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

Abstract

427 Reviews REVIEWS OF FORESTS AND FIELDS: MEXICAN LABOR IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST by Mario Jimenez Sifuentez Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 2016. Illustrations, notes, index. 186 pages. $27.95, paper. In Of Forests and Fields, Mario Sifuentez has produced an elegant and engaging history of Mexican-ancestry labor in the Pacific Northwest, with an emphasis on the state of Oregon. In six well organized and clearly written chapters, this book establishes the long history of Mexicanancestry workers in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, and nicely weaves together the many interconnected strands of Mexican, Tejano, and California migration to and from the Pacific Northwest, linking Oregon to the massive labor flows from Mexico and Texas most clearly. Sifuentes, in echoing and expanding on the work of scholars of Tejano and Mexican migration , shows how the large — tens of thousands — annual movement of laborers as internal migrants from Texas, and Mexican migrants as part of the Bracero Program (guest worker program ) helped to shape Oregon’s long relationship with Mexican-ancestry workers and created a foundation for its current population of almost 500,000 “Hispanic” residents. This well written book shows the many-layered and imbricated nature of Mexican-ancestry life in Oregon and nicely interweaves the experiences of Mexican Braceros with Tejano migrants. The most fascinating chapters are those that detail the lives of Bracero workers and Tejano migrants in Oregon using oral history interviews. Sifuentes shows how the young Braceros during World War II faced discrimination when they left their workplaces, but also of the great fun these workers had at dances where Anglo-American women attended. The memories of the migrants are central to these vivid sections of the book. We hear of Anglo-American women and Mexican Bracero workers dancing, dating (and there are hints of greater intimacy) during World War II when the local Anglo-American men were away in uniform or perhaps working in wartime industries. In playful remembrances we see how complex racial and ethnic labor and social patterns sometimes broke down so far away from hyper-segregated places like South Texas or the Southwest. In Oregon, Anglo-American women and Mexican men in these farming communities danced, fell in love, and crossed the ethnic color line, if only for a temporary moment at the dance hall. This reviewer assumes that some of these affairs led to lasting relationships and would have liked to hear more about the many long term Mexican-ancestry families of mixed parentage who live in Oregon. Sifuentes is also attentive to the history of Tejano migrants in Oregon. He sheds light on the unique relationship between Tejano farm workers and Japanese Nisei farmers in Ontario, Oregon. Ontario is known to readers in Oregon as one of the few places where Japanese people were welcomed and treated humanely during World War II. As Sifuentes shows, the Nisei farmers who employed Mexican-ancestry workers welcomed Tejano use of their own social space in the form of the Japanese Hall. Tejano workers who faced discrimination in finding banquet facilities in town could celebrate quinceañeras and other celebrations thanks to the local Nisei. The Nisei and Tejanos may not have broken down class barriers in Ontario, but both groups had long experience with AngloAmerican discrimination, and it was perhaps this shared experience that led the Japanese to see beyond class and racial difference to help Tejanos create community space. In Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, there certainly was quite a bit of activism, and while it was not translocal linking Texas to, say, Washington or Oregon, it led to a variety of developments and social service programs in the region. Moreover, as Sifuentes aptly shows, the United Farm Workers (UFW) relationship to the workers in Oregon was complicated and seemingly ineffective, and the longest running activist organizations seem to be those based in Oregon and shaped by Mexican-ancestry experiences there. In an important contribution, Sifuentes shows the ways in which the UFW remained focused on California and seemed 428 OHQ vol. 118, no. 3 distracted by efforts to establish parallel unions in Texas, the Midwest, and the Pacific Northwest. This book should be of interest to anyone seeking to understand the...