During my time as a San Diego-based reporter in the early 1980s I learned that migrants from the Mexican state of Oaxaca were living and working in sub-human conditions in the northern area of the county. Here is an excerpt from my book We Were Always Here: A… by Chavira, Ricardo (amazon.com)
The first stop for many was at the strawberry farms in
North San Diego County, where I discovered workers living
in hovels and in old cars in thick brush adjacent to new luxury homes. In the coming months, homeowners would protest the workers’ presence. They considered the makeshift
encampment an eyesore and a potential health hazard.
On a typical summer day, dozens of Mixteco would pick
strawberries for 90 cents or $1.25 per 18-pound box, depending on whether the leaves were removed. Few were able
to pick more than 25 boxfuls during a 10-hour ship.
One day, the Oaxacans had just returned from a trip
north, courtesy of the Border patrol.
“It was just like in the movies when the officers came to
get them,” said a woman who lived in one of the fancy homes
nearby. “They drove up in three or four cars and surrounded
the place.”
Sergio del Mar, one of those picked up, said no one even
tried to run. Del Mar and his co-workers had been rounded up and returned to Tijuana so often and were so experienced at illegal border crossings that they viewed deportations as
little more than inconveniences.
The farm owner, John Kobayashi, who supplied strawberries to Smackers, simply shrugged when I asked about the
Border Patrol raid. “You know, I’m not an immigration agent.
These guys have been working for me for years. Unless someone tells me I must check to see if they are illegals, I won’t.”
As for the workers living in the brush, Kobayashi said he
could not afford to provide housing. “I wish they had better
living conditions. It bothers me for sure.”
One of his pickers, Fernando Hernández, said, “people
must think we are used to living like this because we come
from Mexico. We do live in houses in Mexico…. Even when I
picked tomatoes in Sinaloa, we lived in camps and had rooms
with electricity.”
The brothers Celedonio and Avelino Guzmán had just attempted their first trip from Tijuana to Kobayashi’s strawberry farm. Traveling on foot, as all Oaxacans did at the time,
they got as far as Bonsall in far northern San Diego County,
when a group of white men intercepted them and demanded
money.
“We didn’t have any. Well, they got mad and one of the
men cracked my skull with a club,” said Avelino.
Another man stabbed Celedonio in the stomach. They
were hospitalized and then US immigration officials returned
them to Tijuana, where Celedonio depended on the generosity of other Mixtecos to feed him and his family while he
recovered from his wounds.
Ricardo Chavira Chicano 