Important Developments
The Evolution of the Citrus Belt and the Driving Forces that Shaped the Labor Relations Between Mexican Labor and Growers
The California Citrus Belt's height in Southern California started in 1890 and lasted until the Second World War in 1945. At its height, the citrus industry was one of the largest sources of income for the state creating more jobs and income than the Gold Rush and raising over 100 million a year into the state's economy. (McBane, 212) Such success required historical actors who interacted with one another that helped develop the systems, institutions, and mechanisms for a thriving commercial citrus industry. These actors were the growers and laborers.
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Citrus became a viable product for the American and world market because of growing industrialization into Southern California's agricultural regions. Railroads became prominent in Southern California by the late 1880s, allowing commercial agriculture to become connected to the larger American market. This triggered merchant farmers and land speculators to settle in small agricultural communities like San Juan Capistrano while investing their capital in profitable assets like citrus. (Haas, 49) Not only did these early growers embrace railroads, but they also adopted techniques and strategies borrowed from industrial capitalism. Growers "reorganized their production along models derived from modern corporate organizations"(Moses 25). This included adopting assembly-oriented packaging houses and reflecting class structures developed along Social Darwinist principles. (Moses, 25) In contrast to the farmers of the Midwest and South who followed a yeoman approach and rejected industrialization, "citrus growers embraced it"(Moses, 24). Southern California was relatively isolated from the Atlantic market, making it challenging to selling fruit across long distances without proper preservation. Unlike the South and Midwest that sold products with longer shelf-lives, citrus was susceptible to succumbing to blue mold and quickly went bad. It was this sole reason that citrus growers became an outlier in American agriculture and "compelled pioneering growers to adopt a high degree of associate effort"(Moses, 27).
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Along with an industrialized grower class, laborers were essential to the success of the citrus industry. With most of the initial laborers from 1890-1910 being of Chinese and Japanese descent, following both the Chinese Exclusionary Act and the Gentlemen's Agreement, growers looked to Mexican labor. Mexicans became a prominent demographic in American agriculture after thousands of Mexicans began to migrate to the United States following the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and land reforms like the 1883 Land Law that removed poor farmers from their land to entice land development, creating permanent sharecroppers and exploitation. (Takaki, 293-294) Mexicans came to the United States because they "saw America as a land of opportunity"(Takaki, 292). With a desire to relocate to America and many motives to leave Mexico, Mexicans were enabled through railroads that made travel easier where migrants "could board a train in southern Mexico, cross the border at El Paso, grab a western-bound transcontinental"(Deverell, 145). Many Mexican migrants moved to Southern California in search of work, and many brought their families with them.
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The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries gave rise to new structures and organizations of big business with the goal to maintain a continually busy workforce and cut costs to ensure that "capital investment produced the highest possible return."(Cherny, 7) In response to growers adopting big corporate models represented by inadequate working conditions, pay, and associated costs transferred to the workers, Mexicans organized themselves into unions, which had been successful in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and began to expand into unskilled job markets after 1910.(Kimeldorf, 1035) Mexicans were also aided by prior experience in the unionization of Mexico in the 1920s following the Mexican Revolution and by leftist organizations in the era of the Popular Front. (Lear, 237) With growing opportunities to organize, many Mexican laborers joined the ranks of Mexican unions; however, there was strong resistance from the growers, who controlled the local law enforcement and press.
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With Mexicans becoming the principle labor force in the citrus belt following the 1910s, both Anglo growers and Mexican laborers formed the racial dynamics until the end in 1945. Using industrial principles and paternalism, Anglo growers subjected their Mexican labor force to exclusion, fetishization, and segregation through marketing, housing, and their line of work, all to appeal to their internal desires and maintain a stronger control over their labor. Despite the exploitative nature of farmers, Mexican laborers formed unions, strikes, developed alliances, and created cooperative communities to better their social standing. Women also played a proactive role in supporting the Mexican communities by helping other members, becoming cash earners by being instrumental to the packaging process and guiding their children to escape the grower's control.
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