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C&tholi e council for the Spanish Speaking
-an Antonio, Texas
April 15, 16, 17, 1958
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of
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California*
Her* Donald &> Donnell
Sen Jose, California
California in land area is the second largest state in the
♦ >*A. - second only to Texas, in population California with thirteen
million people ranks second inly to Hew York. ut in farming California
is first, averaging over two and
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billion dollars in tarn cash
receipts yearly. In 1956 the net farm income
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two billion eight
hundred and nineteen million dollars. (Hotel the handling and process¬
ing of raw fam pro uots provided m additional
5Л
billion to Califor¬
nians
еоопыау.
j it is the nation’s leadiri producer of fruits and
vegetables, valiforaia is first i the production of almonds, pr loots,
avocadoes, sweet cherries, dates, figs, grapes, lemons, olives, poaches,
pears, plums, runes, walnuts, artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, sprouts,
cantaloupes, carrots, cauliflower, celery, honeydew melons, lettuce,
stro berries and tomatoes* Over 153 different major cross are produced.
(Asides with the label stamped or the orate
ШШ& Ш
CAL&O HSVia. - BY
'trams. )
Yet farts people tmka up only 6.3 of the copulation of Calif mi a
and only 5$ Of the farms (by the 1954 agriculture! census 6,248 of
1£ ,074 farms) control nearly 75 of all the cultivated lan of Calif¬
ornia. ith such few far» people, ow is it possible for California to
produce such
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immense volume of crops requiring such intensive hand
labor?
The answer Is moratory labor. la the last 00 odd years (1870-
1958) since Pali f ornla cha nged over from grain end grating to fruit end
vegetable production, it h«o had. a history packed with the importation
of many groups to work the fields:
70,000 Chinese (1 7o-13B£)
56,000 Japanese (1300-1980)
31,000 Filipinos ( 19 SO- 1930}
175,000 Mexicans (1917-1930)
During the last depression, there was an interlude of the vast
migration of thousands of the Angle* American dust-bowl refugees into
California (1930-1941) and the return to Mexico of hundreds of Mexican
families with their Uv*. bom children, Next came the wetback invasion
ending in the mass deportation drive of 1952-3. in the last fifteen
years there ha been a steadily increasing importation of racer os.
In 1957 there were tararted into ~ali tofnia under Public Law 70
176,944 braceros of the total of 4.36,000 brought into the . . raceros
worked in 48 of the 58 counties of uaillbmla, for 11,611 different
farmers belonging to 35 major Farm labor Associations. They inhabited
more than 5,000 widely scattered labor camps.
