Worker toiled for a buck an hour in local fields
By Betsy Avelar Staff Writer
Gilroy – Gaspar Esquivel could pick more than 400 pounds of cotton in a day. That was four decades ago, when his back didn’t hurt as much as it does now.
The 68-year-old immigrant came to America as a bracero, a field worker, to pick cotton in the fields of Southern California after the Bracero Treaty between Mexico and the United States was instituted in 1964.
Recruiters visited his town in Michoacan where they promised work and lots of money in the United States. Before he and his uncles came to the U.S., workers had to pick one ton of cotton in the city of Obregon, Mexico before they received an application to work in the US.
“I picked 2,000 pounds of cotton in two weeks in the city of Obregon,” said Esquivel, and from there the workers were given a letter of permission to work in the U.S. “In the U.S., the boss would come and ask for laborers, he paid for the buses, and kept us in barricades.”
Like Esquivel, more than four million Mexican farm workers were legally working the fields of America temporarily in the 1960s. The program was intended to be mutually beneficial, providing jobs for underemployed Mexican workers and labor for U.S. agricultural interests; however, the terms of the treaty made it easy for workers to be exploited. Their contracts were written in English, and it only allowed them to work for one employer. Workers who were mistreated could not change jobs.
Lee G. Williams, officer of the U.S. Department of Labor in the U.S. at the time, described the program as a form of “legalized slavery.” Esquivel said he did not enjoy the three months in America let alone care to become a citizen, so he returned to his home in Michoacan.
“I didn’t like the atmosphere here, it was too much work,” said the Gilroy resident who received $1.10 an hour for his labor.
When the season was over, the land owners offered him an opportunity to stay for the next crop, but he had a family of five at the time in Michoacan.
40 years later, he returned to America because two of his sons and one of his daughters helped him get his citizenship.
“I came to Gilroy because my family and my church is here.” Esquivel lives with his wife Carmen Esquivel and they attend The Light of the World church.
Two of his sons live in San Jose, one is a car sales man and the other a business owner, but he chose to live near his daughter Blanca Ponce, mother of four, in Gilroy because she attends the same church as her father.
“I feel very proud of my father when I see him everyday at church because I see how he has changed,” said the 24-year-old and house wife.
Today the short but stocky father of nine supports himself and his wife by collecting cans and selling Herbalife, a dietary product.
“I am satisfied with what he does because despite his age or his health, he is very positive while other younger men don’t work,” said Ponce.
Betsy Avelar attends Gavilan College and is an intern for the South Valley Newspapers. Reach her at (408) 847-7216 or ba*****@gi************.com.
