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2. THE ‘‘COLONIA COMPLEX’’ REVISITED: Racial Hierarchies and Border Spaces in the Citrus Belt, 1917–1926 [includes Image Plates]
- The University of North Carolina Press
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2 It would be misleading . . . to convey the impression that the location of the colonias was accidental or that it has been determined by the natural play of social forces. On the contrary, there is a sense in which it would be accurate to say that the location of the colonias has been carefully planned. Located at just sufficiently inconvenient distances from the parent community, it naturally became most convenient to establish separate schools and to minimize civic conveniences in the satellite colonia. —Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico The‘‘ColoniaComplex’’Revisited Racial Hierarchies and Border Spaces in the Citrus Belt, 1917–1926 In Southern California Country: An Island on the Land, Carey McWilliams divides the ‘‘citrus land’’ of San Gabriel Valley into two primary groups: first, ‘‘the 40,000 workers’’ who cultivated and harvested citrus crops; and second, ‘‘the managerial elite’’ who ran the California Fruit Growers Exchange and ‘‘the do-nothings who own the groves.’’1 From his vantage point in 1946, McWilliams interpreted this social order to be a ‘‘whole system of employment . . . perfectly designed to insulate workers from employers in every walk of life, from the cradle to the grave, from the church to the saloon.’’2 48 • THE ‘‘COLONIA COMPLEX’’ REVISITED While McWilliams’s analysis provides a vivid and moving portrait of discrimination and segregation along racial and class lines, his vision presents a rather uncomplicated and straightforward breakdown of the cleavages within citrus belt society. Given the rapid growth of citrus towns and the development of services to accommodate this expanding regional economy, citrus growers found their influence over local government and culture challenged in the wake of World War I. By war’s end, citrus communities had become a highly diversified economy with numerous competing interests. Doctors, lawyers, ministers, merchants , college professors, and teachers resettled in citrus towns not to engage in intensive farming, but rather to capitalize on the citrus aristocracy’s need for services. McWilliams called these white midwestern and eastern transplants the ‘‘in-between element,’’ and saw them as advocates of the ‘‘grower-exchange’’ view particularly during periods of social tension. Although they shared a belief in white racial superiority, their relationships with workers differed from those of the citrus growers and the California Fruit Growers Exchange. Contrary to McWilliams’s characterization, the ‘‘in-between element’’ occasionally questioned the labor practices implemented by growers and the cfge. Similarly, farm labor was not an undifferentiated army of 40,000 workers, but rather bore the marks of ranch-by-ranch hiring practices, social policy, and the white majority’s attitudes toward race, gender, and work during the first three decades of the twentieth century. McWilliams interpreted the workforce to be almost exclusively Mexican men, however, conditions before, during, and immediately following World War I reflected a diverse labor pool that included Native Americans, Chinese, Sikhs, Japanese, whites and Mexicans. Labor shortages precipitated discussions that resulted in grower preferences for Mexican labor, but the issue of race and its impact on citrus communities intensi fied during the 1920s and 1930s. The importation of Filipino, Jamaican, and Puerto Rican workers by some growers during the inter-war period extended debates regarding Mexican versus Asian (and to a lesser extent black) labor. Equally important, growers preferred not to hire white women and children, particularly wives and daughters; however, a racialized double standard developed for Mexican families. Starvation wages for pickers forced many Mexican women to seek employment in the packinghouses while children frequently joined their fathers in the groves as unpaid ‘‘ratas’’ (rats). Scurrying around the base of the tree, Mexican children gathered fallen and low-lying citrus that increased the fruit per box totals and produced larger paychecks for the patriarch of the family. Finally, although McWilliams scarcely mentions the role of government in the formation of this ‘‘whole system,’’ the state significantly influenced worker/ [35.172.193.238] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:51 GMT) THE ‘‘COLONIA COMPLEX’’ REVISITED • 49 grower relations through the California Commission of Immigration and Housing (ccih) in the Department of Industrial Relations (dir). Formed by Governor Hiram Johnson in the wake of the Wheatland Riots of 1913 and in anticipation of increased immigration as a result of the opening of the Panama Canal, this Progressive-Era institution grew into the most influential state agency affecting farm labor housing in California. Understanding that the search for sanitary living conditions and work constituted an important first step in the socialization of new...