The human face of history

Veronica Martinez has had little problem finding out many of the facts and figures concerning the four migratory labor camps that existed in the Rio Grande Valley back in the 1940s.

“I’ve gone to the National Archives and they have boxes and boxes of records,” she said. “They even took the daily temperature in these camps.”

The network of camps, built and operated by the federal Farm Security Administration, reached across the country. South Texas had seven such camps, located in Harlingen, Weslaco, McAllen, Raymondville, Sinton, Robstown and Crystal City. The Harlingen labor camp was located south of town on Rangerville Road.

“Because they were government-run, they also had social programs such as nursery schools, elementary schools and workshops for women,” Martinez said.

A nurse at the Harlingen labor camp takes a boy with a fractured leg outside for some air.

The need for the camps grew out of the Depression. Most Americans became familiar with them through John Steinbeck’s novel, “The Grapes of Wrath,” and the movie version starring Henry Fonda as Tom Joad.

“In California, they were built in the 1930s,” Martinez said. “But, in Texas, they weren’t built until 1940 and ’41.”

One side of Martinez’s research is lacking: the human side of those camps.

“I really have no sense of what the local community thought of the camps,” she said. “Most importantly, I want to find out what the farm workers who lived there thought of the camp.”

Martinez is especially searching for anybody who had contact with the camps as a farm worker, a child who grew up in one of the camps, or people who worked at the camps.

“I really think this is the biggest gap I face: what local people thought of these camps,” she said.

Originally from Los Angeles, Martinez, 30, is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Texas at Austin. Besides being her doctoral dissertation, Martinez hopes to turn this project into a book.

In her research, Martinez has found evidence that some growers objected to the government facilities.

“They were used to controlling everything in the workers’ lives, including where they lived,” she said. “If you lost your job, you lost your home. That’s a pretty powerful weapon.”

Some growers thought that giving workers free housing might lead to strikes for higher wages or better working conditions.

Other people living around the camps thought that the programs were “run by a bunch of communists trying to stir up trouble,” Martinez said.

Opinions on the camps varied wildly, she said. While some looked on this as an example of a benevolent government helping people, others felt it was a sign of government trying to control workers.

“Some places called them concentration camps for workers, instead of a place where workers concentrate,” she said.

The camps often ran classes on health and nutrition, as well as maintaining medical facilities.

A group of women can grapefruit at the Harlingen labor camp.

Martinez said there were about 100 camps. Some were permanent and featured wooden houses for the workers.

“Others were made up of tents — sort of camps on wheels,” she said. “They followed certain migratory routes (of farm workers). I imagine there were another 60 of those camps operating at the same time.”

The Valley camps were of the permanent kind, Martinez said. When the program ended in the late 1940s, everything was sold.

“The camps were pretty much carried off piece by piece after these auctions,” she said.

Martinez said the Steinbeck connection has led to a lot of documentation about the California camps.

“Little or nothing has been done about the rest of the camps, even though the system stretched across the country,” she said.

Martinez said she is just trying to tell about life in the camps.

“I’m staying away from the big questions about whether this was a good thing or a bad thing,” she said.

Her research is not trying to draw those conclusions, but at the same time she is interested in people’s opinions from that era. It is all part of the story behind these camps.

Martinez is asking that anybody who had any contact with the camps to contact her.

“I think there are some rich stories out there that haven’t been talked about or written,” she said.

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On the Internet

Life at the labor camps was documented by photographers from the Farm Security Administration. Arthur Rothstein, a young FSA photographer from Columbia University, visited the camps at Harlingen and Robstown in 1942 and created a set of photographs that today can be seen on the Library of Congress Web site, www.memory.loc.gov.

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If you would like to contribute to Veronica Martinez’s research, she can be contacted at vymartinez@yahoo.com or by mail at 3200 King St., Apt. 104, Austin, Texas 78705.

If you would like to respond to this story or something else that you see on this page, write to Our Heritage, Valley Morning Star, P.O. Box 511, Harlingen, Texas 78551 or send an e-mail to randyd@valleystar.com.