Mario Jimenez Sifuentez. Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest.

Abstract

Residents of the Northwest, Mario Jimenez Sifuentez writes in this compact and compelling book, have long “attempted to obscure the presence of ethnic Mexicans in the region and relegated them to being invisible and temporary laborers” (2), an attempt perhaps best reflected in the very scantiness of the archival record of their presence. Though it would be hard to claim any sort of active attempt to obscure Latinos’ presence in the Northwest by historians and other scholars, the dearth of scholarship (especially in comparison with California and the Southwest) has also contributed to their seeming invisibility. Yet, as Sifuentez makes clear in Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest, ethnic Mexicans have long been not only present, but essential to the development of the Northwest as a highly productive agribusiness and lumbering empire. Rescuing Latinos from the obscurity to which they have been assigned has clearly been no easy task, but Sifuentez accomplishes it well through a thorough survey of state, local, and union/activist newspapers (often read against the grain to discern ethnically Mexican people’s interests and desires out of the interstices of official discourse) as well as original interviews and oral histories with ex-braceros, seasonal Tejano migrants, pineros (forest workers), and Chicano activists. Though promoted in its title as being about the Pacific Northwest as a whole, Sifuentez focuses his attention on Oregon, with only occasional forays into Washington and Idaho. This serves him well, giving the book a sharp focus and a clear narrative coherence.