Jose Alamillo

Lantino/a Northwest Conference

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The Latinization of the Pacific Northwest

            The Latino presence dates back over 225 years when "Spanish" conquerors and settlers hugged the coastlines of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia and left behind such place names as Port Angeles, San Juan Channel, and Cape Alava. The fact that Mexico's northern boundary was situated along the Oregon-California border until 1848 is also conveniently neglected. As Professor Erasmo Gamboa recently stated, "Latinos are no strangers to this region. [Thus] There is much reason for Northwest Latinos to enter the national conversation and to become aware and be proud of the wealth of our history and culture."1 Perhaps the most recent reminder that Latinos are here to stay in the Northwest is the unprecedented Latino population growth in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. But cultural pride and high population numbers alone have not always translated into inroads in the economic, political and educational arenas. Some of the region's most pressing issues include: The disproportional high school drop have reached scandalous proportions; continuing lack of housing for migrant workers and families; low voter registration rates and electoral participation of Latinos and Latinas in local, county and state offices.  With agriculture's continued reliance on immigrant laborers from Latin America we will continue to witness seasonal and low-paying jobs, increasing reliance on farm labor contractors, anti-union strategies, and minimal housing for workers. For example, Washington apple pickers interviewed by Human Rights Watch offered detailed accounts of employer violations when they attempted to exercise their rights to freedom of association, organizing and collective bargaining to improve poor working conditions and attain higher wages.2  Despite these depressing news we should not wallow in pessimism but look to the past to redefine and re-examine the Northwest Chicano/a experience in the face of these major challenges and ask ourselves: At what point will our high numbers finally transform into real political influence at the polls, classrooms, workplaces and public life?  What new paths must we carve out to reclaim the region as our own?

1.Erasmo Gamboa, "Latinos, No Strangers to this Land" Latino Northwest Magazine, Oct.-Nov., 2000, p.17.

2. Human Rights Watch 2000 Report, www.hrw.org/reports/2000/uslabor/USLBR008-07.htm

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Latino/as in Washington State

            Latino/as are not recent arrivals to Washington State but dates back to 1774, when Spaniard sailor Juan Pérez led an expedition aboard the Santiago ship along the coastlines of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Spain abandoned its small settlements at Rada de San Lorenzo de Nutka, on Vancouver Island and Bahía de Núñez de Gaona in Neah Bay when it ceded all Northwest claims to the United States under the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty. After Mexico gained independence from Spain the northern boundary remained along the Oregon-California border until 1848 when the boundary shifted southward. During the late nineteenth-century Mexican soldiers, mule packers, fur trappers, ranchers and gold-seeking miners continued to travel northward to Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia.

            By the turn of the twentieth-century Mexican workers were riding aboard the Great Northern Pacific Railroad in search for work in the agricultural fields of Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The political turmoil of the Mexican Revolution and relaxed immigration restrictions during World War I drew more migrant families to the Pacific Northwest, some settling permanently in small farming communities. Not until World War II, however, did an unprecedented number of Mexican male workers arrive in Washington State to pick peaches, green beans, hops, apples and thin sugar beets. A bilateral agreement between Mexico and the United States allowed Mexican nationals to enter the United States as contract laborers (braceros). By 1945 Washington State comprised six percent of the total number of braceros imported to the United States.  Unlike those in the Southwest, Northwest braceros endured colder winters and received little protection from U.S. and Mexican government officials. A series of bracero strikes and high transportation costs convinced Washington farmers to stop importing braceros in 1947 and begin recruiting Mexican migrant families from Texas and other Southwest states.

Migrant women contributed enormously by pitching tents or building shelters in new surroundings, gathering water from nearby riverbank, and cooking meals over makeshift stoves. By the 1960s families abandoned the migrant circuit and planted roots in the Yakima Valley. As the Chicano Movement gained momentum across the Northwest the United Farm Workers Union’s organized hop workers and students boycotted grape sales at college campuses. In Seattle, a group of Chicano residents took over an elementary school and covert it into El Centro de La Raza. Today, El Centro de La Raza provides social services to an increasingly diverse Latino population. According to 2002 figures Washington Latinos comprise 8% (490,448 out of 6.1 million), a majority of Mexican origin (75%) followed by Puerto Ricans (3.6%) and Central Americans (2.8%), South Americans (2.0%). Despite being the largest minority group in Washington State, Latinos still face major political, social and economic challenges. These include a 50% high school drop out rate, below-the-poverty level wages and poor housing for farm workers, and low voter registration rates and minimal political representation in local, county, and state offices. Despite these challenges Latinos will continue to built institutions and organizations that will allow them to reclaim the Northwest as their own.

Jose M. Alamillo

Washington State University

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Latina/os in the Pacific Northwest

Selected Bibliography

(March 31, 2004)

Compiled by José Alamillo,

Washington State University

General Surveys:

Carlos Maldonado and Gilberto Garcia, eds. The Chicano Experience in the Northwest (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1995)

Erasmo Gamboa, "Chicanos in the Pacific Northwest: Expanding the Discourse" Americas Review,

Erasmo Gamboa, "Chicanos in the Northwest: A Historical Perspective," El Grito 6 (Summer 1973).

Carlos Gil, "Washington's Hispano American Communities" in Peoples of Washington: Perspectives on cultural diversity, edited by Sid White and E.E. Solberg (Pullman: Washington State University Press, 1989).

Bruce E. Johansen and Roberto Maestas, "The Creation of Washington's Latino Community: 1935-1980" (Seattle: El Centro de la Raza, 1981)

Carlos Gil, "The Many Faces of the Mexican American: An Essay Concerning Chicano Character" Working Paper Series, Centro de Estudios Chicanos, Department of History, University of Washington, 1982.

Robert McCarl (ed.) Latinos in Idaho: Celebrando Cultura (Idaho Humanities Council, 2003).

Journal Articles/Book Chapters:

Erasmo Gamboa, "Mexican Mule Packers and Oregon's Second Regiment Mounted Volunteers, 1855-1856" Oregon Historical Quarterly 92 (Spring 1991)

Erasmo Gamboa, "The Mexican Mule Pack System of Transportation in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia," Journal of the West, 29 (January 1990)

Fred Krissman, "Agribusiness Strategies to Divide the Workforce by Class, Ethnicity, and Legal Status" in Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality in the United States, edited by Paul Wong (Westview Press, 1999)

Jerry Garcia, "A Chicana in Northern Aztlan: An oral history of Dora Sanchez Trevino" Frontiers, v. 19, n. 2 (1998).

Erasmo Gamboa, "Mexican Migration into Washington State: A History, 1940-1950" Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 72, n. 3  (July 1981)

David J. Weber, "The Spanish Moment in the Pacific Northwest" in Paul Hirt (ed.) Terra Pacifica: People and Place in the Northwest States and Western Canada (Washington State University Press, 1998)

Patricia Ourada "Mexican Heritage and Experience in Idaho" in Interpreting Local Culture and History, edited by J. Sanford Rikoon and Judith Austin (Boise. ID: Idaho State Historical Society, 1991)

Annabel Kirschner Cook, "Diversity Among Northwest Hispanics" Social Science Journal, v. 23, n. 2 (1986), 205-216.

Richard Slatta and Maxine P. Atkinson, "the Spanish Origin Population of Oregon and Washington" Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 70 (October 1979)

Richard Slatta, "Chicanos in the Pacific Northwest: A Historical Overview of Oregon's Chicanos," Aztlan, v. 6 (1975).

Robert C. Dash and Robert E. Hawkinson, "Mexicans and 'Business as Usual': Small Town Politics in Oregon" Aztlan, 26: 2 (Fall, 2001).

Cecilia Martinez-Vasquez, " In the USA-Its English or Adios Amigo': The Politics of Race and Language in the Yakima 'Old Town Pump" Court Case," Mc Nair Journal, v.1 (Fall 2001)

Patricia Acevedo, "Chicana Gang Members: Resistance to Traditional Women's Roles" Mc Nair Journal, v.1 (Fall 2001)

Daniel Estrada and Richard Santillan, "Chicanos in the Northwest and the Midwest United States: A History of Cultural and Political Commonality" in Perspectives in Mexican American Studies, v. 6, (1997).

Antonia Castañeda, "Que Se Pudieran Defender (So You Could Defend Yourselves)': Chicanas, Regional History, and National Discourses" Frontiers, V. XXII, N. 3 (2001)

Books/Monographs:

Erasmo Gamboa, Mexican Labor and World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest (First Published, University of Texas Press, 1990; University of Washington Press, 2000)

Erasmo Gamboa, Gritos del Alma: Chicano/Mexicano Music Traditions in Washington State (Olympia: Washington State Arts Commission, 1993)

Erasmo Gamboa and Carolyn Buan, (eds.), Nosotros: The Hispanic People in Oregon (Portland: Oregon Council for the Humanities, 1995)

Erasmo, Gamboa, Voces Hispanas: Hispanic Voices of Idaho: Excerpts from the Idaho Hispanic Oral History Project  (Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs: Idaho Humanities Council, 1992)

Richard Baker, Los Dos Mundos: Rural Mexican Americans, Another America (Logan, Utah: Utah State University, 1995)

Carlos S. Maldonado, El Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000)

Jorge Iber, Hispanics in the Mormon Zion, 1912-1999 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2000)

Lauro Flores, Alfredo Arreguin: Patterns of Dreams and Nature

(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002)

Literary, Music and Art:

Special Issue, "On Literature and Art: The Americas in the Pacific Northwest" Americas Review, 1991

Lauro Flores, Chicano and Latino Artists in the Pacific Northwest (Olympia, Evergreen State College, 1984)

Lauro Flores, editor, The Floating Borderlands: Twenty-five Years of U.S. Hispanic Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998)

Isabel Valle, Fields of Toil: A Migrant Family's Journey (Washington State University Press, 1994)

Bruce E. Johansen and Roberto Maestas, El Pueblo: the Gallego's Family's American Journey, 1503-1980 (Monthly Review Press, 1983).

Jim Boden (ed.) With My Hands Full/ Con Mis Manos Llenas: Young Latino Writers in Yakima (Yakima, WA: Blue Begonia Press, 1999)

Antonia Castañeda, Tomas Ybarra-Fruasto, and Joseph Sommers, eds. Literature Chicana: Texto y Contexto (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 1972).

Newspaper and Magazine Articles:

William Finnegan, "The New Americas" New Yorker, March 25, 1996

David Guterson, "The Kingdom of Apples," Harpers Magazine, New York, October 1999.

Brad Knickerbocker, "A Northwest Region's Family Ties to Mexico" Christian Science Monitor, 14 August 1992.

Master's Thesis:

Richard Slatta, "Chicanos in Oregon: A Historical Overview," Master's Thesis, Portland State University, 1974.

Margaret Miller, "Community Action and Reaction: Chicanos and the War on Poverty in the Yakima Valley, Washington," Master's Thesis, University of Washington, 1991.

Lynn Davis Paterson, "The Migrant Way of Life: A Study in Yakima Farm Workers Camp," Master's Thesis, University of Washington, 1968.

Ramon Chavez, "Emerging Media: A History and Analysis of Chicano Communication Efforts in Washington State," Master's Thesis, University of Washington, 1979.

Jerry Garcia, "The History of a Chicano/Mexicano community in the Pacific Northwest, Quincy, Washington, 1948-1993," Master's Thesis, Eastern Washington University, 1993.

Jesus Lemon Jr., "A History of the Chicano Political Involvement and the Organizational Efforts of the United Farm Workers Union in the Yakima Valley, Washington," Master's Thesis, University of Washington, 1974.

Karen Maria James, "Bill's Crew: A Small Group Yakima Valley Farm Workers Camp, 1967,” Master's Thesis, University of Washington, 1968.

Roberto Enriquez, "Finding Common Ground: Chicano History, Poetry and Oral Tradition in the Classroom," Master's thesis, Evergreen State College, 1992.

Jean Cecelia Powell, "Entre Dos Mundos/Between Two Worlds: Empowering Oregon's Hispanics," Master's thesis, University of Oregon, 1990.

Loretta Ann Teel, "An Exploratory Study of Association of North American Acculturation with the Risk of Domestic Violence Among Mexican American Migrant Farmworkers in a Rural Washington County," Master's thesis, University of Washington, 1992.

Jon Middaugh, “Limiting Mobility: Migrant Farm Worker in the Yakima Valley, Washington, 1965-1975” (Master’s thesis, Washington State University, May 2002).

Ph.D. Dissertations:

Anne Marjorie Brunton, "The Decision to Settle: A Study of Mexican-American Migrants," Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington State University, 1971.

Doug Kupel, "Ethnic Genesis: Oregon's Chicanos," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Oregon, 1979.

Erasmo Gamboa, "Under the Thumb of Agriculture: Bracero and Mexican American Workers in the Pacific Northwest, 1940-1950," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, 1984.

Erick Howenstine, "Misperception of Destination Encouraging Migration of Mexican Labor to Yakima Valley, Washington," Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, 1989.

Carlos Maldonado, "The Longest Running Death in History: A History of Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983," Ph.D. University of Oregon, 1986.

David Salazar, "A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Chicano/a and Anglo Undergraduates' Perceptions of Sex-Role Characteristics," Ph.D. Dissertation, Washington State University, 1992.