Imperial (207 page)

“From the first years of settlement to the present . . .”—DeBuys and Myers, p. 164.

Edith Karpen’s memories—Based on an interview in January 2004.

Losses of Harry Chandler (1938)—Nadeau, p. 234, who gives the peculiar, and to me seemingly vastly understated, figure of 287,000 acres. Dwyer (p. iii) believes that 420,000 acres were expropriated outright.

Petition of the Peasant Union for CRLC lands, 1927—Dwyer, p. 52.

Scheme of the Colorado River Land Company to bring in Germans, etc., 1927—
Los Angeles Times
, December 22, 1927, p. A12 (“COLONISTS TO MEXICO: Holdings of Big Ranch Company at Mexicali to Be Sold to European Farmers”).

H. H. Clark as world’s largest cotton rancher—Ibid., April 11, 1926, p. J3 (Randall Henderson, “A New Kind of Pioneering in Imperial”).

Table of land ownership in the Colorado River Delta, 1930—Tout,
The First Thirty Years
, p. 364, citing a report by Mr. Frank Adams for the American Section of the International Water Commission.

Statistics on CRLC leasing and ethnicity, 1924, and report to stockholders on superior Chinese stick-to-itiveness—Duncan, p. 636.

Chandler’s concerns about letting title go to Mexican peasants—Kerig, p. 277.

Chandler’s fantasies of selling to Italians and other ethnic groups—Ibid., pp. 278-79.

Pueblo Brant—Ibid., pp. 279-81.

Pressure on CRLC to provide infrastructure, 1924—Ibid., p. 236.

CRLC in 1930—Ibid., pp. 286-87.

Shenanigans of the Chandler-Sherman Corporation—Ibid., p. 296.

CRLC and Mexicali water rights deriving from Imperial Canal—Ibid., p. 330.

Squatters unable to afford parcel rentals—Dwyer, p. 24.

Land invasion of 1930 and aftermath—Kerig, pp. 310-12, 324, 344, 356-58.

Details on Felipa Velázquez—Dwyer, pp. 55-57.

Manifesto of the Bar and Restaurant Employees Union—Ibid., p. 61.

CRLC colonization agreement of 1936—Ibid., pp. 45-46, 49-50.

Expulsion of CRLC tenants: Most were Chinese.—Dwyer (p. 19) simply writes that “the agraristas threw off the Chinese tenant famers . . .”

Yolanda Sánchez Ogás—Interviewed in a car in June 2003, en route to Ejido Tabasco. Terrie Petree interpreted.

Footnote: Average parcel size in Oaxaca—RDI (2004), p. 18.

The restaurant proprietress who told the anecdote about Cárdenas—Socorro Ramírez, interviewed on 19 February 2004 in her restaurant. Terrie Petree interpreted.

Footnote: Cárdenas’s reponsibility for the closing of gambling dens—Kerig, p. 343.

Hectares granted by Cárdenas, and number of recipients—Boyer, p. 7. Dwyer (p. 35) claims that “by the end of his term” Cárdenas “had distributed around 44 million acres of land to 800,000 ejidatarios.” On p. 68 the same source gives 414,943 acres expropriated from the CRLC. I have converted that figure to hectares.

“Desperate straits” of Zapata’s hometown—Womack, p. 381.

Loss of cultivated area in Mexicali
ejidos,
1943—Kerig, pp. 388-89.

“Cárdenas’s agrarian reform paid off . . .”—Dwyer, p. 35.

The rancher’s wife in the
ejidos
west of Algodones—She was the señora of Don Carlos Cayetano Sanders-Collins, whom I interviewed with his family in Morelos, October 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

Confiscation of CRLC lands, March-August 1937, and aftermath—Kerig, pp. 365, 380, 385, 387, 425, 440.

Number of
ejidos
in Mexicali Valley—Yolanda Sánchez Ogás, same interview.

Hermenegildo Pérez Cervantes—Interviewed in the Casa Cultura in Mexicali, December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted. “There were no gunfights when it happened,” Señor Cervantes had said and yet that probable mouthpiece of the Chandler Syndicate, the
Los Angeles Times
, reported that “five colonists were beaten severely and brought into Mexicali bound with ropes,” because in good or bad faith they had made the mistake of buying their ranchos from the Colorado River Land Company. “More than 100,000 acres of American-owned or financed land has been ordered seized for division . . .”—April 18, 1937, p. 1 (“Agrarians Beat Colonists Refusing to Yield Lands”).

“Yet was it a country with free speech . . . ?”—Lowry, p. 112.

Interview with Lic. Carlos E. Tinoco, official of the Tribunal Unitario Agrario Distrito Dos—In the tribunal offices in Mexicali, September 2005. Terrie Petree translated.

Footnote: “. . . most women . . . are not full
ejidatarios.
”—RDI (2004), p. 14.

Camacho’s balancing act; reconciliation of landowners and
ejidatarios
—Boyer, p. 230. On pp. 236-37 he notes that the meaning of the word “campesino” became more diffuse and almost banal.

Even the American Ambassador thought so—He was Josephus Daniels, and his enconium of Cárdenas is quoted in Pike, p. 273.

My opinions here, like those about Northside, are at best based on arbitrary localizations, such as this one: In a certain Informe de las Refacciones of something illegible de 1943-44, I find the names of 26 farmers, from Genaro C. Aguirre right down to Carlos Vélez, who owned property in the Colorado River Land Company’s Division Two; specifically in Division Two’s
colonias
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10 all mixed together; no one had more than 27 hectares (Pedro Espinsos [?]); the lowest was Braulio Sánchez at 3.2 hectares; the total was 385.40 hectares, so the average was 14.8 hectares—36.5 acres, or less than a quarter of the 160 acres mandated in Northside by the Homestead Act, a smaller proportion still of the 185 average acres toward which Imperial County was tending by midcentury.—AHMM, Chata Angulo coll., Box no. 3, folder “Informe de los Refacciones [illegible] de 1943-44.” Lista de Terrenenos en las colonias en la division numero dos, vendidos por la Colorado River Land Company, S.A., sembrados en el año de 1943, con refacción o habilitación proporcionada por la despepitadora de Mexicali, S.A.

“Although accurate data are lacking . . .”—USDA (1940),
Farm Size in California
, p. 15.

Trade-off between efficiency and family farms—This summary is based on, and elaborated from, the same source, p. 13.

98 . The Line Itself : Japanese Addendum (1941 -1945)

Epigraph: “ ‘Well, that’s the way the world goes . . .’ ”—Anderson, p. 318 (“The Shadow,” 1847).

Edith Karpen’s memories—Same interview as previous chapter.

99 . Broad and Sinister Motives (1928 -1946)

Epigraph: “Finally, the Committee recommends . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library, farm labor situation 1933- 34. Folder “Reports”: Hutchinson et al., “The Imperial Valley Farm Labor Situation,” pp. 30-31.

The dusty old truck with “DISARM THE RICH FARMER . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Powell Studio album. Photo #1945.007:1.

Footnote: Pickers in 1933 cotton strike, and proportion of them who were Mexican—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Typescript: “In the fields, by Paul S. Taylor & Anne Loftis,” n.d. (another slightly different version in the same folder reads: “Revised Sept. 15, 1981”), p. 15.

Edith Karpen’s memories—Based on an interview in January 2004.

Re: Helen Marston, Dean Hutchinson writes in his notes (sheet 12): “Helen Marsten [
sic
] San Diego furnished $1,500 bail for Hoffman & Emma Cutter agitators. Also $500 for Mrs. Johnson wife of an attorney on charge of possession of weapon. Has spoken at meetings also furnished gasoline to parade with. When this meeting failed they turned attention to pea fields at Calipatria. Same group Dorothy Ray Stanley Hancock Chambers etc. who have been in lettuce strike. Three women Marsten, Posey, Stevens, particularly active advised to picket fields & run out the peaceable workers.”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Farm labor situation 1933-34. Carton #C-R 84. Folder: 6.

“A tubby, ageing man in a white shirt . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Powell Studio album. Photo #1945.007:6 (“Pickets on the highway calling workers from the fields—1933 cotton strike”).

EPIC program platform—Sinclair, pp. 179, 186, 189 (
EPIC Answers
, 1934).

Remarks on Soviet collectivization—Abstracted from the “Defense of Class” chapter of my
Rising Up and Rising Down
. For the best study of this tragedy, see Robert Conquest,
The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1986).

“There is no compromise or arbitration . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Folder 4:33: “Irrepressible Conflict? Draft & Notes, Aug., 1943,” probably unpublished. Typescript, p. 2.

Dorothea Lange to her boss (Roy Stryker): “. . . what goes on in the Imperial is beyond belief . . .”—Fleischhauer et al., p. 114 (communication of 16 February 1937).

“THE GOVERNOR SENDS AID TO PIXLEY . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Powell Studio album. Photo #1945.007:4 (“Cotton strike—1933”).

“JOIN THE PICKET LINES. DON’T SCAB”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Powell Studio album. Photo #1945.007:3 (“Picket caravan—1933 cotton strike”).

The brown girl getting water—Street,
Photographing Farmworkers
, p. 115 (Dorothea Lange photograph, 1935).

The three Hispanic murderers—
Fresno Morning Republican
, Thursday, March 25, 1920, p. 24 (“Murderers Are Caught After Long Chase”).

The “circulars urging measures to prevent the entry of Mexican workers . . .”—Ibid., Saturday, March 27, p. 11 (“Try to Stop Labor Going Into U.S.”).

Imperial Valley wages for cotton, 1909, 1938—Street,
Photographing Farmworkers
, p. 156 (caption to Dorothea Lange photograph, 1938).

“We farmers want to be fair . . .”—Sanders, p. 21.

“Men who wore white pajamas and sandals to work . . .”—Womack, p. 100.

“Forced to that belief against my own prejudices . . .”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 4. Folder 4:33: “Irrepressible Conflict? Draft & Notes, Aug., 1943,” probably unpublished. Typescript, p. 6.

Imperial Valley Press
article, 1926—Dateline Sacramento.

“IMPERIAL QUALITY” lard—Hostess Reference Book (1936), p. 18.

“The huge irrigated farms of California’s Imperial Valley . . .”—Watkins, pp. 392-93.

Mexicali authorities send home campesinos, 1925—Kerig, p. 252.

37,000 migrant children in 1927—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Paul S. Taylor papers. Carton 3. Folder 3:14: “An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion, Galleys with Corrections, 1969.” Paul S. Taylor, speech to Commonwealth Club of California in 1935, “The Migrants and California’s Future,” unnumbered p. 1.

Role of the Mexican consulate as mediator between growers and strikers; surrounding events of 1930-34—González article; Daniel, pp. 224-28; Watkins, pp. 416-17.

Events in Imperial County, 1928-30—Watkins, pp. 403-8. The three Communist organizers were Frank Waldron, Harry Harvey and Tsuji Horiuchi.

“What land have they given us, Melitón? . . .”—Rulfo, p. 15 (“They Gave Us the Land”).

“. . . the demands . . . came at a time when the farm owners were least able to meet them.”—WPA, p. 640 (referring specifically to 1930).

Events of 1931 in Mexicali—
New York Times
, February 22, 1931, p. 9 (“BIG MOB THREATENS TO LOOT MEXICALI”). Meanwhile, considerably south of Imperial, in Michoacán, in fact, where the horn of Mexico begins to curve eastward, agrarian activists mobilize the campesinos of Hacienda Nueva Italia to unionize. The union comes into being in 1931. Instantly the campesinos strike, forcing the hacienda to raise wages from $4.60 a week to $6.00! The aftermath, of course, is violence. “These episodes led the foundation for an enduring atmosphere of hostility that pitted unionized field hands against other hacienda laborers and the state government for years to come.” (Boyer, pp. 198-99).

“Working and living conditions, which had long been recognized as the worst in the state . . .”—Daniel, p. 224.

Repatriation of Mexicans and their new work in the Colorado River Delta, 1933—
Los Angeles Times
, March 26, 1933, p. I1o (Jack Starr-Hunt, “The Mexicans Who Went Home”).

Sketch of the Oklahoma land rush of 1889, and excerpt about “a model empire” (from Edna Ferber’s
Cimarron
, 1929)—Pike, pp. 154-55.

“A typical scene of the ‘Dirty Thirties’ . . .”—Spencer Museum of Art, pp. 67 (Plate 40: Herschel C. Logan, “Dust Storm,” 1938), 66 (Plate 39: same artist, “Victim of the Dust,” 1938), 62 (Plate 35: Mervin Jules, “Dust,” 1933).

The tale of Wallace Case—Uys, p. 51.

“Yuma and the Imperial Valley where you could usually pick up a few days’ work on a ranch or farm . . .”—Fox, p. 138.

Footnote: Origin of “Okie”—Sanders, p. 7.

H. T. Roach’s memories—Uys, p. 36.

Committee on Indigent Alien Transients—Watkins, pp. 436-37.

Philip Bonosky—Ibid., pp. 244-45.

Remarks of Mr. E. B. Goodman—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Farm labor situation 1933-34. Carton #C-R 84. Folder: 6. Dean Hutchinson’s handwritten notes. Sheet 7: Mr. E. B. (Ben) Goodman. El Centro (writer).

Wage differential between Mexican and American Imperial (3 pesos vs. 9)—Ibid., sheet 11.

“Consul last year made a survey of whole valley . . .”—Dean Hutchinson’s notes, sheet 20.

“Consul: Mexicans recognize they & the growers have a common problem . . .”—Ibid., sheet 21.

“The camp site at Corcoran, Calif.”—UC Berkeley. Bancroft Library. Powell Studio album. Photo #1945.007:2 (“1933 cotton strike. Camp where evicted striking workers concentrated. Corcoran, Calif.”).

First establishment of pro rate system in Imperial County—
Imperial Valley Press
, Wednesday, January 24, 1934, p. 3.

Report on squatters’ camps, 1934—Paul S. Taylor, speech to Commonwealth Club, unnumbered p. 4 (United States Special Commission on Agricultural Labor Disturbances in Imperial Valley, report of February 11, 1934).

Water “FOR FAMILY USE ONLY”—
Imperial County: The Big Picture
, p. 128. How many people were on the dole? The only statistic I found was that from July 1937 through December 1938, Imperial County had (if I quote the handwritten tally and do my own arithmetic, since the original doesn’t quite add up) 192 aliens on relief at Imperial County Hospital, the cost being $4.00 per head per day; 172 of these people were Mexican. Obviously many more people who were capable of sheltering themselves must have been on the rolls. (Statistics on aliens on relief July 1937-December 1938—California State Archives, legislative papers. Statement on number of aliens, 1939, 2 files. Cat. P14.43.44, D10, Box 1. Yellowed telegrams from Imperial Valley to Sacramento via Western Union. List dated 13 January 1939. W. H. Hodkinson, M.D., was the resident physician.)