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Chapter 16: MigrantsLiberty's beacon rarely shines on the dark-skinned Photo courtesy Wilbur Lunt In this 1918 photo, Mexicans thresh grain in Duncan, but laws later made such help hard to get By Carmen Duarte The Arizona Daily Star Families from Mexico poured into the fields of the Gila River Valley from the 1880s on. For decades, the border was wide open. Farms and mines competed for labor, sending recruiters deep into Mexico. That began to change during the recession in copper and cotton that followed World War I. Visa requirements and fees were enacted and, in 1925, Congress authorized a Border Patrol.
Resentment of foreigners intensified during the Depression. A repatriation movement gained support. Across the country, half a million Mexicans were deported between 1930 and 1935, according to Thomas Sheridan in ``Arizona: A History.'' ``Los federales would break into the houses at night looking for workers from the other side,'' remembers Nala (my Mama). ``I had one friend who hid under a bed when the federales broke into the house where he was sleeping. There were people on top of the bed and (the federales) asked them if there were any ilegales there. They said no, and the federales left. ``My friend escaped, but he then returned to Mexico on his own because the raids kept happening.'' Duncan-area farmer Wilbur Lunt says the Depression-era raids were nothing compared with what came later. ``In the 1950s, when I started farming, they hit you about once a week. They were ornery and they were nasty. And I've had a lot of trouble. And I have some bad words for the Border Patrol. I've been fined by them over nothing. It just aggravates me to no end. ``If we got rid of the Mexican laborers and the foreigners, this country would starve in two weeks. ``Anyplace I go, anything that is being done physically is being done by foreigners, mainly Mexicans,'' Lunt says. Lunt was a gracious host on my two visits to his farm. He tells wonderful stories. He and his wife even offered to put me up for the night when we talked on well past dark. But there is a gulf between us. ``We talk about our hired people as if we owned them,'' Lunt said to me on my first visit. ``It is not derogatory. It's more of an affection - `That's my Mexican.' The worker was part of the family. They also said, `I belong to Wilbur. He tells me what to do.' They would say this when other growers approached them for work. ``My father used wetbacks. That term doesn't offend you, does it?'' Well, yes, Wilbur, it does. And you know it. I heard your wife, Marian, tell you the same thing. In a perfect world, migrant workers would be called people, or by their names. ``Wetbacks.'' ``Mojados.'' These words remove the human face from the hungry men, women, boys and girls who risk death in a cruel desert, a flowing sewer pipe or the deep Rio Grande to come here. The Statue of Liberty's beacon for the poor, tired, huddled masses is, in reality, quite narrowly focused. It rarely shines on the dark-skinned. My own newspaper offends me with its choice of words. It doesn't like to use the terms ``undocumented people,'' or ``undocumented immigrants,'' or ``people who entered the country illegally.'' It uses ``illegal entrants,'' and despite attempts to stop it, ``illegal aliens'' to save space in headlines. Damn space. The newspaper means no harm. Wilbur Lunt means no harm.
But some people use the words to make themselves feel more important than others. It's almost as if some Americans believe all Latinos were born in one foreign country. And all of the Spanish-named folks working low-paying jobs must be ``wetbacks.'' No. No. No. Some, like Mama, are hard-working Americans. They work in the fields, in the mines, in the hotels, in the restaurants, in the textile mills, in the garment industry, in the landscaping business and in construction because that's where they find jobs. They work to feed their families and send their children to school. They work hard, hoping their children won't have to do what they do. Yup, the U.S. Border Patrol agents, riding bicycles in my southside neighborhood, are just doing their job - hunting down foreign-looking women, men, boys and girls. They stop dark-skinned people and ask them for identification. It doesn't matter that those dark-skinned people are war veterans. It doesn't matter that they are Americans whose roots run as deep or deeper in this region than the agents asking them for identification. Recently, my 11-year-old niece, Clarissa, who is a beautiful dark-skinned American with brown eyes and a smile that makes you smile, woke up from a dream yelling over and over: ``Hurry, the Border Patrol is coming.'' She could not explain why she was repeating those words. Months before that dream, she asked me, ``Tía, Border Patrol can't come onto the school grounds, right?'' I answered: ``No, they are not supposed to.'' Yet, I could not guarantee that it would never happen.
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Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
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