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Post by the Scribe on Jul 2, 2021 8:39:21 GMT
Linda Ronstadt, Jerry Brown may attend Stockton ceremony
www.lodinews.com/news/article_f2a8b521-0fd2-5a4c-8554-81942547d03f.html
The Lodi News Sentinel
March 13, 2012
By Ross Farrow
News-Sentinel Staff Writer
Singer Linda Ronstadt and Gov. Jerry Brown may be attending the installation of a plaque Ronstadt funded to acknowledge participants in the Bracero program.
The Bracero program was a World War II work program that allowed for the temporary importation of workers from Mexico to aid the American agricultural economy by serving as replacement works for American soldiers. The program continued until the late 1960s.
Ronstadt contributed $800 for the plaque to be installed at McLeod Park, Fremont and Center streets, Stockton, on March 31. The day will begin with a prayer breakfast at 9 a.m. at the Mexican Heritage Center, 111 S. Center St., Stockton.
The event is sponsored by Mexican Heritage Center & Gallery, American Friends Service Committee Proyecto Voz and University of the Pacific.
It isn’t known whether Brown or Ronstadt will be able to attend, but former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso of Herald, Judge Thelton Henderson and former California Rural Legal Assistance attorney Maurice Jourdane will be in attendance.
Tickets for the prayer breakfast is $20 and may be purchased by calling 209-952-0256. The plaque installation ceremony is free and open to the public.
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Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com
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Linda Ronstadt Purchases Landmark for Stockton
www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=20606
Central Valley Business Times
March 12, 2012
Linda Ronstadt may not come to Stockton, but her check has arrived.
Ms. Ronstadt, known for such hits as “You’re No Good,” “Blue Bayou,” and “Hurt So Bad” came up with the idea of installing a plaque in Stockton to commemorate participants in the Bracero program, and then personally wrote a check to cover the costs.
The plaque will be installed March 31 at McLeod Park.
The Bracero program was a World War II work program that allowed for the temporary importation of workers from Mexico to aid the American agricultural economy by acting as replacement workers for Americans who were away fighting in the war. The program lasted until the late 1960s.
The plaque dedication ceremony is being co-sponsored by the Mexican Heritage Center & Gallery, the American Friends Service Committee Proyecto Voz, and University of the Pacific.
The event also will celebrate Cesar Chavez’s birthday, as well as commemorate the 1975 California Supreme Court case that eventually stopped the wide-spread use of the short-handled hoe in the agriculture industry.
Maurice Jourdane, the California Rural Legal Assistance Attorney that led the legal fight to outlaw the use of the short-handled hoe will attend the event as will former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso.
Ms. Ronstadt’s contribution will cover the costs for the new commemorative marker, estimated at $800.
Officials at University of the Pacific also contributed to the event and helped organize the ceremony.
“We were thrilled when we learned that Linda Ronstadt was donating the plaque,” says Arturo Ocampo, associate provost for diversity at Pacific. “The Bracero program is an essential part of the history of the United States, of California, and especially of Stockton. The Braceros’ contribution to the economic well being of the region was considered so important to the war effort that they have been referred to as soldiers in the fields.”
The program was created in 1942 because of severe labor shortages in the agriculture industry during WWII. Most men who held agriculture jobs in the west either volunteered or were drafted into the U.S. military shortly after the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor. This caused a labor shortage, which led to the Bracero program. Bracero is Spanish for “a person who works with their arms.”
The initial group of Bracero workers came to Stockton to harvest sugar beets. The program was considered such a success that it quickly spread throughout the western states and into other products, such as oranges, lettuce and other fruits and vegetables. The railroad companies also entered into the Bracero program to help with expansion and maintenance of rails. By 1945, there were 50,000 Braceros working in the agricultural program and another 75,000 in the railroad program.
After the war, the railroad program was ended, but agriculture producers complained that many of the returning soldiers were not coming back to work in the field, as they were taking advantage of the new veterans program that paid for college education or other career training. As a result, the agricultural program was extended every two years until 1964. The number of Braceros recruited to the United States was then reduced every year until the program officially ended in 1967. |
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 2, 2021 8:43:35 GMT
Contributor
A Farmworker Icon Turns 90: Gilbert Padilla”
Linda Ronstadt, the San Diego Chargers, Braceros and the Cortito
www.huffpost.com/entry/linda-ronstadt-the-san-di_b_1444573
04/24/2012 08:46 am ET Updated Jun 24, 2012
The fan at a concert or football game and the farm worker stooped in the field, might doubt that there is a thread tracing Linda Ronstadt, the San Diego Chargers, Braceros and the tool used in the hot dusty fields.
In 1942, a severe shortage of laborers available to carry on California’s pivotal role of producing food for the country, farm workers were Imported into the United States from Mexico as Braceros. For little pay, they stooped in the fields from dawn to dusk to bring food to our tables. The first Braceros went to Stockton, California, to harvest sugar beets. During the following years, the Bracero program expanded to importation of nearly 500,000 in 1956, and a total of four million Braceros before ending in 1964. Each year, the Braceros were returned to Mexico when the season ended.
While toiling in the hot fields, Braceros used the short-handled hoe or cortito to weed and thin the crop. They needed food and housing. Stockton-born Alex Spanos, now owner of the San Diego Chargers, the son of a Greek immigrant who operated a bakery in Stockton, returned from military service, to work for $40 a week n his father’s bakery. Soon, Spanos and his wife Faye began making and selling bologna sandwiches to hungry Braceros. When Stockton growers complained to Spanos about their need for more workers, Spanos recognized that more workers meant more business selling bologna sandwiches. Spanos travelled to the Imperial Valley and gained additional workers for the Stockton growers. When Spanos’ sandwich business grew, he expanded to provide Braceros additional food and housing. Spanos saw the need for housing, began developing, and soon the astute businessman was wealthy enough to become owner of the San Diego Chargers.
To show respect for the historic work of the Braceros, erected in the Port of Stockton a statue of a stooped farm workers using a short handled hoe.
Until San Jose State University professor Maria Alaniz and federal court judge Felton Henderson told Latina Linda Ronstadt, recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, Academy of Country Music award, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, and numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, !(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/)!, the story of the farm workers’ struggle to ban the cortito that crippled hundreds of thousands of farm workers, forcing them to spend long days stooped in hot fields, the Stockton stature remained a lonely figure without designation on why it was there or what it stood for. Linda Ronstadt changed that.
About the time the Bracero program was ending, Cesar Chavez was commencing his struggle to improve the lives of farm workers. I was a new lawyer in Soledad, California. One night, playing pool, a farm worker Sebastian Carmona told me he had a disabling back injury from stooping all day in the field with the cortito, a hoe with an eight-inch handle. At the urging of former farm worked Hector De La Rosa, I joined him in a field near Greenfield thinning sugar beets with the cortito. I left the field in such pain that I swore to abolish the short-handled hoe. De La Rosa reminded me that the short hoe was the symbol of growers’ power and had replaced the masters’ whip as the means of keeping workers stooped. A year later, the day after Cesar Chavez was released from jail in Salinas for struggling to nonviolently improve the lives of farm workers, he asked me to stop stoop labor. Over the years that followed, attorney Marty Glick and California Rural Legal Assistance with whom I was employed, obtained evidence describing the suffering stoop labor caused farm workers, doctors’ statements explaining how stoop labor leads to permanent back disability, and evidence that the normal hoe is used in other parts of the country to do the same work done with the short hoe in California.
After five years of hearings across the state and argument before the California Supreme Court, Governor Jerry Brown outlawed the short handled hoe in California. When the Supreme Court ruled for the farm workers in Carmona’s lawsuit, Carmona handed me his short-handled hoe and said “Gracias, Abogado. No necesito este, mas” (Thanks, lawyer. I don’t need this anymore), I nearly cried.
On March 31, 2012, Cesar Chavez birthday, I fought back tears when Stockton Braceros unveiled the statue Spanos erected and Linda Ronstadt placed a dedication in Stockton rain that reads,
“ In honor of the Braceros, soldiers of the field, who toiled in San Joaquin County. With profound gratitude for their indelible contribution to the living of our community. (Bracero Program 1942 - 1964.
With deepest appreciation to Maurice Jourdane who, as an attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance led a relentless and ultimately victorious legal battle to abolish the short-handled hoe. Carmona v. Division of Industrial Safety, 13 Cal2d 303 (California Supreme Court 1975).”
On this nineteenth anniversary of the death of Cesar Chavez, thank you Alex Spanos, thanks you Linda Ronstadt, thanks you Cesar, and thank you millions of farm workers who suffered stooped in the torrid fields to bring food to our table.
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Post by the Scribe on Jul 2, 2021 8:47:50 GMT
The Bracero Program, Explained
VOCES: Bracero Stories
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