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Petaluma With John Sanchez. Today is the 31st of March of 1998. Um, And this is part of the uh World History Collection, uh, project of the, uh, Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University. OK, John, let's um Go ahead. Can you tell me,

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um, I'm gonna sort of ask you questions. We'll do it question and answer style. Well, it's not being recorded now, is it? Oh, it is. OK. Alright. So can you tell me, um, where you were born and when you were born? I was born in Pixley,

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California, uh, May 6th, 1920. In Tulare County. What did your parents do for a living? They, uh, they was migrant workers. They, they, they picked cotton. They picked grapes, uh, they, uh, uh, picked potatoes. And uh Worked uh in the melons, uh, cantaloupes, watermelons. And and

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stuff like that. Now you, uh, you one time mentioned on the telephone to me, you said, you said that they were fruit tramps. They referred to themselves as, as fruit tramps. Yeah. Can you kind of expand on what that was? You said that was a way

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of life. That was a way of life. That's the way we made our living. We, uh, up until the time that we, uh, Uh, started working in the fruit while we used to go to different places and, and, and work in the, in the fruit, and

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I, I mentioned the fact that we, we traveled to Shafter, California and worked, uh, at the Hoover farm in the onions. And then we came back as soon as the harvest of the onions was over, we, we came back to Pixley and started working. Picking cotton

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And uh I used to remember as a kid, a little, little child, 4 or 5 years old, I used to uh walk beside my mother and dad. I had a little sugar sack and I'd pick out the cotton and put it in my little sugar sack

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and when my sugar sack was full, I'd pour it into my mother's sack or my dad's sack, and I grew up picking cotton and I got real good at picking cotton. At one time when I was uh About 18 or 20, I could pick 618 pounds

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of cotton in one day and that was at $3 a 100, I was getting $3 a 100. So that that was good money then. And uh The cotton harvest would last from September. Till about uh March. Uh In February and March we'd pick bowls. Those are

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the, the cotton bowls that didn't, didn't open up real good, so we picked the whole thing, the bowl, and then evidently the gins, when the cotton bowls went to the gin, the gin would, would, uh, uh, break up the bowls and, and, and get the cotton,

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and the cotton wasn't as, as good from the bowls as it was from picking it out in the, from the cotton. Fields, you know, from the cotton vines. And uh But, uh, well, now, um, Where, where do they live at this time when you say they

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were that they were You know, you said they were fruit tramps. Is that before they, they went into cotton picking? Yeah, that was before we went, uh, before we went to the cotton picking, see, and we had, we, we built little, little shacks out of cardboard

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or whatever we could find to kind of knock off the wind and then the cold and, and we, uh. We, we had, uh, OK, the way we, we had mattresses, we, we didn't have mattresses, we had these big grape sweat boxes which I guess, uh, I

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don't know, you know what a grape, what a raisin sweat box is about as big as this table, so my mother would put two of these together. And then we put the straw on top of this grape boxes and then we put the gunny sacks on

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top and that was our mattress. And, uh, Then we had uh we covered ourselves with uh with gunny sacks to keep. Keep from freezing. It was awfully cold. And we didn't have, we didn't have no, uh, No, uh, heaters. And so and we didn't have no

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electricity, so we used candles for light. And we used Uh We, we took one of those big cans, I guess it was a milk can we cut the top off of it and we use it as a stove we put wood in there and start the

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fire. And then we'd put a piece of metal on top and uh that's where my mother would cook our food. And was this in a tent affair sort of thing in a, yeah, in a tent sort of tent we call them squatter's village then squatter's village.

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I don't know what that's what everybody said. John, was this, um, was this when they were fruit tramps or after they lived in Pixley? That's after they lived in Pixley. You lived in a tent in Pixley. Yeah, I lived in a tent in Pixley. And how,

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how long did you live in a tent in Pixley? Oh, we lived, we lived in a tent in Pixley till Till I graduated from, from grammar school and that was in 1935. I graduated from From grammar school in 35 and then At that time we was

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lucky that some farmer I still remember some farmers uh uh let us use a little house that was out in the field it was a little house, a little one big red big room house and he let us live in there and he said uh. You

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people can live in here as long as you take care of the place and don't burn it down and so we lived there for many, many years. When you, when you, when you, your family lived in a tent, do you know who owned that, that the

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tent in the property and the land? I mean, was that owned by one of the cotton ranches or something? Yeah, it was, it went to John Pavlovich. Uh, he was the, the, the owner of the place. That little that little house was in in the middle

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of a vineyard. This little house was in the middle of the vineyard and John Pavlovich, uh, he was the owner and he let us live there free of rent. And uh that was the first time we ever lived in a house and that was uh oh

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my God, that was up in the, in, in the 30s. Previous to that, we, we just lived wherever we could, wherever we could find a place. Did, did, when you, when you lived in a tent before 1935, was, did somebody own that tent in that piece

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of property? Was it the same guy or somebody else? Well, it was the same. The same same person this John Pavlovich, he's seen us, he's seen us living in that tent and, and it was raining and it was we're getting all wet, so he felt sorry

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for us and, and he let us move into the little house in that little house I'm telling you inside the vineyard, of course that house is gone now and, and all the houses, all the places where we lived in, it's, it's gone now. There's nothing, nothing

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left there to remind me of. Of, uh, the places at that time there was a lots of, uh, eucalyptus groves previous to us moving to, to, to fix I guess people done their made their living out of, out of the eucalyptus trees I guess they used

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to cut them down and sell them for wood. But now there's no, no eucalyptus trees there now. It's all cotton. John, do you know, um, why your parents decided to settle in Pixley as a, as a kind of a base? Yeah, OK, that's a good question

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because we had started the school and they, my dad and mother wanted us to get a good education and She, she said, well, we'll have to, have to stop moving around because the kids are going to school now and uh they, they need an education. And

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uh Uh, I, I learned a lot in school. I, I, I skipped two grades. I was in the 1st grade and then I skipped the 2nd grade. I went to the 3rd grade and I skipped the 4th grade and I, I went to the 5th grade.

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And uh I remember the principal used to come around each room with my with my uh. Uh, grade card and it was all A's, all A's, all plus A's, and he used to tell the kids, look, this boy here is very smart, he's got all A's

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in his card and I want, I want you kids to follow in his footsteps and, and you, you people can get A, A, A's too, you know, great A's, you know. And uh I, I felt kind of humbled about it. I felt ashamed because uh here

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we are, you know, poverty stricken people and then I, I was, I was so smart in school, see, and then still today I have a brilliant memory of the past. I can remember things that uh. As a little kid, I, I could remember things real good.

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Um, was the schooling in English? Was any of the schooling in Spanish at all? No, it was all in English. How did you find that? Was that good or bad or? We found it kinda uh different I guess because we all we just speak we spoke

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Spanish my dad and mother spoke Spanish we spoke Spanish so when I we went to school we had to start to learn to speak all over again. And even today, I've, I've heard that I have a little accent. And uh I uh I just never could

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get rid of that little accent that I have. You still, you still speak good Spanish? Oh, I speak good Spanish. Yes, I, I speak Spanish, you know, and then. And today I can, I can, uh, uh, you know, interpret a lot of Mexican people come here,

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they don't know how to speak, uh, English, so I speak for them. And I've, I've been to. To, uh, you know, trials at municipal courts and I, uh, I'm an interpreter, you know, for the Mexican people, you know, and that's great. Uh, people in those days

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in the 30s, people, the white people were real cruel. They, they didn't, they didn't like the Mexican people. I don't know why. But they would treat us bad. They would talk to us bad, and they, they, they thought that we was, I don't know, out of

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space or something. They, they couldn't, they wouldn't tolerate us. You, you, you'd mentioned that they gave you a hard time for your clothes and shoes. That's right. And we used to, uh, we didn't, uh, I remember. Uh, when we didn't have to go to school, we'd

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walk maybe 3-4 miles to where they, they have the Pixley, the Pixley refuse dump, I guess where people throw stuff that they didn't want, you know, and we'd go there and, uh, most of the wealthy people would throw good clothes, you know, good shirts, good pants,

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good shoes, and, uh, my mother and I and my sister, we'd go there and we'd pick them up and bring them home. And my mother would fix them up. She'd sew them. My mother got to be a good, good, good sewer. She could sew real nice,

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you know. And uh I'd wear, wear the good clothes. School, but the kids, the white kids would see the clothes with the patches on and, and they'd they'd, uh, you know, make fun of me and. Uh, I was a lot of times I would cry because

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they, they, uh, would make fun of me and then I'd go home that night and, and, uh, my mother would say, well, don't cry. I said they don't know what they're doing, they don't know what they're saying, said their, their day will come, you know, someday

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that they, they're gonna regret that. I, I felt pretty good about that, but still. There was one good thing about it. I was a little Mexican, little Mexican barefooted kid, but I could sure beat them kids in class. I could, I could out read them. I

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could outwrite them. I could, uh, still today I have a beautiful handwriting, very clear, and, uh, I copied my first teacher's handwriting. She could, she could write on a blackboard real clear, you know, and I said to myself, someday I'm gonna write like that. And sure

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enough today I, I write like my teacher. John, how many, um, how many white kids and how many Mexican kids were in the, in the, in the school when they were young and around, you know, around the neighborhood, I guess, I guess there was, there was

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more white people than there was Mexican people. Were there Filipino people and black people too? Yeah, there was a few black people, not very many. I can remember, uh, there's about 4 or 5, black people, uh, the Gores. Uh, was, was a black people and uh

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the Hopkins was another black people and the Williams that was another black black people and uh uh the Browns that was another black people that was about all the black people there was. How were they treated in school by the well, they, they was treated like

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we were. They was, they was treated, uh, pretty, pretty bad, you know, and we didn't uh. We didn't know nothing about, uh, we, we thought, you know, colored black people, we call them colored people at that time, you know, we used to go to school with

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them, we used to visit at their houses. We didn't know nothing about uh hating colored people. And then when the, the Okies came back to, came to California in the, I think about 33, the Okies came over here and they brought that, they brought that prejudice

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stuff with them from Oklahoma. And saying uh uh they call them you know *** *** are not supposed to be with us they're not they're not supposed to be in a bar with us they're not even supposed to ride the same bus and I remember the

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oldies. Bringing that up, you know, in, in, in, I guess they came here in the, in the, in the 1934, I think is when the, the grapes of wrath and all that stuff, 1934, yeah, that's in that range, and we were, we were surprised when they

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brought that thing that that you, you weren't supposed to mingle with, with black people. Uh, we didn't know any difference. We, we used to mingle. With them we used to eat at their houses we used to uh they they was good people to us they was

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good people because they uh they was mistreated by the white people just like we were like the Mexican kids you know well now um when um. When, when the uh People came from Oklahoma and Texas and so on, um. Did any of you guys ever point

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out, hey, you guys have come to work just like us? How come you're down on these, on these black guys? Did, did, did anybody ever, did you have any discussions like that? Yeah, we had discussion. I'll tell you what happened. They used to, we used to

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get, uh, uh, 25 cents an hour for, for working out in the field. And and the oldies would come over there and say we'll work for 1515 cents an hour if you'll give us a job, see, and, and they, they cut the wages you know about

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that or heard about it, yeah, yeah, and, and so that, that's we, we got to where. We hated the, we hated the old kids because they was coming and take our jobs, you know, it's just like today, uh, the Mexican people come from, from, uh, Mexico.

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They come over here, they, they, they take the white man's job, but look at it this way that there's no white man that you can get to go pick grapes or, or cut fruit or or anything like that. If, if it wasn't for the Mexicans, I

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don't know what they'd lose all their crops because white people won't pick, won't pick fruit, won't pick grapes. You know, and, and the Mexicans will do a lot of work that the white people can't do, but still the, the, the white people will gripe because they

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say the Mexicans come over here and take their jobs, you know, and it's not true. They, they won't do that kind of work, and so that, that's where it's all at, you know, OK, um. One thing I didn't ask you was your parents' name, your parents'

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names. Oh, Pedro Sanchez, my father, and Mary Sanchez, my mother. And do you know if they'd ever done any other work in their lifetime besides fruit work or agricultural work? Well, my mother, there was some. There were some rich people that lived across the field from

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from our house. Their name was the the Fors Blads. Fors Blads. They had 3 daughters, the man and his wife, and they had a grape farm. And, uh, my mother used to walk across the field to Mrs. Fors Blad's house, and she'd do housework. She'd clean

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house, wash the dishes and stuff like that. She was more like a, a maid or something, you know, and, uh, uh. She would, uh, this Mrs. Forsbled, Mrs. Ethel Forsbled would, uh, would, you know, pay my mother a little bit of money, and then, uh, she'd

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give her, uh, cakes and cookies and stuff like that and get, of course, my sis my sister came out smelling like a rose because she, she could get the clothes that the girls had, see, and, uh, she got clothes like that. Uh, but, uh, the, the

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kids at school, you know, they found out that the, that my mother was a, was a housekeeper at the Forsblatt's home, and they, they ridiculed me real bad about that. They say, Hey, your mother's working for the rich people. She's a, uh, they had a special

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name for it, and, and I didn't like that, you know, and, and that's if it hasn't been for Mrs. Forsblatt, I don't know what we did. We'd have went hungry because she used to, Mrs. Forsblatt used to, used to give us a little food, you know.

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And give us uh hand me down clothes for for my sister and she'd give us a little, a little money. I don't know how much but uh it was, it was a little money. My mother used to work there maybe, maybe 3-4 days a week cleaning

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the house, washing the windows, doing the house, the laundry and stuff like that. And then when, when the grapes was ready to harvest, why, uh, Mr. Forsblatt, Gus Forsblatt would hire my, my mother and my dad to pick the grapes. And uh we used to pick

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the grapes in trays we we'd cut the cut the grapes into a big uh big uh sort of uh let's see a canister, a big tub or something and then when we get that canister full of grapes we'd spread out a a paper tray and we'd

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put the grapes on the paper tray and it would level the, the, the grapes. That was for the sun to hit the grapes and dry them up and, and that would make raisins see and they they dry them for a certain amount of time and then

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we'd have to go back and, and turn, turn the trays and we got to where we could, we could turn trays 1000, 5, maybe 1500 trays in a day's time we had, we'd slip one tray under it and flip it over. I, I don't know exactly

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how to describe that, but, uh, uh, we got used to doing that. And uh we uh we used to turn a lot of trays first we'd pick the grapes and let them dry and then we'd come back later and and and turn the trays and they'd

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pay us so much so I think it was 3. Uh, I think it was a center tray, a center tray for the grapes, and I think it was a quarter of a cent to, to turn the trays over, and, uh, uh, a good, a good person

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could, could, uh, turn maybe, you know, close to 2000 trays a day. That's a lot of trays. And that was, uh, that to make raisins like today we have raisins and that's that's the reason for, for having the raisins they dry them up and, and then

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they turn them over and they dry them up on the other side. And then, uh, later on when the, when the grape, when the, when the raisins are dried on both sides, then we'd, uh, go there and we'd roll up, we'd roll up the trays, the

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one that rolled up that had a certain way we'd pull it over like that and then we'd bring up one side of the, the, the tray. And we'd roll it just like rolling a cigarette and and we'd roll roll the the the the raisins and we'd

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stack them under the under the vines. I can, I can remember just rolling so many of those in the day's time. It's amazing. Did, did your dad ever do any other work in addition, you know, in those early days besides agricultural work? Well, for a while,

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my, uh, my dad worked on the Southern Pacific Railroad in, uh, in Pixley. And uh he worked there for a while. And uh Because we could, we could, we would, we'd work there while there was no cotton picking or while there was no, no fruit, but

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we could make more money, you know, uh, picking, picking grapes and picking cotton. Uh, just working, working at the railroad with just, uh, you know, 8 hours each day, so much each, each hour, you know, and you, you, you couldn't make no money that way. What

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was he doing for the railroad, uh, putting in, putting in railroad ties under the, under the rail, under the rails, putting in railroad ties, taking out the old ties. Uh, a tie is a, is a wooden, uh, thing that goes under, under the rail, and, uh,

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it, uh, it's clamped onto the rail. And uh you know, so that the the train when when it runs over the rail why it takes the, the, the shock of the of the train. That's what the, that's what the, the, the tie they call them a

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tie railroad tie. It's, it's a large piece of wood, uh, you know, uh, and it's, uh, placed under the, the railroad, and you're saying that paid less than, than, uh, than cotton picking. Oh yeah, you know, cotton picking. I could, you know, I could make, uh,

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uh. I, I could make, uh, like I say, uh, 600, uh, 600 pounds a day, and that's, uh, uh, $3 100, that's pretty good money, you know, $3 100, you know, $3 100, OK. And uh I used to make $90 a week, $90 a week, you

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know, and uh uh I'd I'd work uh. Work the 5 days and then go up there uh Saturday and work half a day and then I'd be off half a day Saturday and all day Sunday. And uh That's, uh, I used to make $90.90 dollars a

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week picking cotton and we had big long sacks. We had 1212 ft canvas sacks. And we'd put a zipper, we'd put a zipper all alongside the, the, the canvas sack, and uh when I, I, I'd put cotton in there sometimes 120 pounds, 100 and. I guess

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120 pounds was the most that I put in one of those sacks and so we had a, we'd weigh the sack and they'd take out I think it was 5 pounds for the sack. And then Then the rest was, was the weight of the cotton. And

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then we'd walk up to the trailer and then we'd unzip this big unzip the sack and the cotton would fall out. And then would zip the sack again and go, go back and get another row of cotton and start picking all over again. And uh they

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used to. They used to pay us at every weight, every weight the, the cotton farmer would, would be there with a big. A trace of change of money. And You weigh your, your, your, your weight of cotton, your sack, and then whatever that weight, well he'd

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pay you right there he'd pay you so at night when we left to go to work where our pockets would be full of, full of change, full of dollar bills, quarters, 10 cent pieces well you know they'd pay you every. Up until then they used to,

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they used to, the farmer used to keep the, the pound poundage in a book, you know, and I guess that got too, too hard for them to figure out, you know, so many pounds, so many pounds, and, and so then they decided to pay cash at

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every weighing, every weighing they'd pay cash. OK, that's great information actually. Um, how many children were in your family? Just me and uh My sister and and that was it. OK. Um Can you tell me a little bit more about the Hoover Ranch? That was Herbert

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Hoover's ranch. Herbert Hoover, the, the president of the United States, and, uh, Uh, I don't know what year it was, but I know it was a Shafter, and we'd go over there, Shafter, California, and we'd go over there and work, uh, work in the onions. I

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was, I was real small then. I, I, I didn't, I didn't work. I, I stayed out there with my dad and mother at the field. Once in a while, I, I could remember getting a great big onion. Some of those onions got real big, and if

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I'd find a big onion like that, well, I'd give it to my mother and she'd, uh, uh, put it in the other onions, you know. And uh we uh we worked there the onion harvest was over with. Then we went back to Pixley. OK. What do

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you know the year that you actually moved to Pixley? Well this was uh because I was born in Pixley but then we yeah we we we'd go out, go out of Pixley for a while to work, work at like the Onions, you know, stuff like that,

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but we'd always come back to, to Pixley, you know, because, uh, uh, we was, we was in school then and you know during school days, I don't know how it is now, but during school days you'd get 3 months vacation or 2 months, I don't remember

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correctly. And in those two months that we were on vacation while we'd uh we we traveled to to different places of California and and and and work you know and. Sometimes we'd go to uh San Jose and work in the apricots and then uh one time

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we went somewhere I don't remember just where it was where they have prunes, a lot of prunes, and we worked in the prunes there for a while and then we worked, you know, 3 months and then by the time school started again we'd go back to

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Pixley, you know, to start school again. How, how did your parents ever say how they were treated, how people were generally treated at the Hoover Ranch at Herbert? Well, I mean, yeah, the, the, it was bad because they, they, they used to look down upon us,

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you know, and like the white people would, would, would come up and, and tell my dad, said, uh, said, What, why don't you, why don't you Mexicans stay in, in, in Mexico? Why, why do you have to come over here and take our jobs and stuff

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like that. And uh my dad says well you know we have we have to make a living, you know, and I have two kids here to take to school and and uh but that didn't they they they said go go back to Mexico, go back to

00:26:59.670 - 00:27:17.110

Mexico where you belong so you come over here. And uh uh take our jobs and you know and then it wasn't too long afterwards, several years afterwards, then the Oki started coming over and taking our jobs you know yeah yeah so the the the people coming

00:27:17.110 - 00:27:42.370

from Oklahoma came came after your parents had been. Um, in the Herbert Hoover branch. Oh, yeah. OK. Yeah. So, that's, that's earlier. OK. Yeah, it's earlier. Kind of fixes that in time. Yeah. Um, Right, OK, maybe we can, um. Move to um. The situation in 1933

00:27:42.750 - 00:27:56.550

and uh kind of moved down in the direction of the um Situation on the verge of the strike. Yeah, I was the big cotton strike of 33. I know it was the big cotton strike. I'll tell you what happened. I remember in in that time in

00:27:56.550 - 00:28:13.140

those days they had wells they had I don't know if you remember big big wells you know deep down and oh my god some of it half as big as this uh room you know uh to get water and uh. It was, uh, it was very

00:28:13.140 - 00:28:27.140

dangerous, you know, a lot of, a lot of those wells was, was left open, see. And uh I remember one time in the 30s, there was a very prominent man in, in, in, in Pixley, uh, I never, let's see, uh Mr. uh, can't think of his

00:28:27.140 - 00:28:44.150

name right now. He had had a little kid about 34 years old and the little kid fell into this well, fell into this well, see, but It, it, it, it didn't kill the little kid. I don't know what happened and, and nobody would go down, down

00:28:44.150 - 00:28:58.200

in this well to pick up the little kid and, and my, my dad said I'll go and my dad climbed down that they had, they had a stairwell, I mean a, a ladder, you know, my dad. Climbed down way down there we all watching him, you

00:28:58.200 - 00:29:10.240

know, and the press was there and everything and, and my dad became a hero. He went down there and got that little, that little kid and then brought it back up and then presented it to the, to the man that that owned the little kid, you

00:29:10.240 - 00:29:24.530

know, and oh my god, my dad was a hero, you know, and, and just, just think of a poor little Mexican that nobody wanted. He rescued that little, that little kid there, you know. And I, I, I got up and I made a speech, you know,

00:29:24.780 - 00:29:38.930

and I said, yeah, you people condemn us, and, and there you are, all you white people, not a man could go down in that hole but my father, and he went down there and rescued that little baby. And boy they, they, that was a big thing

00:29:38.930 - 00:29:58.210

that you know a hero, you know, a Mexican hero for saving that little boy isn't that something that is something I still remember that you know my, my, my dad risked his life, you know, but, but it's Strange that that little that little kid wasn't hurt.

00:29:58.290 - 00:30:13.640

I mean, you know, I don't, I don't know, uh, how it happened that. He fell down in that in that well and it was uh that well was oh maybe 35, 40, maybe 50 ft deep, you know. You know, in those days they dug big wells,

00:30:13.690 - 00:30:26.210

you know, and they put a motor up there and, and the motor would dig the, the, would get the water out, see, and then later on the, the, the well would go dry. And that was the end of it. They'd go somewhere else and make another

00:30:26.210 - 00:30:38.440

well. Did you, do you remember getting very much your adequate water when you were were picking cotton? What kind of water did you get good clean water when to drink when you were out in the heat of picking cotton? No, we never got clean. We never

00:30:38.460 - 00:30:52.350

got good, good clean water. We just get water from, from wherever we could, you know. I remember my mother, we had a little wagon. And we, we didn't have water at that time at that, that little house I'm talking about, so my mother had to go

00:30:52.350 - 00:31:08.270

across the field to a farmer up there, John Allen's farm, and she'd have these cans, these milk cans, and she'd get a couple of 34 milk cans full of water, and she'd drag it down the field with a little wagon, and that's how that was our

00:31:08.270 - 00:31:24.890

water that we drank it to this day I'm amazed that we never got sick or anything. Uh, drinking that water, you know, and a lot of that water was rusty too because of those cans. You know, kept the rust, you know. And it You, you could

00:31:24.890 - 00:31:36.100

take, you could take a lot of hell in this life and then still, I mean, not get sick. I mean, I, I, you know, I've often wondered. Why, why we didn't get sick and we, but we never, we never got sick.