Crewport history Project
For Julia Saenz and her family health considerations were a major factor in their decision to settle out of the migrant stream. Julia’s mother suffered a stroke in the late 1950's in their home in Texas. She did not want to return to the house because of the emotional trauma she experienced there due to the stroke. This consideration sealed their fate, and the Crewport Labor Camp thus became the family’s permanent residence until it was closed in December, 1968. After the camp was closed, the family relocated to Granger, two miles from the Camp, where they rented a small house. Since that time Julia lived to see the death of her parents. Her mother was paralyzed the last seventeen years of her life as a result of the stroke, and her father died at age ninety four after a bout with diabetes. She also got married and had one son. She divorced her husband later in her life.
If the concept of “Jack of all Trades” can be applied to migrant farm workers it most certainly applied in Julia’s case. She was one such “Jack” who worked all the pre-harvest and harvest jobs associated with the farm production economy, and did other types of work off the fields as well. In her own words, and with the confidence of a professional expert, she listed the all the jobs she performed, “ I think there is no work here that I haven’t done... like asparagus, sorting, root planting, cleaning, cutting, sacking at the cannery, and all that. The hops are the same thing, pruning, picking roots for plants, training, arching, then the harvest and everything. The fruit, picking every kind of fruit, picking grapes, pruning grapes, topping rutabagas, that was in the winter... Oh yeah! ... cleaning up those ditches where they irrigate, use a shovel to get all that dirt out of that, miles not [just] a little piece. It was hard.” And she described the duration of the work day, “Eleven, twelve hours, no breaks or nothing.” For Julia, however, hard work did not mean high wages, a point she made by describing the wage scale,. “Well, ninety, sixty, or sixty five [cents per hour] they used to pay in the hop harvest, ninety five cents an hour.”
The health condition of her mother and the values of traditional and Mexican American culture imposed limitations on Julia’s personal life, and defined her role in the family. She and her father and siblings worked in the fields and orchards twelve hours each of six days a week. Sunday was the only rest day but not so for Julia. She related what was in store for her, both after getting home at the end of the workday and on Sundays, “Well like I told you, I never had friends that we’d sit and talk or whatever. No, every day to work with my father and my brothers, get home and take care of my mother and do at home what ever had to be done and that was it. The only day we didn’t work was Sunday; and that was to wash clothes for all week and get ready for Monday. And that was it.” Even after her marriage at age thirty five to “...that guy next door” Julia continued caring for her disabled mother, and for her elderly father after her mother passed away.
Thus Julia’s personal and social life were extremely limited by her family responsibilities and by the contribution she was required to make to the family income, alongside her brothers and father in the fields. This dual responsibility, however, was not required of her brothers as she related with the following comment when asked if her parents were more strict with her and her sisters than with her brothers. “Oh yeah!...Yeah, they [her brothers] would get out and have friends.” Asked about when she started dating and having fun Julia replied, “... I was thirty five when I got married, and just from here to there, the same thing, ” as if to suggest that nothing had changed in her life once she married. And again, reinforcing this theme further she commented, “Right now that I’m not working I’m having fun.”
Interviews with the some of the Dust Bowl migrants reveal that Crewport residents experienced class discrimination. For Julia and other Mexican American migrants, however, race discrimination was an additional factor that worked against them. Julia made this point when asked how much education she had, “Who me? ... [none] cause over there where we was born and raised they were prejudiced of [against] the Mexican people... We’d get up being at home and you had to walk five miles to school; got over there and they don’t even let you touch em. Pencil or paper, we had something. They ruin it up and throw it in the garbage, and they go and tell my Dad we don’t want to do anything. And there you go again; it was terrible! [I] didn’t even knew how to write my name, I didn’t knew anything. I learn to read and write when I was about twenty three years [old], by myself.” Further asked how she learned to read English Julia replied, “Yea, like newspapers or old letters; just like the sound ...[like trying to reading out loud] or like that. And that’s the way I learned how to read and write. I learned how to speak English working in cleaning houses and all that.” Julia also related the consequences her brothers suffered, “... two of my brothers, they barely know how to write their names, cause they never went to school.”
Julia Saenz, Narrator
Start of Interview
Mario: ¿Ustedes cuándo llegaron alli? When did you get there? (to the Crewport Camp)
Julia: 1960.
Mario: 1960…How long did you live there?
Julia: During those [first] two or three years nomás durábamos como un mes o algo así. (we just stayed for about a month, more or less)
Mario: ¿Un mes? (One month?)
Julia: Aja nomás hacíamos el desaije de betabel y nos íbamos pa Oregon. Pero since el 62 ya nos quedamos a vivir alli pa todo el tiempo.(Yes we would do only the beet thinning and we would move to Oregon. But since 1962 we stayed to live there permanently.)
Mario: Cada año que venian, every year you came, you used to live there one month and [then]went to... Oregon, where else did you go?
Julia: Idaho.
Mario: Idaho?
Julia: Arizona
Mario: What work were you doing... here, what kind of work did you do with your family?
Julia: Here in Washington, thinning beets, picking potatoes, picking grapes, picking fruit, hop harvest, asparagus, all those kind of work.
Mario: And ah, in Oregon?
Julia: Thinning beets, picking potatoes, topping onions.
Mario: ¿In Idaho, lo mismo? (the same?)
Julia: ¡Lo mismo! (The same?)
Mario: Then..., before you started to come to this area, did you go to any other states?
Julia: Arizona, and just one year we went to Florida.
Mario: Arizona and Florida. In Arizona what kind of work did you do?
Julia: Picking cotton
Mario: And in Florida?
Julia: Thinning lettuce, pick corn, picking corn, all that.
Mario: What I wanted to ask you, ... your home was where---- in Texas?
Julia: Where we are from?
Mario: Yes…
Julia: From Texas.
Mario: Texas! And what town?
Julia: The last place where we was it’s ah, it was in Kress. It was between Plainview and Amarillo.
Mario: Between where?
Julia: Plainview and Amarillo, yeah it’s a small town there.
Mario: Is that the original area where you’re from, your family?
Julia: No, we are from South Texas.
Mario: Your parents are from South Texas?
Julia: … ama (mom) is from Texas and my father was from México… Gonzáles, Texas, there [is] where my mother was born and raised.
Angela: Your Dad, what part of Mexico is he from?
Julia: Parras, Nuevo León, and Yea he became a United States citizen in 69.
Susan: How old was he when he came to the United States?
Julia: I think he used to tell us he was about 18.
Susan: Did he work in Mexico before he came up here, was there any work available?
Julia: I don’t know… Well his father was a butcher and he used to help him, that’s what he used to tell us.
Susan: He was born when, 1800s?
Julia: Yea, my Daddy was born 1894, and then they came to Texas ... [to] that King Ranch over there. And that’s where he was raised and all his family.
Mario: ... Where were you born?
Julia: Mercedes, Texas
Mario: Mercedes, that’s in el valle. (the Rio Grande Valley in Texas) So then after that [do] you remember more or less when you moved to West Texas?
Julia: Yeah, it was in 1940 when we moved to West Texas.
Mario: Oh, in 1940!
Julia: That’s where we stayed until 55. (1955)
Mario: And then in 55 you started coming to out [the Pacific Northwest]?
Julia: Aha. (Yes.)
Mario: Is that the year you started coming to this area...?
Julia: Yea, 55 is when we went to Florida and then we used to go to Arizona, picking cotton and then we started coming over this way, to Washington that’s when we stayed here.
Mario: In the other areas that you lived, you also lived in labor camps?
Julia: Oh yeah!
Mario: How were they [the camps] ... the same or how were they different?
Julia: Some places were labor camps and some places just where ever you can get a shed or something. It was real hard on us.
Mario: What kind of housing did you get? Houses or [what?]
Julia: Oh, sometimes if there was a place.
Mario: ... what do you remember about the Crewport [camp], the times that you lived [there] with your family?
Julia: Well, it was real nice; it was real nice; it was lots of families, lots of people. It was a real nice place. But after that it starts closing down; some of the old houses, then the other one until they just had the homes; what they called the homes.
Mario: The life there with the families, how did they get along?
Julia: Everybody got along real good.
Mario: ... [were] there groups or other persons who did not live there who would come and provide services for all people, the families there. Was there a school or anything there?
Julia: No there were no schools there.
Mario: ... some people said that there was a little store, do you remember?
Julia: They had a post office.
Mario: ... You know on the weekend ... you work all week [and] on the week-ends you want [to]... relax and, what ... social activities para diversión,you know[for] entertainment [did you have?]
Julia: I hardly don’t remember cause I never [had] any entertainment or anything like that,
cause my Mother was always sick, so just from work to the house and take care of everything, and that was it.
Mario: In 55 when you first, is that 55 that you said when you got to Crewport?
Julia: No, 60
Mario: 60, ok, at that time your parents also came with you?
Julia: Oh yeah, we were all together.
Mario: ... How many in your family were you?
Julia: Oh, about seven
Mario: Were they [her parents] very strict with you ... [and with] your sisters and brothers?...
Julia: Oh yeah!
Mario: Did you remember going into town, like for example, Granger? Or where did you go to town… on Saturdays ...?
Julia: Just when you need something, just go and get this and that, if somebody is sick you take 'em to the doctor and that was all. There was no going to the movies, visit friends or that.
No, not for me!
Mario: What about your brothers, you have brothers?
Julia: Yeah, they would get out and have friends, and all that.
Susan: When did you get to start having some fun, did you always have to work, did you ever get to start dating?
Julia: Right now that I don’t work, I’m having fun.
Susan: But you got married eventually, didn’t you?
Julia: Aja (yes).
Susan: How old were you when you started dating and were you living around Granger area then?
Julia: Oh yea, but it was kind of hard.
Susan: Chaperoned ha?
Julia: Oh yea, I was 35 when I got married and just from here to there, the same thing.
Susan: Was that part of the customs at that time, to go from a strict family to a marriage?
Julia: Well some people worry about that and some people not...
Mario: What are some of the best things that you can remember from living there?
Julia: Back then everybody was real friendly, real nice.
Mario: Was there any one who was like in charge of the camp ...[?]
Julia: Yea.
Mario: Who was that?
Julia: It was a white guy, but I don’t remember his name. It was the one who did all this and all that.
Mario: it was like a manager?
Julia: Yes, aha.
Mario: When you went out to work, what do you remember about the experience, how did people get along, you know the workers? Who contracted you for the work?
Julia: There were different contractors. Different contractors, you work for this and that.
Mario: What do you remember about the work.
Julia: I think there is no work here that I haven’t done. I the, like asparagus, sorting root, planting, cleaning, cutting, sacking at the cannery, and all that. The hops are the same thing, pruning, picking roots for plants, training, arching then the harvest and everything. The fruit, picking every kind of fruit, picking grapes, pruning grapes, topping rutabagas, that was in the winter.
Mario: Was it hard work?
Julia: Oh yea, like cleaning up those ditches where they irrigate, use a shovel to get all that dirt out of that, miles not a little piece, it was hard.
Mario: What about the pay?
Julia: Well, 90…60 or 65 they used to pay in the hop harvest, 95 cents an hour.
Mario: So you worked by the hour, is that all the work or just some type of work?
Julia: Well that was in the machines, the ones on the fields got less.
Mario: 95 cents an hour, how long did you work a day?
Julia: Eleven, twelve hours, no breaks or nothing.
Mario: Were you tired when you got home?
Julia: Oh, a little bit. You got home and then chop wood and do supper and do this and do that.
Mario: So do you think that how they paid you, was that enough, and how did your family get along with that?
Julia: Well everything was real cheap during that time, that’s why we stretch every penny. Yea because during that time there was no Welfare, no Food stamps, no medical coupons or nothing. It was real hard.
Mario: You know, you couldn’t go anywhere to get services?
Julia: No, ... when we stayed there till 62, it was when my Mother got paralyzed over there in Arizona, so we just move in and stayed here, it was real hard.
Mario: What happen when people got sick, how did they get ... [medical care]?
Julia: Sometimes home remedies ...
Mario: Did you have any problems seeing the doctors or hospitals?
Julia: Not that I remember.
Mario: How did you pay for it, I mean was it a lot they charged?
Julia: Well sometimes, we never had something like that; but just with my mother, but we go a long way [for medical care].
Mario: Do you remember any bad experiences that your family had, [not] just only .. here, but in the other places where you went?
Julia: Well no, in our family everybody was too close together, and my brothers were good to everybody.
Mario: But I mean with the other communities.
Julia: Oh no ... never, you know like my brothers, one I think is 68 and the other one next to me 65, they had never been in jail or problems or anything. So that was one of the reasons
our family got along real good.
Mario: In 1960 when you first came here, how old were you?
Julia: Well, I was born in 1932 ...
Mario: By 60, that’s almost 28. Do you remember why your family decided to settle here?
Julia: Well we had a house over there in Kress, Texas, a property, but my mother since she got
paralyzed over there; she didn’t want to go back to Texas. So they decided to stay here. That’s the reason we stay here.
Susan: How did your mother get paralyzed?
Julia: She had a stroke.
Susan: ... How old was she?
Julia: I think she was 52, she was, yea, 52, cause [it] .. was on the 19th, in June [when she had the stroke].
Susan: She was 52?
Julia: Aja (yes)
Susan: ... How many were in your family?
Julia: We were four girls and three boys... and everybody would be always together, always been close.
Mario: Did any of your other relatives come along? [when Julia and her the family moved to Crewport]
Julia: ... Not from one side or another! [from either side of her parents' families] ...
Mario: The other families, who lived in the camp, at the time that you were there, did the other families also settle here?
Julia: Oh lots of them…yea, I think all Toppenish, Granger, Sunnyside, and part of Yakima ... they used to live
there in Crewport.
Mario: Do you remember some of the names?
Julia: Lots of them are already dead.
Mario: …Once you settled down, … all your family settled down here?
Julia: Aja (yes).
Mario: What type of work were they involved in after that, did they still keep working on the fields?
Julia: Yeah, they still worked the fields ...
Angela: After you adjust to living here ..., after you moved from Crewport, where did you settle?
Julia: In Granger.
Tomas: Do you remember that store where everybody used to go from Crewport where everybody had credit at, the one in Granger?
Julia: Oh yeah ... The Village Market ... It’s just in front of the grade school ... Yeah, ... that man passed away, and his wife and one of her daughters kept the store there in Royal City.
Tomas: Oh in Royal City?
Julia: Aja. (yes)
Tomas: Do you remember the prices they paid for staying at Crewport, like the rent?
Julia: I don’t really remember ... Yeah, because my Daddy was the one who took care of paying rent and all that, and so that’s how things were done...
Mario: So once you settled out, you said you started living in Granger, what do you remember about living in that community?
Julia: Well I always lived close to my parents so I could take care of my mother and during that time we used to pay $25.00 per month for rent. It was a little old shack, but it was a roof
on top of [our] heads.
Tomas: Do you remember those houses, how big were they, did they have a bedroom, a kitchen, living room?
Julia: No, those other ones.
Tomas: That you lived in at Crewport?
Julia: Oh yea, it had a kitchen and a small living room, and two bedrooms and at least a bathroom.
Tomas: ... you guys lived in the more modern houses up on the top?
Julia: Yeah, since 63 till 67 or 68, yea 68 when they closed everything, everybody had to move out.
Tomas: But you remember the houses down on the bottom, the cabins?
Julia: Oh yeah, when you were sleeping you could see the moon and the stars.
Mario: From the inside of the house?
Julia: Yeah, It would stop raining outside and it would still be dripping in the house.
Mario: So you were there when they closed the camp?
Julia: Yeah, we were some of the last ones there.
Susan: Did you find it difficult finding housing in Granger?
Julia: Well, no. Cause there was this place... it was from this old lady that went to the nursing
home, and ... [the] neighbor was the one that rent us that house, and we didn’t have too much difficulty.
Tomas: do you remember any of the names of the other people that lived there in Crewport? You were telling me something about some of the people, the other day when I talked to you.
Julia: Yeah like Mesa. They had a store over there in Granger, but they both passed away already. Basan, Resendes, some them went to the Tri Cities, Robles, Limon that they kill when we lived there, yea she passed away last year. Cantu, Pena, there’s still lots of people there that used to live [in Crewport] before we did in Granger.
Tomas: Do you remember, was there a Laundromat at Crewport?
Julia: Yeah, [she moved her hands as if doing laundry by hand] just wash boards and a line to hang the clothes.
Tomas: You remember the post office...?
Julia: Yeah.
Mario: Was there a post office in the camp?
Julia: Yeah, a little room there.
Mario: Just a room?
Julia: Aja. (yes)
Tomas: With general delivery mail?
Julia: Shakes her head (yes)
Susan: Do you remember the postmistress, the last one that worked there?
Julia: No…I remember we had a mail box there, but I don’t remember. I had so many things but after I got sick and all that, everybody didn’t take care of things, and things got lost. And then I got divorced and then we moved here. So, I had lots of things I used to take care of, things for my parents and all that. But now I can’t find them.
Susan: What happened to you?
Julia: Well ... I hurt my back since I was 19 years old; and since then I’ve been having problems with my lower back. Then ... I had a heart attack and open heart surgery, and from there on everything has been hard.
Susan: What did they say was, what could have been the cause of the heart attack?
Julia: They didn’t say [anything] about it.
Susan: Did you smoke?
Julia: Yeah, but when I had the heart attack all my stomach guts busted. I have three areas in my stomach and then I had the open-heart surgery…Then it was about two, yeah about two years, I got real sick. So they started doing me tests, and this and that. [They] said it might be in my heart valves, or maybe I needed a pace maker. But lately they said they couldn’t do anything about it because part of my heart is already dead. Last September, not this one, but the last September [1999], they told my son that I had to go straight to the nursing-home, or if I come home I was going to last three months, that was all the time they gave me. He said, "Oh well, as long as I’m alive, my mom is not going to a nursing-home; and he’s been taking care of me. And thank the Lord that I’m still here.
Susan: You proved them wrong, didn’t you?
Julia: They still say, “we don’t know how can you be alive” cause how much your heart pumps blood should be about 60%, and mine is just 15%. My blood pressure is just like 80 over 40 and they say, “well that’s too low”; thank God I’m still alive here...
Susan: Do you think you would have done so well if you had gone to a nursing home?
Julia: Oh no! I would of already been dead.
Angela: How many kids do you have?
Julia: Two, him [she pointed at her son Arturo, who was present at the interview session] and a daughter, and three granddaughters.
Mario: How many years did you go to school?
Julia: Who me? ... [none] ‘cause over there where we was born and raised they were prejudiced of [against] the Mexican people.
Mario: Where, in Texas?
Julia: Yeah, over there in Anson, Texas near Abilene.
Mario: What’s the name of the place?
Julia: Anson ... We’d get up being at home and you had to walk five miles to school, got over there and they don’t even let you touch em. Pencil or paper, we had something; they ruin it up and throw it in the
garbage and they go and tell my Dad we don’t want to do anything, and there you go again. It was terrible! [I] didn’t even knew how to write my name, I didn’t knew anything. I learn to read and write when I was about 23 years, by myself.
Mario: So how did you do it [learn to read], picking up the newspaper ...?
Julia: Yea, like newspapers or old letters; just like the sound something[like trying to reading
out loud] or like that. And that’s the way I learned how to read and write. I learned how to speak English working in cleaning houses and all that.
Susan: You speak it very well!
Julia: Me and two of my brothers, they barely know how to write their names, cause they never went to school.
Susan: Because they weren’t allowed?
Julia: Yeah!
Susan: How do you feel about that?
Julia: Oh kind a sad, but praise the Lord we still here.
Susan: Things are changing!
Julia: Yeah.
Mario: So all Mexican kids in that community, in that town, didn’t go to school?
Julia: No.
Mario: They wouldn’t let em in?
Julia: No.
Mario: Did they give you any reasons why?
Julia: No…Like in drug stores and restaurants they had signs, “no dogs allowed” and that means the Mexican people...They treated the Mexican people like the colored people.
Angela: Did you feel any discrimination while you were in Crewport, or any other part of this area?
Julia: No.
Mario: Do remember any of the families there, whose children were able to go to school there in
that town, Anson?
Julia: Nope
Mario: You moved out of there, what year?
Julia: 47.
Mario: 47! ...
Susan: How did he deal with the prejudice? How did your father deal with the way his kids were treated when they went to school and tried to get an education?
Julia: They listen more to other people, more then the kids. That was one of the problems too. Like my mother, well she was just innocent. She couldn’t say anything or do anything, you know like what the man say’s that’s it...
Mario: Did you ever think of going to school over here, once you settled here?
Julia: I never had a chance for nothing.
Mario: Do you remember the other families there in Crewport, the other people ... telling you some of the same stories, you know similar to what you just told us, did they talk about it?
Julia: Well like I told you, I never had friends that we’d sit and talk or whatever. No, every day to work with my father and my brothers, get home and take care of my mother and do at home what ever had to be done and that was it. The only day we didn’t work was Sunday; and that was to wash clothes for all week and get ready for Monday. And that was it.
Susan: You were the oldest you said of all those girls?
Julia: Three of my sisters are older than me, but they were already married.
Susan: Oh I see, so you were the older girl at home?
Julia: Right.
Susan: Oh I see
Julia: But his Mommy (refers to student interviewer Tomas Escobar, who is Julia's nephew) was the oldest one and then one that lived in Toppenish. She passed away last year and another one that lives in Oregon right now…and my brothers…and they still around here…one lives on top there and the other one lives at the other end. [same apartment building in Zillah, WA where Julia resides]
Susan: How do you get along with them?
Julia: Oh real good, we are real close.
Susan: So your Dad, how old was he when he died?
Julia: 94 and a half.
Susan: Did he stay active right up until he died?...
Julia: He wore glasses, and he would take them off to read a paper or something. He had false teeth, he would take them off to eat. He was walking with his Kane, real ... straight. They cut off one of his foot ... they put him in a nursing home cause I couldn’t take care of him. That’s when I had my open heart surgery ... Then he was over there, they call me over there. They said he wants to go and die with you; he won’t last till the morning. So I went and brought him home, he lasted twelve days more…and then he passed away. But he could remember ... everything. He didn’t have anything, just diabetes. That’s the only problem he had; nothing else. He didn’t even had a surgery, nothing...
The first shot [injection] he took, it was when he was 89 years old, and oh he was so mad. Yea that was when we put him in the hospital, oh he was real mad with us.
Susan: What was that for?
Julia: He had a cold and then from there they found out he was diabetic. He said, "You see! You brought me here, and they do this [to me]..."
Susan: How old was he when he quit working for a wage?
Julia: Oh, it was in 68 or 69 the last time he picked grapes with us; but he was always having a garden, planting a garden and doing this and that. He was never sitting down ... he had to be doing something.
Susan: Your Mom, you said she got paralyzed from having a stroke, how much longer after that did she live?
Julia: She lived 17 years
Susan: And you took care of her the whole time?
Julia: [Shook her head, to answer yes]
Susan: So you really get to start dating or anything? [after her mother passed away]
Julia: No…Until that guy next door.
Susan: Was there a deal between your Dad and him or something?
Julia: No.
Mario: Is there anything you want to tell us that we haven’t asked you?
Julia: No…
End of interview
Julia Saenz
Interviewed April 14, 2000
Crewport history Project
Yakima Valley Community College
Yakima, Washington
Credits and Interview Identification Data
Narrator: Julia Saenz
Place: Her home in Zillah, Washington
Date: 4/14/00
Interviewers:
Mario C. Compean
Tomás Escobar
Angela Ornelas
Susan Bolton
Transcribed by: Tomás Escobar
Edited for Publication: by Mario C. Compean and Irma Badillo (Spanish)
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