residents, even though they were thought of as Mexican or Mexican American.6 The family had only lived in Shandon since the early 1980s, and was still viewed as less a part of the community than earlier arrivals such as the Diaz and Moreno families. Each of the foregoing characterizations of immigrants and others of Mexican descent emphasized what was locally perceived as culture to distinguish types and to justify evaluations of quality. The vast majority of Anglos agreed that a foreign culture and acculturation accounted for these differences, but the elaborateness of this explanation and positioning of cultural boundaries varied. Discounting families such as the Turners who most residents did not consider Mexican at all, most Anglos differentiated at least two contrasting Mexican types, which were most like and least like themselves. At the former end usually were English speakers, the native-born, American-educated, workers in nonagricultural employment or higher levels of farm employment, property owners, and those of long-term local residence. At the latter end were the most recent immigrants, the most seasonal farm workers, and the poorest. Immigrant families who were said to have “blended in” or become “part of the community” arrived in the 1960s or early 1970s, owned property, and in some cases had moved out of farm work. Immigrants who arrived later and yet were characterized as part of the

80

Reimagining the Immigrant

community all held permanent year-round position of responsibility in local farm employment. The criterion of quality figured prominently in the discourse distinguishing these two types from those who were not viewed as part of the community. Noticeably underplayed amidst this emphasis on culture and quality was the concept of race. It was not unusual to hear American natives juxtapose white or Caucasian with Mexican, yet contrasts of American with Mexican were more common. In fact, whenever the issue of race or racism arose as we were discussing immigrants, my Anglo informants immediately switched the discussion from immigrants to Americans they characterized as blacks. In one instance, after Myrtle Hastings described discrimination against immigrants in Shandon as “racism,” she spent a couple of minutes telling me how she had tried and failed to convince a Ku Klux Klansman that blacks had souls. In the most explicitly racist statement that I heard, a retired old guard ranch wife told me that higher birth rates among minorities “scared her,” and that intermarriage between “white” Americans and “darker” people would “weaken the white race.” This sentiment was not shared or condoned by younger members of her family, who were offended by her comments. Most similar to her comment was a local man’s criticism of a marriage between an African-American man and a woman of European ancestry. In another case, as we watched a high school baseball game and observed the interethnic dating among the teenagers, a young rancher told me that his father—who was widely perceived as anti-immigrant—would oppose his son dating a black, but not a Mexican. The stigma some Anglos attached to intimacy between those they called black and those they called white did not apply equally to intimacy with immigrants or Mexican Americans, both of which were more common. Despite his sense that immigrants lacked commitment to a life in the United States, Robert Crane told me that immigrant and American intermarriage was both inevitable and worthwhile: “I expect many current Mexican students to marry Anglos and settle in here better.” There was precedent for thinking this way. My tally of 505 married couples between 1968 and 1990 with at least one Anglo partner included twenty-three married to a person of another ethnic or racial category, fifteen of which were to Mexicans or Mexican Americans. In contrast, only two were to blacks. Dorothy Jenkins did not accept that local prejudice against immigrants was racially based. “We are not racists,” Dorothy declared. When I asked why conf licts with immigrants arose, Dorothy responded, “It’s their culture.” This, of course, still begged the question: Did these residents perceive the

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

81

immigrants as belonging to another race? Clearly, some did, but many others appeared genuinely ambivalent.7 Finally, the contrasting ways in which black difference and Mexican difference were conceptualized by many Anglos in Shandon is illustrated by two jokes told by Anglo boys at the high school. “Why do Mexicans drive lowriders? So they can drive and pick lettuce at the same time.” “Why do blacks wear hats with a bill in front? So they don’t get bird shit on their lips.” The distinguishing stereotypes were cultural and occupational in the Mexican joke, but physical in the black joke. At the same time, the Mexican joke conf lated the culturally urban Mexican American artifact of the low rider with the rural, immigrant-dominated occupation. Anglos may have been confused about the racial status of immigrants, but there was no such confusion about blacks.8 Perceptions of Peoplehood among Mexican Immigrants Although Mexican immigrants might group Anglos and Mexican Americans as Americanos, Anglos were usually differentiated as norteamericanos, gabachos, or, less frequently, los blancos (whites). Although the term was mildly pejorative, even immediate in-laws sometimes referred to the two Anglo spouses of fellow immigrants as las gabachas. Persons entirely of Mexican ancestry born or raised in the United States generally were termed agringados or pochos. Both labels criticized behavioral change toward foreign patterns. Pocho specifically derides Mexican Americans’ spoken Spanish as rotten, inferior, or corrupted. The term cholo sometimes was applied to Mexican American youth gang members, but as Lorenzo Obregón was fond of saying, “No hay cholos en Shandon” (There are no gangs in Shandon), so the term had little immediate relevance.9 Mexican immigrants used physical appearances, language, and class to identify Anglos. Josefina Castillo’s teenage son was bilingual and had an Anglo girlfriend. She knew that another boy, John Huerta, was bilingual and dated an Anglo girl, too. But when a school aide remarked that John’s parents were Mexican immigrants, Josefina reacted with surprise. She had assumed John was a blanco, because of his light skin. This instance aside, immigrants were well aware of the unreliability of physical features as indicators of family origins. Friends routinely teased José and Carmenita Caminas about the “true” paternity of “el huerito,” their blonde-haired youngest child.

82

Reimagining the Immigrant

The immigrants called themselves Mexicanos, and sometimes differentiated among themselves by their state of origin with stereotypes that had little impact on daily interaction. For example, Sinaloans were characterized as jokers and vengeful people; men from Michoacan as womanizers and drunks; people from Durango as prone to sexual abuse and family killings. A more significant distinction was drawn between all of these mestizos from western, central, and northern states, and Mixtec Indians or indios from the southern state of Oaxaca. “Oaxaquitos,” as the mestizos called them, were said to “cause trouble,” and “will stab you in the back without thinking twice about it.” Few Oaxacans were in Shandon while I was there, but there had been more previously, and one vineyard was said to hire Oaxacans and exploit them severely (see chapter 8). Mestizo and indio are important status distinctions in Mexico, where indio is clearly subordinate. Immigrants who had been in Shandon longer believed that an adjustment to local norms of behavior was required of them to become more a part of the total community. They cited learning that norteamericanos disliked loud music, that deer hunting required a license and permission of the landowner, and that they were not expected to defer passively to the authority of their children’s teachers. Bridging the language barrier was the greatest adaptation they must make, but a number of factors beyond the universal difficulty of learning a language late in life impeded learning English. Neither the work place nor day-to-day social life required English, although advancement in employment often did. An evening English class met once a week, except during grape harvest when no one had time to attend. Many who attended had little formal education and lacked study skills. Thus, learning enough English to feel comfortable speaking it was most often left to the children. The cultural adjustments that loomed largest for the immigrants were not necessarily those that Anglos expressed the most concern about. Adjusting to gender relations in the United States may have been the most significant of these. Several immigrant women indicated that it was unseemly for me to interview them rather than their husbands, and those who did speak with me endured teasing from their friends that I was their boyfriend. The adjustments to gender relations that immigrants experienced played out in a tragic local case. An immigrant girl in her late teens who had been raised in Shandon since she was six went on a date with a young man who immigrated when he was fifteen. He raped her, and she filed criminal charges against him. Most immigrant women initially felt that the girl shared responsibility for the rape, arguing that she had encouraged the young man by going on an unchaperoned date with him. Marta Rivas swayed their opinion

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

83

by explaining that accepting a date in the United States provided no consent for any actions beyond the date itself. The women then reasoned that the young woman was unlikely to perceive how the lessAmericanized man would interpret her intentions, so they agreed that the man bore responsibility for what occurred.10 Josefina Castillo and other parents linked their process of adjustment closely to the friendships their children formed with American children. Josefina was uncomfortable with the liberties taken by her son’s Anglo girlfriend, describing how she had to “keep them apart.” The girl’s lack of restraint—from Josefina’s point of view—and her lack of respect for Josefina’s authority, as the adult, were typically norteamericano, according to Josefina. Similarly, her husband Fernando refused for months to permit his teenage daughter to stay overnight at a girlfriend’s house. Finally, he gave in to assurances from the other girl’s parents that this was a common American practice and that all would be supervised. Contrasting patterns of respect for certain formal positions were illustrated one evening in English class. Lorenzo criticized a younger man for correcting the teacher’s pronunciation diagram of “thirty,” saying that the previous teacher would have thrown him out for that. But Marta Rivas, the Mexican American teacher, thought the correction was helpful, and turned it into a lesson about authority roles in America. As they learned local norms, earlier arrivals began to criticize more recent immigrants whose public behavior aggravated ethnic tensions. Most of their criticism focused on young male migrants. According to Gerardo, an early settler, “It’s the young ones (who make trouble). . . . I don’t know why we should be blamed for their scandals” (Seager 1982). Most immigrant adults assumed that the majority of norteamericanos did not like them, interpreted established residents’ behavior in light of this expectation, and minimized their interaction with natives accordingly. Gerardo was one immigrant who left Shandon because he felt Anglos’ treatment of immigrants was abusive (Seager 1982). Many felt their personal experiences justified characterizing Americans as a violent and violence-loving people. The stereotype was widespread, and when the Persian Gulf War erupted in 1990–1991, several asked me why norteamericanos “like going to war” so much. Although immigrants consciously adapted to local practices, they had no desire to completely abandon distinctly Mexican ways. However, their own integrative efforts occasionally produced misunderstandings about culture. When an immigrant woman misinterpreted a f lyer advertising a fundraising dinner to mean that the main course of chile verde

84

Reimagining the Immigrant

would be made by Anglos, she declared that Anglos could not make real Mexican food and she would not pay for food that would not be “authentic.” The immigrant and Mexican American organizers, fearful that her opinion would spread among immigrants and undermine the fundraising effort, discussed rewording the f lyer to say “cooked by Mexicans.” They ultimately decided this would raise different problems, and chose instead to say the chile verde would be “authentic Mexican food.” In the final version of the bilingual f lyer, they de-emphasized the fact that the head chef was Mexican American. Despite anticipating prejudice from established residents, settled immigrants de-emphasized tensions between themselves and natives because they perceived advantages to living in Shandon. Besides being a more “peaceful” community than Avenal or Paso Robles, immigrants reported that housing was less expensive in Shandon, when and if you can get it. Señora Castillo, Lorenzo Obregón, and other parents said that Shandon insulated their children from gangs, whereas living in Paso Robles or Avenal would not. Even during the ethnic tensions of 1982, immigrant farm worker Antonio said that he’d had no trouble with Shandon natives, and he hoped to marry and settle down in Shandon (Seager 1982). Antonio did just that and was one of two immigrant men married to local Anglo women. It was Juan Torres’ opinion that only “older people are more prejudiced and unfriendly” toward immigrants, not the local natives as a whole. Pedro Salamantez told me of his friends among the Americans. Shandon had nothing like the racial strife he saw in the film Mississippi Burning, he said. Nevertheless, the immigrants were sensitive to the fact that they were employed in “work the norteamericanos won’t do.” Too familiar with the financial difficulties of farm employment, most immigrant parents encouraged their children’s educational advancement, despite the tensions it sometimes created within their families as their own children became agringados. Mexican Americans and the Complexities of Being In Between Marta Rivas, the teacher of the evening English class and an Americanborn daughter of immigrant farm workers, expressed a sentiment common among local residents who identified themselves as Mexican Americans: “I’m an American of Mexican heritage. The Mexican culture I possess just adds something to that [American culture].” She

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

85

was comfortable calling herself Mexican American, and occasionally Chicana or Raza. But like most local Mexican Americans, Marta usually called herself Mexican to acknowledge diversity based on ancestry and heritage within the category American. This usage, then, was relevant principally in relation to other Americans, who were assumed to fall into a variety of distinctive ancestral and heritage subcategories. Few Mexican American residents were fond of being termed Hispanic, Latino, or, especially, Spanish. Marta’s husband Joe said, “I hate that! What’s wrong with ‘Mexican’?” By calling themselves Mexican, Mexican Americans did not mean to imply a stronger affiliation and loyalty to Mexico or Mexican immigrants than to the United States and fellow natives. Yet they did worry that Anglos often failed to distinguish them from new immigrants. Frankie Muñoz acknowledged that the profusion of labels played a role in this: “There are some people, I always get the feeling that they are trying to find the right word to call you.” Thus, Mexican Americans found themselves in a complicated position relative to Anglos and immigrants, pulled one way by a popular emphasis on ancestry and heritage, and another by commonalities of class, culture, and citizenship. Not surprisingly, Mexican Americans generally had given more thought to their own identity than members of the other groups in Shandon.11 Mexican American’s sense of their distinctiveness from immigrants revolved around differences in living standards, occupational status, language, and culture. One evening, Marta told the members of the English class, “I’m pocho. My Spanish is pocho, I admit it.” The immigrant students remained politely silent, since the word was pejorative. Recalling reactions to his Spanish during a trip to Mexico, ranch foreman Richard Nava noted, “They knew I wasn’t from around there by the way I talked.” Like Anglos, Mexican Americans used a model of acculturation to account for these differences. They envisioned a continuum from the “least acculturated” or “most traditional” recent immigrants through the “more acculturated” earlier immigrants and their children, to their own even more “acculturated” position. Marta, for example, told me that she was “less acculturated” than another local Mexican American woman, even though both were born, raised, and attended college in California. Mexican Americans and Anglos shared many stereotypes about unacculturated Mexicans. Mexicans, I was told, were a “hard people” who “seek revenge on their own” rather than using the legal system, because “there is no law in Mexico.” The men were “too macho” and “keep the women down.” Mexican gender roles and parental authority

86

Reimagining the Immigrant

were “more traditional and strict,” yet a positive corollary of that was immigrants were “more respectful than Americans.” Mexicans were “hardworking,” but “plodding” and “unwilling to take shortcuts to get ahead.” Just as for Anglos, it was difficult for Mexican Americans to recognize the paternalism in their thinking about the immigrants. When Marta encountered an immigrant who had been a teacher in Mexico, she remarked, “Juan opened my eyes that there are people besides the poor, uneducated lower classes” in the farm workforce. Mexican Americans and Anglos also shared a similar sense of what aspects of culture the immigrants most needed to abandon. Again, it did not always correspond to what the immigrants thought their greatest adjustments had been. Marta, Richard, and others told me that immigrants “have to be told how to behave here,” and “have to give up” certain practices that distinguished them from natives, including living in overcrowded substandard housing, not picking up trash, drinking in public, loitering, harassing women, and poaching wildlife. According to school aide Patricia Mendoza, immigrant parents needed to be more active in their children’s education. Maria Brown, another school aide, asserted that immigrant adults had an “inferiority complex” and were “shy,” because they had limited English skills. Maria said immigrant adults contributed to their social separation from established residents through their unwillingness to use the English they had learned. The sentiment of nearly all the Mexican Americans was voiced by Marta Rivas: “I don’t really blame the whites for resenting how slow the Mexicans are to acculturate.” Yet she also contended that not all Mexican cultural traits need to be “sacrificed” to integrate into American society: “I’m not going to sacrifice my culture, but pissing in public and harassing the girls isn’t my culture. Making menudo or tamales, speaking Spanish: that’s culture.” Despite frequent rhetoric of this kind emphasizing a cultural heritage shared with immigrants rather than Anglos, local Mexican Americans normally experienced equal or greater common cultural ground with Anglos. One evening in English class, Marta and I—the only American natives in the group—tried to explain what lowriders were. This specifically Mexican American, and primarily urban, culture of automobile customizing and cruising was mistaken by many Anglos for an element of Mexican culture, as illustrated earlier in this chapter. The fact that it was not Mexican showed that evening. Three teenage girls in the class thought they knew vaguely what we were talking about, but called the young men cholos. Marcos, the class clown and wit, described them as “chicos de la honda” (figuratively “hip boys,” but

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

87

literally “low boys”). Marta explained that lowriders were not cholos, but rather were the lowered cars and the young men who cruised in them. Lorenzo and Marcos knew of the lowered cars, and the others did too after the descriptions were clarified. Only the three girls recognized the term, which was not surprising since they were the only students in the class who had attended school in the United States. Then, as the discussion of low riders concluded, Marta started to sing the popular 1970s song Low Rider, and I joined in. No one else knew what we were singing. Another measure of Mexican Americans’ stronger ties with Anglos was interethnic marriage (see Spickard 1989). Of the thirty-one married Mexican American adults living in Shandon between 1968 and 1990, eleven were married to Anglos and all others to fellow Mexican Americans. Two other persons having one Mexican American parent were also married to Anglos. None were married to Mexican immigrants. Since immigrants and most Mexican Americans were newcomers and minorities in Shandon, intermarriage is not a perfect measure of perceived compatibility and affiliation. But it does suggest that a stronger tie existed between Mexican Americans and Anglos than between Mexican Americans and immigrants. Nevertheless, Shandon’s Mexican Americans felt that a heritage shared with the immigrants made it possible for them—but not Anglos—to be role models for the immigrants. They assumed that the immigrants shared this sense of sameness, and that it distanced both from Anglos. Those who had farm working family backgrounds felt especially strong about this. Thus, ranch foreman Richard Nava said, “They see me as an example of what the Mexican worker can do to improve himself.” And school aide Patricia Mendoza stated, “I’ve picked grapes and chiles. They know where I’m from.” These persons consciously acted as cultural brokers to promote the acculturation and integration of Mexican immigrants. The schools hired several such persons who could bridge the linguistic, cultural, and social boundaries between immigrants and natives. Similarly, vineyard managers usually kept at least one highranking bilingual worker, usually a foreman. These brokers dispensed more than just work-related lessons. Richard Nava was “constantly trying to convince the workers that here boys and girls can be friends without it meaning something is going on. You gotta teach them,” he said. As teacher of the English class, Marta Rivas told me, “My goal is to get these guys integrated.” She combined cultural and social lessons with those on language in every session of the class. The first advice these brokers often gave to immigrants was to reorder their surnames to fit United States’ conventions. Mexican naming

88

Reimagining the Immigrant

conventions place the mother’s maiden surname after the father’s. In Mexico, both are used in formal situations, but informally only the father’s is used. Anglos in Shandon often mistakenly equated the final name with an American surname. And since official forms in the United States asked for the components of names according to their order (first, middle, last), immigrants often placed their matrinym on forms in the position designated “last name.” This occurred routinely, and sometimes changed a person’s name for weeks or even months until the error was caught. Maria Brown urged immigrants to drop the use of the matrinym entirely to eliminate any chance of confusion. Richard Nava, in contrast, told his workers to keep the matrinym as a middle name so they will still “know who they are.” Anglos deferred to Mexican Americans as brokers, so the social importance of bilingual Mexican Americans was far greater than their numbers in the local population. Besides school and workplace duties, a Mexican American was sought to represent immigrants’ views during the formation of the Shandon Advisory Committee. Immigrants often sought out trusted bilingual Mexican Americans to intervene with landlords on their behalf; to secure legal aid or other services; translate documents, particularly immigration materials; do their taxes; and provide advice on a wide range of matters. Mexican Americans sometimes intervened voluntarily to defend immigrants from real or perceived Anglo criticism, in part because they feared that Anglos were actually condemning them, too (see chapter 8). Social conditions in Shandon promoted a moderate style of Mexican American ethnicity and brokerage over a more assertive and adversarial approach often associated with Chicano identity. The handful of Chicano activists that had entered Shandon as union organizers, school specialists, or suburbanized political activists either left to go elsewhere or moderated their approach over time. Several of the school district’s previous university-trained aides based their expectations of Anglos, and their advice to immigrants, on adversarial versions of Chicano rhetoric. Two extensive examples are provided in chapter 7, so a brief summary of one will suffice here. Patricia Mendoza succeeded an aide who had routinely condemned the district’s leadership to immigrant parents as “racist.” Initially sympathetic to her predecessor’s charges, after acquiring greater firsthand familiarity with the district Patricia concluded that the charge of racism was unfounded. Patricia—who pointed out, “I marched in college; I’m proud of that”—subsequently distanced herself from what she called her predecessor’s “radicalism.”

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

89

Brokerage style was complexly intertwined with the perception of the potential for integration, what integration does to identity, and what labels were then appropriate. While I was in Shandon, Mayor Hobbs of Santa Maria, a city to the south in Santa Barbara County, remarked publicly that “Santa Maria has a Mexican problem.” This ignited charges of racism from civil rights activists and an investigation by federal civil rights officials—all thoroughly covered by the regional news media. Joe Rivas shared his reaction to these events with me: They do have a “Mexican problem!” Just like Shandon had a “Mexican problem!” He was right. People were confused by what he meant by “Mexican.” They thought he meant the older families, too, the ones that had been there for a while. But he didn’t mean that. He even said so! Marta Rivas thought her husband had a point about Hobbs’ antagonists, but she was still understandably uncomfortable with Hobbs’ remark. Nevertheless, by 1990, Marta, Joe, and other Mexican Americans in Shandon who once proudly called themselves Chicanos said that the implication of the label had become “too radical.” They criticized the more separatist rhetoric they had accepted in the past. When a Mexican American teen from an urban high school accused a popular immigrant boy of being “too white” because he had an Anglo girlfriend, she was sharply reprimanded by one of these former Chicano adults. Patricia spoke for these integrationist Mexican Americans when she rejected the criticism of “being too white”: We are here in America and we need to advance according to the American system of doing things, and that is through getting a good education. We can’t overthrow this and bring in something different. In distancing themselves from Chicano radicalism, these former Chicanos reserved their harshest criticism for the Chicano movement’s leading heroes, the United Farm Workers (UFW) and Cesar Chavez, who had become for them symbols of the movement’s shortcomings.12 According to former UFW sympathizer Patricia Mendoza, People are starting to realize that the radicals are doing more harm than good. Like Chavez. They wouldn’t even let him into San

90

Reimagining the Immigrant

Miguel when he wanted to come! The farm workers don’t like him. Chavez and them got their taste of money and power, and that’s all they want. They aren’t trying to help anybody. Chavez blew it. He should have put more emphasis on education. Richard Nava was of a like mind, though he remained sympathetic to the wage goals of the UFW: Cesar Chavez and all that crap didn’t pan out. No one came to meetings. Manuel Izquierda and José Villa were involved. . . . The unions backed out and left. Manuel and José felt burned. They got bad reputations and had trouble getting work afterwards. There was once talk about four or five years ago about them coming back, but workers said, “No way!” The workers don’t want unions, because last time they came out worse. They couldn’t get work and wages declined. My brother was a bodyguard for Chavez in the early days. I supported him, too. Back then, Chavez was for the people. But when they began getting money, they weren’t in it for the people anymore. People don’t believe in hunger strikes anymore. You could see the change. Preferring the label Mexican American after taking a more moderate turn, these ex-radicals were among the most active and successful brokers between Anglos and immigrants in the community. Marta and Joe Rivas, Patricia Mendoza, Richard Nava, and Maria Brown were more respected by Anglos and immigrants than any of their predecessors in this role. Ironically, by asserting the primacy and privilege of an American national culture, these Mexican American brokers manifested a similar cultural fundamentalism toward the immigrants as Shandon’s Anglos, but with two important differences. First, they did not believe that the cultural transformation immigrants must go through needed to be as sweeping as some Anglos advocated. Second, although both Anglos and Mexican Americans believed that Mexican immigrants should acculturate, the Mexican Americans more often believe that the immigrants could and would acculturate and integrate successfully with encouragement and assistance from natives and a sufficient level of effort by the immigrants themselves. Not all Anglos shared that assessment. Peoplehood in Shandon was, as predicted, more f luid and fuzzy than residents usually acknowledged. Despite the outward assurance

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

91

with which residents asserted the importance of appearances or culture for drawing distinctions, their ability to place individuals proved to be sometimes difficult and subject to disagreement over who fit and where, or what parts of culture mattered most in making a classification. Consistent with their numerical dominance and overall social importance, American and Mexican categories dominated the classification scheme. While not everyone explicitly named three major categories, the basic distinctions facilitating a third category were universally present in the emphasis given to culture as a decisive criterion. When not defined by an explicit ethnonymy, the boundaries of yet more potential categories were still drawn with concepts such as culture, acculturation, language, quality, occupation, and membership in the community. Indeed, with these concepts so well developed and the situation so f luid, one could anticipate that Shandon was primed and ready for an instance of ethnogenesis.

This page intentionally left blank

CH A P T E R

F I V E

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

In the two preceding chapters where I presented the various social categories meaningful to Shandon residents in 1990, the word community appears with some frequency. Community has dual meanings of place and social group that are not easily distinguished by the scholar, because our ethnographic subjects often do not distinguish between them. In his study of Shandon in the 1960s, Elvin Hatch (1979) was concerned with what made a community—in the social sense—out of the assemblage of households comprising the town and its surrounding settlements. Hatch found a web of social relations and shared knowledge that tied these households into a community. Residents had created a body of local affairs, comprised of shared interests, goals, concerns, and controversies, and around which much information and activity revolved. This formed a major part of a local culture, much of which was carried out through local institutions and the practice of leadership.1 I return to these matters here in a study of immigration because they are relevant to the accommodation of immigrants. Hatch was able to show that the local affairs that made Shandon a community took shape and were managed by and through its local institutions in the 1960s. The existence of those institutions—churches, schools, and clubs— and their vitality were effective measures of the existence of community among the assemblage of households comprising Shandon. Thus, with the arrival of significant numbers of newcomers, what happens to Shandon’s institutions can serve as a measure of where community still exists, or has been reshaped or created anew in Shandon. With this goal in mind, the following pages explore the institutions and leadership involved in Shandon’s affairs in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They tell a story of the continued atrophy of the form of the preexisting

94

Reimagining the Immigrant

community, and the emergence of a second community articulated with the preexisting one. Background and Overview As an unincorporated town without elected leadership, functions of broad interest to Shandon area residents were thrust upon individuals and local organizations throughout Shandon’s history. Before World War II, Shandon took pride in its notable men, called pushers, who were recognized for their ability to “get things done” and whose advice was often sought. These men had to devote considerable time to conversation and persuasion at the post office, stores, and local events to build consensus and root out dissent. They were recognized outside Shandon’s territory as its leaders, and provided local residents with their principle means to inf luence and obtain service from County officials. Individual leadership declined after World War II, and by the 1960s residents said, “There are no leaders anymore” (Hatch 1979:84–86, 245). Several factors contributed to this shift. Local decision-making was always marked by quarrelsomeness, gossip and scandal, and accusations of self-interest and aggrandizement. Leaders had to be able to withstand this and avoid joining in personal criticism, but few people could stomach the level of criticism leadership forced them to bear. More importantly, the principle of contributing to community improvement lost much of its value after World War II, whereas the principle of economic achievement gained importance for individual prestige. Men increasingly devoted themselves to their occupations, leaving community matters to women, and leadership shifted from individuals onto local organizations. Some organizations were more prominent in local affairs than others, and the role shifted from one institution to another. First was the Improvement Club from 1919 to the mid-1920s, then the Farm Bureau from 1921 to the late 1940s, and the Shandon Women’s Guild from 1946 through the 1960s. Community-wide functions were sometimes thrust upon organizations that had been formed for a specialized purpose at the urging of outside bureaucracies, such as the Farm Bureau. Like individual leaders before them, organizations also were subject to criticism, gossip, and scandal, and none were considered completely impartial or representative of Shandon as a whole.2 Local organizations also always had difficulty maintaining the interest of their members. One after another, organizations emerged and later failed: the Pleasure Seekers, Improvement Club, Women’s Club,

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

95

Grange, Ladies Aid, Farm Bureau, Women’s Chorus, Conservation Club, Chess Club, and Square Dance Club each came and went. Shandon’s pervasive factionalism sometimes caused institutions to fail. If an organization was associated too narrowly with one faction, it lost its ability to build consensus. Strategies of collaboration, diffuse decision-making, and ad hoc leadership were entrenched ways of coping with this state of affairs by the 1960s. Issues that were deemed to be truly important to virtually all local residents often were planned and undertaken by a committee of representatives from each organization. Decision on which issues were genuinely of such wide interest could, of course, be contested, but nevertheless this approach tended to ensure that narrow special interests would not dominate their resolution.3 By 1990, longtime Shandon residents felt this method of managing local affairs was a thing of the past. They blamed “declining volunteerism” and “less committed people” among the newcomers for Shandon’s declining organizations. They also blamed the decline on the growing inf luence of mass culture through television and home video players. Delbert Jacoby, a retired small businessman, summarized this perspective: It used to be, before TV got in here, that people attended more community social events, and this was a natural forum where important issues were casually discussed and worked out. Now, too many people are so negative about the political scene that they don’t attempt to do anything, they don’t even vote or study the issues. There were also fewer social arenas where leadership could be practiced, where local issues might be discussed informally and consensus built about an appropriate course of action. This included the decline in local shopping, for the store and neighboring post office had been places of conversation where past leaders kept a finger on the pulse of local opinion. In 1990, the cafe was one of the few remaining sites of daily conversation and exchange of opinions and ideas. Declining participation in local organizations impeded the definition and discussion of issues and the exercise and development of leadership. Much of the leader’s art of conversation was carried out by telephone in 1990, an adjustment to the daytime dispersal of local residents away from Shandon. People who had lived in Shandon since the 1960s tended to think that these changes represented the waning inf luence of large landholders of

96

Reimagining the Immigrant

the old guard. It was the organizations most strongly associated with old guard and landholding interests that had declined. Diminishing old guard leadership was partly a product of their ideas of succession being undermined by their children’s emigration. As one retired farmer and former school board member phrased it, men who had children in school should assume the positions of leadership, for the older men had done their turn. However, there were fewer young men and women from the old families to do so. Some elderly old guard resented their loss of inf luence, yet the remaining younger generations rarely sought the level of inf luence that their parents once held. However, Shandon’s system of conducting local affairs had not completely broken down. Throughout these changes, the acquisition of community-wide functions by organizations, anti-leadership factionalism, need for collaboration, diffuse decision-making, ad hoc leadership, and outside bureaucratic stimulus remained essential to the way Shandon managed its affairs. Some organizations were f lourishing and new ones continued to be created. In 1990, Shandon conducted its affairs in ways surprisingly consistent with the past, despite sweeping population changes, shifting loci of inf luence, redrawn factions, and new issues with which to contend. The atrophy of old guard organizations since the 1960s continued to shift inf luence to the schools. The school district and 4-H, which both served the growing supply of local youth, were vibrant organizations. Newer organizations took different paths: the Senior’s Club for the elderly was fairly strong, but the Boosters Club was not. Newer still, the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee emerged as an energetic organization serving immigrant families. And in 1990, the formation of the Shandon Advisory Committee ushered in a new era of formalized local leadership. We now turn to the individual institutions that helped to define and manage local affairs in Shandon since the 1960s. The Churches The century-old United Methodist Church once stood at the core of the establishment and leadership in Shandon, its position defined largely by its opposition to alcoholic beverages. Its inf luence was once a key reason residents considered Shandon to be better than other communities in the region. When local affairs were secularized in the 1940s and 1950s, several of the church’s community-wide functions were transferred to the schools. The church was weakened further in 1949 when

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

97

a faction left to form the fundamentalist Shandon Assembly of God Church. In the late 1960s, Sunday attendance at the Methodist Church was about twenty to forty people, while the Assembly of God Church in Shandon Heights usually had less than fifteen people (Hatch 1973; 1979:58, 73–79, 118, 172–177). By 1990, the Methodist Church’s membership and inf luence had declined even more, but participation in the Assembly of God Church had improved slightly. The Methodist’s Sunday attendance averaged fifteen or twenty people, whereas the Assembly of God’s had grown to twenty to twenty-five of its twenty-eight adult members. Unlike the Methodist’s, the Assembly of God pastor, Bob Hill, lived and worked full-time in Shandon, a distinct advantage to sustaining a congregation. An elderly lifelong member described the Methodist Church’s decline: I think our church is going through about as low a time as I can remember. . . . In the late ’40s or early ’50s, up to that point and for several years after that point, families stayed in the community. But now the families have moved away. The young people have moved away. And, so we are kind of an elderly group. . . . About 20 years ago, the church was more a core of the community then, than it is now. And we’ve been wondering why, why that is true. But at that time there were still families. . . . We still have the constituency that are not members, but attend occasionally and make contributions occasionally on Easter or Christmas. Or maybe if something important comes up that the church wants to do, like build a building or something, then they will make a contribution. . . . But, it isn’t the core of the community that it used to be. And part of that could be because we don’t have a live-in minister. You see, his time is very limited, and, he’s here just on Sunday mornings, not during the week. And, to keep the church growing, if someone comes to church, the minister needs to call on them the following week, you know. And lacking the minister doing that, the lay people should be doing that. Well, we’re not. Another longtime member remembered the 1950s as a time when the congregation was much larger. “There were over 100 kids in Sunday school, but now there are only two. That part in particular has really run down.” It was symptomatic of the church’s aging and declining congregation that an outside organization performed restoration and maintenance work on the old building in 1991. By this time, the

98

Reimagining the Immigrant

Methodist’s involvement in local affairs was limited to an annual pancake breakfast, an annual enchilada dinner, and a weekly rummage sale held at the old parsonage. At the rummage, used goods such as clothes, dishes, or furnishings donated by local residents were sold for a negligible fee to the poor. Most customers were immigrant farm workers. The adult members of both churches in 1990 were Anglos drawn largely from the old guard families that founded them. Both had a few members from outside Shandon. Whereas the Methodists had discontinued Sunday school, the Assembly of God attracted families with its youth program, even though it was held in Paso Robles. Neither church had much success recruiting from newcomers to Shandon. One church member suggested that newcomers had simply “gotten out of the habit of going to church” when moving and settling into a new home consumed their time. By 1990, representation was not sought from either congregation when local affairs demanded collaborative or diffuse decision-making. In 1982–1983 there was a third church in Shandon. A Mexican American teacher hired by the school district canvassed immigrant residents soon after he settled in Shandon to see if there was interest in having Protestant services in Spanish. There was, so he established a local affiliate of the national Latin American Assemblies of God with Bob Hill’s assistance. Known to established residents as “the Spanish church,” services were held in the Methodist Church. They were delivered in English but translated by the Mexican foreman of a local vineyard. The Spanish church came to an end when the teacher departed in 1983. It had begun at a time when tensions between established residents and immigrants in Shandon were at or near their peak. Bob Hill felt that the Spanish church helped to calm tensions fueled by an incident between an Anglo man and an immigrant (see chapter 6). “I wish we could do this here, still,” Bob told me, for “it was a very good thing for the community.” In the mid-1990s, a new Mexican American school employee started weekly bible reading meetings in Spanish at the Methodist church, which quickly became popular among immigrant families. Women’s Guild The Women’s Guild enjoyed being the leading community organization in the mid-1960s, but in the 1980s it withered away.4 Members recalled the group’s original purpose in 1946 as purely social, yet it

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

99

engaged in community activities from the outset. As was true of all organizations that were prominent in local affairs, memories of the Guild in 1990 often contrasted sharply. The Guild had detractors even during its heyday, because it was closely associated with only one of the local factions (Hatch 1979:231–232). The Guild’s positive reputation was associated with its improvements and maintenance of the park, pool, and clubhouse, and its sponsorship of the Memorial Day barbecue into the early 1980s. Other things the Guild was said to have accomplished for the community were dinners and dances, assistance with the community Christmas Program, swimming and tennis lessons, an annual scholarship, a f loat in the Pioneer Day Parade in Paso Robles, and efforts to improve the town’s appearance. Critics portrayed the Guild as having been snobbish and exclusive, even though it originally had both wealthy and middle-class members. Former members confessed to me that it was difficult to bridge class differences throughout the club’s lifetime. Guild membership began declining when women began to work during the 1960s. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s the proportion of full-time housewives among nonimmigrant women with schoolage children fell from over half to just a third, as both full-time and part-time wage work for women became more common. A few members first left when they were hired to candle and clean eggs for the then new Drake Eggs at Whitley Gardens. Approximately twenty-two women attended each meeting in the mid-1960s (Hatch 1979:280), and there were as many as forty-two at one gathering in 1968. But by the end of that decade only about ten women participated, so all fundraising activities except the Memorial Day barbecue were discontinued. Several younger women joined the club in the 1970s, triggering a brief resurgence. Fifteen to twenty people attended one event in 1978. Yet, as wealthier women came to have more time to devote to the Guild than women who had to do wage work, the perception that the Guild was elitist and served special interests grew. This abetted tensions within the Guild and with other residents. According to one observer, the women who joined in the 1970s were “snooty” and excluded older women “who did all the work” in the past, at least until they failed to get anything done without them. The Guild’s efforts to improve Shandon’s appearance drew criticism that prompted individuals to leave the group. In one instance, Guild members led a petition drive in 1981–1982 to condemn several small houses in the center of town occupied by immigrant farm workers (see chapter 6). The drive succeeded, but the owner of the houses

100

Reimagining the Immigrant

interpreted it as a personal slight. In another incident, a Guild member turned on the lawn sprinkler outside the post office one day, then asked the clerk inside—also a Guild member—to turn it off later. Shandon’s new postmaster considered this an intrusion into his affairs. Placed in an uncomfortable position between her fellow Guild members and her angry supervisor, the clerk chose to leave the Guild. As membership dwindled, there were not enough husbands to cook the meat for the Memorial Day barbecue. The Lions Club assumed this role for 50 percent of the proceeds in the mid-1960s, but relations between the Lions and the Guild were troubled by poor organization and misunderstood responsibilities. Efforts to resolve the problems around 1980 only generated arguments and insults. The Guild again reduced their fundraising activities to the barbecue alone, excluded the Lions, and recruited their husbands as chefs. Their scholarship and maintenance of the pool and clubhouse consumed all of the proceeds from the barbecue. By 1980 they could no longer build local consensus or recruit new members, and struggled just to maintain a presence. One older member remembered, “We were really tired of it.” But younger members felt “a terrific weight of responsibility to carry on” because of the Guild’s past significance to Shandon. One of the founding members recounted, With women working, and with the people going to Paso Robles [to shop], there was no longer a nucleus. There was no reason to really shop in Shandon, for instance. You went to Guild, and everybody went to the grocery store, and that was a social session along with going to the post office. I mean everybody ended up in the grocery store after Guild and you’d go on talking about whatever it was. But, then the grocery store was no longer a gathering spot. People went to Paso Robles to do their grocery shopping, and they also went to Paso Robles to work. The whole thing, it just was time for it to go. . . . There was no purpose in it anymore. It was a struggle. But I think the young people felt they had to keep it going, because they had come into the community, and we had had this going for so long, and it was such a responsible group for so many years! In its final years, the Women’s Guild gave funds to rebuild the swimming pool. Its last social function was held in a member’s home late in 1981. Soon thereafter only two women remained. Declining attendance at the Memorial Day barbecue crippled the Guild’s ability to serve the

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

101

community. The annual event that served an average of 900 dinners each year from 1955 through 1967 (Hatch 1979:187) served only 380 in 1983. Since they could no longer raise enough money to pay for insurance on the clubhouse, the Guild granted the Senior’s Club a ten year lease to the building for one dollar in 1982. Freed of this burden, they accepted the Volunteer Firemen as cosponsors of the 1983 barbecue for 90 percent of the income. Bowing to the inevitable, the next year they passed cosponsorship of the barbecue and their 10 percent of the take to the Boosters Club. As its last act, the Guild used its remaining funds to help buy playground equipment for the park. Shandon Lions Club The Shandon Lions Club also strove to serve the community, but it was never able to build the positive reputation that the Women’s Guild held at its height. A variety of residents told me, “They never get anything done,” or “They can’t do anything right.” Similar sentiments existed in the 1960s (see Hatch 1979:184–192, 238, 264). By 1990 some older residents referred to the Lions in the past tense; however, the club was still active and brought County personnel to their meetings to speak publicly on matters of local concern. They controlled the Shandon community hall, where they held their own meetings and where many major town events occurred. They sponsored a bluegrass music festival, hoping it would become an annual event. They continued to sponsor a speech competition for high school students and eye care for local children from low-income households. Unwittingly, but to their general satisfaction, they also helped promote the accommodation of immigrants in events addressed in chapter 8. Prior to a 1990 membership drive, the members included several small businessmen, a grain farmer, a retired state employee, a National Guardsman, a school aide, and the school superintendent. The wife of a longtime member was a frequent participant. A number of individuals merely paid dues, including a Mexican American woman. Active attendance was limited to about eight members, just as it had been in the mid-1960s. Several members were relative newcomers to Shandon, and one or two had been Lions Club members in their previous home towns. Desperate for new members, the Lions initiated a membership drive in 1990, and by October eight young men had been recruited. Most were blue-collar commuter workers and one was Mexican American. They were quickly assigned to develop new fundraising events and activities,

102

Reimagining the Immigrant

but within a year the members grew frustrated with the lack of action and the burden of $200 in annual dues. Their attendance began to decline that year. By 1993 the Lions appeared to be defunct, but the club was still holding its annual speaking competition for high school students in 1995. Shandon residents did not look to the Lions for a great deal of local leadership, despite often mentioning a few members as inf luential residents. Some established residents viewed the club’s shortcomings as a product of the broader changes overtaking Shandon. Delbert Jacoby, a former and founding member, offered a typical critique: The last thing they did was the tennis court [in the park in the 1970s]. A group like that needs to have activities to keep going. There were 22 members at first, but after a while only three of them were doing all the work. There is a different class of people nowadays who won’t do the work it takes to keep an organization going. It seems like everything in Shandon has worked that way. A somewhat different view of the Lions existed among Mexican Americans, many of whom saw the club as a local integrating force. Maria Brown, for example, applauded the Lions’ pattern of renting the community hall to local immigrants for special events, “ just like they would for anyone else.” Immigrant families thus gained access to a facility they could use for quinceañera celebrations, dances, graduation parties, and fundraising dinners. Maria was unaware of the Lions’ discussion that perhaps they should no longer rent the hall to Mexicans after two such parties left the community hall filthy. The club’s image suffered a setback among Mexican Americans who heard of this discussion, but the Lions largely redeemed themselves when they recognized that one family was mainly responsible for the problems. Other Organizations A few other organizations in existence in the early 1990s defined a fringe of involvement in local affairs. The Volunteer Firemen, Parent Teachers Organization (PTO), and Boosters Club struggled to sustain membership, while the Senior’s Club’s relative stability ref lected the aging of a segment of the local population. Originally organized in the early days of World War II (Hatch 1979:114–115), the Volunteer

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

103

Firemen in 1990 focused exclusively on providing emergency services. Residents viewed them as an active organization of good reputation. However, their declining membership was becoming a serious problem. Members blamed Shandon’s “becoming a bedroom community” for these difficulties, but several potential recruits felt that the members were clique-ish. In July 1991 the group had eleven members, five of whom comprised the long-standing core of the group. The group included newcomers, commuters, blue-collar workers, an old guard rancher, and vineyard managers. Several members served in other local institutions, including the school board, Shandon Advisory Committee, 4-H, and the advisory board for the high school’s Future Farmers of America program. Such multiple points of service ensured the prominent reputations of these men. Since 1954, Shandon’s PTO raised funds for various school expenses and sponsored the new teachers’ reception and Christmas Program, both of which were former activities of the Women’s Guild (Hatch 1979:179, 182, 280).5 Most members by 1990 were Anglo wives of commuters or ranchers with school-age children, but a couple of Mexican American women joined in the late 1980s. Membership was constrained by the growth of women’s employment outside of Shandon. PTO was never an organ of local leadership, but it did help to integrate newcomers who were elected to the school board and Shandon Advisory Committee in the mid-1990s. A dozen Anglo parents formed Shandon Boosters Club in the mid1970s to finance the participation of local youth in activities their families could not afford. For example, they paid the little league baseball fees for two local boys from immigrant farm working families. They occasionally engaged in activities of community-wide interest. In 1984, 1992, and 1993 they cosponsored the Memorial Day barbecue. Their membership had declined by 1990 to only three active members, as others died, moved away, or ceased participating. Nevertheless, one of these three was still widely perceived as a local leader. The remaining Boosters received requests for assistance with a touch of resentment for the lack of support they received from other residents. A local Neighborhood Watch was formed in the late 1970s when residents perceived a rise in local crime. It was less of an organization than a momentary manifestation of ad hoc leadership. The participants established procedures for reporting crimes, but they quickly lost their cohesiveness. No meetings were being held by 1990, and no one seemed quite sure who, besides the school superintendent and three or four other residents, were involved.

104

Reimagining the Immigrant

Although longtime residents in 1990 described the Senior’s Club as an important community organization, it was never inf luential to the degree that the Women’s Guild had been. It was formed in 1979 as a nonprofit organization providing elderly residents with transportation to Paso Robles or elsewhere to shop or visit a doctor.6 It also arranged social events such as card games for those members who wished to participate. The club represented an adjustment to out-migration by younger family members coupled with the declining ability of Shandon’s store to provision residents. The club’s role in wider affairs was limited. It controlled the clubhouse in Shandon Park after 1982, one of Shandon’s important semipublic structures (see Hatch 1979). They offered an annual potluck supper for the Volunteer Firemen and state forestry firefighters stationed in Shandon during the summer fire season, and assisted at the Memorial Day barbecue. Few of Shandon’s major landholders appeared among the forty-four members on the club roll in 1991. Except for the Senior’s Club, the institutions reviewed thus far were those exhibiting the most atrophy since the 1960s. They were also most closely affiliated with the social community of Shandon existing before Mexican immigrants and commuter settlers began to become more numerous. The Senior’s Club was an exception because its function was an adaptation to the atrophy of the old community. The three following institutions reveal a different pattern: continued vigor or creation associated with local change and external stimuli. Shandon Unified School District and its Board of Trustees The institution that prospered most in the face of change is the Shandon school district, filling the leadership void as other institutions declined. The district, with its facilities and staff, constitutes the principle resource controlled corporately by the residents of the Shandon region. Its durability, particularly compared with other organizations, ref lected the continued value of this resource and its state support. The district’s role began to expand in the 1940s when it wrested control of the Christmas program from the Methodist Church. In the 1970s–1980s, the district office at the high school emerged as the local contact point for outside agencies, which the Women’s Guild had been in the 1960s and individual men before that (see Hatch 1979:176–178, 239, 253). This made the district crucial to the creation of new local institutions, such

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

105

as the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee and Shandon Advisory Committee. I will discuss the integrative role of the schools in chapter 7. Here I discuss its leadership role in local affairs. The most distinctive change in local leadership by 1990 was the ascendancy of the district superintendent, who participated in nearly every public discussion of local affairs. Outside inquiries about Shandon routinely came to his office, and he was the main person through whom residents conveyed concerns to County officials about crime, road conditions, the park, local growth, or other matters. The issues he was drawn into usually were of interest to the schools: risks to school property, student safety, youth recreation, rising enrollments, and costs due to housing construction, and so on. But these issues were also of general local interest. The superintendent in 1990 had several characteristics of past community leaders. Working and living in the center of town allowed him more frequent contact with other residents than perhaps any other person. Residents sought his opinion and participation in a range of matters. He was a member of the Lions Club, the Neighborhood Watch, and led the task force that established the Shandon Advisory Committee, to which he was elected in the mid-1990s. Like past leaders, he was also one of the most criticized residents, and he had a high threshold for this criticism. Residents could be divided into those who respected him as an “organized” leader who “will do all the work,” versus those who criticized him for “trying to run everything.” The district’s other locus of power was its five-member board of trustees. The trustees were the only elected officials of Shandon until 1990. The board’s composition was another good indicator of changing patterns of local leadership. Until 1983, each one of the former five original preunification districts elected one trustee to the board. In 1983, four of these were merged to form the Shandon trusteeship, from which four board members were thereafter elected at-large. The portion of the school district within Monterey County, including the village of Parkfield with its elementary school, retained the privilege of electing the fifth trustee. Beginning in the late 1960s, the school board drifted away from control exercised by old-family, male, large landholders in grain farming and cattle ranching. Although agriculturalists sustained their predominance into the 1990s, the first of several nonagriculturalists was elected in 1972. The election of an irrigation farmer in 1968, a vineyard manager in 1978, and the wives of several smaller-scale farmers and ranchers in the 1970s and 1980s ensured the loss of control by old-family large landholders. Another striking change

106

Reimagining the Immigrant

was the ascendancy of women to the board since 1970. Continuing the feminization of local leadership that had begun in the 1960s (Hatch 1979:194–195), three of the five trustees were women in 1989–1991. Former teacher Scott Brady discussed with me changes on the board, and in local leadership generally, from the 1950s to the 1980s. Like any current or past school staff member, his perspective ref lected the fact that these individuals were his employers. He contrasted 1950s and 1960s board members Bob Pierce, Frances Smith, Horace Simmons, and Chester Gerlach with their late 1970s and 1980s counterparts, Ted Pierce, Dwight Simmons, and David Greer. (He uses old guard to denote a past leader, whereas his old timers is similar to my use of old guard.) The old guard used to be Bob Pierce, Frances Smith, and Horace Simmons. Now if you wanted something to happen in this town, if they didn’t want it to happen, it basically wasn’t going to happen. . . . Now Frances Smith comes down to [the high school] every so often and chews me out, or to see this person and chew them out, and she’s pretty much kind of ignored. . . . Horace Simmons is dead. So what’s left are the remaining Simmons boys . . . and they don’t wield a lot of power, but if you wanted to talk about something effecting the agricultural community, these are large landowners. . . . Bob Pierce is more or less not acting, and [Bob’s son] Ted is sort of the heir apparent to that inf luence, but doesn’t. [It] is just not wielded in the old way. The kind of patriarchal hold on the community doesn’t exist any more. . . . You have to put Chester Gerlach up there with those first three people. But Chester is kinda getting old. . . . I guess off to the side . . . you’ve got to put Chester Gerlach and you gotta put Ralph and Charley Kinneson. But there’s limited clout there. Those people are there, but for one reason or another there’s not a lot of inf luence over community affairs on the part of those people. So then you go to a different level, a less autocratic type of rule. You notice I didn’t say a democratic type of rule. So you get into this other level of community leaders, Richard Gold, Zack Thomas, Ted Pierce, Ben Miller, David Greer, Dennis Oliver. . . . And these people are more like manager class than owner class, with the exception of Pierce and Thomas, but they control the employment and oversight of certain territories of land because the owners are absentee. Now there are certain other absentee owners and managers, but the managers do not pay much attention to what goes on in the town. . . .

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

107

[T]hen you step down into another area of control and you’re into the people who reside in this community who consider themselves [to be]—in relation to the . . . “don’t cares”—the “we care about your community,” the kind of people who form the Neighborhood Watch. . . . [This] is the group to be reckoned with, and it’s the group you’re gonna see—some you may have seen—at school board meetings: Vince Talbot, Delbert O’Conner, Tammy Nesbit, Steve Carlstrom . . ., Jane Tipple . . ., Jack Stott . . ., just about anybody in the town, including some school employees, who are kind of stable in their residences. . . .7 The men in Scott Brady’s first group of patriarchal large landholders were among the dominant leaders and school board members of the 1950s and 1960s. Those still alive by 1990 had lost their inf luence. They were much less patriarchal than their predecessors. Hatch (1979:243– 245) described their leadership as “quiet,” “one of inf luence rather than power,” “expressed indirectly . . . and not through the active shaping of local opinion in face-to-face encounters.” Scott’s characterization ref lects the group’s authority within the school where Scott was their subordinate. This remains informative, though, for he found Ted Pierce and Dwight Simmons—board members and Scott’s bosses in late 1970s and 1980s—“less autocratic” than their fathers had been. Scott’s second group included three vineyard managers who arrived in the 1970s, two old guard ranchers, and one ranch manager who joined the community in the 1960s. Three of them had been school board members, and most of them had another affiliation, such as the Boosters, 4-H, the Volunteer Firemen, or Shandon Advisory Committee. These were the most prominent agriculturalists active in local affairs. They stood out not because their opinions carried more weight among local residents than those of Scott’s third group, but because they were not shy in offering their opinions, were willing to act on them, and had the class-standing and personal characteristics that commanded the respect of outside bureaucrats. The County supervisor knew who they were, for instance. Scott Brady’s third group included two commuters, two small businessmen and the wife of a third, and a school staff member who invariably were willing to serve as ad hoc leaders. They showed a keen interest in local affairs, attending meetings of the school board, Shandon Advisory Committee, or Lions Club when it hosted an important speaker, and were affiliated with other groups, including Neighborhood Watch, Volunteer Firemen, and PTO. (Many more local residents than those

108

Reimagining the Immigrant

whom Scott has named fit this description.) Two had old-family roots and all but one had lived in Shandon at least since the 1970s. It was to these residents that the school board turned for help in 1989 when it needed to pass a bond issue to raise construction funds. Volunteers from this group telephoned other residents and urged them to vote in support of the measure, which passed by a wide margin. Scott respected these individuals because they often inf luenced school board or Shandon Advisory Committee members’ voting by expressing strong, even intimidating, opinions on controversial issues by phone, in private conversations, and through their vigilance at meetings. The school district’s ascendance in community leadership made it the major axis of community factionalism well before 1990. The poles were the “school interests” and their opponents, with the superintendent, a few board members, and many teachers and staff most clearly associated with the former. One manifestation of the opposition was a succession of reform-minded school board members or candidates who had accused the district of lowering educational standards. By 1990 their main cause was obtaining accreditation for the district, an effort that failed because a board majority felt it would be more costly than beneficial. The cafe became the de facto territory of the school critics and friendly fence-sitters. The school faction’s most prominent members seldom went to the cafe for coffee or lunch. Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee Migrant Education is a federally mandated, state-administered program providing instructional and emergency health services to the children of migrant farm workers and fishermen. The program’s intent is to prevent these children from falling behind their peers scholastically. It funds instructional aides at local schools, and promotes parents’ involvement in their children’s education by encouraging meetings with school staff and participation in a parent advisory committee formed exclusively for migrant parents in each school district served. Shandon’s program is administered by the state’s Migrant Education district office in Santa Maria. The program paid for a bilingual part-time school aide, who was a local Mexican American. Because it was very small and distant from the Santa Maria office, Shandon’s program—and particularly its Parent Advisory Committee (Comité Consejero de Padres Migrantes)— operated with considerable independence from its administrative office during 1989–1991. Children in two-thirds—or roughly twenty—of

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

109

the immigrant families in the district qualified for the program in 1990.8 However, participants in the Parent Advisory Committee included some who did not qualify because they had already been in Shandon more than five years. In effect, settled immigrant families turned the Committee into a de facto Mexican immigrant community organization. Shandon’s Migrant Education program had not succeeded in recruiting many parents to participate in a Parent Advisory Committee up to 1989, when Mexican American Gloria Covarrubias was the district’s Migrant Education aide. Only five or six parents regularly attended meetings. The Committee’s monolingual immigrant president had few local ties beyond her fellow immigrants and Gloria. Following Covarrubias’ departure from Shandon in 1989, Patricia Mendoza, a bilingual Mexican American, became the leader of the group. Participation immediately swelled three- or fourfold, largely because they began to use the Committee for other functions beyond its official purpose. The Committee held monthly potluck dinner meetings at the high school library, except during the grape harvest when the long work hours made this impractical. Under Patricia’s leadership the meetings became social events, drawing families from Parkfield, Cholame, and Shandon for food and conversation. With the members’ encouragement, Patricia turned them into a source of practical information that helped the immigrants to adjust to local life. This attracted immigrants to the meetings and sometimes drew farm workers who did not have families in Shandon. Patricia invited a succession of outside speakers who gave presentations to the group, and when a speaker was not available she obtained information from agencies that she presented herself. There were presentations on County health care services, welfare eligibility, and youth drug prevention. There was a question-and-answer session with the County sheriff, a briefing on the upcoming census by a Census Bureau employee, and a description of services offered by California Rural Legal Assistance. School issues still predominated, and the superintendent and counselor attended on several occasions. Whenever a guest only spoke English, Patricia herself provided simultaneous translation in Spanish. Almost no one in Shandon outside the school system was aware of the Committee’s existence before 1990, so strong was the separation of native and immigrant adult spheres of activity. Even among school personnel, the Committee’s lack of success prior to Patricia’s leadership delayed appreciation of its credibility. But by late 1989 the

110

Reimagining the Immigrant

superintendent had grasped the turnaround the group had made, and began directing anyone seeking to contact local immigrants (including this anthropologist) to Patricia Mendoza as the Committee’s president. Researchers conducting a low-income housing needs assessment for San Luis Obispo County met with more than fifty farm workers at a meeting arranged for them by the Committee. Members of the ad hoc task force formed to create Shandon Advisory Committee attended a Committee meeting to describe that effort to immigrant residents, assess their opinions, and encourage their participation. On the insistence of the school superintendent and a school board member, Patricia was recruited to the task force because her position in the Committee enabled her to “represent the Mexicanos.” The Committee pursued one major educational goal between 1989 and 1991. The parents were concerned that children who had recently arrived from Mexico with no English skills fell behind their peers scholastically, and that older children were especially vulnerable. They asked the district to obtain textbooks in Spanish for these students. The superintendent believed the district did not have sufficient funds to buy such books outright, but could pay at least part of the cost if the parents could help to raise additional money. Thus encouraged, the Committee organized and held a series of fundraising dinners in the Community Hall featuring Mexican dishes. Both immigrants and established residents attended these events.9 By 1990, the Committee was quite possibly the most vigorous local organization in Shandon, other than the school district itself. Yet it remained unknown or poorly known to most established residents. The Santa Maria administrative office also remained blind to the Committee’s vigor during this time. Paradoxically, this allowed the Committee to pursue more activities with a more diverse membership than the formal rules of Migrant Education allowed. The Committee’s meetings were announced only to immigrant parents and school authorities. So, like the Senior’s Club, its purpose remained specialized in the sense that its participants were a limited segment of local residents. The Committee’s fundraising events began to reduce their local invisibility in 1990, and members began to use the group to reach out to other organizations on issues of broader interest. In particular, it established ties with the PTO in an event described in chapter 7, with the Lions Club in an event described at length in chapter 8, and it participated in the formation of Shandon Advisory Committee described below. Thus, the Committee became an instrument through which immigrant parents could insert themselves into local affairs, even as

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

111

it sustained their separation in a distinctly ethnic organization dependent on Patricia Mendoza as their ethnic broker. This enabled members to build legitimacy for themselves as concerned and involved local residents, and for the Committee as their legitimate platform. This fit quite well into the preexisting local pattern of ad hoc, collaborative, and diffuse community decision-making. Shandon Advisory Committee The formation of the Shandon Advisory Committee in 1990 as an elected body of local leaders marked the end of ad hoc leadership and the beginning to a reduced leadership role for the school district. Nevertheless, all the old patterns—outside bureaucratic instigation, factionalism, diffuse decision-making, collaboration, ad hoc leadership— played a role in its formation. Except for ad hoc leadership, Shandon Advisory Committee’s structure did little to eliminate these old patterns. The Committee arose out of the school board’s complaint to their County supervisor in April 1990 that developer fees from projected housing developments would not adequately compensate them for the additional costs they would incur from a growing local population. The supervisor did not address this concern specifically, but urged the president of the school board to establish the institutional machinery to address all issues involving Shandon’s relationship to San Luis Obispo County government and agencies. County supervisors serving unincorporated towns in San Luis Obispo County had promoted community advisory committees for at least ten years as a framework for better governance and provision of services to rural areas. Advisory committees were promoted to represent rural areas to the County Board of Supervisors and all County offices, but they also simplified the County’s work by creating clear, formal lines of authority to rural areas. Previous advisory committees had existed in Shandon, always arising in response to some immediate need for, or desire to maintain, County services. Past committees were formed of volunteers representing various local organizations and factions in collaborative ad hoc fashion. One had been formed in 1981 to prevent closure of the swimming pool at the park. Once this was accomplished, the committee faded away, leaving concerns about policing, roads, street lights, water service, and taxes unresolved. At the April 1990 school board meeting, a trustee who had met with County Supervisor Harry Ovitt summarized Ovitt’s recommendation

112

Reimagining the Immigrant

for creating a local advisory committee. The board members presumed that they could form such a committee in the old ad hoc fashion by telephoning active community members or perhaps holding a town meeting to recruit volunteers. The superintendent voiced skepticism that an ad hoc committee was appropriate, but did not pursue the argument since the first step was to invite Supervisor Ovitt to a town meeting where he could explain his proposal in greater detail. The meeting was advertised over San Luis Obispo radio, by word of mouth, and by a hand-lettered sign on the bulletin board outside Shandon Store: SHANDON TOWN MEETING Tuesday May 29th at 7:30 pm At the HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY with SUPERVISOR OVITT To discuss the impacts of growth on SHANDON, Public safety, Community esthetics, Bicycle & Foot Paths, Community improvements, Buffer zones between Agricultural and Residential areas. The meeting was attended by roughly fifty local residents who, though diverse, were disproportionally elderly old-family residents and agriculturalists. The president of the school board convened the meeting and explained the board’s concern about development issues that had prompted this meeting because of their broader local relevance. He then turned it over to Supervisor Ovitt to give his proposal for a community advisory committee. Although the attendees voiced disagreement and frustration over individual issues, they agreed to follow Ovitt’s advice.10 A key feature proposed by Supervisor Ovitt was that the advisory committee be duly elected by those it represented and adopt legally viable bylaws to govern its procedures. By meeting these requirements, Ovitt argued, the committee could be formally recognized and sanctioned by the County Board of Supervisors as the official voice for the Shandon region. In other words, an ad hoc structure would not be possible if the committee was to have the inf luence with the County sought by local residents. A task force of volunteers and individuals recruited to ensure representation of various interests was formed to lay the groundwork for a permanent advisory committee. This group conformed to the old ad hoc pattern of collaborative leadership and diffuse decision-making. Its objective was to decide what territory would be represented by Shandon Advisory Committee, how representation would be constituted, draft

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

113

bylaws, obtain nominations, and hold an election. At this stage, the issues Shandon Advisory Committee would address were to be left aside. The task force was led by the school superintendent and initially included eleven others, though other local residents also attended their several meetings between June and September. Five of the original eleven were old guard landholders, one of whom was then a school board member and a second had been one in the 1950s–1960s. Three more were school district employees and a fourth was a retired teacher. Two were newcomers, and one was Mexican American. They included members of the Senior’s Club, Lions Club, PTO, Neighborhood Watch, and Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee. All three categories of Scott Brady’s leaders were represented. Although the school critics were represented, they were outnumbered by the school faction. The task force included town residents, people who lived on their ranches, and one person was recruited from the remote Bitterwater-Choice Valley area to ensure representation of that old eastern subregion. In the initial meetings of the task force, old guard landholders attempted to assert their dominance over newcomers by proposing that only property owners be allowed to vote in the Advisory Committee election (see chapter 3). This arose when several old guard residents who were not among the initial eleven volunteers expressed concerns about an Advisory Committee’s potential impact on private property rights through County environmental or development regulations and enforcement. A mixed majority of old guard and newcomer task force members eventually prevailed with the argument that the principle of “one man, one vote” must be retained so the County could officially recognize the Committee. Shandon Advisory Committee’s territory was set to coincide with the area within San Luis Obispo County served by Shandon Unified School District.11 Nine committee members and three alternates would be elected from this region at-large during an election set for October 1, 1990. Eighteen candidates ran for the twelve slots, including the school board member and superintendent who had initiated the process of forming the Committee, and six other task force members. Only three or four candidates were truly old-family large landholders, thus it was certain that these interests would not control the Committee. Scott Brady’s first category of old patriarchal leaders was not represented among the candidates, but his second and third categories were. Few of the candidates were recent newcomers or commuters. Only one was Mexican American; the rest were all Anglos. Seven women ran.

114

Reimagining the Immigrant

Besides the organizations and factions on the task force, the candidates included Volunteer Firemen and grape growers. The primary dynamic shaping the election and choice of candidates was the factionalism between “school interests” and their critics. During the task force’s final September meeting, other residents nominated several candidates to run against the school superintendent and board member, who their critics felt were trying to accrue too much authority. Before the election, 500 Shandon and Cholame post office boxes received the following f lyer marked “IMPORTANT ELECTION INFORMATION INSIDE!” prepared by critics of the school faction. SHANDON COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE ELECTION On Monday, October 1, 1990 an election will be held to determine which 12 of the following candidates will make up the Shandon Community Advisory Committee. Absentee ballots can be picked up at the High School or you may vote in person before 6:30 p.m. during the Back to School Potluck which begins at 5:30 p.m. on Monday. This committee will represent to the County Board of Supervisors what the Supervisors will assume to be the views and opinions of the community as a whole on such matters as crime, water and sewer treatment, and growth and development in the Shandon Community. Please realize that the resultant opinions ref lected by this committee will most likely act as a forerunner to incorporation of the Shandon Area. Although the School District has been kind enough to volunteer their facilities for this election, please understand that this is a COMMUNITY ELECTION and has nothing to do with the School District directly. This is your opportunity to help determine the future of your Community. Please consider this accordingly! This text was followed by a list of the eighteen candidate’s names, the date, time, and place of the election, and closed with, “YOU MUST BE A REGISTERED VOTER TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS ELECTION!” The person who prepared the f lyer told me it was mailed because “Not everyone goes to either the school or looks at the bulletin board outside the store, or even reads the Tribune.” She

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

115

felt that the superintendent and board member had biased voter turnout in their favor by limiting voter notification to these media and by holding it at the high school during a school event. “Two people want to run the show,” she said, so she prepared the f lyer to make sure there was a large turnout of “nonschool people” who might defeat these two candidates. Voting on October 1 was open to all registered voters residing within the San Luis Obispo County portion of Shandon Unified School District. Ballots were cast by 118 voters, of whom four were Mexican American and the remainder Anglo. Two of the Mexican American voters were naturalized citizens, and two were native-born. Most local immigrants were not yet eligible voters. One observer noted that the voter turnout was better than the previous state and national primary elections. Farm operators and their wives comprised roughly one-third of the voters, about double that of any other general occupational category. The election results pleased the school critic’s faction. Although three school staff members were elected to the Committee, the board member and superintendant were not (see table 5.1). The four other losing candidates were women: one tainted by a recent scandal, and the others too new to the area to be widely known. One of these was the Mexican American candidate, who came in sixteenth with forty-four votes.12 The following day at the cafe, people mostly kept their thoughts to themselves, even the several winning candidates present. Then school critic Sam Walters entered and loudly asked, “Is this where the celebration is?” Following hearty laughter, he then quipped that the Advisory Committee had nowhere to hold meetings as a result of the election, a joke implying that the high school could be made unavailable to the Committee out of spite. Table 5.1 Occupations of the candidates for the Shandon Advisory Committee and election results, October 1990 OCCUPATION commuter vineyard manager farmer-rancher school staff local nonfarm homemaker retiree (newcomer) retired cowboy

ELECTED

NOT ELECTED

1 2 2 3 2 1 — 1

2 — 1 1 1 — 1 —

116

Reimagining the Immigrant

Away from the cafe, voters said that they had “voted for new blood,” or did not vote for the two school candidates because they were “too involved in everything else.” One voter—a fence-sitter in the factional split—noted that “many people feel that [the two defeated candidates] were trying to run the whole show. I have no problem with that, because at least they do something where other people won’t.” Supporters of the defeated school faction candidates expressed concern that the people “who get things done” were not elected. One rhetorically asked me, “Who will do the work? Who do I contact if I want to bring something up?” The two losing candidates understood what had occurred, even characterizing it as the “predictable” result of fear “about the power aspirations” of the two men. One of them noted that a “slow moving constant coup” against authority was normal in a small town, and predicted that the election winners would probably experience similar criticism eventually. A major consequence of the election was its curtailing of the old guard large landholder control of local affairs. Not only were there few candidates who fit this description, but the top vote-getter among them placed no higher than eighth, which qualified for only a one-year term. The top three vote-getters were not even agriculturalists, though they were locally employed or retired, as were four other winners. The changing of the guard among the leading agriculturalists that had begun on the school board in 1978 continued, as the two vineyard managers received the most votes among the agriculturalists, one of whom was chosen subsequently to be the Advisory Committee’s first president. The other two agriculturalists elected belonged to a younger new generation from old farming and ranching families, so even here there was a transfer of leadership. In contrast to the feminization of the school board, only three women were elected to the Advisory Committee, but one of them was the top vote-getter with ninety-five votes cast in her favor. She was the daughter of a former ranch hand. The election demonstrated a shift away from leadership of the landed male in favor of more diverse representation, but commuter newcomers and farm workers were still underrepresented or unrepresented as voters or candidates.13 But the division between school and nonschool factions was the most decisive element in the election. Seven of the winners were indisputably nonschool on this leadership issue, including five of the top six vote-getters, and several others were fence-sitters in this factionalism. The newly constituted Shandon Advisory Committee included representatives from old guard families, grape growers, the Senior’s Club, Volunteer Firemen, and the school district. All but two members lived in town or nearby on Shandon Flat, and none were from the outlying

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

117

Cholame, Choice Valley, or Bitterwater areas. At its first meeting, held in the Senior’s clubhouse in the park, the Committee was sanctioned in the long-standing manner as an organization whose purpose was service to broad community interests. The dozen or so people in the audience were affiliated variously with the former Women’s Guild, the Lions Club, Boosters Club, PTO, Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee, Neighborhood Watch, and the defeated school faction. The Senior’s Club secretary had been elected to the Advisory Committee and stood to speak. Addressing the group in her role as Senior’s secretary, she offered the Advisory Committee the use of the clubhouse for its monthly meetings for a nominal donation of $10 or so in lieu of rent. Joining in this spirit, the Boosters Club leader made a $200 donation in the Boosters’ name, since the Advisory Committee itself had no funds. Both actions drew strong praise from everyone. In this manner, local organizations publicly acknowledged the Shandon Advisory Committee as their legitimate representative. In its first nine months, the Committee accomplished little beyond obtaining formal recognition from the County. Its meetings served as a forum for local residents to express concerns about County services and for County bureaucrats to answer questions and present ideas. The visiting bureaucrats explicitly and repeatedly deferred to the Committee as the legitimate voice of Shandon. They repeatedly sought direction from the Committee on options regarding such matters as water, lighting, and sewer service. However, Committee members proved unwilling to embark on any consequential action without emphatic local encouragement. Indeed, once residents had voiced their concerns and it was clear that the leaders were proceeding to obtain County recognition in an orderly fashion, the audience declined in each successive meeting. Members with little leadership experience were especially unwilling to act without an explicit community consensus. After particularly poor attendance at its May 1991 meeting, one member complained, “We need more of the community to come and speak out at meetings for the impact on County speakers and for us to know what they think!” Another observed that previous leaders were not coming to their aid: “Frances Smith, Jack Stott, and Gus Jacoby all told me, ‘We’ve tried advisory committees before and they haven’t worked.’ ” He also noted that those who had celebrated their election victory in the cafe were now their critics: “Sam Walters, for one, thinks there ought to be a whole new committee.” It took less than a year for the winners of the 1990 election to experience the criticism that was an enduring feature of leadership in the conduct of Shandon’s affairs. This first Advisory Committee was

118

Reimagining the Immigrant

willing to represent Shandon, but was not prepared to lead without sharing decision-making with residents in a manner more consistent with past collaborative and diffuse decision-making traditions. The Advisory Committee was not premised on those old practices, however. Subsequent elections promoted individuals to the Committee who were comfortable taking the initiative that the Committee structure facilitated, helping the Shandon Advisory Committee to endure and grow stronger as the official voice of the community. Conclusions The atrophy of the old social community of Shandon is written in the history of its institutions and their struggle to remain viable. The creation of Shandon Advisory Committee marked the most distinct break from the past, an abrupt shift to formal local authority. Shandon’s dramatic population changes were a part of this atrophy and transformation, but they did not bring about a complete overhaul of local affairs. Local affairs continued to use collaboration, diffuse decision-making, and ad hoc leadership between local organizations, even when newcomers were major actors, and even when the Advisory Committee was being created. Involvement in these changes was not uniform. Whereas small numbers of the new commuter residents trickled in to help transform preexisting institutions, immigrant farm working families lacked access to most of those organizations and had to create their own. Operating for a time almost invisibly to other residents, first the Spanish church and then the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee truly represented a distinct and marginalized social community. Only the school district was truly common ground, yet this created a crucial articulation between the two communities, and one that—because of the choices made by individuals at all levels—facilitated the growth of immigrants’ ties to the transformed old community with each passing year.

CH A P T E R

SI X

“We Want Our Town Back!”

Throughout my stay in Shandon, residents consistently told me that ethnic tensions had subsided noticeably from a high point in the early 1980s. There was evidence to support these claims in the county’s leading daily newspaper (Seager 1982). I began to wonder why immigrant/ native tensions had subsided, particularly as the school enrollments suggested that the total number and proportion of Mexican immigrants in the community had increased since then. Some theorists have suggested that demographic shifts of this kind should worsen ethnic relations, not coincide with their improvement. A clue to the answer came when many of the Mexican farm workers began telling me that they had been in the community longer than school records would indicate, far longer in many cases. Until the mid1980s most immigrants living in Shandon were adults, and most of these were men. They were transnational migrants (Massey et al. 1987; Kearney and Nagengast 1989; Rouse 1989; Palerm and Urquiola 1993; Basch et al. 1994) whose families, households, and budgets were spread between Shandon and their communities of origin in Mexico. Most importantly, the wives and children of those men who were married usually remained in Mexico, where the man, too, expected to return eventually. In Shandon, these transnational sojourners shared residences with one another, and sometimes with families of kin. Retired teacher Robert Crane identified “three stages to the Mexican presence” in Shandon that described quite well the developmental history of local immigrant settlement and important shifts perceived by many long-term residents by 1990, with the advantage of hindsight. The first stage was the 1960s: “When Hatch was here, contract farm workers were in the fields seasonally, but not in town, and came and

120

Reimagining the Immigrant

went daily. But there were a few men on some of the ranches here illegally, who went to pains not to be noticed by staying on the ranches and out of sight.” Vineyard development inaugurated the second stage: “After grapes came in there was an increase in single, especially male, farm workers in town and living here; an especially macho group which caused a lot of trouble. And drugs—there were some well-dressed men who never worked in the fields.” The third stage began during the 1980s: “During the ‘80s families have been replacing the single men residing here. There’s less trouble now.” What had transpired demographically during the 1980s, therefore, was not an increase in the number of immigrants in Shandon as the school records alone suggested, but rather a shift in the composition of the immigrant segment of the population. It had gone from a population of adult migrants—including those who lived locally year-round—to one of settled families. This demographic shift corresponded with the reduction in ethnic tensions that so many residents, both native and immigrant, had perceived and described. Since ethnic tensions were greater in the early 1980s, this raises the question: How was the greater ethnic tension of the recent past or its subsequent reduction related to prejudicial or discriminatory practices targeting the immigrants? There were relatively few opportunities in Shandon in which ethnic or racial discrimination can be practiced openly in any systematic fashion that also could be readily observed and documented. Shandon’s schools had never been segregated, so they tended to promote considerable integration and upward mobility among minority students. Citizenship was the only hurdle preventing substantial Mexican participation in voting, and some naturalized citizens did vote, as did many Mexican American residents. The majority of settled Mexican families were in the process of obtaining citizenship. Local organizations did not have restrictive membership clauses, but few had Mexican American members, largely because most were such newcomers. Commuter residents, the other major recent newcomer category, were also rarely found in local organizations. The agricultural workplace was structured ethnically, but once again, some upward mobility was possible and was attained, if only by a few. The one sector in which a fairly straightforward ethnic discrimination frequently occurred and could be observed and documented in Shandon was rental housing. Immigrants were resoundingly stereotyped as inferior prospective tenants. The issue was so important within Shandon that stereotypic traits associated with their role as tenants became crucial aspects of how established residents perceived

“We Want Our Town Back!”

121

immigrant culture and identity. This was a subject on which many Mexican Americans concurred with the stereotypes about immigrants that were even more common among Anglos. So despite sometimes experiencing some of this prejudice at least brief ly when first trying to rent or purchase housing, some Mexican Americans also participated in the prejudice and stereotyping directed toward immigrants in the rental housing market. Mexican Americans, however, succeeded at circumventing this prejudice more easily than did Mexican immigrants because of their familiarity with the language, rules, procedures, relationships, and manner of comportment that this market required. Their very Americanness, in other words, brought Mexican Americans success where Mexican immigrants met with failure due to prejudice. Housing Discrimination and the Importance of Community A small number of researchers working in rural areas of the United States have described a pattern of housing discrimination appearing where new patterns of demographic growth began in the 1970s. Fitchen (1981:96–100, 205; 1991) was among the first to note discriminatory practices in rural areas after encountering them in upstate New York in reaction to inf luxes of a variety of low-income earners and racial and ethnic minorities. Salamon and Tornatore (1994) identified a similar pattern in the Midwest, and also found that a rural old guard used housing restrictions or property ordinances when poorer, less educated newcomers occupied older housing in towns whose base was shifting from farming to a “post-agricultural” residential character. García (1994) encountered similar reactions in both rural Pennsylvania and California when the newcomers were poor Mexican farm workers employed in newer agricultural endeavors. Takash (1990:136–138) described racially based housing discrimination against Latinos in Watsonville, but also linked it to more generalized exclusion of “undesirables”: hippies, African Americans, and Mexican Americans. From her research in Santa Cruz County, California, where tourism and labor-intensive agriculture coexist, Zavella (1995) has observed that periodic calls to remove unsightly housing occupied by farm workers were justified by appeals to the local economic importance of tourism. Chavez (1998) documents the use of health codes to condemn substandard housing and push Mexican immigrants away from suburban areas. While not explicitly discriminatory, Santa Barbara’s no-growth

122

Reimagining the Immigrant

policies raised housing costs to a level that drove low-income Latinos to less expensive towns and cities, creating an “ethnic segmentation of nonmetropolitan cities whereby some become more Latino, and others less so” (Palerm 1989:148–149). In all but the last of these cases, the ethnic distinctiveness of the newcomers and their relative poverty were characteristics that rural old guard residents interpreted as threats to the overall “quality” or character of their communities. From the perspective of many established residents in Shandon and the other communities represented in these previous studies, newcomers perceived as “lesser quality” people posed this threat, and such people were identified readily by the poor care they show for property, especially houses and yards. But property, and the care accorded it, was not just the measure of a person. It also served as a weapon to be used to protect the community from degradation by limiting access or enforcing conformity. Although complaints about the lack of care property was given were often objectively made, such complaints easily became stereotypes used to characterize an entire category of newcomers, such as immigrant farm workers or commuter residents. The character of small town life that Americans cherish, according to Hummon (1990: 52–58), is its quiet, slow pace, friendly ambiance, neighborliness, the familiarity one has with other residents, personal relations, egalitarianism, community-wide concern for children, family orientation in both attitude and composition, greater safety relative to cities, and its superb environment for raising children. These characteristics describe some aspects of what the small town means to those who live in it. Housing discrimination provided the established residents with a tool to defend Shandon against what they perceived as a significant external threat to their town’s essential character and social role. It was also these meanings of community that were being defended by this means of housing discrimination. Shandon, like other small towns, has been an important social arena in which a person’s identity, standing, and self-worth were negotiated, established, and maintained (Hatch 1979). Persons and groups whose behavior did not measure up to local standards were deemed less respectable or of lesser quality in local idiom. In Shandon these have been from the ranks of farm workers, the indigent, Okies, Mexicans, and blacks. Because they were devalued in this manner, if their numbers grew rapidly they became threatening to the continuity of preexisting norms of behavior and the social hierarchy that the residents

“We Want Our Town Back!”

123

supported. Residents perceived the community’s identity as a ref lection of its socially and numerically dominant members. Shandon, a town of independent—and independent-minded—ranchers and farmers until change accelerated in the 1970s, had always properly been a “ranching town,” a “cattle town,” or a “farm town” in the eyes of longtime residents. They knew where they stood in the local social hierarchy and derived a proud and comforting collective identity from their association with this kind of place. With immigration and commuter settlement, Shandon risked becoming a “Mexican town” or a characterless suburbia. The once-familiar community risked becoming a strange and unknowable place to those most settled into and content with its social system, residents who in one way or another qualified as old guard. This threat to the character of Shandon was a threat to their own social standing and identity. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Shandon natives perceived the threat to come from virtually all Mexican immigrants. With the passage of time, a finer distinction began to emerge that focuses concern more specifically on households comprised solely, or primarily, of groups of men living without their families and others who cannot be identified as stable local residents. Immigrant families, who usually owed their presence in Shandon to the more secure employment of their household heads, were coming to be recognized as stable, responsible residents by the late 1980s. Increasingly, they were more likely to be tolerated as tenants and neighbors. For example, one old guard resident had been openly critical of immigrants for so long that he had a reputation for offering to “run ’em all out of town.” As the number of commuter residents grew by 1990 his criticism focused on commuters who did not improve or maintain their yards and homes. “They ought to live in condos,” he told one farmer. To the amazement of his listener, he then noted that some of the Mexican immigrants were better neighbors than the Anglo commuters. There was, in other words, a growing recognition by established residents of diversity among Mexican farm workers and their dependents. Both patterns had antecedents in the social patterns of mid-1960s Shandon. Blanket disapproval of ethnically distinct farm workers— Okies, Mexicans or Mexican Americans, and blacks—always centered on the poor appearance of their clothes, automobiles, and residences, all of which were associated with their low occupational and class status as farm workers. The belief that the distinctiveness of the least settled Anglo farm workers went beyond characteristics of class or poverty

124

Reimagining the Immigrant

to something more basic in their origins was carried in the designation of these people as Okies (Hatch 1979:129–130, 135; see also Gregory 1989): There is a certain type of person in [Shandon]. Perhaps they’re here for a couple of years and then move away, but might return several years later. Or maybe they stay here continuously but change jobs periodically. These people don’t care for their children. They’re like a bunch of rabbits—they don’t care what their children do, like at school, so long as it doesn’t put the parents out any. . . . Their children are usually filthy and run around all the time (Hatch 1979:130). The distancing of the middle class from these minorities was manifest in their social invisibility: Okies were not included in community social life and stayed too brief ly in Shandon to establish kin ties. They tended to reside in small, run-down houses on Shandon Alley, curiously out of the way despite being in the center of town (see figure 6.1). The distinctions emerging about different kinds of Mexican farm workers and households carried over from those that were made previously in contrasting “foreman type” and “Okie type” farm workers on the basis of respectability, stability, and responsibility (see chapter 3).

Figure 6.1 A small, dilapidated house in Shandon Alley rented to an immigrant farm working family.

“We Want Our Town Back!”

125

What I am arguing in this chapter, then, is that housing discrimination in Shandon by longtime residents or their agents was a screening process for preventing or undoing the settlement of persons and groups who were perceived as not measuring up to the old standard of respectability or quality. This standard was itself measured by visible signs of poverty, occupation, instability, irresponsibility, poor care of property, inappropriate social behaviors, and, at key points in the process, ethnicity or national origin. Dispute centered on distinguishing who was worthy of admission to Shandon as a potential community member and who was considered a threat to its character, existence, and standing in the region. Housing landlords became Shandon’s gatekeepers, but local organizations and even neighbors could fill this role by activating the bureaucratic forces of eviction and property condemnation. While I was in Shandon, anthropologists working in other parts of the United States began to report finding similar processes in both rural and urban areas where immigrants or other forms of newcomers were settling (see, e.g., Conquergood 1992; Horton 1992; Salamon and Tornatore 1994). As would appear to be the case in those other instances, ethnic tension associated with housing discrimination in Shandon was not primarily a result of direct ethnic competition for residential use of the same housing space, as sociologists have often argued (see, e.g., Olzak 1992). While scholars have long noted that tensions between immigrants and natives are often aggravated by an economic downturn, those tensions are said to result from economic competition between the two groups (see, e.g., Cornelius 1982). In Shandon such considerations were at best secondary to the importance of preserving a social order in which old guard residents were entirely invested. Because this socially driven ethnic conf lict is responsive to the threat perceived in rising numbers of newcomers, a demographic theory of discrimination has a place here. Many researchers have noted that the level of ethnic tension in economic and political arenas is affected by the size, composition, and visibility of a subordinate ethnic group. Leonard (1992:33), for example, observes that opinions about various ethnic groups in rural California and Arizona were “highly dependent on local demographic configurations.” Blalock (1967) argues that larger or rapidly growing subordinate ethnic populations are viewed as threatening by the dominant group, and therefore draw the stiffest and most discriminatory sanctions. He found that high visibility and weak conformity to local norms drew a discriminatory reaction. If we approach housing discrimination as a social process that excludes those perceived as a threat to the quality of local life, we can anticipate that

126

Reimagining the Immigrant

housing discrimination may alter local demography and then opinions regarding newcomers, adding an important temporal dimension to the quality of local immigrant/native relations. These explanations apply well to Shandon.1 Three Small Houses The quality of immigrant/native relations in Shandon deteriorated at the close of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. At that time, grain and cattle were prospering, although cattle production had begun to decline, and alfalfa was recovering nicely from its first decline. Local vineyard acreage was expanding for the second time, requiring additional farm workers (see chapter 2). The ranches on which immigrant farm workers were employed no longer had enough housing for their growing numbers, so many were compelled to move into town. Most Anglo farm workers had already left Shandon, but the number of Mexican immigrants—and particularly those living in group rather than in family households—was increasing rapidly. The growth rate, household composition, visibility, and behavior of these immigrants were the factors stimulating tensions with established residents. With rising numbers, there was less need or possibility for immigrant farm workers to remain socially invisible to other residents. In 1978 and 1979 the adult members of two large extended families arrived in town to work in one of the new local vineyards where a relative of one family held a foreman’s position. At first, some of them stayed in the garage of an old ranch house at the vineyard, without heat, hot water, or a bathroom. Soon, the two groups of siblings, some with spouses, became acquainted with a local ranch owner who rented several small, old houses to them. The owner described the houses to me not so much as proper houses but as “shacks.” Josefina Castillo, one of the new immigrant tenants, remembered the houses this way: There were three houses. The houses were all right. The most that can be said about them is that they were very old. Various things didn’t work. The bathroom plugged up. But, it wasn’t dirty. . . . There was one in front of the post office, one in the middle, and one here in front of the library, which is where I lived. The house in front of the post office had only one room, nothing more. And like ten or twelve people lived there in that room. Men and women. They were relatives, brothers and cousins. [The

“We Want Our Town Back!”

127

owner] knew, she couldn’t fit them all in. I tell you, [the owner] wasn’t concerned about the money. . . . The house in Shandon where I lived had three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. There were five rooms in all. Living with my husband and I were my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and a brother-in-law, and my children during vacations. And my father-in-law came for two months and then left. So did one of my brothers-in-law. My brother-in-law and other people, relatives, lived there [when the houses were torn down]. Additional family members arrived in 1981 and 1982, and the households also sheltered those who were there only seasonally. As luck would have it, the houses stood in the very center of Shandon, directly across the street from the post office and store where nearly every local resident ventured daily to pick up their mail, chat, and perhaps purchase something at the store. The store had long been an important place where local women, especially, socialized. The post office and a bench between the store and post office served a similar role for the older men of the community. Local leaders had used conversation at these three sites throughout Shandon’s history to monitor local opinion and manage local affairs. The traditional social role of these places was irrevocably altered by the presence of the numerous, unassimilated newcomers in such close proximity. Tensions mounted with established residents as the now highly visible immigrants—mostly single men—engaged in behavior that offended and angered the natives. The established residents complained of loud Mexican music blaring from the three homes facing the store and post office, and of trash accumulating in the yards. Men used a hose in the yard to bathe, urinated in the alley next to the store, and drove recklessly in the center of town. After work hours, some drank alcohol publicly and were visibly intoxicated at times. They were unaware of the sharp, historically entrenched, opposition to drinking held by many Shandon residents (see Hatch 1979). How often these kinds of events occurred is hard to say, but there are enough witnesses to be sure that they did occur. Emboldened by their numbers or perhaps by drink, and with little else to occupy their time after work hours, men would sometimes stand around and whistle at women or teenage girls who came to the store. When one immigrant made the mistake of touching the wife and daughter of a local grower, the grower returned with a shotgun and made a citizen’s arrest. There was also at least one attempted rape of an

128

Reimagining the Immigrant

Anglo woman by immigrant men. At some point in the early 1980s, many native Shandon residents ceased sending their wives and older daughters to the store due to the sexual harassment they anticipated receiving from immigrant men. Immigrant parents did the same for precisely the same reason, although the natives generally were unaware of this. In September 1982, two Mexican men in a car allegedly were chased by two Anglo men with shotguns for having “run over one man’s foot.” The Mexican men were injured when their car crashed into a house as they attempted to f lee from the two Anglos. Police and Highway Patrolmen cordoned off the town for two hours, but many Anglo residents downplayed the incident at the time (Seager 1982). By 1990, either few people remembered this specific event, or, according to one resident, Anglo residents were “too embarrassed by it” to discuss it with me. Few Anglos appeared to have been aware of it, but some of the original Mexican tenants moved out of the three houses as alternatives became available, complaining of the noise, drinking, and trouble brought on by the crowding and poor behavior of other tenants. Those who relocated moved to other old houses in Shandon, or to a group of trailers established in an almond orchard a mile or two from town. The three houses deteriorated considerably due to the heavy use of over-occupancy combined with their advanced age. Drains clogged up a faucet would break, and holes appeared in the f loors. The owner told me she was so busy maintaining the buildings that she could no longer participate in the Senior’s Club. In 1981 a campaign was begun to have the three houses condemned, their tenants evicted, and the buildings demolished. It was initiated by a member of the Women’s Guild, an organization with an established record of inf luence with the county government, that was teetering on the brink of extinction at that time (see chapter 5). The few remaining Guild members took up the issue and circulated a petition to have the houses condemned. Potential health code violations were pointed out by members taking part in the campaign. “Next to the toilet you could see the ground through the f loorboards,” recounted one participant. Indeed, a septic problem occurred and wastewater ran out on the ground. Another said of the three houses simply, “They were awful!” The campaign failed in its first year. But after a photo of the houses was placed in the Paso Robles newspaper at the suggestion of a realty agent, the County took action and condemned the buildings in late 1982 or 1983. The owner hired a neighbor to demolish them with a bulldozer

“We Want Our Town Back!”

129

and a large chain. Most of the tenants moved to Paso Robles. The land once occupied by these houses remained vacant in 1990. Making the Image of the Mexican Tenant Established residents’ perceptions of Mexican immigrants were colored by this unfortunate experience of them as tenants and neighbors. These events and others like it favored stereotyping of all immigrants collectively as inferior tenants and neighbors, and undesirable additions to the community. A few voiced the opinion that only a subset of immigrants were to blame for these problems. This subset was described either as groups of single men or a particularly poor quality of Mexican immigrant alleged to have appeared in the early 1980s. The regional daily newspaper, the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, sent reporter S. E. Seager to Shandon in September 1982 to investigate the town’s simmering ethnic crisis. One young woman told Seager (1982) that there had always been “wetbacks,” who caused no trouble, but now they no longer respected the law. This negative view of immigrants persisted throughout the early 1980s, aided by the fact that very few immigrants were known as individuals by anyone other than their employers. Those who saw immigrants collectively as the source of trouble often made global generalizations, such as “Mexicans have this thing about trash,” or “Mexicans destroy everything.” When I inquired about the differences between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, such people almost always responded after a pause with, “I don’t know, they all look alike to me.” A common rationalization used to defend substandard housing for immigrants, or to contest local immigrant residence altogether, was that immigrants liked these living conditions because they were better than what they had in Mexico. Regarding overcrowding, old guard resident Dorothy Jenkins stated, “That’s the way they live in Mexico, you know: ‘Y’all come and y’all sleep.’ ” Ranch foreman Richard Nava recounted his visit to the homes of two Shandon vineyard workers in a remote mountain village in Sonora, Mexico. “They had no windows or doors, no running water. There were pigs in the street and they had these skinny cows! One house had a bar in the front room and another had a store. Another one had a tortilla factory!” Nava’s depiction was one of a handful of eyewitness accounts that others took as proof of the accuracy of their stereotype about housing in Mexico. One man who had heard Nava’s account remembered, “They had dirt f loors!,” assuming that this revealed the type of housing

130

Reimagining the Immigrant

that Mexican immigrants preferred to have in Shandon. A handful of property managers and real estate agents living outside Shandon, but sharing these views, had a disproportionate impact on the ability of immigrants to find local housing. Helen Murray, the wife of a former irrigation farmer who f led Shandon before conditions improved in the late 1980s, asserted that Shandon was no longer a good place to raise a family, and that Shandon’s unity had disappeared. When she and her husband Frank moved to Shandon in the 1960s, they were one of a number of local irrigation farmers. Grain and hay farmers typically had a “loyal” hired man living on the ranch. School activities kept the Murray’s involved in local affairs and created social ties and a sense of community. Helen used to ride horses to the school to pick up her kids and go riding in the hills with a prominent rancher. But as the vineyards were planted, many fellow farmers and farm hands were displaced. In the late 1970s a “different type” of Mexican farm worker appeared in their place who had little regard for local norms. Frank described how Shandon store was transformed at this time: “Over the years the store increasingly came to cater to Mexican clientele with the products they carried. We stopped shopping there when it became a Mexican-oriented store and I assume that the other whites all started shopping in Paso Robles, too.” From the Murray’s perspective, the town had come to contain separate American and immigrant communities, and the immigrants made it an unsafe place, especially for girls. Helen cited poorer attendance at school sporting events as emblematic of Shandon’s loss of unity. Concern for the safety of women and girls reached a fever pitch in the early 1980s. The Telegram-Tribune recorded local residents complaining about immigrant men trying to “grab the white women,” residents threatening to take the law into their own hands, and the fears of a woman who found it hard to forget the recent rape committed by two immigrants, so she kept a shotgun beside her bed and claimed, “I’m not afraid to use it” (Seager 1982). Virtually every senior, long-term local resident described Shandon in the late 1970s and early 1980s as having become a “Taco Town,” a “Little Tijuana,” or as a place the immigrants had “invaded” or “taken over.” And they deeply resented this turn of events. Retired ranch wife Myrtle Hastings summarized this feeling. Mexicans have taken over the bench between the store and the post office and run off everyone else who used to use it. It was put there years ago by the Women’s Guild for people to use when they were waiting for the bus. After the bus service stopped, that’s

“We Want Our Town Back!”

131

where the men of the town would sit and talk, about us women probably. A friend of mine doesn’t like to go there [to the bench and store] anymore when Mexican men are around because they always leer at the women and talk about them. My friend says this “makes her feel like beefsteak.” Shandon has never had an invasion comparable to the Mexicans. Margaret Sherman concurred: “You know, we can’t go into the store during the summertime, because it is so full of Mexicans that just look you up and down, that you just wonder if you have any clothes on, you know.” From the perspective of longtime residents like Myrtle and Margaret, the changes in Shandon were so great that it could no longer be described as a “cow town” of ranchers and cowboys, or a town of independent farmers. “We want our town back the way it used to be!” declared one retired old guard rancher descended from some of Shandon’s original homesteaders. This sentiment was nearly universal among established residents, and the elderly old guard in particular. For those who reacted this way, this meant that immigrants had to be either excluded or integrated under the old rules of behavior. But integration was viewed as improbable by most of the established residents, because Mexican immigrants were viewed as reluctant to Americanize. Their commitment to life in America was questioned and doubted. It was felt that most intended to return to Mexico, and that those who did remain here would not adopt local customs. These feelings were strongest in the early 1980s. Telegram-Tribune reporter S. E. Seager (1982) noted that many Shandon residents hoped that the U.S. Immigration Service would “sweep” the town. One woman complained about “all these illegal aliens collecting welfare. They don’t have to do nothing. Not even learn how to speak English.” A ranch foreman, who was asked what he thought might be done to improve social conditions in Shandon, vacillated before suggesting a resident sheriff and housing the workers outside of town on the ranches where they were employed. One relatively self-critical old-timer told me, “We should put ourselves out a little bit more to make them welcome and try to integrate them into the community, probably.” But when I asked her how she might go about doing that, she responded, “I don’t know!” In truth, Shandon residents had not had great success finding the will to integrate Mexican newcomers, especially in the early 1980s. At the height of local ethnic tensions, one thirty-year resident told reporter Seager, “I try to have a Christian attitude about all this. . . . I don’t want to be one of those people who say all Mexicans are bad just because one of

132

Reimagining the Immigrant

them hit our fence or crashed into that house. But this wild driving scares us all” (Seager 1982). This sense of a community lost due to Mexican encroachment, felt by many old guard residents, shaded away into a more discerning perception of immigrants, especially among other segments of the local population. For these others, the entire immigrant group was not to blame for the local problems. A member of the organization that campaigned to condemn the three houses in the center of town described the occupants as a “lesser quality of Mexican” who hadn’t maintained the residences. They were, she observed, principally single men living together, and went on to contrast them with an immigrant family she knew and respected that had also been in Shandon since the 1970s. These views were more common among recent settlers in the community, including many commuters and vineyard managers. Some of these residents drew a distinction between earlier arrivals and their descendants and recent immigrants to differentiate among acceptable and unacceptable Mexicans. One vocal critic complained of the problems of trash blowing in from a neighboring Mexican yard, of drunken men living in a group household harassing his teenage daughter in years past, and of signs in Spanish in the post office. Yet he and his wife expressed their unqualified love for their son-in-law and his mother, who was herself a Mexican immigrant. They eagerly anticipated the birth of their grandchildren. Placing any qualifications on their love for these “family members” because they, too, were Mexicans was unthinkable to them. Indeed, most adults whose children had grown up with immigrant playmates in school easily distinguished these known and “good” families from the lesser known ones, and especially from the predominantly male group households. The former were counted as “members of the community;” the latter were not, and were viewed as the source of problems. As a result, the timing of when their children attended school and who their schoolmates were often determined which families they knew and accepted. Typically, these were families that had settled during the 1970s, if not earlier, and whose children were more acculturated and integrated. They were referred to as “Americanized” or “our” Mexicans, Mexican Americans, or even as “my people” when from the same town or village (Parkfield, in this case), and were contrasted with “wetbacks,” “Mexican Mexicans,” or “migrants.” Thus, although immigrants had been collectively demonized as inferior tenants and neighbors, if an individual family was able to remain in Shandon long enough to establish a reputation as responsible workers,

“We Want Our Town Back!”

133

tenants, and family, then they usually obtained the references needed to procure and retain housing in town. All of the factors inf luencing this process selectively favored accepting family households and driving away group households: favoring a man (usually) building a reputation as a responsible worker and then getting a more permanent job that enabled his family to join him, to becoming known to established residents by enrolling children in school. Over time, therefore, recognition of the variability among immigrant residents grew among established residents. The emerging distinction between different “types” of Mexicans had its roots in the old dichotomy between respectable “foreman type” farm workers and undesirable “Okie type” farm workers. By 1990, long-outspoken critics of local immigrant settlement could be heard comparing some of these respectable Mexicans favorably to newcomer Anglo commuter residents, merely because of the greater care some of these immigrant families gave to their yards and homes. They did not even know these immigrants personally, yet had judged them to be preferable to some Anglos. New Homes, Old Homes, and Trailers As the 1980s wore on, the suburban housing development that had begun quietly in 1979 began to gain momentum and to further inf luence the housing problem. Rising residential property values added an economic incentive to local housing discrimination. The construction of new homes selling for more than $100,000 did not alleviate the pressing needs of the farm workers for more housing, because they could not afford the new homes. The commuters settling in Shandon showed little interest in acquiring the oldest homes, which were all that the immigrants could afford, and few old homes were replaced by new ones. Thus, there was little direct competition for housing between the Mexican farm workers and the incoming commuters. But in some instances these new economic conditions did drive away more immigrants. A few farm workers were forced out because their rents were raised. One man working at a local vineyard and living with his wife and children in a small cottage behind a house in Shandon had his rent raised twice in two months, finally to a level he could not afford. The family moved to Paso Robles, and the man then had to commute to work in Shandon. An Anglo tenant replaced his family at the cottage. An Anglo man who had recently retired and settled in

134

Reimagining the Immigrant

Shandon bought property adjacent to his home to sell off at a profit as property values continued to rise. Across the street stood a dilapidated old house in which the majority of tenants were adult male farm workers. The retired property owner across the street believed the presence of the run down and overcrowded building held down the value of the property he hoped to sell. After continued complaints to the County Health Department, the offending building was condemned in early 1990, the immigrant tenants were evicted, and the building was demolished. When he described his actions to a group of longtime local residents, he was uniformly congratulated for what he had accomplished. About the same time, Bill and Margaret Sherman, an old guard family, evicted their Mexican tenants from two old homes they owned. In one, the tenants had concealed the fact that they were sheltering additional residents. These additional residents caused damage, which worsened because the Sherman’s were slow to make repairs. The primary tenants were held accountable, of course. The other house was the subject of a drug raid. The tenants, it turned out, were no longer those the Sherman’s had originally rented the house to. Bill Sherman decided they would no longer rent to any immigrant tenants. The first house, which was both larger and in better condition, was sold to a local Anglo contractor who restored it. The principle former tenants cast off their less reliable coresidents and were lucky enough to find another old home to rent in Shandon. Several years later they purchased an old home for themselves in Shandon. All the other tenants from the two houses left the Shandon region. The second house was repaired by the Shermans and again put up for lease, but only immigrants expressed interest in the small building. One family, the Alonsos, invested weeks of effort to persuade the Shermans to lease the house to them. “They really didn’t want to rent to Mexicans,” Hermina Alonso recounted. Margaret Sherman frankly admitted this to me, and she did so to illustrate to me how the image of all immigrants easily but unfairly could be inf luenced by the behavior of a few. Margaret’s remarks ref lect how the Sherman’s perspective on immigrant ethnicity was changed through direct experience, and illustrate her and her husband’s self-criticism of their own past feelings. Oh yeah, there was no way we would rent to Mexicans. This poor lady [Hermina Alonso], apparently they were living at a place on the ranch, and they were going to tear the house down and build

“We Want Our Town Back!”

135

an office or something. And they just had to get out. And she just kept coming back and coming back, and coming back, and saying, “Oh, but I’m clean, Mr. Sherman, I’m clean! I’m clean!” But she is. She is clean! But, it was the first time Bill ever . . . but he had had it with Mexicans up to here. He just was not gonna rent to a Mexican. And, we’re glad that we did [rent to the Alonso’s]. We’ll be gladder if they buy the property. One vineyard manager thought he had closed a lease on a house in town for a group of his workers, but when the owners learned that it was a group of immigrant farm workers who would become the tenants, they found a way to back out of the deal. These men ultimately obtained housing in Avenal, over forty miles by car from their daily place of work. Groups of men increasingly were pushed out of Shandon to Avenal, where more old houses were available and immigrants had a stronger foothold. Persevering families like the Alonsos could still find local housing in 1990. But this required lucky timing—an affordable house had to be on the market—and either considerable persistence with a landlord or the intervention of established resident friends as references. Enrique Mondragon lost both his job and his employer-provided trailer home for his family of five in a dispute with his employer. A skilled vineyard tractor driver, Enrique was justifiably unconcerned about finding new employment, for this he accomplished in less than a week. But the task of finding a new home in such an unfriendly setting was both daunting and traumatic for the family. His wife and children were brought to tears first by the fear of not knowing if they could find a home, then by the frustration caused by encountering prejudiced landlords. They were turned down at both the available locations in Shandon because they were immigrants. But they were persistent with the owner of a small, very old house. The owner refused to rent to them, claiming that their teenage daughters would bring men into the house to stay with them, so the house would soon become overcrowded. Enrique sought out two persons to intervene on his behalf: a local bilingual Mexican American who often assisted local farm workers in a number of matters, and Robert Coe, an out of town landowner from an old local family who had once rented him a trailer to live in. Both individuals provided references for the family, which overcame the landlord’s reservations. Coe even accused the home owner of anti-Mexican prejudice to pressure him into renting to the Mondragon family. The family proved to be exemplary tenants,

136

Reimagining the Immigrant

and in less than a year old guard residents living nearby were admiring the care the family had shown for the yard and house. By 1990 most of the severely overcrowded households in town had been eliminated either by demolition or by replacing group tenants with a family. Conditions most comparable to those of the three old houses in the center of Shandon from 1978 to 1982 were found in a collection of five trailers several miles outside of town. The trailers owed their existence to the general shortage of housing farm workers could afford, aggravated as it was by the practice of discrimination. The County had concluded that the trailers constituted an illegal trailer park on agriculturally zoned land. They fined Harold Schneider, the owner, who was a member of a longtime grain farming family. Harold Schneider refused to evict his tenants, insisting that he was acting in a humanitarian fashion and that the real culprits were the local vineyard operators, who would not provide sufficient housing for their workers and so thereby fueled a climate of “racism” directed against immigrant farm workers in north county. Schneider was perceived by the tenants and other local immigrants as a savior. In fact, he received several requests every month from immigrant farm workers to add more trailers to the cluster. To the vineyard operators, Schneider was another example of the “hypocrisy” of the older families who either excluded the immigrants entirely, or rented substandard and overcrowded housing to them while blaming the vineyards for the housing problem. The trailers were substandard. Two families shared a single trailer, and all five were overcrowded. The trailers housed more than thirty people, though how many more is unclear. The smallest was merely a travel trailer, with five men calling it home. There were health code violations: missing screens, inadequate sanitation, exposed electrical wires, chicken coops nearby, and so on. Schneider attempted to correct these, but could not keep pace with the emergence of new problems. A feud simmered between two extended families, occasionally resulting in violence.2 Warned repeatedly by a couple in town who were concerned with the overcrowding and feuding, and fined for several years by the County, Schneider refused to evict any of the tenants, even after warning the troublemakers that he might do so. Not until the feud ended in the shooting deaths of two farm workers in 1994 did the County finally close the trailers down. All of Shandon knew about “the trailers,” and many residents were aware of the occasional trouble there. Locals who could identify none of the trailers’ residents simply assumed they were all “lowlife,” because of the trailers’ unsightly condition and the repeated need for

“We Want Our Town Back!”

137

the sheriff to respond to the feud. But few complained, because the trailers were out of sight and out of the daily lives of most Shandon residents. They were, in fact, precisely what many local residents had hoped to achieve through housing discrimination: the removal of “the problem” to someplace else, making the immigrants invisible again. The immigrants of Shandon, local vineyard managers, and personnel at the schools who were faced with the problems generated by the long-running feud between the trailers’ residents were the only local residents who regularly expressed concern about the condition and overcrowding of the trailers or the associated conf licts. The Position of the Grape Growers The grape growers’ opinions about the trailers ref lected their unique position among Shandon’s Anglo residents in regard to immigrant workers and the housing problem. In earlier chapters I noted that the recent prosperity of grape growing relative to grain, cattle, and hay had not only elevated the standing of grape growers in some ways but had also made them the targets of some criticism. Other researchers have noted that employers who depended heavily on a minority labor force were often targets of criticism from within their own ethnic group, although this is theorized as occurring mainly when the minority competes economically with the majority (see, e.g., Blalock 1982:56).3 There was no such job competition between established resident and immigrant workers in Shandon, but the desire to exclude from Shandon those who were deemed low quality residents made the issue of housing for farm workers one of the focal points of criticism directed at grape growers. Old guard residents tended to blame vineyard managers for bringing immigrant farm workers to the region in the first place, but they were even more likely to blame them for not housing their workers out of town and out of daily sight on the ranches. This criticism was very explicit in the early 1980s. Seager (1982) found that some longtime residents blamed the vineyards planted in the 1970s for attracting “unruly” immigrants. Vineyard managers, in turn, were prone to blaming the old guard either for excluding the immigrants from residence in town or for providing only overcrowded and substandard housing. In fact, a few grape growers invested in local housing on a small scale in the late 1970s and early 1980s as they prospered and others sold off their excess housing. They did rent to immigrant workers, and in one case

138

Reimagining the Immigrant

ultimately sold a house to an immigrant farm worker and his family. These growers had similar experiences with group households as other landlords, and some of these homes were also demolished. Most of the local grape men criticized even their fellow grape growers who provided substandard housing to the farm workers, at the very least for the simple reason that it brought bad publicity to their industry. Simultaneously, most of the vineyard managers sympathized with old guard residents about the strains that immigration and other changes had brought to Shandon. Nevertheless, grape growers collectively remained enormously defensive on the issue of farm worker housing, because they felt so much pressure to accept responsibility. Why must they pay the cost for discriminatory practices of others, several asked me rhetorically. In private, some grape growers and their critics voiced their strongest criticism of one another over this very issue, sometimes impugning the basest of motives and most grievous f laws of character in one another. With no resolution to this disagreement within sight in the early 1990s, immigrant workers in Shandon and their dependents could not hope for rapid improvement in the local housing situation. The Position of Shandon in County Housing Politics By 1990, Shandon had acquired a blemished reputation with members of the County government as the source of a disproportionate number of complaints about substandard housing. The County paid a private firm to conduct a needs assessment for farm worker housing in the county at this time, and Shandon received attention in their report that may have reinforced this impression.4 Some members of the County government held an image of the housing and immigrant/native relations problems that conf licted with my findings in Shandon. In this image, settled farm working families were said to have a “shirttail effect,” meaning that they drew seasonal workers—and the ethnic tensions associated with them—to the towns where they settled because they could provide shelter for the seasonal workers. Settled families did often shelter some seasonal workers, mostly kin from Mexico. But these were clearly not the conditions that lead to the greatest tensions. Those conditions predated these events and were substantially reduced by the shift to settled families in Shandon. Advocacy for farm worker housing in the county consisted largely of efforts to convince the grape growers to provide housing for their

“We Want Our Town Back!”

139

workers. Advocates tended to hold growers responsible for the shortage of farm worker housing, though they did not always express this openly to the growers. Various growers’ critics found justification for their views in f lagrant cases of misconduct by individual growers that arise periodically, such as the Delictum Vineyards scandal described in chapter 8. When housing advocates in the county blamed growers for the housing problem, they overlooked the equal relevance of housing discrimination against immigrant farm workers by established residents. From the grape grower’s perspective, these advocates appeared to be taking the side of their local old guard critics, so the growers tuned them out. Families Valued The combination of insufficient affordable housing and housing discrimination in Shandon did not halt the growth of the local immigrant population, but it did constrain and configure it so that growth favored permanently resident families over groups of single and seasonal workers. I noted in chapter 2 that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 accelerated the pattern of family settlement by making it easier for wives and children to join husbands and fathers who already lived in the area. In this manner, some of the same “single” males so opposed by the community were transformed virtually overnight by the law into the potentially more acceptable heads of settled families. Even though established residents were rarely aware of these specifics, they did note a more favorable atmosphere emerging in Shandon. A few clearly understood why it had come about. As one longtime ranch and vineyard foreman observed in 1991, “There are more families now among the Mexicans than there were in the early 1980s. When single men were common, there were more problems.” The vineyard managers concurred. “Things are much better now,” or “Things have really settled down,” were common pronouncements from these men, from the longer-term immigrant residents, and from a variety of other residents. Indeed, in 1989 all of the local vineyard operators could claim quite accurately that a majority of their workers—and seasonal workers in particular—lived elsewhere. For most, elsewhere meant Paso Robles or Avenal, but some came from as far away as Coalinga, Lost Hills, and Bakersfield, as much as ninety miles to the east. At least two-thirds of the region’s vineyard workers lived outside the Shandon region in these and other towns and cities. For the vineyard operators, drawing

140

Reimagining the Immigrant

attention to the fact that so many of their workers lived outside the local area proved to be an effective way to defuse criticism from old guard residents. Some rationalized residence for farm workers in these other places as a logical strategy, as in the statement by one vineyard manager: “These people are logical. Most of them live in Avenal and that way they can come here or go to the [San Joaquin] Valley in season.” Of course, this argument conveniently glossed over the history of local housing discrimination. The immigrant workers who remained in Shandon were principally crew foremen, irrigators, tractor drivers, new labor contractors, and other more permanent workers in the vineyards and ranches of the region. Not all such permanent workers had obtained local housing, however. Nevertheless, the contrast with the residential locations for peak seasonal migrant workers was stark. The responsibility for housing the vast majority of the peak seasonal workforce had transferred largely to Paso Robles and Avenal. Thus, those workers remaining in Shandon had the qualities of the old “foreman type” farm workers and, thus, a degree of respectability denied to seasonally migrant workers. These settled workers and their families were not perceived as the same threat to the community that seasonal workers were. With families of settled workers becoming the clear majority of immigrant households in Shandon, many long-established residents’ fears that Shandon was becoming a “Mexican town” like Avenal were substantially relieved. The two strongest associations Shandon residents made with Avenal were its state prison and its immigrant farm workers. This associated Avenal with two categories of undesirable people. Many Shandon residents claimed that Avenal prison attracted the families of inmates who lived in old houses and subsisted on welfare payments. This articulated with a perception that these “welfare families” were overf lowing from Avenal to Shandon, creating a burden on local schools and threatening Shandon’s quality of life. The prison had been anticipated to create a commuter f low as its workers were expected to live away from Avenal in places such as Shandon. Although the vast majority of prison staff did commute over seventy-five miles to work, few lived in Shandon. As for its immigrant residents, “Avenal has lots of old, cheaper houses [that groups of ] Mexicans can rent,” said one Shandon grower. It was also viewed as a relatively lawless town compared to Shandon. One Shandon resident noted that groups of Mexican farm workers “can live there without being bothered by the police and such. The town is very Mexican.” So, many Shandon residents were aware that they had

“We Want Our Town Back!”

141

transferred the housing problem they had faced in the late 1970s and early 1980s to other places, and to Avenal in particular. In 1990 and 1991, as local concern rose about the pace of suburban development and the poor care some of the commuter residents took of their yards, some of those who had long been critical of immigrant tenancy began to notice that some of the best maintained older houses in Shandon were occupied by immigrant farm working families. One of those cited was rented by Enrique Mondragon and his family after they had been forced to move out of their employer-provided trailer. Their small, weather-beaten, 1940s house was constantly and neatly maintained by the Mondragons themselves. Its small front lawn was green and neatly trimmed, and Señora Mondragon had planted a bed of f lowers. The yard was always free of trash, loud music never blared from the house, and on hot summer evenings the family could be seen gathered in the shade of the front porch for dinner, from where they greeted passersby. Another was the home owned by Lorenzo Obregón, a former resident of the long-since demolished three small houses in the center of town. In spring of 1991 Lorenzo could be seen giving the exterior of his house a fresh coat of paint. A third was the Alonsos, who had successfully persuaded the Sherman’s to rent to them. Margaret Sherman said of the Alonsos, They’re family people. . . . The first week they moved in, she put in miniblinds on the windows, and they keep up the yard and that sort of thing. And I think they may buy the place. We’re very interested in selling, and they seem to be interested in buying. And its within their reach financially, because its a little house. . . . Real nice, nice people. Those who cited these examples often did not know the individuals living in these houses, or their particular histories. All they knew or cared about was that immigrant families occupying these homes showed more concern for the overall appearance of the town than did some Anglo residents of more expensive houses. That made these immigrant farm workers more desirable community members than the new Anglo commuters who showed less care for their homes and yards. This opinion was being voiced quietly in the early 1990s, for widely divergent and emotionally charged beliefs were known to be held by friends and neighbors, and it was still a relatively new idea. Established resident Anglos still warned or teased one another that Mexicans would be moving in next door. Yet this soon revealed the emerging divisions

142

Reimagining the Immigrant

among Anglos, when one responded, “Good!” after receiving such a warning. “Maybe they’ll take care of the place,” he added, to the astonishment of his would-be tormenter. In fact, rising criticism of the residents of the new homes caused one vineyard manager to comment wryly, “The people of Shandon are hypocrites for not wanting the town to become a ‘Mexican town.’ If they don’t allow new housing to come in, that’s exactly what it will become.” In one disturbing sense, and from a decidedly narrow point of view, housing discrimination appeared to work. It was due in part to this discrimination that local ethnic tensions had declined, at least in the short run. As Williams (1947:60) and Blalock (1967) predict, this is what happens when the undesired subordinate group has been dispersed to other communities. Of course, applied to this case, that captures a Shandon-centered and native-centered perspective. It does not take into account the feelings of those driven from the community, those of the immigrants who remained in Shandon, nor those of residents in places receiving those driven from Shandon. The experience of housing discrimination engendered a subtle but lasting resentment among local immigrants, even among those who ultimately were being accepted as stable, respectable, and responsible community members. Josefina Castillo, after more than ten years in Shandon spent moving from garage to shack to trailer before finally obtaining a fairly comfortable apartment, bitterly counted only a few norteamericanos who had assisted local immigrants in need of housing when it was not financially rewarding for them to do so. Summarizing the experience of nearly every immigrant in Shandon, she said, “Most of the time, Americans won’t rent houses to Mexicans.” And there was ill will toward Shandon from neighboring towns and cities. In 1990 a government official in Paso Robles stated that the city resented receiving the Mexican farm workers from neighboring rural towns and intended to find a way to get rid of them. The most important result for Shandon, however, was that housing discrimination was a process through which the community’s gatekeepers—at first its old guard families but subsequently a more diverse group—successfully selected for the characteristics they favored for persons they would consider “members of the community.” In effect, it was not Mexicans per se who constituted Williams’ and Blalock’s undesired subordinate group that needed dispersal to achieve a more harmonious local setting. Local focus on the category Mexican delayed recognizing that the characteristics they disliked among immigrants were associated with only a subset of immigrant farm workers.

“We Want Our Town Back!”

143

Housing discrimination facilitated this gatekeeping process of sorting without requiring established residents to integrate immigrant adults significantly into their social life. The natives noticed the reduction in ethnic tensions without necessarily grasping that it occurred because the remaining immigrant families shared in common with them elements of the old guard’s standards of behavior. Until the late 1980s, few native residents considered it likely that any immigrant farm workers could meet the standards of a “foreman type” worker, but as the commuter resident population grew at the end of the decade, these same people began to express their surprise and satisfaction with many of the Mexican immigrant residents.

This page intentionally left blank

CH A P T E R

SE V E N

Sources of Local Integration

In the previous chapter, I observed that a shift favoring immigrant family rather than adult migrant settlement helped reduce antiimmigrant sentiment and housing discrimination in Shandon. The reduced tensions ref lected the differing ways settled families of immigrants and groups of transnational migrant adults fit socially into the local scene. Shandon lacked institutions that could help integrate adult migrants. The access immigrant families had to Shandon’s lone major integrative institution—the school district—was crucial to reducing tensions as settled families became more numerous. In sharp contrast to the behavior of Shandon adults of 1990, native and immigrant youth were highly integrated, interacting at length with one another on a daily basis due to a combination of institutional requirement and individual choice. Youth integration made it possible for native and immigrant families to acknowledge one another as settled, responsible, and quality community members. In this chapter, I discuss how local schools functioned to integrate Shandon, and how they helped to build and maintain community and a local identity crosscutting and mitigating the divisiveness associated with other social distinctions, particularly ethnic ones. The inf luence of schools on immigrant/native relations in America has not gone unnoticed by other researchers. For example, Peshkin (1991) showed that “Riverview,” California’s multiethnic high school successfully integrated minorities and immigrants by deriving strength and tolerance from the external stigmatization of the entire workingclass community of Riverview by wealthier neighboring communities. Goode et al. (1992) found schools in Philadelphia that emphasized

146

Reimagining the Immigrant

equality of opportunity integrated immigrants more successfully and maintained greater stability among parents, students, and teachers than those that emphasized cultural differences. Shandon resembles both of these cases. The Larger Role of Schools in Shandon The school system is the principle local agent of inclusion, integration, acculturation, and accommodation in Shandon. Many scholars have observed that the hidden function of public education is the promotion of a unifying identity and ideology within the nation-state: what is, in essence, an agenda of building and maintaining a nation (see, e.g., Reich 1977; Handler 1988:169–175; Anderson 1991:113–114; Hobsbawm 1992:81, 91–96, 115).1 By teaching the same history, language, geography, and symbols of national identity to entire generations of youth, public education ensures that these features come to be known and become meaningful to residents within its national borders as their unique cultural patrimony, thereby creating peoplehood from distinct communities.2 Shandon schools have done this by using a stateapproved curriculum, which includes California and American history and geography, and instruction in English. State and national holidays are explained and observed, and the standard nationalistic rituals of the f lag salute and pledge of allegiance are followed. The ways in which public schools build and maintain a sense of community and a local identity differ from nation-building. Community and local identity are more a product of the social relations fostered within the delimited territory of a school district than a product of curriculum. Relationships established or nurtured in school provide youth with most of their playmates, and teens with their first romances, a few of which prove to be lasting. Since nearly all the students reside within the demarcated territory of the school district, the social relationships of youth become territorially fixed through school. Within this territory, most adults establish a relationship with the school as parents of enrolled children, voters, taxpayers, elected trustees, volunteer or paid aides, advisory committee members, bus drivers, custodians, or teachers. The schools are their greatest corporate holding and responsibility, and are theirs to govern within state-defined limits. The history of Shandon’s schools reveals much about the area’s unique character. Past cycles of school formation and closure reveal the importance of schools in creating and maintaining community. The scattered

Sources of Local Integration

147

one-room schoolhouse districts established in the 1880s and governed by local boards of trustees developed into “self-conscious communities” within the larger community of Shandon. When these schools closed, community functions and identity withered away and Shandon grew. Before 1920, high school education was only available in Paso Robles and required boarding teenagers in the larger town. A branch high school opened in Shandon in 1920, but remained subordinate to the Paso Robles administration. Shandon residents felt they were being treated unfairly in this relationship and resented what they perceived as Paso Robles’ undeserving air of superiority. In 1935, Shandon’s leaders initiated a petition drive to create an independent Shandon high school district. A state senator helped to pass legislation exempting Shandon from the state’s minimum enrollment requirement for new public school systems. The high school provided Shandon with “community events” when it was begun in the 1920s. The school’s sporting events, plays, concerts, graduation ceremonies, and other special events were attended by a broad cross-section of residents (Hatch 1979:42–43, 48–49, 59–60, 97, 147 ff., 274). The current Shandon Unified School District was formed out of the five remaining elementary districts and the high school district in 1966 (Hatch 1979:154–161). Unification was promoted by the state in the 1960s. The Shandon school board viewed unification as unavoidable, but feared being forced to unify with Paso Robles. Seeking to avoid resubordination to Paso Robles, Shandon sought and received an exemption from the enrollment minimum of state unification law by arguing that their remote location required a separate district. The outlying Parkfield and Bitterwater-Choice Valley communities viewed unification as a threat to their own identities and offered some opposition, but were out-voted. The remaining schools by 1990 included Parkfield’s one-room elementary school, Shandon Elementary, and Shandon High School. Cholame’s one-room elementary school closed in the 1960s, and the former town site today is little more than a cafe, a monument commemorating actor James Dean near the place of his death on the highway, and a bank of locked mailboxes.3 Choice Valley’s school closed after the 1972–1973 school year. Children from these areas attended Shandon and Parkfield elementary schools in 1990.4 Choice Valley and Cholame ceased having separate community activities, and their families were increasingly absorbed into Shandon’s social orbit or oriented their social lives elsewhere. The school district had become Shandon’s most important social institution as early as the 1960s. It had acquired social functions once

148

Reimagining the Immigrant

performed by other organizations, such as the churches. The superintendent’s position had emerged as one of inf luence, if not prestige. In his final analysis, Elvin Hatch concluded that the schools, as much as any feature, defined the local community (Hatch 1979:163–165, 176–180, 264–265). Lacking other governmental offices, Shandon High School became the main point of contact with outside agencies and institutions.5 Local residents relied on the high school as a clearinghouse of sorts for local information. This role had not diminished much despite the formation of the Shandon Advisory Committee in 1990, because the Advisory Committee lacked an office and phone. The centrality of the school district in forging and maintaining a sense of community and local identity was reinforced by links to other local organizations and activities. These linkages were formal in the case of the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee and PTO. The Parent Advisory Committee meetings were a regular event in which immigrant farm working parents learned of local customs, laws, organizations, and services, and became more familiar with the school and its personnel. Other organizations were not formally associated with the district, yet they directed services to it. The Women’s Guild provided scholarships for students and helped found the PTO (Hatch 1979:179). The Lion’s Club sponsored a speaking contest for students, and their principle service—free eye examinations—was provided to children at the schools with the participation of the district. The district also encouraged evening use of its facilities for evening English classes for immigrant adults, which enhanced familiarity with the school for those with children. These were funded by outside nonprofit organizations and used a few local bilingual Mexican Americans as teachers. Mirroring the overall importance of the schools to the community, the annual high school graduation ceremony has become Shandon’s best-attended event, surpassing the shrinking Memorial Day barbecue. The 1990 high school graduation was reported by the county’s leading daily newspaper under the apt caption, “Town joins Shandon High’s rite of passage” (McCarthy 1990). Most local residents attended the event in the packed gymnasium to see all twenty-three seniors graduate. Residents told the reporter about Shandon’s special relationship with its schools. A man who attended to see a neighbor’s child graduate described how local farmers came to the school on Friday evenings for basketball games. Despite social changes, Shandon and the school held on to a different way of life than what one found in the county’s cities,

Sources of Local Integration

149

he asserted. “The kids here,” he said, “they’re all kind of close. Most of them have grown up together.” A graduating senior and the district superintendant both concurred. The superintendent offered, “[O]ur little community has kept its rural identity” (McCarthy 1990). The reporter’s portrayal of a community joining together around this event was quite accurate. These quotations and others the reporter gathered were representative of the rhetoric of community used by longtime Shandon residents, school staff, and parents of school children who had lived in Shandon even just for a few years. Many people in the audience in 1990 attended because someone else’s child was graduating—a grandchild, niece, nephew, or cousin, or the child of a neighbor or friend. By my own estimation, most of Shandon’s residents attended the 1990 and 1991 high school graduations. Immigrant families not only attended, but were less likely to sit apart from Anglos than at other local events. Mexican migrant workers were the only major social category that did not attend. For many residents, especially older Anglo adults, not having children attending school any longer severed local ties. Frank and Helen Murray’s sense of “a loss of community unity” after the 1970s resulted, at least in part, from the graduation of their own children. Without children in the schools, they found that they participated less in the school-centered social events, which inspired their sense of community in the first place. They expected to feel less a part of a local community than adults who still had children in school. Residents attached so much importance to the relationships created by having children in the schools that this was even suggested as a criterion for nomination to the Shandon Advisory Committee during the planning for the committee’s creation. A locally based identity can mitigate potentially antagonistic divisions in the Shandon region (see, e.g., Eriksen 2002: 162–178). Athletic teams representing the high school provided a source of pride shared by native and immigrant households, and their successes and failures were followed even by adults without children in school. It was the school district that bound outlying areas such as Bitterwater Valley, Choice Valley, and Parkfield to Shandon by 1990. And just as the school district bound and subordinated Parkfield’s identity to Shandon’s, Parkfield retained a measure of distinctiveness, thanks to the structure and operation of the school district. Parkfield school retained a fairly autonomous teacher, was represented by its own trustee, and continued to be given the latitude to manage its own affairs that it had in the 1960s (see

150

Reimagining the Immigrant

Hatch 1979:152–164). Thus, Shandon’s schools helped create community locally by providing a reason and structure for social ties between residents, and a set of events and rituals that supported those ties and reinforced a local identity. The Territory of Community Hatch (1979:145–146) found that local residents defined the territory of Shandon’s community by where the students of its schools lived. This conformed quite closely to the boundaries of the school district in the 1960s. This proved to be just as true in 1990, as was demonstrated on two separate occasions. The area within San Luis Obispo County served by the school district (the Shandon trusteeship) was chosen as the Shandon Advisory Committee’s area of representation without dissension or debate (see chapter 5). Since the Advisory Committee was developed specifically to facilitate representation and service with San Luis Obispo County government, it necessarily excluded the Parkfield trusteeship in Monterey County and areas in western Kern County outside district boundaries that sent their children to Shandon schools. During a school board meeting in 1990, school district boundaries were invoked to define who should be excluded from Shandon. The neighboring Phillips School District in Whitley Gardens was experiencing a deeply divisive crisis during which many of its students were admitted to Shandon Elementary School while tensions cooled down. The Shandon school board had supported the admissions on a temporary basis to help the Phillips children, but there were people in Shandon who did not want the transfers to become permanent. The district had won a bond election in 1989 for the construction of badly needed new classrooms to relieve overcrowding at Shandon Elementary School. Some Shandon parents felt that their children were suffering because the transfers aggravated overcrowding. They were angered that their bond funds and tax dollars would go to the service of children from another district. A recent newcomer also resented the interest voiced by one Whitley Gardens parent in getting a part-time aide job at the school: “I have been trying to get a job here. Those jobs should go to someone here before they go to an outsider.” Four of the five school board members were convinced by pressure from a small number of community members that the transfers should not be made permanent.

Sources of Local Integration

151

These parents’ opposition to the Phillips transfers seemed largely economic on the surface, but there was more to it than this. At the board meeting where the final decision was to be made, Steve Carlstrom warned that fifty new homes could be built within the district by the next year, greatly increasing enrollments and overcrowding. Sally Drucker told me after the meeting that she associated overcrowding with a lower quality education. Though she did not think Shandon’s overcrowding was serious, she felt that the Whitley Gardens children should be excluded because the board could not predict future enrollments. For her, the risks of overcrowding were too high. Most of the Phillips district parents at the meeting responded to the economic arguments with offers to volunteer time to the school and make donations through the PTO or other channels. The Shandon parents openly stated in the meeting that these offers were inadequate. Shortly before the board voted, a retired old-family grower and former board member objected to permanent transfer of the Whitley Gardens students or Shandon’s absorption of the Phillips district through unification. I think historically Phillips is tied to Paso Robles. And the [Paso Robles] school bus goes right by there. And they’re putting hardship on our schools and our children. There was no significant history of local animosity toward Whitley Gardens in Shandon, but there was toward Paso Robles, and it is well documented (see Hatch 1979). The former board member had managed to invoke this long-standing animosity by explicitly associating Whitley Gardens with Paso Robles. The board denied the requests for permanent transfers to Shandon schools, and thereby reinforced Shandon’s old boundaries of territory and identity. Approaches to Ethnicity in the Schools Although it has always been under the control of an exclusively Anglo school board, Shandon’s schools have never been segregated. The small enrollments made segregation of the occasional minority student impractical. In 1931, as many as 80 percent of California school districts with substantial Mexican American enrollment were segregated (Sánchez 1993:258–259). Although this segregation was ruled unconstitutional in the Lemon Grove case in 1931 and again in Mendez v. Westminster in 1947, some districts remained segregated to

152

Reimagining the Immigrant

the mid-1960s (Alvarez 1987:153–155; Donato et al. 1991; Menchaca 1995:59–77, 116–117). In contrast, Shandon’s records indicate an occasional minority student in the 1940s and 1950s. In the 1940s, the phenotypically mestizo children of a family with Mexican ancestry were classified as white in school records. Their parents were Americanborn and English-speaking. A few other students listed as Spanish were enrolled in the 1950s and early 1960s. Ethnicity and race also were not used to track minority students into subordinate career paths. In 1956, for example, the high school valedictorian was a Chinese immigrant boy whose father worked as a ranch hand. The family had been in the United States about five years. When enrollments of Mexican immigrants first surged in the late 1970s, some area residents questioned whether their schools should serve immigrant children who have been in the United States without proper documentation. Teacher Bruce Henning remembered how this unfolded and was resolved. When Huerta’s came [in 1976] they were accepted very easily. They thought that was good. When we got Rivera’s [in 1979] there were some rumblings. So we had a meeting. Of course, my idea was to tell [the parents opposed to enrolling immigrant children], “Hey, look. They’re gonna go to school here. That’s the legal way, and that’s the right way, that’s where they should be, that’s gonna help them.” It was a meeting at one of the homes out here. And we invited anybody and everybody to discuss it, and . . . I think it was called by our PTO president or somebody like that. And at that meeting, I learned some real interesting things about some individuals out here. Some of the people that I thought would fight it the hardest—fight having illegal aliens in the schools is what some of them felt it was—said that they had friends that had moved up here, like they went to school with them or something or they worked with them, and the friend had said that “Boy, it was so nice to come up here and be accepted and be a part of it, and it was so hard if you weren’t accepted.” And one of the mothers was going to bring this friend out to address this group, this friend was a Mexican American that had come up here in grade school or seventh grade or something, and she was going to discuss how tough it was and how we should have compassion, you know. And as it turned out the community said, “Yeah, this is the way it should be.” And of course there were people at this meeting who had hired Mexicans, and then after

Sources of Local Integration

153

we had the meeting and they found out it was acceptable, that’s when we had more families started coming in. . . . I’m gonna say that, yes, the community backed the school and backed me in my attitude of doing what we could for these kids and for the other kids, too. And I’m not going to say that there weren’t some problems with it, but I’m going to say that basically it was pretty smooth out here. The district’s philosophical approach to the new ethnic diversity that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s was to promote integration and inclusion. It followed this path despite never having more than one Mexican American teacher at a time, only a few bilingual Anglo teachers, and only several part-time bilingual Mexican American aides. Of course, implementation varied from one teacher or aide to another, and, indeed, one principal was hired with the agenda of bringing several recalcitrant teachers into line.6 Occasionally teachers and aides made remarks revealing negative attitudes toward immigrants or persons of Mexican descent, such as references to dirtiness, violence, crime, and so on. Mexican American aides occasionally uttered their own patronizing remarks, such as characterizing immigrant parents as having an “inferiority complex.” School principals discouraged this kind of talk when they became aware of it. Elementary teacher Bruce Henning’s inclusive philosophy proved remarkably successful at integrating students, enabling immigrant students to equal native scholastic achievement, and promoting the participation of immigrant farm working parents in school-related organizations and activities. He favored treating each student as an individual who belonged in the school. He did not like to distinguish between his students on ethnic grounds. This was illustrated in his response to my question about his approach to educating an ethnically heterogeneous student body. The reasons the Mexicans are here are our people didn’t want to do that kind of work. I shouldn’t say “our people,” but, the native Americans. And there again that’s a loaded term. I want to be careful about this. I don’t want to say “These People” compared to “Us,” you know. We all came here not too long ago. So, I’m trying to clarify what I’m saying, but I don’t want to separate groups out like, “Oh, yes, well now you have this group and you have this group,” because one of the things that has worked at this school is, “Hey, I don’t care where you came from, we’re gonna try to treat

154

Reimagining the Immigrant

you the same, and we want you to be a part of this group and treat us in like manner.” Henning and most other teachers emphasized early acquisition of English. Henning described how he went about selling this approach to the immigrant families settling in the late 1970s. [T]heir boss . . . Garrett Foster came with them to register them and I said, “One of the things I want them to know, Garrett, is that they’re in the United States and it’s probably pretty important to learn English, so I’m really gonna push that.” And that was before we were allowed to. We were supposed to provide them instruction in Spanish. And we were supposed to wait for the materials to do that. Well, I would have been waiting two or three years, and then I don’t know that I ever got anything. But anyway, we started in English, and over the years that’s probably been the better choice, because little kids can learn English pretty quickly. You get into junior high and high school, its a little harder. But these elementary kids, the younger you start them in English, the quicker they become bilingual, and very good at both, as far as I can see. So that was an important factor. The parents agreed with this: they wanted to learn English, they wanted their kids to learn it. Some of the parents would actually get the kids’ books and learn to read the English, and we’d have conferences. And I’d have the kids reading to the parents. And then the parents, one in particular—Enrique Huerta—would ask me for the book, and he would read to me in English. And that was impressive. These were simple little primary type books that you would start somebody out in to learn English. . . . And of course, over the years he has become rather f luent in English. He can deal with it very well. Immigrant enrollments continued to grow in the 1980s. The district adjusted by adding special programs and hiring bilingual instructional aides to facilitate communication, integration, and learning by the immigrant children. Some of the college-educated Mexican Americans hired in these aide positions introduced adversarial ethnic politics into their work, adding a new dimension of ethnicity for the district’s Anglo teachers and administrators to negotiate. Bruce Henning’s “biggest problem” in immigrant/native relations was one early aide who periodically convinced immigrant students that Anglos would not grant

Sources of Local Integration

155

them rights unless they routinely demanded them. I had the [Mexican] kids fitting in pretty smoothly, and it took some work to do it, because it was when the migration came. . . . Well, there was a Migrant Aide that came along. She was Hispanic, her husband was Hispanic, but I don’t know what generation back. But I liked her! And she was really sticking up for the kids! But she went a little too far when there was no problem, and she started talking about their “rights.” And I talk about their rights too, but not to the point where they had to step on somebody else’s toes, or where it became an issue every time something happened. It’s OK to have your rights, but if things are pretty smooth and you are being treated right, and you’re pretty happy in your situation, your rights are understood! You don’t have to come down on everybody with “your rights.” Well, after she would come out and work with them, there’d be a few days where I’d have a lot more friction, because the minute anybody said anything, before you had a time to have a chance to quell the storm, these kids would come back on it real fast with “their rights,” and then the ones who were just on the verge of stirring up problems anyway, were right there to stir up things. . . . She passed some of that along to them and they picked up on it. I’m not against giving them rights and support, I’m against making an issue out of it to the point where it becomes a conf lict where there’s no conf lict to start with. Now, you can say, “Well, maybe you as a teacher were overlooking something with these kids and they were being picked on in a certain way,” and I’m saying that that’s possible, but I don’t think so. Because if she stayed away, we could get it settled down and I could talk to them about if somebody called them something or did something to them. I could say, “OK, we’ll go to work on it and we’ll try to change that, because I don’t like that happening.” . . . She really thought she was trying to help them out, but I think she had an ax to grind that should not have been ground, and to put it another way, . . . she ground axes at the wrong time. And you know, it’s one thing to get your rights and it’s another thing to have a chip on your shoulder. Bruce Henning was a very popular teacher of uncommon skill and transparent good will, who overcame these periodic setbacks and retained the respect of immigrant parents in the long run. The aide soon left the district, but her tactics disturbed Bruce so much that he used

156

Reimagining the Immigrant

this story to discourage subsequent aides from adopting her approach. Some of the district’s most socially and scholastically successful early immigrant students emerged from this class. They were well represented on the high school’s honor rolls in 1989–1991, and several had prominent speaking rolls in the 1990 graduation ceremony. Most high school staff members, and even some later-arriving immigrant parents, considered them Mexican American rather than Mexican. Henning’s difficulty with an especially assertive aide was not unique. When Gloria Covarrubias was a Migrant Education program aide in the mid-1980s, she interpreted some immigrant parents’ difficulty getting appointments with Principal Evelyn Casey as proof that Casey and other administrators were racists. She voiced her opinion freely among immigrant parents, persuading some to keep their distance from the principal. When Patricia Mendoza applied for another aide position but it was filled by a more conservative and acculturated Mexican American, Patricia felt that Gloria’s characterization of Casey and other administrators must be correct. But soon thereafter, Patricia worked with Casey on several projects and had an altogether different experience than Gloria’s opinions prepared her for. She found that Casey was quite sympathetic to the needs of the immigrants. She sought bilingual materials for new immigrant students, swiftly and decisively reprimanded students and staff for ethnic or racial slurs, and explicitly favored multiculturalism. The real problem was that Casey was working two jobs and lived on such a tight schedule that it was difficult for anyone to see her without making an appointment in advance. Patricia ultimately concluded, “Gloria is a radical Mexican . . . who is likely to make charges of racism and injustice.” Patricia described herself as more “laid back and willing to try to work within the system,” although she also was quite proud of her past college activism. Patricia succeeded Gloria in coordinating the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee. Gloria told Patricia that no more than five people would attend the monthly meetings, but eighteen immigrant parents attended the first one Patricia organized, and this level of participation continued under her leadership. Wondering why Gloria had recruited so few, Patricia asked some of the immigrant parents. She found that most had objected to Gloria’s racially charged condemnations of teachers and administrators, and stayed away if not because Gloria’s criticisms were compelling then because Gloria was an unproductive leader.7 Like the other Mexican American aides, Patricia was American-born, college-trained, and had considerable organizational and educational

Sources of Local Integration

157

experience. But several factors earned Patricia a greater respect from immigrant parents than most other Mexican American aides enjoyed. Patricia’s parent’s emigrated from Mexico and worked in agriculture, and she had worked in the fields herself during her youth. This provided a common ground in her relationship with the immigrants. She helped many with their immigration and tax documents, and had been a teacher and thus was known and respected as la maestra. Her approach to immigrant/native relations was integrative and pro-education, which more closely fit with the parents’ and district staff ’s desires than Gloria’s approach. The adversarial style of Gloria and the earlier aide met with a dual failure: they were rejected by most of the immigrants and by the school staff. The number of immigrant parents participating as volunteer aides or members of the Parent Advisory Committee was three to four times greater since the late 1980s when moderate, integrationist Mexican Americans aides and brokers replaced those using an adversarial style. The decline of an adversarial stance proved useful in other ways as well. In December 1990, the PTO women sewing costumes for elementary children to wear in the Christmas show were behind schedule because there were not enough of them to do the work. Karen Desaultels, the president, had become acquainted with Marta Rivas, who volunteered at the schools and had begun attending PTO meetings, but she was not there at the time. Karen was aware that Marta knew many immigrant women with children in the schools, and that many of them might be available because they did not work outside the home. She telephoned Marta and appraised her of the problem, and shortly the Anglo women were joined by Marta and six immigrant women. One of the immigrants was an experienced seamstress, and through gestures and two bilingual women translating, she demonstrated a number of shortcuts that enabled them to finish the job rapidly. This did not lead to the incorporation of the immigrant women into the PTO, nor did it seem to create a feeling that such incorporation was necessary. It did, however, initiate cooperation between the PTO and the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee, which grew in succeeding years. By 1990, the district was moving toward a multicultural model, which some of the professional staff supported enthusiastically. The district adopted new social science textbooks for elementary school students in 1990 that met state requirements set in 1987 for a multicultural curriculum. The texts taught children to anticipate that cultural differences and social boundaries corresponded to differences in national

158

Reimagining the Immigrant

or racial ancestry. For example, an American of Mexican descent and a recent Mexican immigrant would be expected to share much in common. Principal Evelyn Casey stated her enthusiasm for the multicultural curriculum: Personally, I believe in pluralism. We cannot afford for anyone to lose their culture. I believe cultural diversity makes the strength of the country. Individuals have value in and of themselves. Apples and oranges can coexist. I don’t want to make apple-oranges or orange-apples. While cultural variation has advantages and is always present in a large nation-state, equating culture with intrinsically different species of fruit represented an error that was manifested and reinforced in the education system in other ways. In fact, Evelyn’s fruit metaphor ref lected typologies employed by the state and imposed upon the district. For statistical purposes, California lumped Mexican Americans, Mexican immigrants, and other Latinos under the term Hispanic. The school district maintained ethnic diversity statistics using this category, rather than locally relevant social identities or actual patterns of cultural variation. Thus, school professionals frequently spoke about the district’s Hispanics usually without acknowledging the social and cultural differences they were lumping under this label, or the way its use divided Americans by distancing some. Having internalized Hispanic as a standard category, many staff and board members voiced a desire to see a Hispanic elected to the school board. They assumed that an electable Hispanic would be bilingual and bicultural, and that these characteristics would facilitate better representation of the interests of new immigrants. This, certainly, was one potential outcome of such a scenario. However, not all eligible Hispanics were bilingual or bicultural, plus these traits themselves represented a cultural difference between those few natives and most of the immigrant adults. Multiculturalism, therefore, tended to reify particular bureaucratic categories. The school socialization process, on the other hand, contributed to the creation of new kinds of fruit. Serving Immigrant Students The district anticipated that incoming immigrant students would have special needs, especially in language instruction. School aides noted

Sources of Local Integration

159

that students arrived from Mexico fairly well prepared in subjects other than English and American history. New arrivals needed to adjust to the American system of cycling through many subjects in a single day, since they were used to spending an entire day on a single subject. The new student’s language performance was evaluated by teachers, aides, and outside specialists. Two-thirds of the district’s Hispanic children qualified for the Migrant Education program, which provided assistance within the regular classrooms and individually outside the classroom. The English As A Second Language (ESL) program provided individualized language tutoring outside the classroom. Qualifying students were evaluated yearly until they achieved and maintained the state’s Full English Proficiency (FEP) standard. Elementary school children were taking two to three-and-a-half years to accomplish this in 1990, contradicting a belief widespread among Anglo adults that immigrant parents discouraged their children from learning English.8 Immigrant students felt some embarrassment about being taken out of the classroom for specialized instruction, so the staff reduced the frequency of this and instead emphasized working more within the regular classrooms. The children were happier as a result. In the high school, bilingual students were paired with new immigrants to assist them with translations. This was only as effective as the skills of the bilingual student allowed. In Parkfield’s one-room school, the teacher once asked that some of the immigrant students be transferred to Shandon to lower the frequency of classroom conversation in Spanish. He felt that conversation in Spanish among the immigrant students was slowing their improvement in English. He explained what he hoped to achieve to their parents, and one family volunteered to send their children to the other school. Children’s rate of English acquisition ref lected other living conditions. Children living on ranches rather than in town tended to use less English over the summers, because many went to Mexico to visit relatives. Their English skills regressed slightly over the summer. Those who lived in town used more English day-to-day and retained what they had learned a little better. Immigrant students also could qualify for tutoring under the federally funded Chapter 1 program used to help disadvantaged students attain grade-level proficiency and succeed in the regular program. Most children served under this program were Anglos. The district also offered free or reduced-price lunches for the children of qualified low-income families. Demand for these rose dramatically as Shandon’s composition changed. Farm working families used the program, particularly during the late fall to early winter months. Most immigrant families had

160

Reimagining the Immigrant

applied for free or reduced-price lunches at one time or another, but even more applications came from Anglo households. There were also adjustments immigrant parents had to make. The high level of parent interaction with teachers that typifies public education in the United States was unfamiliar to parents from Mexico. Staff members had little success bridging this gap on a wide scale until after 1989, when the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee became more effective. Several junior and senior high school honor roll lists from 1989–1990 and 1990–1991 provide a rough measure of the scholastic success of the district’s approach to immigrant education. Twenty-one percent of the students maintaining 3.0 (B) or better grade point averages were immigrant children. Another 7 percent were Mexican Americans. Six of the thirteen honor roll students in the outstanding 1990–1991 senior class were Mexican youth. Several top immigrant students from this class attended California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo the following year. Small Schools and the Integration of Youth Shandon Unified School District’s most unique feature is the small size of its enrollment. Twice in its history, Shandon school districts obtained special waivers from the state, because they did not meet minimum enrollment requirements (Hatch 1979:97, 155). From 1968 through 1990, high school graduating classes averaged only sixteen students, ranging from a low of eight in 1985 to highs of twenty-three in 1976 and 1990. Starting with the student cohort that began kindergarten in 1974 and began its final year of high school in 1987 (the 1974– 1987 cohort), the percentage of immigrant students remained above ten. Immigrants comprised 10 to 25 percent of the 1974–1987 through 1985–1998 cohorts, and 24 to 35 percent of the 1986–1999 through 1990–2003 cohorts as of June 1990.9 The district’s professional staff felt that their schools’ small size gave them an advantage in accommodating unique or troubled students, immigrants, and the broader changing economy and demographics. Nevertheless, based on past tensions, these professionals were no more than cautiously optimistic about what the schools could accomplish: The fact that the school is so small helps a great deal, because individual personalities then create what it all means to be a part

Sources of Local Integration

161

of that subculture. And as long as these personalities are not negative . . . then I think the effect here at least will be to say that this is all good and everything is fine, and we can achieve something that looks at least on the surface like true integration, even though it can all fall apart in a minute, the way I see it. The crucial effect of small school size is that student-grade cohorts were so small that children and teenagers could seldom afford to restrict their pool of playmates, friends, and dates by segregating themselves along ethnic or class lines. High school athletic teams were only possible when nearly everyone participated. For this reason, social integration and inclusion across ethnic and class lines was the dominant pattern among youth in Shandon. This did not mean that all social interactions at school between immigrant and native youth were painless. But there was a sense that the sporadic use of derogatory ethnic terms or the occasional acts of exclusion in the schools were less serious than in other American places. Referring to the widely publicized racially based youth killing in Bensonhurst, New York, in 1989, one principal summed up this perspective on what Shandon’s schools accomplished: How is it that they’re doing what their doing in Bensonhurst and we’re doing what we’re doing here? We must be doing something right, or it must be that if you actually know the people then you cannot chase them down the street and shoot them. Teacher Bruce Henning characterized his experiences similarly. [I]t’s not a one way street. I never had anyone that was just always on [the Mexican kids], which in extreme cases you do get, . . . and I never had the Mexican kids just always on the Caucasians. Once in a while there’d be cases where the parents would say, “Well, they’re just picking on you because you’re Mexican,” and that would start some resentment going, and that would be a problem. So I’m not going to say it was always perfect. I don’t think that can be. But I can say it was a good balance of continual improvement and acceptance rather than going the other way. I think we’ve done pretty well with the kids being accepted, to the point where it didn’t matter who you played with or who you got along with or whose house you went to, it was OK. And to me that was really important, we tried to accept them all, in fact. It was very important.

162

Reimagining the Immigrant

Although there was considerable social interaction between immigrant and native youth at the schools, there were variations in the pattern. From 1989 to 1991, most of the immigrant high school juniors and seniors had come to Shandon at a later age than most students from immigrant families then in earlier grades, some of whom were born locally. Due to the timing of the immigration wave, most of these older students were the first substantial cohorts of immigrant students the high school enrolled and graduated. Many of them had learned English later in life and were more likely to settle into ethnic cliques during lunch recess than their younger brothers and sisters were. High school clique boundaries were strongly inf luenced by language abilities, so the several monolingual Spanish-speaking newcomers in the junior and senior high grades had a difficult time breaking out of their own small clique. Older immigrant kids who had obtained all of their education in Shandon schools were often considered Mexican American by school staff. Ethnic cliques were far less common among junior high students than among sophomores, juniors, and seniors. In essence, arriving young from Mexico facilitated inclusion and integration. This was easily observed on nearly any given day during recesses at the two schools in Shandon. At the high school, the most prominent Mexican clique consisted of five or six senior bilingual Mexican girls, several of whom attended the evening English class for adults in hopes of improving their English. They interacted easily with their Anglo and Mexican American peers, but Teresa, the dominant member of the clique, would insist periodically that all Anglos in Shandon “don’t like Mexicans.” Her clique-mates often teased her for this. Her brother Jesús, a junior, was part of an ethnically mixed clique that dominated his cohort. Both his best friend and girlfriend were Anglos. When Teresa and Jesús arrived from Sinaloa, she was nine years old and he was seven. Teresa’s clique-mates arrived in Shandon at the ages of seven, thirteen, and fifteen (two girls), and all had younger siblings who spent more time with Anglos than their older sisters did. I did not witness ethnic cliques at the elementary school, where recess play was thoroughly integrated. Yet Justin, an Anglo fourth grader I knew, repeatedly told me that he did not like Mexicans. I found this curious, since a number of his friends were immigrants themselves or American-born children of immigrant families. When I asked Justin about this, he indicated that what he did not like about Mexicans was that he could not understand them when they spoke Spanish. It was not clear to me if he even considered his friends as Mexicans, since they all spoke English in his company.

Sources of Local Integration

163

Elementary school children occasionally called one another Mexican or white, and would not let those of the other group play. This behavior was always punished when observed by school staff. Many staff members were quite sensitive about these incidents, stating that parents blew them out of proportion. Teachers and administrators found that disciplining students for these infractions usually met with the support of parents, even those who used racial or ethnic pejoratives in their own homes. The son of an Anglo ranch hand was disciplined along with a friend of mixed Anglo and Mexican American parentage for harassing a new immigrant boy they thought had said things about them in Spanish. His mother admitted that the family disparaged Mexicans in their household. Another boy, who once asked me how my “book on beaners” was coming along, interrupted a reading by his teacher that contained the word Negroes: “Why don’t you call them niggers? Everyone knows that’s what they are.” His mother indicated that they used this language at home because she was from the South where everyone talked that way. In both instances, a staff member met with the mother to explain that they could not permit the use of language at the schools that these families used at home. Both mothers indicated that they did not want their sons causing trouble at school, and supported the disciplinary action. There was wide recognition in Shandon of the contrast between immigrant/native relations among youth versus that among adults. Many teachers felt that Anglo adults held immigrants in high disregard, but noted that the children of these same adults appeared to question and resist their parents’ attitudes daily on the playgrounds, in class, and in after-school activities in their selection of boyfriends and girlfriends. At any given time in 1989–1991 there were at least a half dozen openly dating interethnic couples among the high school youth, and a few more surreptitious ones. One Anglo parent and school aide noted, “The kids must date interracially here, because there are not enough people of the same race here to keep them separate. And this breaks down prejudice among the school kids so they are less prejudiced than their parents and grandparents.” A Mexican American aide observed that the Anglo and Mexican high school students always intermingled at school events “except when their parents interfere.” There were many examples of the contrasting behavior of youth and adults. An Anglo girl dated an immigrant boy for more than a year, despite her father’s open disapproval and warnings that “Mexican boys just want one thing!” (Later, a Mexican American parent noted wryly, “Oh, and teenage white boys are different?”) Her father tried to warn

164

Reimagining the Immigrant

the boy away from his daughter but, in a nearly comic turn of events, mistakenly delivered his warning to the boy’s younger brother. The youngsters ignored the father’s threats in any event. On another occasion while a retired rancher’s wife stated her dislike of Mexicans to me in front of her grandchildren, I noticed that both kids had stopped playing to quietly observe our conversation. Later that evening, the children told their mother what their grandmother had said. Their mother sought me out to explain that she, her husband, and their children did not share the older woman’s prejudices, a fact I had already discerned from their actions at other times. The very successful 1990 high school baseball team was formed around a core of both established resident and immigrant boys, who had played Little League baseball together for years, and were close friends. Immigrant and old-family parents of some of the boys had also become friends through their sons’ affiliation. The team’s success was a source of local pride. When the team held its playoff games, established resident and immigrant parents were joined in the stands by ranchers and other old guard residents who came to cheer for their grandsons, nephews, and their teammates. Several of the immigrant boys were star players, had Anglo girlfriends, and were among the most popular boys in the high school. But integration on this and other school sports teams was not always painless. Rumor had it that one Anglo boy quit the baseball team, because he lost his starting position to a Mexican boy. The girl’s volleyball and softball teams were much more fractious. One of the coaches was convinced that the volleyball team performed best when the players on the f loor were either all immigrants and Mexican Americans or all Anglos. The immigrant girls on this team were seniors who tended to be less integrated than their younger siblings. But I was never completely convinced that the divisions on the girl’s athletic teams were along ethnic lines, for I often witnessed many of the same Anglo and immigrant girls socializing amicably at dances. One of the girls frequently got into fights, and this may have been the larger problem. Youth integration carried on after school. Anglo and Mexican American youths attended every immigrant-sponsored dance in the community hall, and immigrant youths attended every dance sponsored by established residents. They routinely socialized and danced with one another. At one dance sponsored by immigrant youth, the organizers made a point of alternating between Mexican and American musical styles, with the kids all dancing to the other’s music. This “kept everybody happy,” according to one teenage organizer. Informal parties along San Juan Creek—that parents begrudgingly tolerated as rites

Sources of Local Integration

165

of passage—were also integrated affairs. In contrast, native and immigrant adults generally stayed away from the other group’s dances. School personnel who lived in Shandon were the most likely Anglo adults to attend after-school immigrant events. For example, in 1990– 1991 the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee sponsored two fundraising dinners and a high school graduation dinner and dance in the community hall. School staff members had purchased tickets to the dinners to support their students. But they also enjoyed themselves and praised the quality of the food, entertainment, and organization. Several told me that the integration at these events was “good for the community.” The June 1991 graduation dance and dinner hosted by the Parent Advisory Committee was a noteworthy success. The families of graduating immigrant students had set up tables and chairs around the perimeter of the hall where they served dinner to family and friends, and beer or wine to the adults. Anglo adults attending included the superintendent and his wife, a few teachers, other school staff members, and spouses of immigrants or Mexican Americans. A few others were friends of immigrant families or had teenage children who were attending. The teenagers—all the Shandon’s Mexican teens and an equal number of Anglos—danced in the center of the hall to the music of a live Mexican band and recorded American music, including rock, rap, and country dance styles. They were joined from time to time by a scattering of immigrant and Anglo adults. The parents sat at the tables, watching the dancers and attempting conversation over the loud music. Lining the walls near the door of the hall, thirty or more young Mexican men, all farm workers, watched the festivities. The teens danced to each musical style, and in each possible ethnic pairing of dance partners. Immigrant adults danced primarily when the band played its Mexican repertoire. Anglo adults preferred the recorded country music. Occasionally, well-acquainted Anglo and Mexican adults bridged this barrier and danced together. Anglo adults who attended the event were impressed. Several days later, a pair of Anglo women who did not ordinarily attend Mexican social events told me they had gone because, “It sounded like a good thing.” One said they had a good time and complimented the behavior of the young male farm workers, who as a category were frequent targets of Anglo disdain. Another Anglo adult told me he was impressed that the entire affair was better supervised by the immigrant parents than comparable Anglo-run events usually were. He noted that the Mexican women were far better at keeping the alcoholic beverages

166

Reimagining the Immigrant

away from the teenagers. “I wish some other people in this community could have seen that,” he said. With ethnic separation typifying the relationship between local adults, school events were the main occasions when native and immigrant parents could interact. When native and immigrant parents who had become acquainted through their children’s friendships encountered one another during school events or at other times, they exchanged whatever greetings their language abilities permitted before again returning to their own ethnic space. This was routine at high school athletic games. Events held on Mothers Day in 1990 also illustrated the pattern. While a men’s baseball league that comprised exclusively of Mexican farm workers played at the park, across the street at the high school there was a barbecue, sing-along, and a student fund-raising event. The five or so local Anglo growers who comprised the advisory board for the high school’s Future Farmers of America program did the barbecuing. The music was provided by the school’s music teacher, his native and immigrant students, and several Anglo adults. The students of each grade and club in the high school raised money by selling soft drinks or deserts, holding a variety of contests, and washing cars in the school parking lot (see figure 7.1). Immigrant adults gathered in family groups on the park side of the street, Anglo and Mexican American adults on the school side

Figure 7.1 Native and immigrant teens gather around the Club Azteca table on Mothers Day, 1990. A dance club begun by immigrant students, Club Azteca was open to all.

Sources of Local Integration

167

along with all of the youth. A number of the immigrant parents whose children were involved in the activities at the school ventured across the street to get food at the barbecue. There they exchanged greetings on a first-name basis with Anglo parents they knew, and a few of the Anglo adults who knew some Spanish visited brief ly with their friends among the Mexican parents. However, all of the immigrant adults returned to the park to eat, while the native parents ate on the school side of the street. Immigrant youth moved back and forth across the street, accompanied by some of their Anglo and Mexican American friends. Parents who volunteered in the schools also came to know the children of the other ethnic group and to view them as members of the community. One volunteer was a former Women’s Guild member who had assisted the early 1980s campaign to remove the three small houses in the center of town that were occupied by immigrant farm workers (see chapter 6). She encouraged the immigrant students to prepare for college as she helped them prepare their course schedules. When they said they could not hope to go to college because their families were poor, she told them about financial aide programs that could make college a viable option. Seemingly inconsistent with her previous campaign against the immigrant-occupied houses, there was no such inconsistency in her own mind. The children whom she assisted were members of the community for her in some sense, whereas the residents of the three condemned small houses had been outsiders whose actions were detrimental to the community.10 Although the rapid integration of their children was useful to Mexican parents for the linkages it opened for them in Shandon, it also had a detrimental side. Immigrant children rapidly acquired values, modes of behavior, and expectations that introduced tension into immigrant households when these new ideas and practices clashed with the expectations of parents. I did not systematically investigate these generational tensions, but I did hear complaints from parents about the inappropriate behavior of youth, and from teens, about their parents’ old-fashioned values. This was clearly a challenge faced by all immigrant parents in Shandon. However, parents usually deemed the family budget, health, housing, and their children’s education as more important. Stability and Respectability Beyond the Schools In the mid-1970s, Chip Lewis married Connie Smathers, whose largelandholder father shared the sentiment of most of his peers regarding

168

Reimagining the Immigrant

Shandon’s “Mexican invasion”: he did not like it. Grape growers were accustomed to Connie’s father’s complaints about their workers. Chip and Connie’s son was enrolled in the third grade in 1982 when Alfredo and Josefina Castillo’s boy joined the class after reuniting with his parents who had previously moved to Shandon to work. As the Castillo’s son learned English, he and the Lewis boy became friends, sharing a love of baseball. They began playing Little League ball together when the Boosters Club sponsored the Castillo boy’s participation. By high school, they were nearly inseparable. Chip knew a little Spanish, and the Castillos learned a little English. Chip and Connie Lewis gradually got to know and like Alfredo and Juanita Castillo. Though they did not socialize together privately, at school or community events they always devoted time to chatting about the kids or local events. Both sets of parents learned to trust the other with their children. The Lewis[es] and Castillos treated one another not just as equals but also as friends in a very natural and public way. Lacking other ties, they would have had little impetus to build this trust, friendship, and respect, were it not for the fast friendship between their sons. Newcomers to Shandon became known through their children and the schools, as old guard resident Dorothy Jenkins’ description of the Javier family first revealed in chapter 4. As their children became friends, parents who did not share a common language evaluated one another through their children, and by this means often came to respect people they did not really know directly. Shandon’s small schools provided the opportunity to earn recognition as stable, responsible, and respectable members of the community, and the opportunity to meet and show one another friendship. In chapter 3, I observed that stability and respectability were the criteria used by local residents in the past to differentiate categories of farm workers. I noted that Shandon Anglos and Mexican Americans employed these same criteria to distinguish between “types” of Mexicans in chapter 4. In chapter 6, I described how in nearly everyone’s opinion, ethnic tensions and housing discrimination had declined with the increase in settled immigrant families rather than group households in town. Even members of the old guard who had themselves discriminated against immigrants in the past were learning to identify settled, respectable immigrant farm working families whose children were in school with their own. In the following statement, Dorothy Jenkins returns to the subject of the Javier family. Remember that Dorothy’s son attended school with the Javier girl and this was how Dorothy

Sources of Local Integration

169

became acquainted with them. I think they do a good job there [at the schools]. . . . And I think that age group [of Mexicans], they’re fairly stable, aren’t they? There’s the family that lives on the River Ranch. They’ve been there now I think quite a while. They have a daughter in high school. . . . [She] was the queen of their Homecoming this year. Or last year, I guess. And she works out at the restaurant at Cholame. Real sweet little gal. She just loves my men. When I can’t get lunch out to them, they go out [to the restaurant]. . . . And she’s a real sweet girl. And they’re a real family. And I don’t know what brothers and sisters she has, but I’m sure on the other ranches there probably are Mexican families that live there year-round and have responsible positions. The Javier girl needed Anglo student support to be elected homecoming queen. I heard no negative reactions to the choice of an immigrant as homecoming queen. If Dorothy’s opinion was at all representative, old guard residents did not perceive it to be evidence of further community decline. Indeed, the signs by 1990 were that Shandon’s old guard were emerging from the period of ethnic tension in the early 1980s and were adopting the view held by many employers of immigrant farm workers. One such grower who came to Shandon in the 1970s summarized this point of view: “We have many very respectable Mexican families here in Shandon.” Family settlement and the integrative effect of schools were fundamental to the growing respect for immigrants in Shandon.

This page intentionally left blank

CH A P T E R

EIGH T

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal and Its Aftermath

In the preceding chapters, I have described how established residents, and Anglos especially, evaluated and classified immigrant farm workers from Mexico, the general exclusion of immigrants from participation in local affairs, and the contrastive strongly integrative effect of local schools. A number of important questions remain to be addressed. As Anglos began to rethink immigrant identities, how would immigrants themselves participate in the reframing of their identity? How would Anglos respond to a more participatory immigrant group? Would change in these areas crystallize into a pattern of new more integrative practices? This chapter indicates concretely one way in which immigrants actively struggled from below to change how they were perceived and excluded from greater participation in local affairs, and illustrates a small yet remarkably positive response from longtime residents. These questions are explored in this chapter through my retelling of a sequence of related events in 1990 that forced residents of Shandon to confront the meanings they ascribed to Mexican in a semipublic forum, and to come face-to-face with immigrants concerned with how they had been represented. I do not claim that this retelling provides final answers to the questions I have raised above, but only because—as I have insisted from the outset of this book—identities and ethnic categories are continually subject to change. However, I do believe that the events described in this chapter did constitute a small step by immigrants toward a reframing of their own identity more in line with emerging Anglo perceptions, and another small step toward greater inclusion of settled immigrants into a broader conceptualization of community.

172

Reimagining the Immigrant

It begins in a disturbing case of farm worker exploitation in northern San Luis Obispo County by a company I shall call Delictum Vineyards. This incident was publicized in a general manner, but not including all of its particulars. Because of news media publicity, the Delictum scandal also became an item of local gossip and conversation, and one of those discussions in the Lions Club had local repercussions by creating first a perceived ethnic slight, and then an opportunity for immigrant residents to challenge this perceived offense. The intervention by immigrants and a Mexican American broker was well received by the Anglo audience at the Lions Club. The farm workers and their broker used the locally meaningful notions of respectability and community to differentiate themselves from Mexican sojourners and nonresidents who had drawn criticism from Anglos. It enabled the settled immigrants to resist classification as undesirable “low quality” residents by linking themselves and their interests with all other responsible and respectable community members regardless of ethnicity. Yet they also defended their identity as Mexicans, portraying themselves as both respectable and Mexican simultaneously. News of the expression of inclusion that occurred in the Shandon Lions Club was restricted to so small a portion of local residents that it had only a small effect on the quality of immigrant/native relations. But it was an event that gave new hope to some of the meeting’s participants, and in the years after my departure from Shandon, many of these same people continued to participate in events that directly sought to foster better relations between natives and immigrants. The Delictum Vineyards Scandal Delictum Vineyards, a vineyard and winery operation located outside of the Shandon school district but operating one of the vineyards within the district, was cited for illegally housing Mexican farm workers. Their main vineyard equipment shed—a forty-foot by eighty-foot metal-sided, concrete-f loored building with no insulation, no airconditioning, no windows, and only one door to the outside—served as home for thirty-six workers who slept on mattresses on the f loor. Some had to share mattresses, and all shared two toilets, two showers, and a single wood-burning stove. In a neighboring building, sixteen men shared two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Two of these men slept in the water heater closet. A few more men camped in abandoned cars on the back of the main property. The California Department of Labor

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

173

and Community Development fined Delictum double its usual amount for labor camp licensing. The Federal Department of Housing assessed the company approximately $18,000 in civil penalties for illegal and substandard dwellings. The housing code violation was the main transgression committed by Delictum that was made public, but it was merely one among many ways in which the vineyard workers were being mistreated by their employer. Were it not for this fact, the workers probably would not have initiated legal action against Delictum. Similar complaints could have been lodged against the owners of the three small houses or the illegal trailer park discussed in chapter 6, but they were not lodged, because these persons were viewed as friends and allies of the workers in their desperate search for housing. Nevertheless, the workers insisted that if the legal process required that they make choices among the correctives they might achieve, halting the illegal housing situation was their first priority, halting the practice of kickbacks secondary, and recovering lost wages was third. When the workers met with attorneys from California Rural Legal Assistance prior to the raid on the company by enforcement agencies of the county, state, and federal governments, the breadth of Delictum’s legal violations became clear. The workers, all without their own means of transportation, had $30 per week in wages withheld as a fee for transportation in the company’s vehicles. The vehicles themselves lacked seating for all the passengers, and thus violated worker transport codes. The workers were entirely dependent on these vehicles, and because the company only hired seasonal workers who lacked their own transportation, the company ensured that it would recoup this transportation fee. Delictum also employed the newest arrivals with the least local experience and the weakest local support networks, including many new entrants to the migrant stream from the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. All of these factors aided the company’s exploitation of their workforce. Workers were not provided with legally required sanitary facilities in the vineyards, nor were they permitted the required breaks. They were taken to other work sites without being given a choice. They were charged $25 per week for housing, the full amount of a housing allowance they otherwise would have received. Their Social Security wages were not being paid to an average rate of $900 per worker per year. At least some of them were assessed a fee of $300 to be supplied with forged immigration documents that reportedly cost the management $150 to obtain. The U.S. Department of Labor estimated that

174

Reimagining the Immigrant

the workers were required to pay $5 per day in “bribes” to the foreman to keep their jobs. In years past, weekly payroll was handed out from the van in Shandon outside the store, a practice that some local residents suspected of being a kickback scheme involving the grocer. A tractor driver who had fallen into disfavor with the manager was falsely accused of being a whistle-blower in a previous complaint to the U.S. Department of Labor, and was evicted from his trailer. When he complained to the owner about his treatment by the manager, he was fired. I began to hear criticism of Delictum Vineyards in my first meetings with local farm workers and grape growers in Shandon in 1989, well before the legal action that brought it to the attention of the public. Local workers, including many former or current employees of Delictum, characterized the company as different from all the others in the area. “They treat their workers like slaves,” they often told me. Personal stories of mistreatment abounded among former employees. One man recounted that he had been offered a foreman’s position with the precondition that he no longer socialize with the lower-level workers. He refused to do this, and quit. Even Anglos who had worked in Delictum’s winery reported having been paid in cash rather than with checks, a practice they found quite suspicious. Other local growers substantiated what the farm workers had told me, although neither growers nor farm workers knew at the time that each was telling me similar stories. The other local grape growers had often been the next employers for many of Delictum’s former workers, and had acquired a perspective based on years of repeatedly being asked by former Delictum employees such questions as, “How much will it cost me to work here?” By inquiring why these workers asked such questions, the growers had learned about at least some of the company’s illegal practices. One manager had complained to Delictum’s manager about the practice of paying off workers outside Shandon Market, and may have helped to bring that practice to a halt. But in general the growers were afraid to intervene, either heeding rumors that Delictum’s owners had Mafia connections, or not knowing quite what they might do to eliminate Delictum’s behavior. The local grape growers’ concern about the behavior of Delictum Vineyards was not merely out of sympathy with the workers, though I witnessed several express anger over Delictum’s treatment of workers. The growers quite rightly feared that the practices Delictum was engaged in would inevitably attract labor union or some other action or attention in which all of them would be tainted by Delictum’s activities

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

175

and thereby targeted collectively for criticism. Delictum Vineyards’ illegal and unethical activities were simply bad for business. They were right to worry. When California Rural Legal Assistance considered taking the case, one of its attractions for the lawyers was that it might easily be expanded into a larger class action lawsuit against all of the region’s grape growers. These same lawyers recently had successfully prosecuted a case against sharecropping arrangements in the strawberry industry in the Santa Maria Valley in neighboring Santa Barbara County. The case had ramifications throughout the industry statewide, and the lawyers had high hopes that the Delictum matter could turn into a similarly successful case against the grape industry, thereby giving them major back-to-back victories against the oppression of workers by growers.1 The lawyers assumed that Delictum Vineyard’s infractions could not be an isolated case, and as their first meeting with the workers concluded, they began asking which other growers were engaged in similar practices, especially violations of housing codes.2 The lawyers expressed surprise when other local residents and farm workers told them that they had no similar complaints about the other local growers, and were at first quite reluctant to believe that the other growers were actually critical of Delictum’s behavior. Eventually, however, the lawyers were dissuaded from taking this approach, since they met with no support for their views among the workers or their other contacts in the case. After meeting with the lawyers, the workers helped obtain photographic evidence of their living conditions, and provided pay stubs and other evidence of the various infractions. The County immediately closed the illegal housing, and twenty of the workers moved to a shed in Shandon, where they each paid $25 per week to a reputed coyote, or illegal immigrant smuggler, for housing that they and their friends all agreed was every bit as bad as what they had just left. Ultimately, Delictum Vineyards was forced to pay the workers back-pay totaling $28,000 for the daily “bribes.” Throughout it all, the owner of Delictum Vineyards publicly pretended that the only violation that existed was the illegal housing. In news media coverage of the scandal, he adopted the position that the workers would have been homeless had he not interceded on their behalf, and that the County—through its strict farm housing code— was responsible for the farm worker housing problem. There was at least some muted support for the latter argument among other growers, who had often pointed to the severity of the farm worker housing

176

Reimagining the Immigrant

codes as one impediment to constructing more of it.3 The head of the regional grape growers association used his office to defend Delictum’s owner, issuing blanket denials of wrongdoing and joining in the criticism of the County. Shandon’s other grape growers alternately heaved a sigh of mixed relief and satisfaction, dismissed the denials coming from Delictum’s owner and the growers association head, and considered in hindsight what they might have done to intervene and dissuade Delictum’s operators from engaging in such practices. They remained skeptical that they could have done anything to change the situation. One vineyard that had begun—but not yet finished—eliminating housing code violations of its own, hurriedly did so. Meanwhile, Delictum’s relocated workers and their friends wondered if they should also turn in their new landlord. After discussing it among themselves, they chose not to, because, as one of their friends put it, “Where would they go? There is no place else.” The Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee Confronts the Lions Club Surprisingly, the Delictum scandal created one of the first instances outside the schools where settled immigrants in Shandon publicly asked for recognition as—and were acknowledged by established residents as—stable, responsible, and respectable community members. In the fall of 1990, soon after Delictum Vineyards had been raided by government agencies and its transgressions in farm worker housing had been made public in the regional news media, many of Delictum’s workers had relocated to Shandon. Court action was still pending, and Delictum’s owners were campaigning in the news media and political arena to defend themselves and their image from the charges against them. At this time, the Shandon Lions Club invited the County supervisor to speak informally at one of their meetings and answer questions. As they usually did, the Lions extended an open invitation to the local public to attend, using word of mouth and a message posted on the board outside the store. In addition to the nine members in attendance on the evening the supervisor attended were six others: two long-standing members of the community, one recent newcomer, me, and two lesser-known men, one of whom was from Whitley Gardens. Several of those attending were women. Lastly, the cook, a bilingual

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

177

Mexican immigrant woman, was in the kitchen just off the main meeting room during part of the meeting. After discussing a number of issues regarding the County’s interaction with Shandon and its provision of various services, the supervisor fielded a question from Tom, one of the Lions members. What could be done, Tom asked, about the migrant farm workers who stood around outside the store, on the streets and in the park, who drank, harassed women, urinated, and didn’t clean up after themselves as part of their normal routine? “To get rid of these migrants, what do we need, better sheriff patrols or what?” His question was seconded by several women present. Indeed, the recent inf lux of Delictum’s displaced workers suddenly had added to the visible number of migrant workers sitting at the bench outside the store or in the park after work hours, but these men were not necessarily those committing the infractions Tom described. The supervisor responded by implicating Delictum for the presence of these migrants in Shandon, and stated that the workers had been unfairly treated. Tom did not challenge this, but he was not to be swayed by an appeal to the sufferings of the migrants. He replied that many women and children were afraid to go to the store because of the workers’ presence, and were becoming afraid to go to the post office. Women, he said, “get slapped in the butt by migrants.” The supervisor responded that there was little the County could do. Growers could build farm labor quarters, he said, but a labor camp would have to be under state control. Finally, he noted the migrants just didn’t have anywhere else to go, so they hang out on the streets and in the park. But, he added as if to provide relief, the migrants weren’t into gangs yet. At this point, Chuck, the lesser-known man from Whitley Gardens, interjected to defend Delictum Vineyards. He claimed that Delictum’s owner and manager were “incapable of mistreating” people. If it had not been for these men, the workers would have been out living under bridges, claimed Chuck. Delictum had done their workers a favor, he contended, and if the County had a better place to put the workers, then they should take them.4 The entire problem was due to a few disgruntled workers, he argued. The supervisor began to agree with this last remark, then apparently thought better of it, and instead charged, a little more heatedly now, that people wouldn’t be complaining so much about the migrants standing around if the migrants weren’t Mexicans. A f lurry of voices— all of whom had been quiet while Chuck was defending Delictum— objected that this just wasn’t true. But they immediately again fell silent when Chuck added that Delictum’s workers’ living conditions were

178

Reimagining the Immigrant

acceptable because they were Mexicans. To this he added, “These guys think they’re in heaven. Have you ever been to Mexico? They think this is high living.” For a moment there was general shocked silence and discrete—and some not so discrete—eye-contact between the Shandon residents. Then Fred, a longtime resident but not a Lions member, heatedly challenged Chuck. It made no difference that they were Mexicans, Fred stated in a raised voice. “I don’t care who they are, forty people living in that building is abusing them! Christ! They had two men living in the closet with the water heater!” There were nods and utterances of agreement all around, including the County supervisor. But now it was Chuck who would not be swayed: “Which is better, living in a closet, or living under a bridge?” he asked, then reiterated his belief that the conditions were better than those in Mexico. The supervisor interjected to defend the workers. They were “being raped” by landowners and their own people, he argued. The latter point, at least, brought more nods of agreement. Turning to face just Chuck alone and challenging his assertions both verbally and with his posture, he said Delictum was turned in by their own people, so they must not be all that nice. No one supported Chuck’s position openly, and most were openly repulsed by his arguments: shaking their heads, making faces. But none countered his charges that the County was responsible for the problem, nor that Delictum’s illegal housing conditions were better than those in Mexico. Instead, some of the women talked about how the little old (Anglo) men used to be able to sit on the bench outside the store and talk, but no longer could because the migrants had “taken it over.” Someone asked the supervisor if migrant housing could be built in the county. Yes, he responded, but not near where the migrants work. One such project was proposed at Whitley Gardens, he noted, to which Chuck replied in partial jest, “Jesus! Not there, that’s where I live!” Soon after this, the meeting broke up. It wasn’t very long before word of the Lions meeting proceedings filtered out to other local residents.5 News traveling by word of mouth spread about how the outsider, Chuck, “had been rude” to the supervisor, and what had instigated the incident. When Patricia Mendoza, a Mexican American, heard what had transpired, she was agitated about the anti-migrant sentiment expressed during the meeting. She interpreted the remarks about migrants in the following manner: “They say ‘migrant,’ but they mean ‘Mexican!’ ” Her usage of Mexican encompassed Mexican Americans, as well, so part of her agitation was concern

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

179

that her own family was part of the group being criticized. She was disturbed and confused that some of her Anglo friends had joined in some of the condemnation of migrants at the meeting. But she was also impressed and relieved that other Anglos had spoken in support of the farm workers. So she and her husband considered it might be possible that the Anglos at the meeting had been making a distinction between Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans, or between migrants and other Mexicans and Mexican Americans. But Patricia’s strongest fear was that the Anglos at the Lions meeting blamed Mexican residents collectively for problems in the community that a few Mexican migrants caused. She resolved that the members of the Lions Club should be “educated” that immigrant families in Shandon shared the same concerns for the character and quality of life in Shandon, including the safety of wives and daughters, that the Anglos had expressed in the Lions Club meeting. She presented the problem to the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee with the suggestion that they attend the next Lions Club meeting and make a statement to indicate their concern that they were being unfairly blamed for local problems when they actually shared similar concerns as the Anglo members of the club. The Migrant Education Committee members agreed that this was worth doing. Some said they, too, did not want Shandon to become like Avenal. Anglos referred to Avenal as “a Mexican town”—essentially a large boarding place for seasonal migrants, with a high proportion of group households and the kind of social tensions once felt so much more strongly in Shandon. The women in the group pointed out that they did not like being harassed by the workers outside the store either, and both mothers and fathers objected to this treatment of their daughters. Plans were laid for the Migrant Education Committee’s officers to join Patricia at the next Lions Club meeting to make a statement. The husbands of female officers in the group would also go. The group thus constituted to represent the local Mexican community consisted of four men with positions of some permanence and responsibility in local agriculture: a vineyard irrigator, two farm labor contractors, and a year-round resident ranch hand, and two of their wives, including the Lions Club cook. One man was a homeowner, others were respected tenants, and all were heads of families with children well integrated into the local schools. The homeowner had lived in Shandon since 1978. Two of them had worked for Delictum Vineyards in the past, but they all despised Delictum’s management and believed it was the one truly corrupt grape grower in the region. Except for the cook, they were

180

Reimagining the Immigrant

not known individuals to the Lions Club membership so much as they were recognizable as settled local residents. Only one of the women, in addition to Patricia, was substantially bilingual; all of the others’ primary language was Spanish. In contesting the Lions anti-migrant rhetoric, Patricia hoped to open lines of communication between the Anglo and immigrant residents, so she felt it was important not to frame the issue as a racial one, because this, she assumed, would only alienate the Lions Club members. The others allowed her to map out the presentation in advance, trusting that she knew best how to handle the situation. Over the next week she considered various ways of presenting a statement, seeking advice from her husband and conferring occasionally with the other members of the group. When the evening of the next Lions Club meeting came, the County Sheriff and two of his staff members were making a presentation about crime statistics and law enforcement in Shandon. The only extra people in attendance this time were Patricia, her husband, and the six representatives of the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee. Their presence was unprecedented and was a cause for nervousness on their own part, and a visible measure of tension among the Lions members and the Sheriff, as none of them knew why the immigrants were there or what to anticipate. After the Sheriff ’s presentation, Patricia addressed the group. She introduced the immigrants as “responsible members of the Mexican community,” and indicated that she would be speaking for them out of concern over remarks aired about Mexicans in the previous meeting. I was later told there was some confusion among some of the Anglos over whether she was speaking critically about the Sheriff or the Lions, a confusion that may have helped to diffuse tension. Patricia pointed out that those immigrants in attendance and others they represented were responsible members of the community who wanted the same things for Shandon as did the Anglos. They had “good allAmerican values: they wanted a good house, a good job, a good education and opportunities for their children.” They did not approve of the “antisocial behavior” of other immigrants either, she continued, and indeed, sometimes intervened to discourage improper behavior. All ethnic groups have their antisocial members, Patricia implored, but the Mexicans who engaged in troublesome behavior in Shandon were “outsiders, not residents of the community.” During this presentation, two of the Anglos seemed visibly nervous: the Sheriff and Tom, the Lions member who had raised the issue of migrants in the previous meeting. But as Patricia concluded

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

181

her remarks, the Sheriff stated that, indeed, immigrants who had been apprehended in Shandon for law violations usually were outsiders rather than local residents. Then two of the Lions members spoke up in support of what Patricia had said. One directed his comments to the Sheriff, encouraging him to use the Migrant Education Committee as a liaison to Shandon’s immigrant community. The tone of the meeting began to relax a little at this point, as it became clear to nearly everyone that an adversarial stance had been avoided. The immigrant representatives offered via Patricia’s translation that some local immigrants did not feel comfortable calling the Sheriff, even when it was the proper thing to do. The Lions president noted that the immigrants’ attendance at the meeting was an unusual but pleasant surprise, and he urged the Migrant Education Committee’s representatives to use the Sheriff. Indeed, “pleasant surprise” characterized all of the Lions member’s response as the dialogue unfolded, with the exception of Tom, who remained visibly nervous and reticent throughout. Afterward, the immigrant participants discussed among themselves what had transpired, and they felt good about both what they had done and the Lions’ and Sheriff ’s responses. But they were also circumspect in their enthusiasm. It was a start, they agreed. Patricia resolved that the next step would be to invite the Sheriff to attend a Migrant Education Committee meeting where he could meet more of the local immigrant residents and field their questions in a setting more of them would be comfortable with. This eventually did occur and was a well-attended and very successful meeting. In that meeting, the group’s members asked a wide range of questions regarding the law, and listened attentively to the Sheriff ’s responses in English and Patricia’s running Spanish translation. Afterward, the men gathered and discussed the Sheriff ’s demeanor toward the group, noting with much approval and appreciation that he had understood many of their questions in Spanish before Patricia translated them. It was clear that Patricia’s presentation to the Lions had much of its intended effect. One Lion said to me later, “It was a historic moment for Shandon. Not enough Anglos were there to see it, and that is too bad.” Another sought me out to say how pleased he was to see as many “concerned members of the Spanish community” show up to express their shared concern for Shandon’s welfare. “It was good to have this communication between the whites and the Spanish. That is probably the main thing that we need more of,” he concluded. A few days later, the president of the Lions Club went to Patricia’s house and asked her and her husband to become Lions members. While they considered the

182

Reimagining the Immigrant

offer, he asked her to help organize the Lions’ upcoming eye examination day at the schools, anticipating that she would be able to communicate with the immigrant families needing this service better than anyone else. He confided to her that he thought her presentation had been maybe a bit too “aggressive,” but he acknowledged that it also demonstrated that she and her husband would be an asset to the Lions Club, because it showed their general interest in the welfare of the community and the communication link they could provide to Mexican residents. Eventually Patricia’s husband did join the club, becoming its second Mexican American member on paper, but the first to be actively involved in Club affairs. Little else directly resulted from the meeting of Lions Club and Migrant Education Committee members. Both groups went about their own business, and they later remembered the meeting as a tense yet surprisingly positive one that demonstrated common interests and good will by both immigrant and established residents. However, nearly every participant lamented how few local residents were at the meeting to witness the momentous expression of common interest between Anglo, Mexican American, and Mexican residents. The meeting’s participants felt certain that had more residents observed the meeting, particularly Anglos and old guard, then perhaps there would have been an even greater improvement in immigrant/native relations in Shandon in subsequent years. A Postscript to the Events of 1989–1991 Vineyards and suburban housing have continued to expand since my departure from Shandon in the summer of 1991. It was evident in 1991 that this would be the case, but with each return trip, I encountered developments in these areas I did not anticipate. The construction on Shandon Heights that had begun in 1991 soon added seventeen new houses to the town. Construction continued on the northeast side of town, adding a new street and still more homes. There were twentyseven students in Shandon High School’s 1995 graduating class. New wine and table grape vineyards were added on Shandon Flat on lands formerly planted with almonds, alfalfa, and barley hay. More than eighty acres of wine grapes were planted by three of the local vineyard managers as part of their own expansion into vineyard ownership. One of the men stopped managing vineyards for others in 1994 and shifted

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

183

into operating his own vineyard full time. For these men, some form of “agricultural ladder” had reemerged (see Hatch 1975; 1979). Accompanying these changes were several noteworthy trends. Both commuter residents and the settled immigrant residents became more involved and inf luential in local affairs. At the same time, old guard inf luence continued to decline and many of the older members of families with long histories in the region removed themselves from local activities outside their narrow circle of fellow old guard residents. There continued to be great room for improvement in local immigrant/ native relations in nearly everyone’s opinion, and although many signs of change were viewed positively by local residents, there were still mixed signals regarding the degree to which immigrants were accepted as equal community members. Since their successful collaboration in 1990 on making Christmas costumes, the PTO and Migrant Education Parent Committee cooperated regularly on the Christmas show, fundraising, and obtaining Spanish language texts. By 1993 several more immigrant women had become frequent volunteers at the schools on an irregular basis, assisting students and teachers with a variety of class projects, from home economics to language skills. The most prominent participants were women who had helped the PTO in 1990. They were wives of men with more permanent farm working and labor contracting positions, and most were active members of the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee. One had participated in the meeting between the Migrant Education Committee’s officers and the Lions Club. On the suggestion of an Anglo commuter couple who had been active in school and youth activities for a number of years, a community dance put on by the high school youth in 1993 took a Tex-Mex theme. It was hoped this would be attractive to both native and immigrant residents, as proved to be the case. One of the students, the daughter of an immigrant farm worker, told me with obvious pride that it had been easy for the student organizers to implement the theme by alternating between Mexican and American music. A high school student from a large landholding old guard family initiated a bilingual school newsletter in 1994 to help keep native and immigrant parents equally current with the school’s events, news, and programs. The student obtained an external grant that paid for a Spanish-English computer translation program. An active bilingual Mexican American broker regularly helped the student verify the accuracy of translations. In 1995 the student’s father suggested expanding

184

Reimagining the Immigrant

the newsletter into a broader bilingual community newsletter, if funds to support this could be obtained. For a time in the early 1990s, the school district employed the American-born daughter of one of the community’s early Mexican settlers as a part-time aide working closely with the immigrant families. The choice proved to be a poor one, for the aide’s behavior did not meet the immigrant parents’ standards. Her actions were interpreted as being rude, arrogant, and f lirtatious. Complaints from the immigrant parents mounted, administrators listened, judged the complaints to be well-founded, and the aide was dismissed. One of the most important things to occur after my departure was the ending of the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee’s effectiveness as a broadly functioning immigrant community organization. The impetus came from outside Shandon. California Migrant Education’s regional office, located in Santa Maria to the south in Santa Barbara County, reasserted its authority over Shandon’s Parent Advisory Committee in 1993–1994. After resuming more direct contact with the group and finding well-attended meetings but participants and leaders who were ineligible for inclusion in the program by state rules, the regional office’s representatives insisted that membership rules be enforced. To the annoyance of the local members, one of the office’s first actions to bring the Committee into line with the rules was to send one of their own Mexican American staff members to attend Shandon meetings. This person insisted that the president and other officers who had been in Shandon more than six years be unseated and not allowed to attend meetings, because they did not qualify as members of Migrant Education. The demand for these changes was delivered in a manner the members considered an example of the patronizing attitude they often associated with Mexican Americans. Members rebelled and insisted on letting the removed officers participate in the group. The regional office acquiesced on this point, but stood its ground on the issue of office-holding. The regional office was also unwilling to provide funds for a full-time staff member for the Migrant Education program at Shandon, because of the low total number of qualifying migrants in the district. Newly arriving parents became active in the Migrant Education group and factions emerged by the mid-1990s. Allegations of improper use of funds alienated many of the longerterm members, despite ultimately proving spurious. Most of the old core of the committee from 1989–1991 ceased participating in the organization, but continued their interest in broader local issues by using the adult English classes and an evening homework lab for high

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

185

school students as new forums for meetings and action. These were also sponsored by external funds, this time from The Literacy Council in San Luis Obispo, which received federal Vista Volunteer monies. Thus, the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee ceased being the only local community organization for immigrant parents, or even the best avenue to reach out to immigrant residents. Among the newcomers Shandon continued to acquire were other bilingual Mexican Americans. One couple quickly became involved in local school activities, PTO, and youth athletic activities, becoming active brokers for monolingual immigrant parents and local youth. Their principle social network was oriented more toward other native adults, but their work with youth especially incorporated immigrants. Another bilingual Mexican American man who settled in Shandon in the mid-1990s after obtaining a job in the school district was more oriented toward the longer settled immigrant families. He organized an evening bible reading group in Spanish that became quite popular among immigrant families and some Mexican Americans. The group attracted twenty to thirty people to its weekly meetings, exceeding the attendance at services of either of the local Protestant churches. The group’s participants were Catholic, yet the meetings grew into Spanish language services offered at the Methodist Church. More commuter residents also became increasingly involved and inf luential in local affairs. Some who were previously active in the PTO were elected to Shandon Advisory Committee and the school board in 1993 and 1994. One was chosen as the Advisory Committee president, and the organization began to be more active in defining official positions for Shandon in response to County initiatives. She was soon earning praise for her work in this role from local growers and other residents. In the mid-1990s, Shandon Advisory Committee organized a community cleanup in response to a county-wide effort. What was of interest in Shandon’s campaign was the Committee’s recruitment of immigrant families in the undertaking, thereby avoiding the trap of appearing to direct the action at immigrants. Advisory Committee officers used ties through their children’s schoolmates and Mexican American brokers to enlist immigrant families they knew, and the effort was successfully implemented as a multiethnic community undertaking. Local attention in 1993 focused on the proposed construction of a chicken ranch a few miles from town that was designed to be one of the largest in the western United States. Local opinions on the proposed project varied, but with Shandon Advisory Committee in existence,

186

Reimagining the Immigrant

the community had the opportunity to speak authoritatively with one official voice, if residents could agree to do so. Opposition to the project on environmental grounds was mounted by a number of the large landholders. But some other Anglos vocally objected because the project would create employment that would “bring more Mexicans” to Shandon. Local contractors and construction workers hoped the project would create employment for them, and some immigrant farm workers foresaw similar employment possibilities for themselves. The immigrants were not directly involved in the public discussion and debate, however. Tom, the man who had raised the complaint about migrants in the 1990 Lions Club meeting with the County supervisor, was a contractor whose economic self-interest inclined him to support the proposed chicken ranch. Since 1991, the Lions had acquired Patricia’s Mexican American husband as an active member, and Tom had undergone a considerable change of opinion on the matter of Mexican immigrants. Public dispute about the proposed chicken ranch clarified the matter even further for him, as he realized the depth of prejudice of some of the other Anglo residents. In public meetings and privately to friends, Tom spoke in defense of the immigrant residents and criticized these Anglos for their prejudice. Mexican American observers in the community who had long considered Tom to be prejudiced told me they were thoroughly convinced that Tom had undergone a complete transformation. The Shandon Advisory Committee ultimately did not oppose the chicken ranch, and it was approved by the County Board of Supervisors despite the protests of environmentalists. It was never built, however. For a year or two, the town had a modestly successful immigrant businessman in its midst who was far more visible than other immigrants. Shandon Cafe was leased by an immigrant couple who did not live in Shandon, but had previously operated a mobile food stand in north county. For a time, the menu featured tacos, burritos, and various Mexican dishes. Menu items were listed in the windows in large letters, giving a distinctly ethnic appearance to the building. The clientele still included local growers, but the high school had adopted a closed campus policy at lunch time for reasons unrelated to the cafe’s operations, so the old f low of teenagers to the cafe for lunch had halted. Construction of the state’s Coastal Aqueduct brought work crews to the Shandon area in the mid-1990s, and they leased office space in the abandoned market building across the street from the cafe. The cafe’s owners resumed control of the cafe’s operations when this occurred and displaced the immigrant couple and their Mexican menu.

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

187

In 1994 a wealthy Anglo landholder built a Catholic chapel on his ranch and began holding weekly mass, often conducted by a priest from Paso Robles or San Miguel. He and his family had settled there in 1970, but he had not been deeply involved in the community because his work was conducted outside the region. The family’s children did attend local schools until 1981, however. The services were open to all, and local immigrants were encouraged to attend. When they did do so, the priest always said a few words in Spanish in an effort to create a more inclusive atmosphere. A few local residents attended regularly during the church’s first years, so it created a place where workingclass Mexican Americans, Mexicans, and Anglos became friendly acquaintances with one of the region’s wealthiest and most inf luential families. With each passing year, more immigrants were visible at the Memorial Day barbecue, not as direct participants, except for the youth, but spatially separate in family gatherings and groups of friends on the margins of the Anglo-dominated activities. The immigrant families brought their own food and snacks spread on blankets in the cool shade at the north end of the park, rather than purchasing the more expensive barbecue meals. Their children joined the native kids at the swimming pool, whereas the single men gathered in groups to chat and watch the Americans, or played volleyball on the park’s sand court. The number of Anglos seemed to dwindle each year, and the volume of unsold food seemed to increase. Like the organizations that had sponsored the event, the annual barbecue remained linked to the older, dwindling segments of the community who had the most difficulty reaching out to include the town’s newcomers. What had changed about the barbecue between 1991 and roughly 1995 was that the immigrants no longer ceded virtually the entire park to the old guard on Memorial Day. Their presence attracted little commentary from the Anglos who still attended the day’s festivities. On the night of August 28, 1994, the long-simmering family feud at the trailers, the illegal trailer/labor camp several miles outside of town described in chapter 6, finally erupted in the bloodshed that some residents had long feared it would. Drinking provoked an argument leading to a shoot-out between in-laws that left two men dead and caused two more, one badly wounded, to f lee. In one of the families, the father was killed. In the other, a nephew was dead, another wounded, and a teenage son was sought on charges of murder. The latter family packed its belongings and left the next day, fearing retribution. The incident prompted County code enforcement officials to finally

188

Reimagining the Immigrant

condemn the premises. They cited the owner for lack of adequate sanitation, and gave the tenants ten days to get out. The County’s action, of course, produced its own panic. The remaining family had lost not only its father and primary income earner, but now would also lose its home. However, help began “coming out of the woodwork,” according to one person seeking to heal the wounds of the crisis. Attorneys for California Rural Legal Assistance contacted by a native resident secured emergency relief money for the family of the deceased man, as did California Employment Development Department. Two bilingual Mexican American women and the elementary school principal set up counseling for the four children of the deceased man’s family with the district’s counselor. A local Anglo girl had died only a week earlier, so local residents were sensitive and responsive to the pain of tragic death. The school personnel applied their recent experience in a manner that one family friend described as “very supportive” of the family’s emotional needs following the killing. A collection was taken up among immigrant workers from Shandon, Paso Robles, and Avenal to pay for the burial. Large donations were made by the manager and absentee owners of the vineyard where the deceased man had worked, the local farm coop, and two local teachers. Two vineyard managers guaranteed that, between them, they would see to it that the widow received year-round employment. Services were held at the Catholic church in Paso Robles where immigrants from Shandon regularly attended, but the deceased man was buried in Shandon Cemetery, among the graves of the old Anglo homesteaders and their descendants. The Mexican American brokers in Shandon were generally quite impressed by the outpouring of sympathy and support from Anglos in the community. But one noted with disappointment that there had been no mention of the death in the services at Shandon Methodist Church the weekend following the killings, though there had been such a mention a week earlier for the Anglo girl who died. Several of the families displaced from the trailers were able to find housing in Shandon. One Mexican American broker encouraged the former tenants “to wake up and smell the roses, and be willing to pay more rent” to live in better conditions, challenging them with “See what happens?” The trailers’ owner, Harold Schneider, lost much of his former heroic stature with the immigrants and Mexican American brokers, who held him partly to blame for maintaining the setting in which the feud could fester. Schneider had begun his own vineyard, and two men stayed on as his regular vineyard workers in one of the trailers.6 Although these two men had worked in Shandon vineyards

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal

189

for a number of years and held fairly responsible and permanent positions, their families remained in Mexico and the men joined them for several months each year. In a far happier event, the mid-1990s witnessed the marriage of the son of an immigrant labor contractor and former farm worker to a working class Anglo woman. Both had attended Shandon High during 1989–1991. The young man’s parents had been quite active in Migrant Education and his mother was a frequent school volunteer. Both parents had participated in the meeting with the Lions Club members. The young man entered a police academy training program. A number of the houses in Shandon in the early 1990s were quite old. Some dated to the 1940s, and even those that were wellmaintained showed the wear and tear of time. Over the course of the 1980s, the tenants for these houses had been poor Anglos or immigrant farm workers. While I was still in Shandon, owners of these houses were increasingly interested in selling them, but there were few prospective buyers. In the mid-1990s, a Mexican American realtor in Paso Robles began serving immigrant clients. For the settled farm working families, Shandon’s old houses were affordable and preferable to the uncertainties and impermanence of rental housing. In 1995, a vineyard foreman’s family that had been in Shandon for many years secured a bank loan and was the first to buy. Others have followed, and residents were realizing that this was the likely fate of most old homes in the town. So, once again, quiet murmurs of anti-immigrant sentiment were heard from those generally older Anglos who feared the Mexicanization of the town. By 2000, Shandon’s population had grown to nearly 1000 residents (U.S. Census Bureau 2000). The local school-age population had become a two-thirds Hispanic majority. The proportion of this that was immigrant is, of course, hidden within this official category. Lorenzo Obregón, with whom I began the story of Shandon’s contemporary social conditions, completed his naturalization procedures and became a United States citizen in 1995. Though his English was still limited and he maintained a healthy skepticism about what actually would be accomplished, he continued to pursue activities that might improve relations between native and immigrant residents. His contributions were frequently small, often little more than quietly attending integrated meetings and discussing the events later with fellow immigrant settlers. But this alone attracted praise from longtime residents. “He’s great; you can always count on Lorenzo,” offered one Mexican American broker. “His participation is very important,” an

190

Reimagining the Immigrant

Anglo grower and local leader told me. Lorenzo’s primary social ties in Shandon were still enmeshed almost exclusively among his fellow settled immigrants, but in the 1990s he had chosen to participate—even if in a limited fashion—in a larger multiethnic social community defined by stable residence, community responsibility, and respect.

CH A P T E R

N I N E

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

The appearance and rapid growth of a foreign immigrant population after the mid-1960s in the small, rural town of Shandon, California, clearly resulted from the creation of grape vineyards in the area and their need for labor. There was no reasonable alternative labor source in the region. The preexisting local population was insufficient even for a regime based on labor-saving grape harvest technology, and was disinclined to such poorly remunerated, demanding work, anyway. No large pool of rural labor existed within the national population of the United States as had been the case in the 1930s, when the states of the western South provided the workers who became known as Okies after they came west to serve as farm workers. From the outset, rural Mexico could and did supply the labor needed in building and maintaining the new vineyards. The timing of the immigrants’ arrival in Shandon closely tracked the development of grape vineyards, and the immigrants themselves confirmed that vineyard work was why they came to this rural locale. Native residents were aware of this and of the long-standing dependency of labor-intensive commercial crops on workers who they did not consider to be part of their community. So there was a history of begrudging acquiescence to the presence of at least a few such outsiders in the community, and with that were wellestablished ideas about how such people should be characterized and classified. What Shandon natives were less prepared for, and less tolerant of, were the tremendous numbers of outside farm workers that were needed in the vineyards. With the development of vineyards, more outside farm workers sought housing in the town than perhaps had ever done

192

Reimagining the Immigrant

so before. The figures, as given in chapter 2, are striking: from the late 1960s to the late 1980s the resident farm worker population at least tripled, and all of this growth consisted of immigrants from Mexico. Shandon was transformed from a nearly all-Anglo-American town to one that was at least one-third Mexican immigrant, and most of this change occurred over the course of a single decade. In a town that in recent history had placed both farm workers and Mexican culture low on its social scale, this demographic transformation was a double shock. As anthropologist Elvin Hatch (1979) demonstrated, Shandon residents had long evaluated themselves in tandem with their evaluation of their community, blending into their notions of quality both the type of people who lived there and the type of community that residents created. Their collective social identity rested upon this calculus. Thus, at least initially the demographic shift could not help but displease native residents. As previous chapters have shown, Shandon residents were not idle in the face of this change. Over time their mix of prejudice and tolerance reshaped local immigrant demography, while local institutions slowly and subtly advanced the integration of natives and immigrants. With a history of classifying farm workers into two specific social types—one acceptable as community members and the other not—by the early 1990s Shandon natives appeared to be starting to think that the immigrants remaining in Shandon were precisely the kind of people they preferred. This realization caused natives to rethink their classification of persons of Mexican national origin to produce at least two distinct ethnic types where, for the most part, one type had dominated their conceptual framework before. Thus, Shandon natives were reimagining who the immigrants in their town were, an act that helped restore their sense of what type of community Shandon was relative to others in the region. By applying their reclassification of immigrant families to their concept of community, Shandon natives simultaneously were reimagining the nature of the collectivity that they envisioned themselves as part of. In an interesting way, the community was seen as changed yet remaining much the same. The story of Shandon’s experience with Mexican labor immigration, when closely analyzed, can change how we perceive identity, immigrants, rural communities, and, indeed, the whole of rural society based on large-scale, labor-intensive commercial agriculture. Here I shall summarize Shandon’s experience with reimagining the immigrant, abstract the process of rural reimagining, and relate it to a few often overlooked portions of otherwise seminal past scholarship on the

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

193

nature of rural society in the context of large-scale, labor-intensive, commercial agriculture in the United States. Talking points I have introduced certain premises and conceptual tools at various points in the foregoing chapters that now need repeating. The first of these introduced in chapter 1 is an anthropological understanding of ethnicity as being not the ref lection of actual geographic and cultural origins it is popularly understood to be, but rather as the product of social relations: as Barth (1969) stated, the self-ascription of identity plus ascription of identity by others. To the degree that other people facilitate it, permit it, or fail to notice or object, people can and do move from one ethnic or racial category to another in certain circumstances. In the Spanish borderlands of the United States this has produced a number of identity outcomes for people with social histories that trace back to what is now Mexico. The variation in identity outcomes is dependent on class factors, policy, individual opportunism, and social and cultural movements of various kinds (see, e.g., Haley 2005; 2009; Haley and Wilcoxon 2005; Kearney and Nagengast 1989). One has to be very careful when conducting a social analysis, then, not to presume the stability or exclusivity of social categories coming under such popular (and too often, scholarly) labels as Mexican, Anglo, and related terms. Related to the anthropological understanding of ethnicity or identity are two concerns with the concept of culture. The first is simply that identity differences do not perfectly correspond to cultural differences, meaning that people can and do emphasize some differences and overlook others in any conceptualization of identity. People can and do change their minds about how different they think they are from members of another group, and reframe the identities of both groups as they adjust their social interactions. This means that cultural change—popularly thought of as acculturation and assimilation after the scholarly concepts, or as the “melting pot” in long-standing American ideology—does not have to occur for people of different origins to come to see one another as similar enough to share a common identity. The multiplex or layered nature of identities makes appreciating sameness without significant acculturation much more possible. However, it is possible that in some settings this accommodation might require at least the perception that acculturation has occurred.

194

Reimagining the Immigrant

The other aspect of culture that is critical for updating an understanding of immigration and rural society is the popular penetration of the culture concept. As illustrated in previous chapters, average Americans use the concept of culture to account for differences they perceive as existing between segments within national society and to justify separate classification in distinct identities. It is not news that the culture concept now rivals and perhaps has eclipsed the notion of race as a popular explanation of variation, although it is sometimes argued that culture may be nothing more than a new way to talk about old racial categories. The popular notion of culture appears to have two discordant characteristics, which we must be mindful of during analysis. The first is the treatment of culture as something associated with origins, heritage, or tradition occurring in discrete, bounded units that are assumed to have a degree of wholeness to them. People mistakenly believe they can describe a particular culture in a way that will always be more or less complete and accurate (Handler 1988). Certain features become emblematic of identity, just as national origins are presumed to strictly delimit it. People are inclined toward an array of conventions when it comes to classifying one another. Slightly at odds with this is the second characteristic of the popular notion of culture: that it is also malleable. So it is thought that (some) immigrants can and do acculturate and assimilate. Indeed, this is a crucial ideological component of a settler society, such as the United States, where nearly all of the national populace is acknowledged to be the descendants of historically recent settlers from diverse points of origin. Successful integration of diverse settlers into a cohesive national imagined community (Anderson 1991) requires some sort of integrative ideology. The melting pot concept was one integrative ideology, but even in its heyday it coexisted with a racial ideology that limited its relevance primarily to Euro-Americans and Protestants, and has made it untenable today (Glazer and Moynihan 1963). The significance of these popular notions comes to light when people talk about their prejudices against immigrants and justify their efforts to rid their communities of them. Using the notion of culture and asserting that a particular national culture has the exclusive right to exist within a particular territory, local residents express what Verena Stolcke (1995) has called cultural fundamentalism. The widespread acceptance of the culture concept frees people critical of what they perceive as the culture of immigrants to insist upon their exclusion or removal. Unlike racism, which presumes difference is unchangeable, cultural fundamentalism permits insistence that the immigrant change by adopting the

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

195

local culture. However, natives typically presume the unwillingness of immigrants to acculturate or assimilate. Thus, when events lead natives to accept that some meaningful similarity with immigrants exists, they rationalize either that acculturation has occurred or that the seemingly more similar immigrants are a distinctive cultural subgroup of their nation of origin who could not have shared in that country’s dominant national culture. These are clearly matters of perception that need not be empirically accurate from the anthropologist’s perspective for them to be important in local people’s daily social interactions. What matters is the perception of commonality, not an actual dramatic abandonment of cultural practices, social cohesion, or identity on the part of the immigrants. Cultural fundamentalism, therefore, possesses a versatility that may have a peculiar relevance in settings that segment immigrant groups into locally acceptable and locally unacceptable divisions. In an era when a notion of discrete, bounded cultural units has gained widespread popular acceptance for explaining human differences, a political economy with a transnational labor system stimulates cultural segmentation of labor and cultural fundamentalism.1 The unitary view of culture inherent in cultural fundamentalism provides a strong basis for prejudice and discrimination. The interplay between the labor process and locally meaningful symbols of social standing affects the severity of cultural fundamentalism’s local manifestation. Cultural fundamentalism in Shandon proved to be responsive to local demographic factors and the incidence of practices that had meanings embedded in local history. The ability of natives to enforce their collective will against newcomers was subject to the natives’ proportional representation in the region and control of local institutions and resources. The severity of exclusionary rhetoric and discriminatory practice waxed and waned with changes in the local mix of Mexican family and group households, settled and seasonal farm workers, known and anonymous individuals, immigrants seen as responsible and those viewed as irresponsible, and those viewed as interested in community welfare and those who were thought not to be. Creating, Acknowledging, and Reimagining Segments As my talking points suggest, an anthropological perspective on immigration and identity in rural America must focus principally upon the social contexts that immigrants enter. In Shandon, we are confronted with the industrialized production of grapes for wine and fresh fruit as

196

Reimagining the Immigrant

the major factor increasing immigration from Mexico and structuring the lives of immigrants once they had arrived. This kind of grape cultivation created distinct levels of labor: a large mass of seasonal workers for the late-summer to early-fall harvest, a smaller number for the critical winter pruning, and an even smaller number of nearly year-round workers to direct work crews, irrigate, drive tractors, and build and maintain facilities and equipment. Vineyard managers typically kept a core group of high quality workers that met all but the major labor demand at harvest without augmentation, and these were employed year-round with benefits.2 The result was two working classes: one with permanent or nearly permanent work in the local area and the other a larger seasonal class of sojourners that must travel extensively for brief stints of work in a variety of locations. The social importance of this class division within labor was compounded by the immigration and settlement options of workers and their families. The high mobility of seasonal labor, coupled with a severe shortage of local housing, was not as conducive to raising families as was permanent employment, so a much higher proportion of the seasonal workers either were unmarried or left families behind in Mexico. They were more willing to make compromises in housing, such as settling for overcrowded, shared houses, trailers, or apartments, or boarding temporarily with kin or paisanos. Like military personnel on short-term overseas assignments or college students during their early years away from home, the seasonal workers felt no special connection or loyalty to the community where they were housed and worked, and thus less of an obligation to conform strictly to all of its norms. Indeed, these workers had such difficulty finding decent housing that they quite likely perceived Shandon as an unwelcoming place. It is not surprising that some acted out against local interests, although doing so only made social relations worse. For most, their primary affiliation remained to their home community in Mexico, making their lives transnational for a time. In contrast, permanent employment was more conducive to raising a family in the region of employment, and was the frequent prerequisite to bringing spouses and children north from Mexico or marrying in the United States and starting a family. There was much greater interest in obtaining better quality housing and sustaining a higher quality of local community life, because permanent workers foresaw their futures playing out for longer in Shandon than seasonal workers did. With children in the family, these households settled locally, and became connected to the most significant integrative institution in Shandon, the local schools. With sufficient time, the

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

197

entire family became known to a wider segment of local residents, and became recognizable as members of the community. But much of this was contingent upon securing decent housing, and if that did not occur soon enough for the parents’ liking, the family was forced to relocate to another town. Shandon had, then, two farm working segments or classes: one of permanently employed, locally settled workers and their families, and the other comprising the seasonally employed or other sojourner workers who generally did not have families in residence. Native reaction to these immigrants was expressed in the idiom of cultural difference, with the terms quality and respect being used to grade the people as more similar or less similar to native residents. The choice of traits interpreted as characterizing Mexican culture was inf luenced by preexisting local modes of evaluation. Elvin Hatch’s (1979) historical ethnography of Shandon in the decades during and after World War II documented the existence of a local social distinction between two types of farm workers. Those perceived as lacking residential stability, responsibility, a concern for the maintenance and appearance of property, and not involved in community affairs were ethnicized as “Okie type” farm workers. Those labeled “foreman type” farm workers were considered more responsible, frequently were employed as foremen, were more involved in local affairs, considered respectable, and were not treated as a separate ethnic group. Their key advantage was simply that they conformed better to middle-class norms of appearance and conduct than the Okie type farm workers. Shandon residents used the idiom of respectability or quality to encapsulate and explain the differences they believe exist between these two categories. The respectable person with foreman type quality was preferred as a local resident and neighbor, whereas too many of the Okie type workers were thought to degrade the quality of life for the entire community. Natives originally became concerned about the rise of Mexican immigration and settlement in Shandon because all laborers from Mexico initially were viewed as the Okie type. The traits or practices that local natives identified as unwanted elements of Mexican culture were (roughly in the order that they are despised) overcrowded and poorly maintained houses and yards, sexual harassment of women and girls, public drinking, accumulating trash, unsafe driving, outdoor urinating, gangs, deer poaching, loud music, poor clothes and automobiles, use of the Spanish language, and lack of community involvement. Notably, this list includes as many adaptations to poverty and marginalization in the United States (e.g., condition of

198

Reimagining the Immigrant

homes, gangs, trash, poor clothes and automobiles) and practices simply typical of poorly integrated young men far from home (e.g., sexual harassment, drinking, petty crimes) as it does practices that actually are more common in Mexico or result from inexperience with local laws (e.g., Spanish language, acceptable contexts for public drinking, loud music, deer hunting without permits).3 This reveals that what was perceived as Mexican culture by offended natives in Shandon was largely made here in the United States, and it was mostly a set of class traits related to occupation, income, and residence. Although Mexican immigrants initially were concentrated in the lowest levels of farm work, some quickly occupied more permanent positions and others soon followed, so that the size of a settled farm worker immigrant segment grew. Still, they were not widely perceived as distinct by many beyond their immediate employers until the sorting effects of housing discrimination began to be felt later in the 1980s. Since housing discrimination targeted the most overcrowded and deteriorated buildings for condemnation and destruction, it reduced the number of group households, which were comprised primarily of seasonal sojourner workers, effectively driving most of them out of town. Permanent workers were more likely to escape this form of discrimination, thus their proportional representation among local immigrants rose. This increasingly brought them to wider attention and helped trigger the reimagining of immigrant identities by native residents. As immigrants stepped into positions of responsibility and respectability as crew foremen, machinery operators, irrigators, and labor contractors, long-standing residents responded by differentiating multiple Mexican “types,” either as Mexicans versus Mexican Americans (at least regarding children), migrants versus Mexicans, or projecting on certain immigrants origins in “a different part of Mexico.” Terminological variations such as “wetback type” and “Americanized Mexican” kept this emerging reclassification poorly formed, and hindered the formation of a consensus among Anglos over the boundaries and names of the categories. The meaning of Mexican changed for some Anglos more than for others because native residents did not all participate equally in local integrative institutions. Regardless of their incomplete involvement, the native’s reimagining process was a crucial early step in the transformation of Mexican immigrants into Mexican Americans. For immigrants to progress toward this transformation they had to achieve respectability beyond their immediate employers, and this entailed more than occupational advancement from the seasonal labor

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

199

mass to responsible permanent jobs. It required surviving the exclusionary effect of housing discrimination and condemnation by living in family-based households and maintaining the appearance of the property. It required becoming known and acquiring a positive reputation through one’s children’s friendships formed at the schools and by taking advantage of rare opportunities to demonstrate publicly an interest in the welfare of the larger community. Few other integrative resources existed in Shandon in the 1990s. The Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee, adult English classes, and as few as three or four Mexican American brokers greatly facilitated accommodation and inclusion. Seemingly unrelated phenomena also factored in. Comparisons favoring immigrant families over Anglo commuters regarding the care of yards and houses or parenting skills was one example. Although not many were at the event, the Parent Advisory Committee’s appeal to the Lions Club and its aftermath, described in chapter 8, won greater acceptance and accommodation for immigrants by publicly expressing support for local norms of public behavior. A key element in their effectiveness was that the Committee officers elected to explicitly distance themselves from those few immigrants whose harassment of women, overcrowded substandard housing, and public drinking were among the traits that many natives mistook for Mexican culture. This was not a first—individuals spoke to the press the same way during the troubled early 1980s. They had been struggling against this mischaracterization for more than a decade. But this time it was more effective. The Committee’s expression of shared concern for the quality of life in the community produced vocal enthusiasm among the Lions, who then reached out to immigrant families and later criticized anti-Mexican prejudice expressed by other longtime residents. Because they expressed themselves in the idiom of respectability and quality, they were well received, and the Anglos who were there responded that the Committee members were “quality people” who had “blended in.” The roots of this event lay in the greater institutional inclusion of families that the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee and a handful of effective ethnic brokers fostered after 1989. Ethnic brokers prior to 1989 largely failed to foster integration because they alienated one or both sides by assuming and asserting that racial prejudice pervaded the immigrant/native relationship. After 1989 new individuals made a far less antagonistic appeal to local values and respectability. They had firsthand experience with both farm work and organizational, bureaucratic, and democratic forms and procedures. Most of

200

Reimagining the Immigrant

these later ethnic brokers came to Shandon as commuter residents, then found opportunities to act as brokers in the school district and Migrant Education program. Earning the respect of immigrants and natives helped them create opportunities for the immigrant settlers to express themselves publicly in ways that hastened their acceptance. The paucity of Mexican American ethnic brokers in Shandon was an important aspect of its ethnic dynamic. The presence of so few interlocutors meant that there were few contrasting styles of brokerage practiced at any one time, a factor that may account for less fractious conditions than reported in communities having larger Mexican American populations with deep local histories (see, e.g., Menchaca 1995; Takash 1990). Although most Mexican Americans in Shandon did act as ethnic brokers at one time or another, all of them shared with Anglos the perspective that some elements of Mexican culture were inappropriate within the United States and the local community. Although they identified themselves strongly as Americans by citing citizenship and a common national culture, they also asserted ties of heritage between themselves and immigrants. Most rejected the common Anglo mistake of thinking that the harassment of women, for example, was Mexican culture, but they also argued vehemently that gender relations must adjust to United States norms, that housing ought not be overcrowded or poorly cared for, and that immigrants should learn English. They were as critical as Anglos were of the misbehavior of some young men, but they were far more optimistic than many Anglos about the capacity of Mexican immigrants to change. That said, the primary social boundary was along lines of immediate national affiliation and primary language, not more distant national ancestry. Mexican Americans and Anglo Americans shared a sense of common cultural and social ground that they both used to distinguish themselves collectively from immigrants. Thus, the state and federal category of Hispanic or Latino failed to capture the significant social distinctions in Shandon. The significant change in the quality of immigrant/native relations in Shandon over the 1980s was associated with the acquisition of “foreman type” respectability by some immigrants and the effective exclusion of most of the remaining immigrant “Okie type” farm workers. Ethnic relations improved from a climate in which most Anglos sought to exclude all immigrants from Shandon to one in which the majority accommodated immigrant families and compared them favorably to some Anglos. For many longtime residents, such favorable impressions of Mexican farm workers were unthinkable only a few years earlier when there were more immigrant group households and

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

201

fewer commuter residents in the town. This accommodation remained uneven and dynamic. Native residents who were actively involved with the local schools were most inclined to accept and accommodate immigrants as fellow community members. Integration was most advanced among school-age youth. Shandon natives who did not have an active connection with the schools or were not regular employers of immigrant labor were more likely to maintain a negative “Okie type” image of all immigrants. These were mostly elderly long-term residents, many of whom had withdrawn from any local affairs beyond socializing with members of their age group and descendants. They comprised roughly a quarter of Shandon’s residents, but others had f led Shandon because of their largely negative perception of its social change. These current and former Shandon residents had difficulty seeing vineyard development and immigrant settlement as anything other than a cause of community decay. They still clung to the perspective recorded by Hatch in the 1960s that Shandon was in the grip of a “malaise.” Some Hidden Gems in Past Scholarship It is worth exploring how these observations from Shandon support or modify previous scholarship on ethnic relations in rural America, because this reservoir of knowledge helps shape policy decisions, cultural interpretations, and local social action regarding immigration and rural society. Of foremost relevance is the scholarly literature characterizing industrial agriculture and its social consequences. Since work began on this topic during the mid-twentieth century, scholars generally have emphasized the bifurcated class structure of society associated with what Carey McWilliams (1939) famously called “factories in the fields.” Wielding nearly all effective power were the “haves,” comprised of farm and business owners and operators, and on the other side were the “have-nots,” consisting of a dependent and politically weak class of wage-earning farm workers. Scholars characterized the social position of racial and ethnic minorities (e.g., Asian, black, Mexican, or Okie) as confined to an undifferentiated and unskilled mass of farm labor, with little chance of breaking out of this class position or the status of outsiders in rural towns (see, especially, Fuller 1940).4 In his inf luential 1940s ethnographies, Walter Goldschmidt (1978a:58–59) reproduced the generalization of farm workers as outsiders. The first major challenge to the claim that minorities were confined to farm work was Sucheng Chan’s (1986) demonstration of the diverse roles and statuses

202

Reimagining the Immigrant

of Chinese in western agriculture and rural communities. Chan’s primary criticism, and that of others who have followed her lead, is that the minority group included many persons who became labor contractors, farm operators, and community members (see also Figueroa Sanchez 2002; Leonard 1992; and Wells 1987; 1990). However, most of these scholars did not consider the possibility of ethnic identity itself changing. For scholarship that does consider the possibility of identity change, we need to turn to the studies of Okies in California. Stuart Jamieson noted that migrants from the states of the western South who had replaced immigrants as farm laborers had taken on the “appearance of a distinct ‘ethnic group’ ” ( Jamieson 1942:50–51). Indeed, James Gregory (1989) admirably demonstrates that Okie identity developed in California in the 1920s–1940s in response to the circumstances of industrial farm employment. Researchers observed that Okies were characterized by backgrounds in farm tenancy, “old time religion,” and lower living standards (Goldschmidt 1978a:60–61). Local residents described Okies as ignorant and uneducated, dirty of habit if not of mind, slothful, unambitious, and dependent. He may be viewed now as emotional, again as phlegmatic; sometimes as sullen and unfriendly; again as arrogant and over-bearing. Not rarely is he accused of being dishonest. These characteristics are sometimes considered innate (a local physician spoke of them as a separate breed); sometimes lack of education is held responsible. (Goldschmidt 1978a:61) Gregory concluded that Okie identity was lost after the worker left agricultural employment for white-collar employment. Much of his data came from Goldschmidt’s research at Wasco, California, in the 1940s, thus it is no surprise to find that Goldschmidt believed integration into the larger community and loss of a minority identity occurred only after leaving farm work for a job in town (1978a:67, 73–74, 125–126). He notes that a “marginal” category within the community’s nuclear group (part of what I’ve called community members)— comprised of regularly employed workers such as mechanics, clerks, gas station attendants, and small farm operators—included many “former outsiders who have attained membership in the community by length of residence and permanent employment” (1978a:65). But Goldschmidt’s analytical use of nonfarm employment in town as the

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

203

entry point to community membership appears to conf lict with what local residents felt: Members of the nuclear group are in the habit of making a distinction between agricultural laborers which, in a general way, follows this dichotomy; namely between “dust-bowlers” and “Okies.” The Okie is . . . characterized as a congenital ne’er-do-well without ambition or desire, while the “dust-bowler” is a person of ability and good character who is temporarily in bad circumstances. In the words of one farmer, “The dust-bowl people who came out here have settled down and become real citizens. There isn’t one of them that hasn’t gotten a steady job and settled down. But these Okies who come out here, who weren’t anything before they left, don’t amount to anything. They are filthy dirty—you give them a decent house and in a couple of weeks they are spitting through the cracks” (1978a:73). The speaker’s opinion that dust-bowlers had “become real citizens” suggests more than a trif ling degree of integration into the community and accommodation by its membership. These locally acceptable dustbowler farm workers were permanently hired workers whose work included such tasks as operating tractors, irrigation, maintaining equipment, and acting as a foreman (1978a:85–86). According to Goldschmidt (1978a:73), community members considered all newly arrived farm workers to be Okies until they proved themselves otherwise. Many apparently did. Out of ten examples of recent arrivals described by Goldschmidt, five had become farm operators. Most interesting of all, two of the five remaining laborers had “become integrated in the town,” one as a creamery worker and the other as a permanent employee on a farm (1978a:155). These last two were, like other permanent farm workers, “beginning to be known as ‘good workers’ or ‘fine people’ to members of the nuclear group.” Significantly, their ethnicity itself was transformed: “They would be pointed out as ‘dust-bowlers’ rather than ‘Okies’ by those who know them personally, though they have not attained membership in the nuclear group” (1978a:158). Goldschmidt clearly describes, then, a reimagining by native residents of former seasonal farm worker outsiders into respected permanent farm workers belonging to a different ethnic category who are well into a process of integration into the community. The factors crucial to this reimagining were their adoption of “nuclear group values,” connecting their

204

Reimagining the Immigrant

interests with the larger community, settling into houses in the town, and joining local clubs and churches (1978a:158–159). This portion of Goldschmidt’s work has been almost wholly overlooked by subsequent scholars of large-scale, labor-intensive commercial agriculture and rural society in the United States. Elvin Hatch (1979) was one of the few scholars, perhaps the only one, to address any further the position of Okie identity in a hierarchy of farm worker categories. He provides evidence from Shandon that the reimagining of outsider to community member with a new ethnicity occurred through mobility within farm work rather than just upon leaving farm work. His description of the foreman-type and Okie-type farm workers in Shandon prior to the mid-1960s clearly demonstrates the addition of permanent farm workers into the inclusive category of community members.5 The scholarship on Okie identity as a whole demonstrates that farm labor in industrial agriculture is not an undifferentiated and uniformly marginalized ethnic mass, but rather is segmented into a marginalized and ethnicized class, on one hand, and an accommodated and integrated class, on the other. It also shows that upward mobility between these two laboring classes occurs, and is marked socially by de-ethnicizing or some other reimagining of the ethnicity of former marginals. The social practices and processes I have described in Shandon pertaining to the period of Mexican immigration and replacement of the farm labor pool conform precisely to the reimagining of Okies into dust-bowlers or foreman-type workers outlined above. Once disreputable, marginalized, seasonal labor, “Mexicans,” “wetbacks,” and “migrants” have been and continue to be reimagined into respected, settled, permanently employed “quality,” “Americanized,” or “blended in” Mexicans or “Mexican Americans,” and “members of the community.” The key factors involved in the process are the same, as well: permanence of employment, stable settlement, demonstrated interest in the community, perceived adherence to local norms, and participation in local institutions. Shandon’s experience, then, represents a recurring feature of large-scale labor-intensive commercial agriculture and rural communities in the United States.6 The reimagining of immigrants from a despised category to a desirable one is part of a relaxing of ethnic tensions in locations where more immigrants are recognized as the preferred type. Of course, agriculture’s labor needs dictate that the despised types never completely go away, so there is a continuing schizophrenia—as one Shandon teacher described it—in the coexistence of prejudice toward and accommodation of

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

205

persons of Mexican origin or ancestry. Discrimination and integration do not merely coexist; the effectiveness of housing discrimination in reducing the presence of the despised category of worker in Shandon was crucial to the recognition, reimagining, and accommodation of the desirable category. As disconcerting as this is, there can be little doubt that prejudice in Shandon actually fostered the integration of those who managed to withstand it. The coexistence of discrimination and accommodation only appears schizophrenic if one thinks of the targets of both types of action as constituting a single category, which people do if they stress national origins over factors that segment persons of the same national origin. But close examination of Shandon’s experience reveals not a singular target group, but rather a historically rooted conceptual dyad that describes a class division within farm labor. The terms respect, quality, and blended-in distinguish between those who do and those who do not conform to middle-class norms, and have held this meaning from the time of the Okies through the present period of renewed Mexican immigration. Shandon residents’ framing of the segmentation as different origins within Mexico or different levels of acculturation to American culture masked the actual underlying concern with class differences between seasonal and permanent agricultural workers. Neither place of origin in Mexico nor dramatic differences in acculturation actually distinguished the despised and desirable segments. But the assumption inherent in both local explanations—that culture was the underlying distinguishing variable—is particularly consistent with cultural fundamentalism, the type of prejudice observed in Shandon. The Effect of Reimagining on the Collective Identity of Community The preceding analysis traces the process that segments immigrant labor into two social categories and differentially excludes or accommodates depending on whether the evaluation of the category is negative or positive. This process does not just have repercussions for the quality of immigrant/native relations within the town. It also shapes a collective identity that is very important in rural America despite the absence of well-developed ethnonyms. This collective identity is expressed by residents with the term community and the labeling of various persons as newcomers, old guard, old-family, old timers, outsiders, and members of the community. The accommodation process in which

206

Reimagining the Immigrant

settled, permanently employed immigrant families are part of, but from which seasonal labor and group household immigrants have been excluded, exemplifies the boundary crossing and boundary defense processes described by Fredrik Barth and colleagues when they demonstrated how ethnic groups and nation-states manage memberships that are perceived as fixed but in reality have some f luidity (Barth 1969). Community, then, is not an unbridled good but rather a doubleedged sword, which—like other forms of identity—is as much about exclusion as it is about inclusion. Through these processes, the demand of Shandon’s old guard for respectable residents was achieved to a considerable degree, especially in regard to settled immigrant farm worker families. For those lucky enough not to be shunned, it worked as a unifying mechanism because Anglos, Mexican Americans, and immigrant families agreed that having certain kinds of residents contributed to a better quality of life for everyone residing in Shandon. Elvin Hatch (1979) revealed that Shandon residents had a strong local loyalty for many decades prior to the period addressed in my research. The quality of residents and the quality of the community relative to others had long been associated in local thought, with the quality of residents ref lecting the quality of community and vice versa. The practices of community boosterism and improvement documented by Hatch up to the mid-1960s and of prejudice and accommodation that I have described for succeeding decades are all ways in which these concerns have been acted out by Shandon’s residents over generations. These practices contribute to both real and perceived differences between towns. Excluding group households of farm workers from Shandon so that they had to take up residence in the small cities of Paso Robles and Avenal, where more housing was available and exclusionary practices were less effective, contributed to actual demographic differences between these places. In both the 1990 and 2000 censuses, Avenal had a significantly higher proportion of Hispanic residents and both cities had a much higher proportion of rented homes than did Shandon.7 Shandon residents incorporated a general awareness of these differences into the vision of their town as a better place to live and a better community to be a part of. Residents of all sorts in Shandon made comparisons between their community and those of other places. They described a rural and tranquil Shandon in contrast to a Paso Robles characterized as urban and gang-ridden. Or they juxtaposed a Shandon of native and quality immigrant families with an Avenal said to be overrun by irresponsible, immoral, and antisocial Mexican migrants.

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

207

The contrasts Shandon residents made, of course, are neither entirely fair nor accurate. For example, the housing discrimination in Shandon that was so crucial to the sorting of farm labor segments cast a wider net than Shandon natives generally recognized. Although group households and seasonal workers were more likely to have been driven from Shandon through this mechanism, permanently employed workers and their families who were not lucky enough to have found decent housing in Shandon’s desperately limited market were also among those forced to find housing in Paso Robles and Avenal. As their employers and friends could testify, these workers and their families were every bit as respectable as those who remained in Shandon. Some who worked in Shandon’s vineyards chose to reside in Paso Robles for the greater resources available in the city, to be close to kin already settled there, or to avoid what they perceived as Shandon’s “unfriendliness.” So although there is some basis in fact for drawing the distinctions between communities that Shandon residents make, the differences are exaggerated, made in an all-encompassing manner without reference to the internal diversity of other places, and tend to only ref lect positively on one’s own community. These patterns are typical of the rhetoric used in all kinds of identity comparisons worldwide, so it is clear that we are observing an identity phenomenon here rather than an impartial listing of community types. The concern with community in Shandon exhibits remarkable continuity over time, especially in the face of the dramatic social changes that I have discussed. Shandon’s affirmations of local identity rest on mutual perception of a shared concern for maintaining and improving the local quality of life. This concern has been enacted over many generations through local institutions either founded to achieve some form of local improvement or simply inheriting the task when others failed. Interest in community improvement did not disappear despite the malaise encountered by Hatch in the 1960s, or the cynicism of many old guard residents about the changes occurring in their town since then. By 1990, many younger members of old guard families participated in community activities side-by-side with newcomers, thereby restoring the community’s identity as a decent place worth taking care of for the shared benefit of its more diverse population. Hatch (1979:264–265) had concluded that by the 1960s Shandon was little more than a special interest group for the education of local children. There is no question that during my time in Shandon the local schools were the strongest local institution and the most effective integrator of natives, immigrants, and newcomers of all other sorts. Indeed, in general, the more

208

Reimagining the Immigrant

involvement an individual had with the local schools, the more he or she was likely to reimagine immigrants as quality people and another type of Mexican, different from those assumed to have negative characteristics. Likewise, more involvement with the schools made it easier to envision a unified community in which immigrant settlers were welcome members. The school district is a major legacy of Shandon’s old guard. It continues to reproduce a strong local identity even after other local institutions weakened or failed entirely. It has best adjusted to Shandon’s changing composition by serving as an effective integrating institution. Without question, then, local institutions have a profound effect on the quality of social relations between established residents and immigrants (see Lamphere 1992b). The creation of the Shandon Advisory Committee in the early 1990s marked the need to revise Hatch’s conclusion about Shandon as merely an educational special interest group. As a new elected body with the ability to shape policy decisions under County control, the Committee became a second formal institution that defined and protected community interests. Although its first year brought little more than a formalization of its structure and authority, the Advisory Committee represented a noteworthy rebirth of community in Shandon that ended the loss of inf luence within San Luis Obispo County politics and governance, which had become a local concern in the 1980s. Shandon Advisory Committee’s formation redefines Shandon as a general interest group of voters based on the need for governance and delivery of basic services within a delimited territory. This included the adults of nearly every immigrant family in Shandon, since, while I was there, all had taken advantage of the amnesty provisions in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 to become U.S. citizens. Although Shandon Advisory Committee has functions that distinguish it clearly from the school district, the use of the school district’s boundaries within San Luis Obispo County to define the Committee’s territory reinscribed the community’s old definition of its territorial and social extent.8 Its establishment enhanced Shandon’s persistence as a distinctive community on a basis established by Shandon’s old guard grain and cattle families much earlier in the settlement’s history. It is one of the paradoxes of identity that one sort of group identity can unify across the divisions expressed in another sort of identity (see, e.g., Eriksen 2002:169–171). This is true of the type of identity expressed as community in Shandon. While so much of the rhetoric in the United States regarding Mexican immigration focuses on the division between natives and immigrants, and sometimes declares their fundamental

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

209

incompatibility (see, e.g., Huntington 2004), it is well worth noting that the concern with quality and community in Shandon recreates a community identity that integrates and unifies native and immigrant residents in one larger category.9 This ought to be heartening news for immigration’s critics, including cultural fundamentalists who see nothing but national ruin in immigration. It also ought to be heartening to multiculturalists and ethnic nationalists who worry about a loss of culture in the acculturation and assimilation that many conservative cultural fundamentalists insist is necessary to achieve harmonious relations. However, some of these policy advocates may have difficulty accepting that the unifying effect of the local notion of community is itself an identity that concerns social relations first and foremost, and allows actual cultural differences to remain more of a free-f loating variable than they might like. While it is probably advantageous for natives to think that immigrants have “blended in” to some degree, the degree of acculturation needed to be considered quality members of the community is greatly exaggerated by local actors and scholars alike. Criteria such as good parenting, responsible work habits, concern for appearances and community welfare simply aren’t exclusive to United States natives. It unquestionably helps that people have learned to understand one another better, but even competency in English has not been a prerequisite for the increasing accommodation of immigrants I observed in Shandon. The Good, the Bad, and the Overlooked Shandon’s experience gives us reason to reassess the comparison of communities that both local actors and scholars have made. I have already described how discrimination and accommodation inf luenced the comparisons made by residents between Shandon and other communities in the region. Their favorable comparison of Shandon to towns with more seasonal farm workers in them is reminiscent of Goldschmidt’s (1978a) comparison of Dinuba and Arvin, California, in the 1940s. In possibly the most inf luential study to date of the relationship between farm structure and rural social characteristics in the United States, Goldschmidt concluded that Dinuba was a better place to live than Arvin because it was more democratic, prosperous and integrated, possessed more and better institutional resources, residents were more stable and loyal, and fewer people lived in poverty (1978a:394–395). In a widely cited and still highly inf luential conclusion, Goldschmidt

210

Reimagining the Immigrant

credits this difference to the local structure of agriculture: smaller owner-operated farms in the Dinuba area and larger absentee-owned farms at Arvin. The owner-operator of smaller farms could provide a proportionally larger share of their total labor needs, thus the larger farms contributed more to the creation of a large class of dependent, marginalized farm workers. This is logical, and possibly not entirely wrong. However, the argument is severely weakened by Goldschmidt’s own admission that Dinuba farms required more farm workers than Arvin’s, and that a greater proportion of Dinuba’s seasonal workers had to live outside Dinuba in other communities than was the case in Arvin (1978a:317–319, 413–414). Therefore, contrary to Goldschmidt’s explanation, Dinuba’s farms also contributed to the kinds of conditions he found in Arvin.10 Shandon, which shares this “good community” selfimage with Dinuba, illustrates how these kinds of differences between communities can be fostered or even created by effective exclusion of the most vulnerable farm workers from one town. Goldschmidt did not explore this possibility at Dinuba, and only a few researchers have addressed the effects of exclusionary housing policies or practices on the residential options of farm workers in this kind of economy (see, e.g., Chavez 1998:105–120; Palerm 1989:148–149). Finally, there is now evidence that challenges the simple depiction of agricultural towns like Arvin as destitute and unstable places (Du Bry 2007). Scholars of the social consequences of large-scale, labor-intensive commercial agriculture follow Goldschmidt’s lead in characterizing a strong sense of community as an unalloyed good, but, in retrospect, community ought to be considered a double-edged sword. On the positive side, a strong community identity maintained in Shandon by local institutions and organizations has provided a palpable degree of unity across Shandon’s internal social distinctions. Broad support for local democratic control that manifested in the creation of the Shandon Advisory Committee parallels Goldschmidt’s concern with democratic institutions in his Dinuba/Arvin comparison. On the negative side, however, must be considered the harmful effects of discrimination. The exclusionary processes continued to keep much of the local immigrant population and workforce socially invisible. Seasonal workers, migrants, and many others who simply could not find adequate housing were shut out. Families, at least, had access to the schools and Migrant Education to possibly achieve inclusion. However, every immigrant experienced prejudice firsthand in Shandon, and a majority of the local farm workforce was denied local residence. It is the intensity of local community defense from perceived outside threat that inf luences

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

211

whether a town becomes a place undesired outsiders are shunned from or one they are shunned to. This strength will be ref lected in the meaning the place has for its inhabitants and the cultural, social, and institutional means of local control, defense, and integration at their disposal. Whereas Goldschmidt and others have seen strong local institutions as good, it must now be admitted that this only represents the perspective of those who were not driven away.

This page intentionally left blank

NOT E S

1

Introduction

1. All personal names used in this study are pseudonyms, with the lone exception of San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Harry Ovitt, whose identity could not be concealed. I learned an unexpected lesson about the use of pseudonyms from Shandon residents. Some of them had their own copies of Hatch’s Biography of a Small Town, and had painstakingly deciphered the pseudonyms, enabling them to see what they had said about each other in confidence to the ethnographer. Because of this, I make less extensive use of pseudonyms than Hatch did. I do not consistently designate any individual by the same pseudonym except in describing a single event or closely related events, and I may use a single name to refer to more than one person. 2. This book is a revision of my doctoral dissertation (Haley 1997). The central theme has been substantially reworked from that original text. 3. Although Takash’s (1990) study of politics is premised on Watsonville’s adjustment to farm labor immigration and settlement, the events she addresses more directly concern AngloAmerican and Mexican American relations. 4. English only initiatives in California mandating official use of English have been among the first and most common politico-legal reactions against immigration (Palerm 1991:23; Horton 1992; 1995). Other researchers have acknowledged a shift away from race in antiimmigrant rhetoric in favor of the culture concept, yet feel that race remains the central way that natives conceptualize difference. From this perspective, culture merely serves as a more acceptable term for race (see, e.g., Menchaca 1995). 5. On the variations of identity among persons in the United States having historical ties to Mexico see, for example, Brooks (2002) on colonial New Mexico, Haley and Wilcoxon (2005), and Gutiérrez (1995), Haley (2009), Keefe and Padilla (1987), and Sánchez (1993) contrasting the identity outcomes of differing immigrant waves. For examples of the effects of migration and labor on identity, see Gregory (1989) on Okies, Honig (1992) on the Subei of China, and Leonard (1992) on South Asians in the American west. 6. Hatch also addresses Shandon in various articles (1973; 1975), and in comparisons with his later research in rural New Zealand (1987; 1989; 1992). 7. Okies were Americans of European ancestry who f led the economic and ecological woes of the western South in the 1920s and 1930s to become farm workers in California and neighboring states. Urban professionals from the same region were not considered Okies in the west; thus, class determined the ethnicity of Okies (Gregory 1989). 8. See, for example, Du Bry (2007), García (1992), Palerm (1989; 1991), and Rochín and Castillo (1993).

214

Notes

9. On the Mexican labor dependency of U.S. industrial agriculture in California, see Pfeffer (1980), Thomas (1985), Massey et al. (1987), Martin (1988), Kearney (1986), Kearney and Nagengast (1989), Palerm (1989; 1991), Palerm and Urquiola (1993), and Krissman (1996). On settler and sojourner immigrant segments in California, see also Chavez (1998), Du Bry (2007), and Rouse (1989; 1991). For similar characteristics in the Midwest, see, for example, Grey and Woodrick (2005); in North Carolina, see, for example, Griffith (2005). On transnationalism more generally, see Glick Schiller et al. (1992), Basch et al. (1994), and Kearney (1995). 10. For other manifestations of this model, see Daniels (1981), Fisher (1953), Fuller (1940), Galarza (1964), Goldschmidt (1978a), Sosnick (1978), Thomas (1985), and Thu and Durrenberger (1998). 11. Other researchers who have addressed the Mexican/Mexican American social boundary include Browning and de la Garza (1986), Sánchez (1993), and Saragoza (1982). 12. San Luis Obispo County’s population in 1960 was 81,044; in 1970 it was 105,690; in 1980 it was 155,435; and in 1990 it was 217,162. Population growth began in the 1960s in San Luis Obispo and has moved outward in subsequent decades like a wave. Paso Robles doubled in size from 1980 to 1990 after three decades of no growth (U.S. Census 1990).

2

The Changing Farm and Town

1. Except where otherwise noted, Shandon’s agricultural history through the mid-1960s is drawn from Biography of a Small Town (Hatch 1979). Most of Hatch’s description of local agriculture is inseparable from his presentation of social structure and hierarchy. For general information see pages 2, 4, 10, 11–12, and 273; for early history up to 1940 see pages 15–31, 37, and 106; for the postwar period see pages 125–136, 274, and 277. 2. The inhabitants of the region at the time of Spanish colonization were foragers who relied on wild food sources (Kroeber 1953:546–549; Hester 1978). After Mexican independence in 1822 and secularization of the missions started in 1833, two Mexican land grants were established in the region: Rancho Cholame in the Cholame Valley circa 1843, and Rancho Huerhuero in 1842 and 1844 where the town of Creston now stands (Cowan 1956:27, 40). Significant settlement of the Shandon area during this time was prevented by the raiding of rancho and mission livestock by horse-mounted Tachi Yokuts from the San Joaquin Valley (Mason 1912; Wallace 1978). 3. On the importance of the late nineteenth-century wheat boom for California and other parts of the western United States, see Friedmann (1978), McWilliams (1939), and Schaller and Prato (1983). 4. According to some residents, Mexican farm workers were less visible in Biography of a Small Town than they really were in Shandon in the 1960s, but these same residents agree that Mexicans were not involved in local affairs. The bracero program is estimated to have brought nearly 5 million workers from Mexico to the United States (Galarza 1964; Portes and Bach 1985:61–62). 5. Farming and ranching remained male pursuits in the 1960s, and even by 1990 women’s roles in local agriculture were never that of owner-operator. 6. Barley has been favored over wheat since at least the 1960s. The average yields of both grains increased dramatically and continuously throughout the second half of the twentieth century due to the introduction of new varieties, increased use of fertilizer, and other practices (Schaller and Prato 1983). Nevertheless, modern barley yields are so much higher than those of wheat in the Shandon region that it is more profitable despite higher unit prices and a federal subsidy for wheat. One Shandon grain farmer estimated for me that he was able to raise fifty bushels of barley on an acre of land that would not produce more

Notes

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

215

than twenty-five to thirty bushels of wheat. Due to wheat’s lower yield, farmers usually raised high protein varieties of wheat destined for human consumption to obtain the highest possible price. In contrast, barley is grown for use in cattle feedlots, dairies, and poultry farms. To qualify for inclusion in the CRP, land must have been planted in at least two of the previous five years. An individual owner could not earn more than $50,000 through the program, but in practice, individual members of a farm family were each owners of separate parcels comprising a single farm enterprise. No more than 25 percent of the total cropland in the county could be placed under the program at any one time. In 1992 San Luis Obispo County had the most acreage in CRP of any California county (San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights, and Measures 1992). Most of this land was placed in the program in 1987 and remained out of production at least until 1997. Thus, even with the end of the drought in 1992–1993, dryland grain farming continued to be depressed in the region. Despite these changes, in 1990 cattle grazing remained San Luis Obispo County’s largest agricultural land use by acreage, and cattle and calves were its third ranking commodity by value. The county remained one of the leading producers of beef cattle in the state (San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures 1990). While I was in Shandon, at least one absentee farmer on Shandon Flat raised grain specifically for sheep released directly into the unharvested field. The number of sheep raised in San Luis Obispo County declined from 18,000 to fewer than 8,000 head between 1967 and 1991 (San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures 1968–1991). The sheep were not locally owned. They were brought over from the San Joaquin Valley in the late summer for a few weeks after the grain and hay harvests. This figure is derived from local school district records, an enumeration method that undercounts farmer and rancher departures from the community because it fails to count departing or retiring farmers who no longer had children in school. For more on this data, see note 16. Specialized crop producers in California (in Shandon these were irrigated crop farmers) have been more reliant on farm credit than farmers elsewhere in the nation. By raising more valuable crops to reduce debts, farmers also raised the value of their land, their borrowing power, and thereby maintained profits (Minger 1983). For example, by the early 1980s an acre of wine grape vineyard in this region was worth as much as $14,790 whereas the average value of farmland statewide was only $1,918 per acre (California Department of Food and Agriculture 1985:11, 13). A tenfold increase in the number of horses between 1980 and 1988 in San Luis Obispo County outside the Shandon area boosted the market for grain hay (San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures 1981–1989). These horses were raised for racing, show, or pleasure. Development of the U.S. wine industry during this boom period took two principle forms: one was large scale and corporate, and the other small scale and based on individual, family, or small partnership investment. The former is represented in Bunce (1981) and the latter in Peters (1984). Each of these analyses is f lawed for failing to recognize the importance of the other. For an example of wine industry development in one region of California (Santa Barbara County), see Haley (1989). The best general overview of the California wine industry in all its aspects remains Muscatine, Amerine, and Thompson (1984). Some of the first vines were planted without a supporting trellis, a practice known as head training, once favored for certain wine varieties. Many of these were later converted to wire trellis systems to facilitate mechanized harvesting, and all subsequent plantings of wine varieties were on wire trellises. The two-wire system used in conjunction with mechanized harvesting has the vine trained as a cordon along the lower wire with the fruit-bearing canes supported by an upper wire.

216

Notes

15. On the relationship between specialty crop agriculture’s intensification and Mexican labor, see Pfeffer (1980), Thomas (1985), Martin (1988), Kearney and Nagengast (1989), Palerm (1989; 1991), and Palerm and Urquiola (1993). 16. To document the extent and timing of demographic changes since Elvin Hatch’s mid-1960s study, I compiled a database from records of the Shandon Unified School District spanning twenty-one school years from 1968–1969 to 1989–1990. These were checked and augmented with interview data. All children who enrolled in Shandon district schools over this time span, plus their parents or guardians, siblings, and other household members are included in the database, although certainly a few unrelated household members may have escaped notice. Additional individuals were added to the database from Senior’s and Lions Club membership lists and a voter sign-in sheet. Subsequently, households lying outside the school district boundaries were excluded so that only local residents remained. Despite the obvious shortcoming that not all residents are counted this way, the data compiled reveal the major demographic trends in very convincing fashion and with far greater precision than any other source would have permitted. This database was then used to generate the demographic graphs used in the text. The database contains 3584 individuals and 1130 households. 17. I obtained place of origin from school records and interviews. The accuracy of some of the school district’s data is in doubt. For instance, birth certificates from Mexico were often obtained late in life and far from the place of origin. Interviews caught many of these errors, but no doubt some remain, especially for early immigrants who later left Shandon. 18. Construction of the long-awaited coastal aqueduct began in 1994 and was completed in 1997. It delivers water from northern California to urban areas in the central coast region. The County planners estimated population size based on a U.S. Census average of three persons per household in the northeast county region (San Luis Obispo County Engineering Department 1971:10). 19. The occupational categories that grew the most during this time were construction workers after 1978, oil field workers in the mid-1970s, industrial workers in the early 1980s, office, retail, and service workers after 1979, and county and state employees irregularly in the late 1970s. Since they usually included school-age children, this segment of Shandon’s population was well represented in school district data. 20. If population data on adult farm workers without children in local schools had been available for inclusion in figure 2.6, the line representing the number of farm worker household heads would be much higher and would rise earlier, since most Mexican farm workers originally arrived in Shandon singly, or separately from their children and spouses.

3

Making Social Categories from Local Roots and Class

1. The outsiders in Wasco and the other places Goldschmidt studied were also categorized as Okies, Mexicans, or Negroes. All suffered discrimination and segregation. 2. Here I have made logical inferences that go beyond Goldschmidt’s (1978a:112–113) description of the nuclear/outsider distinction, although he did recognize the dual meaning of community. For additional perspectives on community as a social identity similar to ethnic and national identities, see, for example, Amit (2002), Amit and Rapport (2002), Greenhouse, Yngvesson, and Engel (1994), and Halperin (1998). 3. Hatch (1979:119) questions the accuracy of this local explanation. He points out that the oldfamily members of the 1960s, and not just the newcomers, were less community-minded. 4. Most of this summary is derived from Hatch (1979), especially Chapter 6, but also Chapter 9 and other points in the book. These are central concerns of his research, and are discussed

Notes 5. 6.

7. 8.

9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

217

in all of his publications on Shandon (Hatch 1973; 1975; 1979) and his comparisons of Shandon with a New Zealand farming community (Hatch 1987; 1989; 1992). See Hatch (1979:129–130, 132, 133–135, 202–203, 206–207, 216–231). A number of other anthropologists have critiqued the discipline’s habit of turning analytical categories into discrete things in the real world, and have lamented the way these concepts become social constructions used outside of anthropology often in disturbing ways (see, e.g., Wagner 1981; Kuper 1988; Wolf 1988; Clifford 1988; Barth 1995). These place-names are not pseudonyms. The reaction of Shandon residents to Elvin Hatch’s book is surprisingly similar to Keith Basso’s (1996:30–35) description of the reactions of Western Apaches to historical and anthropological works about them. Isabel identified herself as Mexican American and was viewed as such by local Anglos who knew her. Her parents were immigrants, but Isabel was born and raised in California. But see note 3. Bedroomers were not the only segment of the community that was less involved in community affairs by 1990. These numbers do not include farm working households that typically were underemployed seasonally. For vineyard frost protection, reservoirs must hold enough water to place an entire vineyard under irrigation at once if the temperature drops below freezing. Water usage to irrigate alfalfa actually exceeded that for grapes. There were, however, localized areas where trees have died because the water table may have been drawn down by vineyard irrigation. The grape growers, more so than anyone else, directed their criticisms at IRCA. They were more aware of this law and some of its content, since it more directly affected their industry.

4

The Rhetoric and Practice of Ethnicity

1. Due to the small number of individuals involved, I am excluding other ethnic identities from this discussion. These other identities included Puerto Rican, Filipino, Hawaiian, South American Latino, Southeast Asian, European, East Asian, Native American, and African American. Only the last two are mentioned in the current discussion. Most of these individuals were spouses of Anglos or adopted children. 2. Without realizing it, Ted had perfectly replicated Mexican immigrants’ description of cholos (see note 9). 3. The teachers appeared calmed when I expressed doubt that there was cause for concern. Indeed, the boy’s parents asked a bilingual aide to inquire on their behalf to clarify for them what had occurred. When it became clear that the boy had exaggerated a gentle shove from his coach, who was much liked by his parents as well as contrite about his own behavior, the parents were satisfied and the matter ended. 4. The Murray’s also left Shandon because their farm was becoming unprofitable and their children had grown and left home, making them feel less connected to the community. 5. I could not corroborate Helen’s explanation of the cause of a vineyard strike. However, the Murray’s perception that the immigrant work force changed character after the 1960s does roughly correspond to the end of the “bracero” guest worker program in 1964, increasing labor union activity, the emerging dominance of undocumented labor immigration, and dramatic growth in the numbers of immigrant farm workers in Shandon. 6. The Javier family was from northern Sonora. Though there were other Sonorans in Shandon, none were from this particular region. I am inclined to discount this as a basis for the family’s greater acceptance by some Anglos. I consider the high degree of acculturation by their children and the family’s higher than average farm worker income from year-round cattle ranch employment to be more important to the distinctions being made about them

218

7.

8. 9.

10.

11.

12.

Notes

by Anglos. The family was not immune to criticism. Some Mexican Americans and immigrants thought the Javier family lived above their means, and the children expended more energy on being liked and accepted than on doing well in school. Some of them were failing, in fact. Some school personnel, especially, considered the Javier children to be Mexican American. The number of marriages partly ref lect the numerical dominance of Anglos in the local population and the near absence of African Americans. The remaining six interethnic marriages involved persons of six different ethnic categories. So many local residents perceive African Americans as innately superior athletes that they seldom concealed this opinion. A high school basketball team member explained to a receptive adult that he anticipated losing an upcoming game against a team with several black players: “Those guys are so good! Last year they only had two white guys on their whole team.” A working-class mother jokingly encouraged her daughter to marry a black man—any black man—so that the wealth he would surely earn from professional sports would enrich the family. A man who had promoted including bilingual Mexican Americans on a community task force, so that “the Mexicanos” would be represented, implored of me, “Surely anthropologists accept that blacks are better athletes than whites?” The boys who told the jokes were disciplined by school authorities for using inappropriate language at the school. Cholo does not translate literally to gang or gang member. Gangs are pandillas. However, cholo’s implication of a person out of place, who does not fit in with either immigrants or natives, and its application to youth who are believed to be drug users and inclined toward criminal acts embraces the English category of gang members (see also Chavez 1998:75). The immigrant community was divided brief ly by this event, for both young people came from respected families. The man’s father forced him to face the charges. The young man ultimately did not contest the charges and was paroled after a short sentence. A few Mexican American families in Shandon further differentiated themselves by claiming descent from California American Indians. They claimed, “We are a different sort of Mexican than these other people.” Some family members disputed the accuracy of these descent claims, as did one who laughed and said she called herself Indian “back when everyone did that.” Regardless of the genealogical facts, these were families with histories in California predating its inclusion in the United States. Since there were no locally accepted ethnic markers and their sense of identity shifted through time, it was this asserted longevity that most distinguished them. The family of one long-resident and respected ranch hand shifted its ethnic identity from Spanish to Indian, inf luenced by the nationally improving image of Indians and the family’s eligibility for monies from a federal land claims settlement with California Indians (Haley and Wilcoxon 1997; 2005). The family traced descent from both Chumash Indian and colonial Spanish-Mexican ancestors. In the late 1950s or early 1960s when the California Judgment Roll was being compiled to designate settlement recipients, their identity in school documents changed from Spanish to Indian. The parents’ main language was Spanish, but their children’s was English. This family no longer resided in Shandon by 1990. Both quotes about Cesar Chavez were made prior to the union leader’s death. I suspect they might not have been made with equal vehemence following his death.

5

Institutions, Leadership, and Community

1. Hatch discusses local affairs, institutions, and leadership in detail in three chapters (1979:83– 101, 165–195, 231–257), but they are central to his entire project and appear throughout his writing on Shandon.

Notes

219

2. See Hatch (1979), especially pages 62–68, 83, 169, 180–184, 192–195, 233–234, 248, and 263–265. 3. For all these points, see Hatch (1979)—on the disappearance of organizations: 62, 64, 69, 79, 175, 181, 183, 190, 213, 255; on factionalism and controversy: 80–81, 174, 210–213; on collaboration, diffuse decision making, ad hoc leadership, and selection of issues: 191–193, 234, 250. 4. The Shandon Women’s Guild is appears in Hatch (1979) under the pseudonym “Women’s Society.” 5. The PTO was an autonomous local organization modeled after the national Parent Teachers Association (Hatch 1979:179). 6. The club’s funds come from membership dues, donations, bake sales, and rental of the clubhouse, and the County reimburses direct travel costs. Their income is kept in a money market account and finances maintenance and use of their car and building. 7. I have removed portions of this quotation that would facilitate identifying those being described. 8. The program defines migrant children as those whose parent or guardian is an agricultural worker who has moved within the past five years from another school district. The sole eligible Anglo family in Shandon did not participate. 9. The goal of obtaining books for the Spanish-speaking students was not achieved during my stay in Shandon. No decision was reached during that time as to what books should actually be purchased, either. PTO later contributed to this cause. 10. The issues raised at this and subsequent Shandon Advisory Committee meetings were the desire for more police service and a manned fire station, staying informed of developments proposed for area, traffic control in town, public drinking outside the store, the water system, potential sewer system, possible requirements for curbs and gutters, drainage problems, river cleaning, and input on the land use element of the County’s general plan. 11. This excluded the Parkfield trusteeship in Monterey County. Areas in Kern County that traditionally were served by Shandon schools but lying outside the formal district boundary also were excluded. 12. Voters were instructed to select up to twelve candidates. The top three vote-getters were elected to three-year terms, the next three to two-year terms, the following three to oneyear terms, and the three candidates after that were alternates for one year. Fifty-five votes proved sufficient to be elected as an alternate. 13. Subsequent elections brought commuter newcomers onto the Shandon Advisory Committee by the mid-1990s, not just as members but also as its officers.

6

“We Want Our Town Back!”

1. Demographic theories of discrimination are prominent in early macroscopic and quantified studies of American race relations (see, e.g., Blalock 1967; 1982; Sandmeyer 1991; Williams 1947; 1964) and have returned in a limited form (see, e.g., Lieberson 1980; Olzak 1992). In ethnographic studies, demographic factors make a minor appearance in Barth (1969:20–21), but are central to Bruner’s (1974) comparative study of two Indonesian cities. 2. The original cause of the feud was never made entirely clear to me. The feud was between in-laws, and included at least one extramarital affair and a bad debt. But one local Mexican woman explained it to me as a matter exacerbated by drugs and alcohol, and fighting between the growing number of children who were joining their parents in these cramped conditions in 1989–1991. Though the children did not start the feud, they may have kept it alive. The feud’s tragic outcome is described in chapter 8.

220

Notes

3. This theory of conf lict is best known from Edna Bonacich’s model of split labor markets (Bonacich 1972; 1976). The position of grape growers in Shandon was not unique. Earlier in the history of the California wine industry, growers and vintners attempted to defend their Chinese workforce from discrimination, but failed to do so (Heintz 1977; Chen 1984). 4. If this report did foster belief among County officials that Shandon had more than its fair share of housing problems (as I strongly suspect it did), this was an unintended consequence of the use of examples from Shandon. The report contains a disclaimer stating that the examples were not unique to Shandon (Peoples’ Self-Help Housing Corporation 1990:46, n. 18).

7

Sources of Local Integration

1. In a related vein, Douglas Foley (1990) has illustrated the way schools reproduce cultural values, identities, and class characteristics through curricula, sports, band, and the very structure of social relationships that schools provide. 2. The nation-building agenda of the state in public education can also be subverted and resisted by local parents to maintain a strong local sense of identity (Reed-Danahay 1996). 3. Cholame post office was closed in 1992 and replaced by a small bank of outdoor mailboxes. 4. Classes for students in the middle grades seven and eight are held at the high school. 5. Because it is so small, the school district uses the high school as its administrative office. The high school principal is also the district superintendent. 6. One teacher’s method with monolingual Spanish-speaking newcomers was simply to speak more loudly to them in English. This caused these students distress and precipitated complaints from parents. 7. The regional office of the state’s Migrant Education program to which Gloria reported never understood that this was the reason for poor participation in Migrant Education meetings, and continued to blame the local parents for “not getting involved,” even years after Patricia had successfully brought change. 8. The state language proficiency system has three categories: no English proficiency (NEP), limited English proficiency (LEP), and full English proficiency (FEP). The district’s data were hampered by the limited proficiency of the individuals administering the tests in earlier years. A better-qualified aide hired in the late 1980s corrected this problem. 9. My student cohort designations are the kindergarten and 12th grade entry years for students. Cohorts include every student ever enrolled in a district school between the fall of 1968 and June 1990. Thus, a student who only attended a Shandon school for two years, say first and second grades in the 1976–1977 and 1977–1978 school years, is tallied in the 1975–1987 cohort. Because the cohorts from 1977–1990 onward were incomplete by June 1990, figures for them were subject to change. 10. Inconsistencies such as this are a recurring feature of America’s treatment of immigrants. In the late nineteenth century, leading anti-immigrant intellectuals in New England were also sponsors of immigrant youth education and recreation (Solomon 1956).

8

The Delictum Vineyards Scandal and Its Aftermath

1. In fact, the strawberry case itself was not an unambiguous victory for workers, since sharecropping arrangements were an important path of upward mobility for the workers that the legal ruling hindered or cut off.

Notes

221

2. The lawyers also attended a meeting of the Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee to describe their range of services, and closed with a question to the audience about violations by employers. They were greeted with silence, in large part because Delictum’s managers had learned of the meeting and were in the audience. The presence of Delictum’s management was not readily apparent to the lawyers, because the managers were Mexican Americans and were not conspicuously attired. The lawyer and I were the only Anglos in attendance. The regular members of the Committee were outraged by the unprecedented attendance of the Delictum managers, but did not confront them. 3. The building codes for farm worker housing included requirements for fire sprinkler systems that were not required for private homes, for example. 4. The latter part of this remark was made originally by the owner of Delictum Vineyards to the press. Chuck was merely repeating it. 5. I was a conduit for some of this information, and this could have inf luenced what unfolded, to some small degree. I suspect that my role as a bearer of information just accelerated the spread of the news of this event to some quarters, and that what followed would have occurred even without my involvement. 6. The presence of a single occupied trailer on the vineyard property was legal, as long as the trailer itself met county codes.

9

Immigration’s Dual Outcomes

1. Wagner (1981), Clifford (1988), Handler (1988), Fox (1990), Friedman (1994), and Barth (1995) among others discuss the growing role of a concept of culture as the increasingly common popular criterion of social differentiation around the world. Most of these authors also complain that the masses do not employ a definition of culture that they as anthropologists are happy with, it typically being one that is overly static, bounded, and concrete. 2. Harvesting-technology can drastically slash the number of workers needed at harvest, but few vineyards harvest exclusively by machine due to the demands of wineries and variation in grape characteristics. 3. When, late in my fieldwork, I mentioned this point to a local rancher, he acknowledged, “I guess college students living away from home in a college town do the same sorts of things, don’t they?” 4. Other notable works in this line include Fisher (1953), Galarza (1964), Sosnick (1978), and Daniels (1981). 5. There is one other intriguing mention of Okie type farm workers in western industrial agriculture. Leonard (1992:88–89) notes that Punjabi immigrants who worked in agriculture in western states during the 1920s characterized the most seasonal and migrant South Asian farm workers as an “Okie type Muslims.” 6. Prior research on the history of discrimination against persons of Mexican descent in the United States must not be overlooked, even though it does not always address the specific processes related to industrial agriculture and rural communities that I have described. That said, it is undeniable that at least prior to World War II discrimination against persons of Mexican descent in the United States was frequently more severe and more restrictive of social mobility than the Okie case (see, e.g., Almaguer 1994; Camarillo 1996; McWilliams 1990; Pitt 1966). The GI Bill, various court cases, and the civil rights movement have altered the social landscape enough to eliminate most of the differences, and make my comparison much more reasonable. It is also true—now that scholars have begun to come to grips with the difference between on-the-ground social identities and their own analytical typologies of cultural difference or national origin—that persons of Mexican descent in the United States have never shared a single unifying identity. The evidence of this is as certain as the

222

7.

8. 9.

10.

Notes

proof of the severity of past discrimination (see, e.g., Brooks 2002; Gutiérrez 1995; Haley 2009; Haley and Wilcoxon 2005; Keefe and Padilla 1987; Sánchez 1993). The implication of this fact is that generalizations about the prejudice suffered by Mexicans and Mexican Americans usually ignore the divergences in ethnic relations that are inherent in any differentiation of identities. The numbers in 1990 were as follows: Avenal–53 percent Hispanic, 51 percent rented houses; Paso Robles–18 percent Hispanic, 45 percent rented houses; Shandon–20 percent Hispanic, 28 percent rented houses. In 2000: Avenal–65.9 percent Hispanic, 49 percent rented houses; Paso Robles–27.7 percent Hispanic and 41.5 percent rented houses; Shandon–47.7 percent Hispanic, 30.7 percent rented houses. The total population of each of these places in 1990 was as follows: Avenal–9,770; Paso Robles–18,583; Shandon–2399. In 2000 the populations were as follows: Avenal–14,674; Paso Robles–24,297; Shandon–986 (U.S. Census Bureau 1990, 2000). Since Shandon is not included in the 1990 census as a place, the numbers I give here are from San Luis Obispo County Tract 103, Block 2, which includes the town and a large area to the south and west, including Whitley Gardens. This underrepresents Hispanic and rental homes for the entire Shandon community while inf lating the total population size. Shandon is a designated place in the 2000 census, but only the immediate town itself, not the total area considered by residents to comprise the community. This overrepresents Hispanics and rental homes for the community as a whole, and fails to count all the persons considered part of the larger community. As noted in chapter 5, the two territories are identical except for the exclusion of Parkfield Trusteeship in Monterey County from Shandon Advisory Committee’s jurisdiction. The role and significance I am granting to community identity here bears more than a passing resemblance to Horton’s (1995:189) discussion of the crisis in American identity triggered by Asian immigrant settlement in Monterey Park, California. I am suggesting another level of identity than Horton has addressed, but it’s operation is, no doubt, very similar. The seasonal workers of Dinuba’s farms who did not reside in Dinuba (or Arvin) were excluded from Goldschmidt’s characterization of the quality of life in the two communities, because, as was common at the time, Goldschmidt treated the place as his unit of analysis (see Goldschmidt 1978a:317–319, 413–414, 439–443). See Haley n.d. for a more complete description and analysis pertaining to Goldschmidt’s omitted laborers.

BI BLIOGR A PH Y

Albaugh, Reuben, Fred Conte, John Dunbar, Ken Ellis, Ralph Ernst, Frank Murrill, Eric Mussen, and C. L. Pelissier. 1983. “Animal Products.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A Guidebook to California Agriculture. 187–214. Berkeley: University of California Press. Almaguer, Tomás. 1994. Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California. Berkeley: University of California Press. Alvarez, Robert R., Jr. 1987. Familia: Migration and Adaptation in Baja and Alta California 1800– 1975. Berkeley: University of California Press. Amit, Vered, editor. 2002. Realizing Community: Concepts, Social Relationships and Sentiments. London: Routledge. Amit, Vered and Nigel Rapport. 2002. The Trouble with Community: Anthropological Reflections on Movement, Identity and Collectivity. London: Pluto Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities. Revised edition. New York: Verso. Barlett, Peggy. 1993. American Dreams, Rural Realities: Family Farms in Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Barth, Fredrick. 1969. “Introduction.” In Barth, Fredrick, editor, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries. 9–38. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ———. 1995. “Other Knowledge and Other Ways of Knowing.” Journal of Anthropological Research 51(1):65–68. Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller, and Cristina Szanton Blanc. 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments, and Deterritorialized Nation-States. Langhorn, PA: Gordon and Breach Publishers. Beale, Calvin L. 1975. The Revival of Population Growth in Nonmetropolitan America. ERS 605. Washington, DC: USDA Economic Research Service. ———. 1976. “A Further Look at Nonmetropolitan Population Growth Since 1970.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 58:953–958. ———. 1979. “Demographic Aspects of Agricultural Structure.” In Economics, Statistics, and Cooperatives Service, Structure Issues of American Agriculture. Agricultural Economic Report 438. 80–85. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Beaver, Patricia D. 1992 [1980]. Rural Community in the Appalachian South. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Blakely, Edward J., and Ted K. Bradshaw. 1980. “Goin’ to the Country: The Social Economics of the New Rural Migration.” The Hutchins Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of California, Santa Barbara. Blalock, Hubert M., Jr. 1967. Toward a Theory of Minority-Group Relations. New York: Wiley. ———. 1982. Race and Ethnic Relations. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

224

Bibliography

Bonacich, Edna. 1972. “A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The Split Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 37:547–559. ———. 1976. “Advanced Capitalism and Black/White Race Relations in the United States: A Split Labor Market Interpretation.” American Sociological Review 41:34–51. Bourgois, Philippe I. 1989. Ethnicity at Work: Divided Labor on a Central American Banana Plantation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Brooks, James F. 2002. Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship, and Community in the Southwest Borderlands. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Brown, Dillon S., coordinator. 1983. “Fruit and Nut Crops.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A guidebook to California agriculture. 135–161. Berkeley: University of California Press. Browning, Harvey L. and Rodolfo O. de la Garza, editors. 1986. Mexican Immigrants and Mexican Americans: An Evolving Relation. 138–156. Austin: CMAS, University of Texas. Bruner, Edward. 1974. “The Expression of Ethnicity in Indonesia.” In Cohen, Abner, editor, Urban ethnicity. 251–280. London: Tavistock Publications. Bunce, Richard. 1981. “From California Grapes to California Wine: The Transformation of an Industry.” Contemporary Drug Problems 10(1):55–74. California Department of Food and Agriculture. 1985. California Agriculture–1984. Sacramento: California Department of Food and Agriculture. Camarillo, Albert. 1996 [1979]. Chicanos in a Changing Society. Second edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carrera, Magali M. 2003. Imagining Identity in New Spain: Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Paintings. Austin: University of Texas Press. Chan, Sucheng. 1986. This Bittersweet Soil: The Chinese in California Agriculture 1860–1910. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chavez, Leo. 1998. Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society. Second edition. Florence, KY: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. Chen, Jack. 1984. “The Contributions of the Chinese.” In Muscatine, Doris, Amerine, Maynard A., and Bob Thompson, editors, The University of California/Sotheby book of California wine. 22–25. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press/ Sotheby Publications. Cheng, Lucie and Edna Bonacich, editors. 1984. Labor Immigration under Capitalism: Asian Workers in the United States before World War II. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Conquergood, Dwight. 1992. “Life in Big Red: Struggles and Accommodations in a Chicago Polyethnic Tenement.” In Lamphere, Louise, editor, Structuring Diversity: Ethnographic Perspectives on the New Immigration. 95–144. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cornelius, Wayne A. 1982. “America in the Era of Limits: Nativist Reactions to the ‘New’ Immigration.” Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, Research Report Series 3. University of California, San Diego. Cowan, Robert G. 1956. Ranchos of California: A List of Spanish Concessions 1775–1822 and Mexican Grants 1822–1846. Fresno: Academy Library Guild. Daniels, Cletus E. 1981. Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Donato, Rubén, Martha Menchaca, and Richard R. Valencia. 1991. “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students: Problems and Prospects.” In Richard R. Valencia, editor, Chicano School Failure and Success: Research and Policy Agendas for the 1990s. 27–63. Basingstoke, England: Falmer Press.

Bibliography

225

Du Bry, Travis. 2007. Immigrants, Settler, and Laborers: The Socioeconomic Transformation of a Farming Community. New York: LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC. Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2002. Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. Second edition. Sterling, VA: Pluto Press. Figueroa Sanchez, Teresa. 2002. Against All Odds: Mexican Immigrant Farmers in the Strawberry Industry. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. Fisher, Lloyd H. 1953. The Harvest Labor Market in California. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fitchen, Janet M. 1981. Poverty in Rural America: A Case Study. Prospect Heights, IL.: Waveland Press, Inc. ———. 1991. Endangered Spaces, Enduring Places: Change, Identity, and Survival in Rural America. Boulder: Westview Press. Fix, Michael and Jeffrey S. Passel. 1994. Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. Foley, Douglas E. 1990. Learning Capitalist Culture: Deep in the Heart of Tejas. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Fox, Richard G., editor. 1990. “Nationalist Ideologies and the Production of National Cultures.” American Ethnological Society Monograph Series 2. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Friedman, Jonathan. 1994. Cultural Identity and Global Process. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Friedmann, Harriet. 1978. “World Market, State, and Family Farm: Social Bases of Household Production in an Era of Wage Labor.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 20(4):545–596. Fuller, Varden. 1940. The Supply of Agricultural Labor as a Factor in the Evolution of Farm Organization in California. Reprinted in U.S. Senate, Hearings, Subcommittee of the Committee on Education and Labor, 76th Congress, 3rd Session, 1940, part 54: Agricultural Labor in California. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Galarza, Ernesto. 1964. Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story. Santa Barbara: McNally and Loftin. García, Victor. 1992. Surviving Farm Work: Economic Strategies of Mexican and Mexican American Households in a Rural Californian Community. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. ———. 1994. “Mexican Enclaves and Rural Heterogeneity in the U.S. Northeast: The Case of Chester County, Pennsylvania.” Paper presented at the 57th Annual Meeting of the Rural Sociological Society, Portland Oregon, August 14, 1994. Glazer, Nathan and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. 1963. Beyond the Melting Pot. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. Glick Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch, and Cristina Szanton-Blanc, editors. 1992. Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Goldschmidt, Walter R. 1978a. As You Sow: Three Studies in the Social Consequences of Agribusiness. Montclair: Allanheld, Osmun and Co. Publishers. ———. 1978b. “Large-scale Farming and the Rural Social Structure.” Rural Sociology 43(3):362–366. Goode, Judith G., Jo Anne Schneider, and Suzanne Blanc. 1992. “Transcending Boundaries and Closing Ranks: How Schools Shape Interrelations.” In Lamphere, Louise, editor, Structuring Diversity: Ethnographic Perspectives on the New Immigration. 173–213. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

226

Bibliography

Greenhouse, Carol J., Barbara Yngvesson, and David M. Engel. 1994. Law and Community in Three American Towns. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Gregory, James N. 1989. American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California. New York: Oxford University Press. Grey, Mark A. and Anne C. Woodrick. 2005. “ ‘Latinos have Revitalized Our Community’: Mexican Migration and Anglo Responses in Marshalltown, Iowa.” In Zúñiga, Víctor and Rubén Hernández-León, editors, New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. 133–154. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Griffith, David. 2005. “Rural Industry and Mexican Immigration and Settlement in North Carolina.” In Zúñiga, Víctor and Rubén Hernández-León, editors, New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. 50–75. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Gutiérrez, David G. 1995. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haas, Lisbeth. 1995. Conquests and Historical Identities in California, 1769–1936. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haley, Brian D. 2009. “Immigration and Indigenization in the Mexican Diaspora in the Southwest United States.” In Leung, H. H., M. Hendley, R. Compton, and B. D. Haley, editors, Imagining Globalization: Language, Identity, and Boundaries. 165–184. PalgraveMacmillan. ———. n.d. “Better for whom? The Laborers Omitted in Goldschmidt’s Industrial Agriculture Thesis.” Human Organization (forthcoming). ———. 1989. “Aspects and Social Impacts of Size and Organization in the Recently Developed Wine Industry of Santa Barbara County, California.” Center for Chicano Studies Working Papers 2. University of California, Santa Barbara. ———. 1997. Newcomers in a Small Town: Change and Ethnicity in Rural California. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. ———. 2005. “The Case of the Three Baltazars: Indigenization and the Vicissitudes of the Written Word.” Southern California Quarterly 87(4):397–410. Haley, Brian D. and Larry R. Wilcoxon. 1997. “Anthropology and the Making of Chumash Tradition.” Current Anthropology 38(5):761–794. ———. 2005. “How Spaniards became Chumash, and Other Tales of Ethnogenesis.” American Anthropologist 107(3):432–445. Halperin, Rhoda H. 1998. Practicing Community: Class, Culture, and Power in an Urban Neighborhood. Austin: University of Texas Press. Handler, Richard. 1984. “On Sociocultural Discontinuity: Nationalism and Cultural Objectification in Quebec.” Current Anthropology 4(5):55–71. ———. 1985. “On Dialogue and Destructive Analysis: Problems in Narrating Nationalism and Ethnicity.” Journal of Anthropological Research 41(2):171–182. ———. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Hatch, Elvin. 1973. “Social Drinking and Factional Alignment in a Rural California Community.” Anthropological Quarterly 46:243–260. ———. 1975. “Stratification in a Rural California Community.” Agricultural History 49(1):21–38. ———. 1979. Biography of a Small Town. New York: Columbia University Press. ———. 1987. “The Cultural Evaluation of Wealth: An Agrarian Case Study.” Ethnology 26:37–50. ———. 1989. “Theories of Social Honor.” American Anthropologist 91(2):341–353. ———. 1992. Respectable Lives: Social Standing in Rural New Zealand. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Bibliography

227

Heintz, William F. 1977. The Role of Chinese Labor in Viticulture and Wine-making in 19th Century California. Masters thesis, history, Sonoma State University. Hester, Thomas Roy. 1978. “Salinan.” In Heizer, Robert F., editor, Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8, California. 500–504. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Heyman, Josiah McC. 1990. “The Emergence of a Waged Life Course on the United States– Mexico Border.” American Ethnologist 17(2):348–359. Hicks, George L. 1992 [1976]. Appalachian Valley. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press. Hill, Jonathan, D., editor. 1996. History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas, 1492– 1992. Iowa City: University of Iowa. Hobsbawm, E. J. 1992. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Second edition. New York: Cambridge University Press. Honig, Emily. 1992. Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850–1980. New Haven: Yale University Press. Horton, John. 1992. “The Politics of Diversity in Monterey Park, California.” In Lamphere, Louise, editor, Structuring Diversity: Ethnographic Perspectives on the New Immigration. 215–245. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1995. The Politics of Diversity: Immigration, Resistance, and Change in Monterey Park, California. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hummon, David M. 1990. Commonplaces: Community Ideology and Identity in American Culture. Albany: State University of New York Press. Huntington, Samuel P. 2004. Who Are We?: The Challenges to America’s National Identity. New York: Simon and Schuster. Ibarra, Maria. 1998. “Creen que no tenemos vidas”: Migration, Alienation, and Resistance in the Lives of Mexicana Household Workers. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. Jamieson, Stuart M. 1942. “A Settlement of Rural Migrant Families in the Sacramento Valley, California.” Rural Sociology 7(1):49–61. Kearney, Michael. 1986. “Integration of the Mixteca and the Western U.S.-Mexican Border Region via Migratory Wage Labor.” In Rosenthal-Urey, Ina, editor, Regional Impacts of U.S.-Mexican Relations. 71–102. Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies Monograph Series, No. 16. University of California, San Diego. ———. 1995. “The Local and the Global: The Anthropology of Globalization and Transnationalism.” Annual Review of Anthropology 24:547–565. ———. 1996. Reconceptualizing the Peasantry: Anthropology in Global Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press. Kearney, Michael and Carole Nagengast. 1989. “Anthropological Perspectives on Transnational Communities in Rural California.” Working Group on Farm Labor and Rural Poverty Working Paper 3. 1–42. Davis: California Institute for Rural Studies. Keefe, Susan E. and Amado M. Padilla. 1987. Chicano Ethnicity. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Krissman, Fred. 1996. California Agribusiness and Mexican Farm Workers (1942–1992): A Binational Agricultural System of Production/Reproduction. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. Kroeber, A. L. 1953. Handbook of the Indians of California. Berkeley: California Book Co. Kumar, Ramesh, William Chancellor, and Roger Garrett. 1978. “Estimates of the Impact of Agricultural Mechanization Developments on In-field Labor Requirements for California Crops.” In Technological Change, Farm Mechanization and Agricultural Employment. 157–198. University of California, Division of Agricultural Sciences Publication 4085. Kuper, Adam. 1988. The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion. New York: Routledge.

228

Bibliography

Lamphere, Louise, editor. 1992a. Structuring Diversity: Ethnographic Perspectives on the New Immigration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 1992b. “Introduction: The Shaping of Diversity.” In Lamphere, Louise, editor, Structuring Diversity: Ethnographic Perspectives on the New Immigration. 1–34. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Leonard, Karen Isaksen. 1992. Making Ethnic Choices: California’s Punjabi Mexican Americans. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lewis, Oscar. 1951. Life in a Mexican Village: Tepoztlán Revisited. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ———. 1953. “Controls and Experiments in Field Work.” In A. L. Kroeber, editor, Anthropology Today: An Encyclopedic Inventory. 452–475. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lieberson, Stanley. 1980. A Piece of the Pie: Blacks and White Immigrants since 1880. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mamer, John W. and Alexa Wilkie. 1990. “Seasonal Labor in California Agriculture: Labor Inputs for California Crops.” California Agricultural Studies, 90–96. Sacramento: California Employment Development Department. Martin, Philip L. 1988. Harvest of Confusion: Migrant Workers in U.S. Agriculture. Boulder: Westview Press. Mason, J. Alden. 1912. “The Ethnology of the Salinan Indians.” University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 10(4):97–240. Mason, William Marvin. 1998. The Census of 1790: A Demographic History of Colonial California. Menlo Park: Ballena Press. Massey, Douglas, Rafael Alarcón, Jorge Durand, and Humberto González. 1987. Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press. McCarthy, Ryan. 1990. “Town Joins Shandon High’s Rite of Passage.” San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune, Saturday, June 9, 1990, A-3. McCorkle, C. O. and Carole F. Nuckton. 1983. “The Dimensions of California Agriculture.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A Guidebook to California Agriculture. 21–38. Berkeley: University of California Press. McWilliams, Carey. 1939. Factories in the fields. Boston: Little and Brown. ———. 1990 [1948]. North from Mexico: The Spanish-speaking People of the United States. New edition. New York: Praeger. Menchaca, Martha. 1995. The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California. Austin: University of Texas Press. Millard, Ann and Jorge Chapa, editors. 2004. Apple Pie and Enchiladas: Latino Newcomers in the Rural Midwest. Austin: University of Texas Press. Minger, Walter W. 1983. “Agricultural Credit.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A Guidebook to California Agriculture. 251–263. Berkeley: University of California Press. Moberg, Mark. 1996. “Myths that Divide: Immigrant Labor and Class Segmentation in the Belizean Banana Industry.” American Ethnologist 23(2):311–330. Muscatine, Doris, Maynard A. Amerine, and Bob Thompson, editors. 1984. The University of California/Sotheby Book of California Wine. Berkeley: University of California Press/Sotheby Publications. Nader, Laura. 1972. “Up the Anthropologist—Perspectives Gained from Studying up.” In Hymes, Dell, editor, Reinventing Anthropology. 284–311. New York: Random House. Nicholson, Loren L., editor. 1972. “Homesteaders in the Shandon Valley.” La Vista 3(1). San Luis Obispo: San Luis Obispo County Historical Society. Northup, Marie E. 1984. Spanish-Mexican Families of Early California: 1769–1850. Volume II. Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society.

Bibliography

229

———. 1986. Spanish-Mexican Families of Early California: 1769–1850. Volume I. Revised edition. Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society. Olzak, Susan. 1992. The Dynamics of Ethnic Competition and Conflict. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Palerm, Juan-Vicente. 1989. “Latino Settlements in California.” In The Challenge: Latinos in a changing California. The Report of the University of California SCR 43 Task Force. 125–171. Riverside: The University of California Consortium on Mexico and the United States. ———. 1991. “Farm Labor Needs and Farm Workers in California 1970 to 1989.” California Agricultural Studies 91–2. Sacramento: California Employment Development Department, Labor Market Information Division. ———. 1994. Immigrant and Migrant farm Workers in the Santa Maria Valley, California. Washington, DC: Center for Survey Methods Research, Bureau of the Census. Palerm, Juan-Vicente and José Ignacio Urquiola. 1993. “A Binational System of Agricultural Production: The case of the Mexican Bajio and California.” In Aldrich, Daniel G. and Lorenzo Meyer, editors, Mexico and the United States: Neighbors in Crisis. 311–367. The Borgo Press. Peoples’ Self-Help Housing Corporation. 1990. San Luis Obispo County Farm Worker Housing Needs Study. Farm Labor Hiring Patterns in San Luis Obispo County (Task B). Report prepared for the County of San Luis Obispo. Community Development Division, Peoples’ Self-Help Housing Corporation, San Luis Obispo, California. Peshkin, Alan. 1991. The Color of Strangers, the Color of Friends: The Play of Ethnicity in School and Community. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Peters, Gary L. 1984. “Trends in California Viticulture.” Geographical Review 74(4):455–467. Pfeffer, Max. 1980. “The Labor Process and Corporate Agriculture: Mexican Workers in California.” Insurgent Sociologist 10(2):25–44. Pitt, Leonard. 1966. The Decline of the Californios. Berkeley: University of California Press. Portes, Alejandro and Robert L. Bach. 1985. Latin Journey: Cuban and Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press. Reed-Danahay, Deborah. 1996. Education and Identity in Rural France: The Politics of Schooling. New York: Cambridge University Press. Reich, Alice H. 1977. The Cultural Production of Ethnicity: Chicanos in the University. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado. Reséndez, Andrés. 2004. Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800– 1850. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rochín, Refugio I. and Monica D. Castillo. 1993. “Immigration, Colonia Formation and Latino Poor in Rural California: Evolving Immiseration.” The Tomás Rivera Center Occasional Paper 93-1. Claremont: The Tomás Rivera Center. Rouse, Roger Christopher. 1989. Mexican Migration to the United States: Family Relations in the Development of a Transnational Migrant Circuit. Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University. ———. 1991. “Mexican Migration and the Social Space of Postmodernism.” Diaspora 1(1):8–23. Runsten, David and James Chalfant. 1986. “Introduction.” In Moulton, Kirby, David Runsten, Roberta Cook, James Chalfant, and Ricardo Amon, editors, Competitiveness at Home and Abroad. 1–12. Davis: Agricultural Issues Center, University of California. Salamon, Sonya and Jane B. Tornatore. 1994. “Territory Contested through Property in a Midwestern Post-agricultural Community.” Rural Sociology 59(4):636–654. San Luis Obispo County Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures. 1968–1992. Annual Reports. San Luis Obispo. San Luis Obispo County Engineering Department. 1971. Master Water and Sewer Plan for County Service Area No. 16 (Town of Shandon). San Luis Obispo.

230

Bibliography

Sánchez, George J. 1993. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Sánchez, Rosaura. 1995. Telling Identities: The Californio Testimonios. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Sandmeyer, Elmer Clarence. 1991 [1939]. The Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Saragoza, Alex M. 1982. “Mexican Children in the U.S.: The Central San Joaquín Valley.” De Colores 6(1, 2):64–74. Schaller, C. W. and Linda Prato. 1983. “Field Crops: Small Grains.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A Guidebook to California Agriculture. 109–116. Berkeley: University of California Press. Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor. 1983. A Guidebook to California Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Schwarzeller, Harry K. 1979. “Migration and the Changing Rural Scene.” Rural Sociology 44(1):7–23. Seager, S. E. 1982. “Shandon’s Growing Pains.” San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune, Friday, September 24, 1982, B-1. Shutika, Debra Lattanzi. 2005. “Bridging the Community: Nativism, Activism, and the Politics of Inclusion in a Mexican Settlement in Pennsylvania.” In Zúñiga, Víctor and Rubén Hernández-León, editors, New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. 103– 132. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Snyder, J. Herbert. 1983. “Water and agriculture.” In Scheuring, Ann Foley, editor, A Guidebook to California Agriculture. 65–93. Berkeley: University of California Press. Solomon, Barbara Miller. 1956. Ancestors and Immigrants: A Changing New England Tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sosnick, Stephen H. 1979. Hired Hands: Seasonal Farm Workers in the United States. Santa Barbara: McNally and Loftin. Spickard, Paul R. 1989. Mixed Blood: Intermarriage and Ethnic Identity in Twentieth-Century America. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Spindler, George. 1955. “Sociocultural and Psychological Processes in Menomini Acculturation.” University of California Publications in Culture and Society 5. Stolcke, Verena. 1995. “Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe.” Current Anthropology 36(1):1–24. Stull, Donald D. and Michael J. Broadway. 2004. Slaughterhouse Blues: The Meat and Poultry Industry in North America. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. Stull, Donald D., Michael J. Broadway, and David C. Griffith, editors. 1995. Any Way You Cut It: Meat Processing and Small-Town America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Sturtevant, William C. 1971. “Creek into Seminole.” In Leacock, Eleanor and Nancy O. Lurie, editors, North American Indians in Historical Perspective. 92–128. New York: Random House. Takash, Paule Cruz. 1990. A Crisis of Democracy: Community Responses to the Latinization of a California Town Dependent on Immigrant Labor. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. Thomas, Robert J. 1985. Citizenship, Gender, and Work: Social Organization of Industrial Agriculture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Thomason, Donalee Ludeke. 1988. Cholama, the Beautiful One: Cholame Valley History and Its Pioneer People. Morro Bay, CA: Tabula Rasa Press. Thu, Kendall M. and E. Paul Durrenberger, editors. 1998. Pigs, Profits, and Rural Communities. Albany: SUNY Press.

Bibliography

231

U.S. Census Bureau. 1990. “California Fact Sheet 1990.” Accessed online, http://factfinder. census.gov, January, 2009. ———. 2000. “California Fact Sheet 2000.” Accessed online, http://factfinder.census.gov, January, 2009. University of California. 1989. The Challenge: Latinos in a Changing California. Report of the University of California SCR 43 Task Force. Riverside: University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States. Vogt, Evon Z. 1951. Navaho Veterans: A Study of Changing Values. Peabody Museum Papers 41(1). Cambridge: Yale University Press. Voss, Barbara L. 2008. The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wagner, Roy. 1981. The Invention of Culture. Revised edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wallace, William J. 1978. “Southern Valley Yokuts.” In Heizer, Robert F., editor, Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8, California. 448–461. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. Weber, David J. 1992. The Spanish Frontier in North America. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wells, Miriam J. 1987. “Sharecropping in the United States: A Political Economy Perspective.” In Chibnick, Michael, editor, Farm Work and Fieldwork: American Agriculture in Anthropological Perspective. 211–243. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 1990. “Mexican Farm Workers Become Strawberry Farmers.” Human Organization 49(2):149–156. ———. 1996. Strawberry Fields: Politics, class, and Work in California Agriculture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Williams, Robin M., Jr. 1947. The Reduction of Intergroup Tensions: A Survey of Research on Problems of Ethnic, Racial, and Religious Group Relations. New York: Social Science Research Council. ———. 1964. Strangers Next Door: Ethnic Relations in American Communities. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Winkler, A. J. 1960. “Promising New Areas for Premium Quality Wine Grapes to Replace Acreage Lost to Urbanization.” California Agriculture 14(12):2–3. Wolf, Eric. 1982. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1988. “Inventing Society.” American Ethnologist 15(4):752–761. Wolf, Eric and Sidney Mintz. 1957. “Haciendas and Plantations in Middle American and the Antilles.” Social and Economic Studies 6:380–411. Young, Linda A. 1962. A History of the Settlement of Shandon. Manuscript in San Luis Obispo County Library, Shandon Branch. Zavella, Patricia. 1995. “Poverty: Discourse and Experience, Notes from Santa Cruz County.” Lecture Given at the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, March 1, 1995. Zlolniski, Christian. 2006. Janitors, Street Vendors and Activists: The Lives of Mexican Immigrants in Silicon Valley. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zúñiga, Víctor and Rubén Hernández-León, editors. 2005. New Destinations: Mexican Immigration in the United States. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

This page intentionally left blank

I N DE X

4-H club, 96, 103, 107 absentee farm ownership, 25, 30, 32, 35–6, 37, 61, 106, 188, 210, 215 accommodation, 3, 19, 20, 87, 93, 101, 146, 149, 152–69, 176–82, 183–4, 185, 187–8, 193, 199, 200–1, 203, 204–6, 209 coexistence with prejudice, 3, 19, 20, 132–3, 186, 192, 204–5, 220 without acculturation, 83–4, 193–5, 205, 208–9 acculturation, 72–5, 79, 82–4, 131, 132, 146, 156, 193–5, 205, 209, 217 of immigrant children, 2–3, 73, 79, 84, 85, 87, 167 as obligation, 73–4, 82, 86, 87, 90, 131, 193–5, 200, 209 agricultural ladder, 10, 26, 41, 183 agriculture in California, 13–16, 32, 33–4, 40, 65, 214, 215, 220, 221 capital in, 9, 10, 13, 14, 24, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 35–6, 40, 215 immigrant labor in, 13–16, 37–40 industrial, 9, 10, 13–16, 40, 47, 192–3, 195–6, 201–4, 209–11, 214, 221 intensification of, 9, 14, 23, 37, 46, 216 restructuring of, 4, 10, 14, 23–4, 25–7, 29, 36 in Southwest and Pacific Coast states, 4, 32, 33–4, 37, 65, 70–1

see also cattle ranching; Conservation Reserve Program; crops; farm and ranch managers; farm work; farm worker categories; farmers; farming; ranchers; wine industry ancestry and origins, roles in social classification, 3, 6–7, 12, 15, 50, 69–72, 73, 78–9, 80, 81–2, 84–5, 87, 124–5, 152, 157–8, 192, 193–4, 198, 200, 204–5 anti-immigrant sentiment, 1, 88, 126–9, 134–5, 137–8, 152–3, 160–1, 162–4, 177–8, 186, 194, 197–8, 199, 213, 220 ethnography of, 5–7, 121–2, 125 immigrants’ perspectives on, 3–4, 83–4, 142, 155, 162, 196, 207 as national issue, 4–6 reduction of, 3–4, 119–20, 123–6, 132–3, 135–6, 140–3, 163–4, 167–9, 172, 180–2, 183–4, 185, 189–90, 195, 200–1, 204 role in ethnic classification, 72, 79–80, 129–33, 197–8 Arvin, 209–10, 222 assimilation, 3, 127, 193, 194–5, 209 Atascadero, 8, 19, 42, 57 Avenal, 4, 8, 19, 43, 57, 66, 84, 135, 139–41, 179, 188, 206–7, 222 Barth, Fredrik, 6, 7, 70, 193, 206, 219, 221 “bedroomers,” see commuters

234

Index

Biography of a Small Town, see Hatch, Elvin Bitterwater Canyon, 8, 18, 43, 113, 117, 147, 149 Boosters Club, 96, 101, 102, 103, 107, 117, 168 Brady, Scott, 52–3, 59, 106–7, 113 Brown, Maria, 86, 88, 90, 102 Castillo family, 65, 77, 78, 81, 83, 84, 126, 142, 168 cattle ranching, 9, 11, 12, 18, 24–7, 28, 29–30, 37–8, 57, 126, 215, 217 Choice Valley, 8, 18, 43, 113, 117, 147, 149 Cholame, 8, 18, 19, 39, 51, 109, 114, 117, 147, 169, 214, 220 churches Assembly of God, 17, 51, 97, 98 Catholic, 185, 187, 188 Methodist, 11, 17, 51, 52, 96–8, 104, 185, 188 “Spanish,” 98, 118, 185 citizenship, 2, 74, 85, 115, 120, 189, 200, 208 class, 9, 10, 41, 59, 75, 81, 85, 86, 99, 106, 107, 123–4, 145, 161, 187, 189, 193, 205, 210, 213, 218, 220 in industrial agriculture, 12, 15–16, 19–21, 123–4, 201–4, 205, 210, 213 local refractions of, 10–13, 19–20, 47–50, 52–6, 59, 61–2, 68, 71, 75, 85, 198, 205 role in community identity, 47–8, 52–6, 68 segmentation of farm labor, 3, 12, 13–16, 19, 20–1, 192, 195–9, 202–5, 207, 213 clubhouse, 17, 99, 100, 101, 117, 219 community articulation of separate communities within, 20, 93–4, 118, 130, 180–2, 183–4, 187 atrophy of, 11, 20, 23, 40, 46, 48, 60, 93–4, 95–6, 97, 98–104,

118, 130–1, 132, 147, 149, 183, 187, 201 defense of, see housing, discrimination and condemnation revitalization of, 104, 110–11, 118, 207–8 community hall, 17, 18, 101, 102, 110, 164–5 community identity, 10–12, 18, 23, 47–8, 52, 58, 68, 104, 125, 130–1, 140–1, 142–3, 145, 146–7, 148, 149–50, 171, 205–9, 210–11, 222 and individual identity, 11, 122–5, 130–1, 140–1, 192 and local affairs, 11, 20, 54, 56, 64, 68, 93–6, 98, 99, 104, 113–16, 117, 118, 130, 172, 183, 185, 197, 201 commuters, 10, 12, 61, 120, 122, 132 compared unfavorably to immigrants, 123, 133, 141–3, 199, 200–1 growing numbers of, 23, 40–3, 45–6 in local affairs, 107, 113, 115–16, 183, 185, 217, 219 negative attitudes toward, 52, 56–7, 59, 103 Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), 27, 28, 38, 215 “core”/“periphery” distinction, 11, 48, 78, 96, 97 Crane, Robert, 73, 74, 78, 80, 119 crops alfalfa, 26, 30, 32–3, 35, 37, 75, 126, 182, 217 almonds, 30, 31, 33, 35, 37, 128 barley, 26, 27–9, 38, 62, 214–15 grain hay, 26, 30, 33, 36, 37, 62–3, 66, 130, 182, 215 grapes, 1, 9, 12, 14, 21, 24, 30, 31, 33–6, 37, 39, 61–2, 64, 65, 66, 82, 87, 109, 120, 137, 182–3, 191, 195–6, 215, 217, 221 pasture, 14, 26, 30, 31, 35 sugar beets, 26, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 75 wheat, 25, 27–9, 37, 214–15

Index see also agriculture; cattle ranching; farming; wine industry culture local culture, 10, 93, 194–5 national culture, 15, 72, 74, 84, 90, 180, 194–5, 205 popular meaning of, 6–7, 16, 69, 71, 72, 83–4, 85–6, 194–5, 221 role in ethnic classification, 13, 69–71, 72–5, 79–81, 84–9, 121, 192, 193–5, 197–8, 199, 205, 209 cultural fundamentalism, 6–7, 16, 90, 194–5, 205, 209 Delictum Vineyards, 139, 172–8, 179, 221 demography, 10, 12–13, 19, 23, 37–40, 41, 42–6, 60, 119–20, 121, 160, 192, 195, 206, 214, 216, 222 demographic shift, 23, 43–6, 119–20, 192 demographic theories of discrimination, 125–6, 142, 219 Dinuba, 209–10, 222 droughts, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 64, 215 English class, 2, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 148, 162, 184, 199 establishment/nonestablishment distinction, 48, 49, 96 ethnic brokers, 20, 87–90, 111, 156–7, 172, 183, 185, 188, 189, 199–200 ethnic categories American/norteamericano, 21–2, 71, 73, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 89, 91, 121, 130, 132, 142, 153–4, 180, 198, 200, 204 black, 49, 80–1, 122, 123, 218 Hispanic, 53, 76, 85, 155, 158, 189, 200 Indian/indio, 49, 72, 78, 82, 218 Mexican American/agringado, 16, 70–2, 73, 81, 84–5, 156, 162, 179, 184, 198, 200, 221–2 Mexican/Mexicano, 1–5, 9, 12, 16, 21, 23, 37–40, 49, 65, 66–7, 69, 71–81, 82, 83–4, 129–33, 134–5, 142, 162,

235

171, 172, 177–9, 197–8, 199, 200, 221–2 Mexican “types,” 20, 72–80, 82, 130, 132–3, 168, 192, 198, 208 Spanish, 66, 70, 71–2, 73, 85, 98, 118, 152, 181, 218 white, 59, 71, 76, 80–1, 86, 89, 130, 152, 163, 181, 218 ethnicity, 6–7, 12, 15–16, 37–40, 43, 49–50, 69–91, 125, 134, 151–60, 172, 193, 201–5, 213 generative approach to, 7, 69–71 in industrial agriculture, 15–16, 37–40, 201–5 as refraction of class, 12, 49–50, 201 see also culture, popular meaning of; peoplehood; race ethnicization, 20, 197, 204 see also ethnicity, generative approach; ethnogenesis; reimagining ethnogenesis, 70–1, 91, 202 see also ethnicity, generative approach; ethnicization; reimagining farm and ranch managers, 30, 32, 35, 36, 44–5, 50, 59, 61–6, 103, 105, 106, 107, 115, 116, 132, 135, 137–8, 139, 174, 182, 188 farm work income from, 38–9, 74, 90, 159, 173, 217 permanent, 14, 30, 39, 44, 47, 66–7, 76–80, 133, 139–40, 169, 179, 183, 188–9, 196–7, 198–9, 202–7 seasonal, 12, 13, 38, 47, 49, 66–7, 76–80, 119–20, 127, 138–40, 173, 179, 195, 196–7, 198–9, 203–7, 209, 210, 221, 222 farm worker categories braceros, 27, 65, 214, 217 cowboys, 25, 40, 43, 44, 51, 52, 68, 115, 131 “dust-bowlers,” 203, 204 “foreman type,” 12, 16, 49, 61, 65–6, 124, 133, 140, 143, 192, 197, 200, 204

236

Index

farm worker categories—Continued hired hands, 10, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 40, 41, 44, 49, 53, 68, 130 migrant, 1, 27, 38, 66–7, 73, 76, 77, 108, 119, 120, 132, 140, 145, 149, 173, 177–80, 184, 186, 198, 202, 204, 206, 210, 219, 221 “Okie type,” see Okies see also ethnic categories, Mexican/ Mexicano farmers grain, 24–5, 26, 28, 29, 41, 44, 48, 61–4, 68, 72, 101, 105, 136, 208 grape growers, 36, 61–8, 73, 114, 116, 137–9, 168, 172–6, 179, 182, 188, 196, 217, 220 irrigation, 12, 26, 27, 30, 32–3, 36, 44, 49, 61–4, 75, 105, 130, 215 special interest conflicts of, 62–4, 136–8 see also cattle ranchers; farm and ranch managers farming dryland grain, 9, 11, 12, 13, 18, 24–9, 30–8, 41, 57, 126, 130, 137, 214–15 irrigation, 9, 12, 24, 25, 26–7, 28, 30–6, 37, 217 Goldschmidt, Walter R., 21, 47–8, 201, 202–4, 209–11, 216, 222 harassment of women, 67, 76, 86, 127–8, 130–1, 132, 177, 179, 197–8, 199, 200 Hatch, Elvin, 9, 10–12, 13, 16, 19, 20, 40, 43–4, 48, 51, 78, 93, 107, 119, 148, 150, 192, 197, 204, 206, 207, 208, 213, 214, 216, 217, 218 Hastings, Myrtle, 51, 75, 80, 130–1 “haves”/“have-nots” distinction, 12, 48–9, 61, 201 heritage, see ancestry and origins, roles in social classification; culture concept, role in ethnic classification home ownership, role in social classification, 53, 55, 56–60, 67, 179, 206

homesteaders, 25, 51, 131, 188 household composition, 38–9, 123, 126–7, 128, 132–3, 134, 135–6, 138, 139–40, 141, 145, 169, 179, 195, 196–7, 198, 199, 200, 206, 207 housing development, 2, 17, 23, 41–3, 45, 56, 58, 105, 111–12, 114, 133, 141, 142, 151, 175–6, 177, 178, 182 discrimination and condemnation, 4, 20, 66, 120–30, 132–9, 140, 142–3, 168, 198, 199, 205, 207, 210 low income, 42, 57–9, 67, 110, 138–9, 178 sales of, 41–2, 43, 121, 137, 189 substandard, 62, 67, 74, 86, 121–2, 129, 136–8, 172–3, 175–8, 187–8, 196, 198, 199, 200 identity change, see ethnicity, generative approach; ethnicization; ethnogenesis; reimagining immigrant education, 152–69, 220 adversarial versus integrative approaches, 145–6, 151–67, 220 multiculturalism, 157–8 in small schools, 160–7 special programs, 108, 158–60 student achievement, 156, 160 immigrants settlers, 1–4, 8, 12, 14–15, 19, 20, 38–40, 45–6, 66, 67, 73, 76–80, 83, 84, 109, 119–20, 123, 132–3, 138, 139–43, 145, 168–9, 171, 172, 176, 180, 183, 184, 185, 189–90, 195, 196–201, 203–8, 213 sojourners, 15, 38–9, 45–6, 119, 123, 145, 172, 195, 196, 197, 198, 214 undocumented/illegal, 2, 4–5, 27, 45, 120, 131, 152, 175, 217 see also under farm worker categories Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), 2, 45, 67, 139, 208, 217 intermarriage, 77, 78, 80, 84, 87, 189

Index Javier family, 77, 79, 168–9, 217–8 Jenkins, Dorothy, 76–8, 79, 80, 129, 168–9 labor unions, 88, 89–90, 174, 217, 218 land inheritance and sales, 10, 11, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35–6, 41 landholders, 10, 12, 44, 46, 48–9, 52–5, 58–60, 61, 64, 68, 78, 95–6, 104, 105–8, 113, 116, 167–8, 186, 187 declining inf luence of, 54–5, 64, 68, 105–8, 113, 116 see also “old guard”/“newcomer” distinction language, role in ethnic classification, 15, 72, 73–4, 79, 81, 85, 86, 91, 98, 162, 163, 197–8, 200 leadership, 20, 52, 61, 93–6, 98, 100–1, 102, 103, 104–8, 109, 111–18, 127, 156, 218, 219 by women, 52, 94, 98–101, 103, 104, 105–6, 107, 113, 115, 116, 117, 128, 130, 148, 156, 157, 179–80 Lions Club, 17, 59, 100, 101–2, 105, 107, 113, 117, accommodation of immigrants by, 3, 102, 110, 172, 176–82, 183, 186, 189, 199 Lost Hills, 139 “lowlife,” 52–3, 55, 136 “malaise” of the 1960s, 11, 23, 40, 48, 201, 207 “members of the community,” 20, 49, 72, 76–9, 91, 125, 132, 141–2, 145, 167, 168, 172, 176, 180, 183, 192, 197, 201, 202–4, 205, 208, 209 Memorial Day barbeque, 3, 99, 100–1, 103, 104, 148, 187 Mendoza, Patricia, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 109–11, 156–7, 178–82, 186, 220 “Mexican town,” 123, 130, 140–1, 142, 179 Mexico, places of origin in, 1, 39–40, 72, 82, 129, 162, 173, 216, 217

237

Mexico and the United States, interdependency of, 5, 15, 16, 37–40, 191, 195, 214, 216 Migrant Education Parent Advisory Committee, 2, 96, 105, 108–11, 113, 117, 118, 148, 156, 157, 160, 165, 176–82, 183, 184–5, 199, 221 Murray, Frank and Helen, 75–6, 130, 149, 217 Nava, Richard, 85, 87, 88, 90, 129–30 Neighborhood Watch, 103, 105, 107, 113, 117 “north county,” 19 nuclear/outsider distinction, see outsiders Obregón, Lorenzo, 1–4, 75, 81, 83, 84, 87, 141, 189–90 occupations non-agricultural, 11, 24, 27, 42–6, 56, 105, 113, 115, 116, 216 role in social classification, 10–11, 12, 24, 26, 27, 47–9, 52, 56–7, 61–8, 72, 73, 81, 85, 103, 106, 107, 116, 122, 123, 133, 141, 192, 198–9, 201–4, 213 Okies, 12, 15–16, 18, 27, 49, 61, 64–6, 68, 70, 75, 76, 122, 123–4, 133, 191, 192, 197, 200–1, 202–4, 205, 213, 216, 221 “old guard”/“newcomer” distinction, 11–12, 19, 21, 26, 48, 50–3, 95–6, 98, 101, 103, 113, 115–16, 118, 120–6, 127, 133, 167–9, 187, 195, 205–6, 207 role of occupation in, 11–12, 54–5, 61–8, 120 role of property in, 11–12, 53–6 role of respectability in, 56–60 role of roots in, 48, 54–5, 131 old guard, historical consciousness of, 50–1, 68 organizations, see under individual organizations out-migration, 4, 12, 32, 33, 35–6, 37, 40–1, 42, 44–5, 57, 60, 75, 83, 88,

238

Index

out-migration—Continued 96, 97, 103, 104, 126, 129, 130, 133, 155, 200, 201, 215, 216, 217 outsiders, 11, 12, 27, 47–8, 70, 73, 150, 167, 178, 180–1, 191, 201–4, 205, 210–11, 216 Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), 102, 103, 107, 113, 117, 148, 151, 185, accommodation of immigrants by, 3, 110, 152, 157, 183, 219 park, (Clark Memorial), 17, 51, 67, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 111, 117, 166–7, 177, 187 Parkfield, 8, 18, 19, 39, 43, 51, 105, 109, 132, 147, 149, 150, 159, 219, 222 Paso Robles, 1, 4, 8, 11–12, 19, 25, 33, 35, 42, 50, 60, 65, 66, 75, 84, 98, 99, 100, 104, 128, 129, 130, 133, 139, 140, 142, 147, 151, 187, 188, 189, 206, 207, 214, 222 peoplehood, 6, 69–71, 90–1, 146 see also culture, popular meaning of; ethnicity; race Pioneer Days, 50, 99 power, 54–5, 68, 95–6, 105–6, 107, 113, 114–16, 122 property ownership and care, roles in social classification, 47–50, 52, 53–5, 56–60, 61–2, 63, 64–5, 67–8, 72, 76, 77, 78, 79, 113, 122–5, 129–33, 134–8, 141, 142–3, 197, 199 see also home ownership; landholders; “renters” “quality,” see respectability, role in social classification race, 71, 80–1, 152, 157–8, 161, 163, 194, 213, 218, 219 see also ethnicity; peoplehood racism, 80–1, 84, 88–9, 136, 156, 194, 199 ranchers, 10, 25–7, 32, 41, 44, 45, 51, 59, 61, 63–4, 68, 103, 115, 116, 215

and community identity, 123, 131, 164, 208 social standing of, 10, 25, 26, 27, 43, 48–9, 54–5, 58, 61, 105–7 see also “old guard”/“newcomer” distinction reimagining, 3, 20, 171, 192–4, 195– 201, 203–9 see also, ethnicity, generative approach; ethnicization; ethnogenesis “renters,” 52, 53, 55, 57–9, 120–1, 206, 222 see also housing discrimination and condemnation respectability of communities, 122, 139–41, 179, 189, 192, 206 and responsibility, 53, 65, 66, 77, 80, 123, 124, 132–3, 142, 145, 168, 169, 172, 176, 179, 180, 189, 190, 195, 197, 198–9, 206, 209 role in social classification, 12, 20, 48–9, 56–60, 61, 64–8, 72, 75–8, 90, 105, 107, 108, 122–5, 132–3, 140, 142, 155, 157, 167–9, 172, 176, 179, 190, 192, 195, 197, 198–200, 203–7, 218 Rivas, Joe and Marta, 82–3, 84–5, 86–7, 89, 90, 157 romanticism, 48, 66, 68 roots and rootedness as refraction of class, 47–50, 52–3 roles in social classification, 11–12, 15, 19–20, 47–8, 49–53, 64–8, 72, 76–9, 108, 123–4, 132–3, 168–9, 176 see also old guard, historical consciousness of San Luis Obispo, 8, 19, 42, 112, 160, 185, 214 San Luis Obispo County, 8, 18, 19, 115, 150, 208, 214

Index agencies of, 30, 41, 54–5, 94, 101, 105, 109–10, 111–12, 113, 114, 117, 150, 180, 185, 208, 214, 215 government role in housing issues, 58, 110, 111–14, 128, 134, 136, 138–9, 173, 175–8, 187–8 Supervisor (Harry Ovitt), 107, 111–12, 176–8, 186, 213 San Miguel, 8, 25, 89–90, 187 Santa Maria, 89, 108, 110, 175, 184 school board, see Shandon Unified School District, Board of Trustees school/nonschool factionalism, 105, 108, 113, 114–16 schools as community creating and maintaining institutions, 11, 18, 77–8, 104, 113–5, 145–69, 196–7, 199, 201, 207–8, 216, 220 see also immigrant education; school/ nonschool factionalism; Shandon Unified School District segmentation, see class, segmentation of farm labor Senior’s Club, 96, 101, 102, 104, 110, 113, 116, 117, 128 settlement, by immigrant farm workers, see immigrants, settlers Shandon (place), 7, 8, 16 features and environs, 17–19, 25, 30, 31, 33, 51 history, 24–7, 40, 50–1, 94–5, 146–7, 160, 214 Shandon Advisory Committee (SAC), 54–5, 56, 58, 64, 78, 88, 96, 103, 105, 107, 108, 111–18, 148, 149, 150, 185, 186, 208, 210, 219, 222 Shandon Unified School District, 8, 104–8, 111, 112, 113, 114, 146–8, 160, 208, 222 Board of Trustees, 1, 2, 57, 58, 64, 74, 103, 105–8, 110, 111–12, 113, 114, 115, 116, 150, 151, 158, 185 superintendant, 44, 49, 101, 103, 105, 108, 109–10,

239

112, 113, 114–15, 148, 149, 165, 220 social boundaries, 3, 6, 13, 18, 47–8, 49, 62, 69, 75, 78, 79, 87, 91, 150–1, 157–8, 162, 198, 200, 205–6, 208, 214 social hierarchy, 48–9, 61, 64, 65, 122–3, 204, 214 social merit, 9, 10–11 social mobility, 5, 10, 23, 26, 27, 37, 41, 61–4, 65, 120, 183, 204, 220, 221 sports, 3, 17, 80, 103, 130, 147, 148, 149, 161, 164, 166, 168, 187, 220 stability, in residence and employment, see roots and rootedness; respectability Stolcke, Verena, 6, 7, 194 struggle from below, 171, 173, 175, 179–81, 184–5, 189–90, 199–200 suburbanization, 2 23, 40–6, 123, 133–4, 141, 182 trash, 72, 74, 76, 86, 127, 129, 132, 141, 197–8 transnational migrants, see immigrants, sojourners vineyard managers, see farmers, grape growers Volunteer Firemen, 17, 64, 101, 102–3, 104, 107, 114, 116 “welfare people,” 53, 57–9, 131, 140 Whitley Gardens, 2, 99, 150–1, 176, 177, 178, 222 wine industry, 9, 14, 24, 33–6, 66, 175, 215, 220 Wolf, Eric, 12, 16 Women’s Guild, 50, 59, 94, 99–101, 103, 104, 117, 130, 148, 167, 219 role in housing condemnation, 99–100, 128–9 youth gangs, fears about, 4, 72, 73, 75, 81, 84, 177, 197–8, 206, 218