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Listed here are several of the major published studies of Oregon's Latino History. See the box below for tips to find more published studies on Oregon's Latino History.
Bracero Railroaders: The Forgotten World War II Story of Mexican Workers in the U.S. West
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Desperate for laborers to keep the trains moving during World War II, the U.S. and Mexican governments created a now mostly forgotten bracero railroad program that sent a hundred thousand Mexican workers across the border to build and maintain railroad lines throughout the United States, particularly the West. Although both governments promised the workers adequate living arrangements and fair working conditions, most bracero railroaders lived in squalor, worked dangerous jobs, and were subject to harsh racial discrimination. Making matters worse, the governments held a percentage of the workers earnings in a savings and retirement program that supposedly would await the men on their return to Mexico. However, rampant corruption within both the railroad companies and the Mexican banks meant that most workers were unable to collect what was rightfully theirs. Historian Erasmo Gamboa recounts the difficult conditions, systemic racism, and decades-long quest for justice these men faced. The result is a pathbreaking examination that deepens our understanding of Mexican American, immigration, and labor histories in the twentieth-century U.S. West.
Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942-1947
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"Although Mexican migrant workers have toiled in the fields of the Pacific Northwest since the turn of the century, and although they comprise the largest work force in the region's agriculture today, they have been virtually invisible in the region's written labor history. Erasmo Gamboa's study of the bracero program during World War II is an important beginning, describing and documenting the labor history of Mexican and Chicano workers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho and contributing to our knowledge of farm labor."--Oregon Historical Quarterly
Nosotros: The Hispanic People of Oregon: Essays and Recollections
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Nosotros offers a variety of perspectives on Oregon's multifaceted Hispanic community. First published in 1995, it remains a valuable resource, containing essays by a host of writers, whose topics range from Spanish explorers and vaqueros to analyses of modern government policy, from explanations of traditional cultural celebrations to examinations of works by exciting new artists, from accounts of migrant camp life to success stories about the state's Hispanic entrepreneurs. Nosotros also features a special collection of personal narratives, gathered during a two-year, statewide oral history project. From this rich blend of essays and stories emerges a picture of a community with deep roots and a promising future in Oregon.
Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives
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Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest
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Just looking at the Pacific Northwest's many verdant forests and fields, it may be hard to imagine the intense work it took to transform the region into the agricultural powerhouse it is today. Much of this labor was provided by Mexican guest workers, Tejano migrants, and undocumented immigrants, who converged on the region beginning in the mid-1940s. Of Forests and Fields tells the story of these workers, who toiled in the fields, canneries, packing sheds, and forests, turning the Pacific Northwest into one of the most productive agricultural regions in the country. Employing an innovative approach that traces the intersections between Chicana/o labor and environmental history, Mario Sifuentez shows how ethnic Mexican workers responded to white communities that only welcomed them when they were economically useful, then quickly shunned them. He vividly renders the feelings of isolation and desperation that led to the formation of ethnic Mexican labor organizations like the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos Noroeste (PCUN) farm workers union, which fought back against discrimination and exploitation. Of Forests and Fields not only extends the scope of Mexican labor history beyond the Southwest, it offers valuable historical precedents for understanding the struggles of immigrant and migrant laborers in our own era. Sifuentez supplements his extensive archival research with a unique set of first-hand interviews, offering new perspectives on events covered in the printed historical record. A descendant of ethnic Mexican immigrant laborers in Oregon, Sifuentez also poignantly demonstrates the links between the personal and political, as his research leads him to amazing discoveries about his own family history. www.mariosifuentez.com
Seeing Color: Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Ethnic Minorities in Oregon
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Indigenous peoples and racial minorities have lived and thrived in Oregon for centuries. Their legacy is interwoven with the state's history and culture even as they continue to struggle with prejudice, environmental pressures, shrinking state revenues, the effects of globalization, and the changing dynamics of the state economy. Current U.S. immigration policy and the forces of globalization have played a critical role in creating a dynamic process named the browning of Oregon. This anthology brings together a group of noted multidisciplinary scholars, who explore the rich and varied experiences of Oregon's native communities and racial minorities. The book is essential reading for students, teachers, and the general public interested in contemporary racial politics.
The Story of PCUN and the Farmworker Movement in Oregon
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Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon
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Lynn Stephen's innovative ethnography follows indigenous Mexicans from two towns in the state of Oaxaca--the Mixtec community of San Agustín Atenango and the Zapotec community of Teotitlán del Valle--who periodically leave their homes in Mexico for extended periods of work in California and Oregon. Demonstrating that the line separating Mexico and the United States is only one among the many borders that these migrants repeatedly cross (including national, regional, cultural, ethnic, and class borders and divisions), Stephen advocates an ethnographic framework focused on transborder, rather than transnational, lives. Yet she does not disregard the state: She assesses the impact migration has had on local systems of government in both Mexico and the United States as well as the abilities of states to police and affect transborder communities. Stephen weaves the personal histories and narratives of indigenous transborder migrants together with explorations of the larger structures that affect their lives. Taking into account U.S. immigration policies and the demands of both commercial agriculture and the service sectors, she chronicles how migrants experience and remember low-wage work in agriculture, landscaping, and childcare and how gender relations in Oaxaca and the United States are reconfigured by migration. She looks at the ways that racial and ethnic hierarchies inherited from the colonial era--hierarchies that debase Mexico's indigenous groups--are reproduced within heterogeneous Mexican populations in the United States. Stephen provides case studies of four grass-roots organizations in which Mixtec migrants are involved, and she considers specific uses of digital technology by transborder communities. Ultimately Stephen demonstrates that transborder migrants are reshaping notions of territory and politics by developing creative models of governance, education, and economic development as well as ways of maintaining their cultures and languages across geographic distances.
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