PATTERSON

Patterson lies in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, the southern part of California’s Central Valley, one of the nation’s great agricultural regions. In 1844 Rancho del Puerto was established as the first Mexican land grant in the area, but the early farms were soon taken over by Anglos. From the 1860s there was some settlement, mainly of sheep and cattle farmers, some of whose descendants today own large farms, and are ‘leaders of society’. The City of Patterson was founded in 1909, and the first lift irrigation system in the world was introduced soon after. Plots of 160 acres were made available on easy terms ($1.25 an acre), marking the beginning of agriculture in the valley; fruit and nut orchards were established in the 1920s.

The town (a more accurate term than the grandiose ‘city’) is bisected by Route 33, which runs north–south through the Central Valley. On the west side of Route 33 are several hundred neat homes, most of

DWB with Sr and Sra Garza. Patterson, 1980

which are in good order, with attractive gardens. The population of the west side was almost entirely Anglo. On the east side – across the railway tracks – was a very different picture, of small, crowded houses, many of which were dilapidated or deteriorating (using the official census terms). Some of this housing was provided by the county, specifically for the migrant farm workers who came to Patterson from about April to November. Single migrants were generally housed in contractors’ camps, while families were put in rudimentary living quarters, mostly with shared communal toilet and ablution facilities. Over the years that I visited the area, these conditions did gradually improve.

Many of the early California settlers came from Portugal, mostly from the Azores, after one of the periodic earthquakes in the early twentieth century. (American visitors to the Azores are likely to be asked if they know X who lives in Crow’s Landing, a small town not far from Patterson, and the centre of Portuguese immigration.) Although the present day ‘Portuguese’ have mostly done well economically, they are still somewhat marginal within the Anglo community: the wife of a prominent grower once told me that she was uneasy about the relationship between her daughter and a Portuguese boy, both outstanding seniors at Patterson High School. She claimed it was because his family was Catholic.

Even within the Anglo community there were stark divisions: for example, the very pleasant homes in the ‘best’ part of the town, in the north, cost about $80 000, whereas the much more modest houses in the south-east section seldom exceeded $8000. The respective families were acutely aware of the class differences, which were reflected in the church membership. Most of the elite (Protestants) attended the Presbyterian Church; those of Swedish descent favoured the Lutheran Church, and the smaller churches – Assemblies of God, Pentecostal and Church of Christ – attracted the ‘Okies’. This was a derogatory term in general use, referring to the descendants of the 1930s migrants from Oklahoma (and other ‘dust bowl’ states), immortalised in John Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

Other ‘poor whites’, who were often – understandably – the most virulently racist were included in this pejorative term. The large Catholic church was anomalous, including both some of the leading Italian growers, as well as most of the Mexicans, but a Spanish language mass created a sort of segregation. (I attended services both in English and in Spanish, the latter being livelier, and friendlier.) An increasing number of Mexicans belonged to the Mexican Baptist Church, reflecting a general trend among previously Catholic Latin-Americans who were now joining a variety of Protestant churches – mostly evangelical.

One specialised and exotic sub-group consisted of Basque shepherds, mostly from the province of Vizcaya (Biscaya) near Bilbao, in Spain. In 1964, a few of these hardy men still came each year for the summers, leading isolated lives with their flocks of sheep in the hills, and living in caravans. Some settled in Patterson, and neighbouring towns, their descendants becoming prominent citizens. Bernard and I liked to stop at Los Banos, halfway between Santa Barbara and Patterson, for a meal at the local Basque family restaurant, where the food was superior, and where Ueskera, the Basque language, was still spoken.

Walking around the town on Sunday mornings, I noticed a distinct gradation in the age and cost of the automobiles parked outside the nine churches. I asked the pastors and priests if their congregations were involved in any activities to help Mexican farm workers: a defensive Presbyterian minister told me, ‘We opened the door … but nothing happened, no-one came.’ Among these men of the cloth there was a general unease about the condition of the farm workers, but a reluctance to get involved, and also an ignorance of where to start. I should not be too critical, for it is difficult to know where to start – good intentions are not enough.

One common attitude of most Anglos was typified by an Italian immigrant, who had arrived with nothing in 1922, started a small bakery, and in 1946 established Patterson Frozen Foods, the town’s largest employer. He had done extremely well, and told me, ‘I worked hard, I made it; why can’t these people do the same?’ – forgetting how conditions have changed. I discussed the high cost of funerals with the local undertaker, a prosperous businessman and a leading citizen; when I mentioned that many Mexicans spent at least $5000 on a funeral (a very large sum in the mid-1960s), he replied defensively, ‘But, Dave, these people want to honour their dead, I merely provide a service.’

The residents across the tracks were virtually all ‘Mexican’. This term includes Mexican-Americans as well as legal and illegal migrants. The term ‘Mexican-American’ refers to those of Mexican descent who are either permanent residents – holders of green cards, most of whom had entered the US in the 1960s – or US citizens.

Started in 1942 as a wartime measure, the Bracero (manual labourer) programme allowed a stipulated number of Mexicans to enter the US for summer farm work; these migrant workers were required to return to Mexico when the harvest was over. Nearly all the growers fully supported this programme, which provided them with an inexpensive and docile labour force for the months of the year when they needed the labour. ‘Everyone likes it, Dave,’ I was told, ‘It suits us, sure, but the workers like it too – they make good money, better than they could in Mexico, then they can return to their homes and their families and lead better lives.’ The Bracero programme was terminated in 1964, under pressure from civil rights protesters, concerned at the wretched housing and poor health of the migrants. (But, as I write, there is discussion in the US of renewing an official migrant system.) Migrant labour has been exploited in many countries, over many periods, the migrants usually being powerless, excluded from the mainstream economy, and denied basic human rights. Mexicans remain the main source of Californian farm labour, as they have been since World War 1. Other groups – Chinese, Japanese, ‘Okies’ – mostly managed to move out of farm labour in one generation.

Bracero living quarters. Photo: The Smithsonian Institute

A farm worker with a short-handled hoe. Photo: The Smithsonian Institute

Like the Anglo population, the Mexicans were divided by subtle class and regional factors, which included conservatives and radicals; legal and illegal migrants; those from Texas, and the rest; those from different provinces of Mexico. Migrants from Texas came for the summer harvest work, often in large family groups, driving in a pick-up truck, and bringing basic items such as their television sets and sewing machines. They found family accommodation, of varying quality, at ‘the camp’. Some families worked each year for the same employer, whom they would telephone to confirm the availability of work, and to announce the date of their arrival. Most families returned to Texas at the end of the harvest, but a few had settled permanently in Patterson. They came because the pay was better, even at the 1964 prevailing minimum wage of just over $1.00 an hour.

The older Mexicans were generally more conservative, both in family attitudes (especially regarding the role of women, and the importance of family honour), and politically, preferring to accept rather than to protest. In fact, the whole town was distinctly conservative, a sharp change for me, after the turmoil of anti-Vietnam protests at UCB and UCSB in the 1960s. There was, as I soon realised when I lived among the Mexicans, a pervasive parochial atmosphere. For example, although San Francisco was only one and a half hour’s drive away, few Mexicans had ever been there. Very few students in Patterson showed any interest in wider political events, and those who did raise their voices in protest were much criticised by their own communities, whether Anglo or Mexican. One young Anglo, the son of a prominent businessman was disinherited by his father for engaging in radical protest. The leaders of the few active Mexican political groups were often the subject of bitter back-biting and unfounded slurs.

When I first visited, the population of the town was just over 3000, a quarter of whom lived in what was referred to as ‘the camp’ – the east side of the town. The superintendent of county housing reminded me of his South African counterpart – he spoke no Spanish, despite having been in his position for nearly twenty years, was basically a decent though unimaginative person, and held deeply-felt negative stereotypical views of the Mexicans. And the housing itself was reminiscent of the worst type of ‘native location’ in southern Africa.

The superintendent provided one example of the prevailing cultural misunderstanding in complaining to me that the Mexicans had no sense of hygiene, dropping the used toilet paper on the floor, instead of flushing it. But this is common practice in Mexico, where the old sewerage systems cannot cope with paper, which is more often newspaper than regular toilet paper, and waste paper baskets are regularly placed in toilets. In her book, A Change of Tongue (2003: 358), South African writer Antjie Krog describes a similar situation in the Free State town of Kroonstad, where ‘Oom Pieta’ tells her: ‘If you want to win the Nobel Prize, develop an easily degradable newspaper … that will dissolve easily enough not to clog a sewage system. The single greatest obstacle to the development of sewage technology in developing countries is the absence and expense of toilet paper.’

There were few amenities in ‘the camp’: no parks or recreational facilities, no postal delivery. However there was a clinic, and school buses did take children to the schools – across the tracks – and migrant ministry workers arrived to help each summer.

Proposals to provide more housing were usually defeated; many Anglos feared that this would result in an increase in the number of Mexican permanent residents, who would be a financial burden on the town. Similarly, the school’s bond application, proposed in the early 1970s, when funds were urgently needed, was not approved, apparently because voters feared that improved school facilities would only attract more Mexicans to the town. The realistic Town Clerk deplored this attitude, pointing out that seventy per cent of the five hundred workers at Patterson Frozen Foods lived in nearby Modesto, or in other towns, because of the housing shortage in Patterson. Had they lived in the town, Patterson would have benefited from what they would have spent locally.

I often heard Anglos complaining that ‘these people’ (the Mexicans) ‘go on welfare in the winter and we have to pay for them.’ In fact, many of the year-round residents were too proud to accept welfare, and went to great lengths to earn whatever they could. The Anglo farmers, called ‘growers’, often lived on their farms, in sprawling ranch houses complete with swimming pool, one or two even having their own airstrip. I was constantly surprised to note the paucity of reading matter. Most growers, and nearly all their wives, were college or university graduates, yet I saw few books, and the only magazines would typically be Readers Digest, Sports Illustrated and Woman and Home.

As well as the town itself, I took as my main study area the whole Patterson school district (total population about 6000). This included the two small satellite settlements of Westley and Grayson (with a combined population of 800, mainly Mexican farm labourers) and the surrounding area, in extent about 300 square miles. All of this was on the ‘West Side’, that is the area to the west of the San Joaquin River, and all of it was part of Stanislaus County, the county seat being Modesto.

The agricultural lands in the San Joaquin Valley were flat and almost entirely devoid of any bird life. In the springtime the flowering orchards made a pretty sight, with apricot and peach trees in full blossom. There were pleasing prospects – to the west were the Diablo Mountains and to the east could be seen the foothills of the Sierras. There was a remote ‘pioneer’s home’, nestling in the western foothills, which I enjoyed visiting; it was like stepping back into the nineteenth century. It also reminded me of my visits to South African farmers who had the same pride in the achievements of their pioneer ancestors.

Patterson had its own newspaper, the weekly Patterson Irrigator, which was heavily influenced by its main advertisers, who provided much of its revenue. The advertisers were mainly large local firms (the Ford motor dealership, John Deere tractors, the town undertaker) whose conservative owners were key men (there were few women) in the local power structure. Ron Swift, the editor, personally had liberal views, and was sympathetic to the aspirations of the Mexicans. He had to tread carefully, so as not to antagonise the advertisers, but he recognised that the Mexicans were part of Patterson, and increased the coverage of Mexican events such as weddings and births. Patterson was, as I soon learnt, very much a ‘red’ town, with ultra-conservative overtones. (The US media, in assessing the way states are likely to vote, refer to Republican strongholds as ‘red’, and to those with Democratic majorities as ‘blue’. I suspect that President George W Bush is still very popular in Patterson even today.)

AGRICULTURE

The growers saw themselves as rugged individualists who were in charge of their own destiny, and with their cowboy hats and expensive leather boots they certainly looked the part. I soon recognised the major, if behind the scenes, role of the masters of agri-business. The 1960s, when I started my enquiries, were the years before the fresh food boom; most produce was canned, processed or frozen. The directors of the processing and canning plants decided what crops the growers would plant, and when the planting and the harvesting of crops would take place.

Those who owned the expensive harvesting machinery allocated their machines to the different farms on the most cost-effective basis, and the growers were at the mercy of the ‘faceless financial giant’ that controls California agriculture. As early as 1939 Senator La Folette chaired a committee on agriculture in California, concluding that ‘the pattern of rural social relationships was dictated by forces outside agriculture proper.’

The growers often told me that, apart from a few fields of beets, they received no crop subsidies. This may have been strictly true, but they never mentioned the heavily subsidised irrigation water on which all their operations depended. They were quick to criticise farm workers, often unjustly, as ‘welfare cheats’, but they were reluctant to recognise that they were themselves major beneficiaries of federal funds. In theory only farms limited to 160 acres should have received subsidised irrigation, but as agriculture became more intensive and more specialised, larger acreages were needed, and growers circumvented the rule either by putting parts of their farm in the names of family members, or by leasing land. Land was leased on a share basis, the landowner usually taking one third of the crop – this was very similar to the abusua system which I had studied among cocoa farmers in Ghana. Valley crops, except for small acreages of beets, were not directly subsidised. There were three main categories of crops: row crops, including beans, peas, tomatoes, peppers and melons; trees, including apricots, walnuts, almonds and peaches; and alfalfa (lucerne), which could yield six or seven crops each year.

In 1960, the first mechanical tomato-harvesting machines were introduced. They cost $60 000, and employed a crew of eighteen (mostly women) instead of the sixty or seventy workers who would have done the work by hand. A few years later, an improved machine, costing $110 000, employed a crew of four or five – it was estimated that the cost of this machine would be recovered in two seasons. Machines were used on row crops, but also to harvest apricots, mainly for the third picking. While most growers welcomed the benefits of mechanisation, others were aware of the social impact on the farm workers. Apart from its effects on farm labour, farm mechanisation also hastened the demise of the family farm, and helped the inexorable rise of vertically integrated agri-business in California. (Not long ago I spoke to a wine grower of Bonnievale who lamented the need for mechanisation, caused, he said, by the habits of the coloured farm workers, who could not be relied on to work the long hours needed to harvest the grapes.)

The University of California has always been heavily involved with Californian agriculture. The campuses at Berkeley and Davis both have outstanding departments of agriculture, the Giannini Centre at Berkeley being one of the leading agricultural research institutions in the US. In addition, the university has close links with the Californian Extension Service, established to help Californian farmers. Nearly all the efforts of the university are aimed at crop production and protection. For example, it was the University of California at Davis which was mainly responsible for the Blackwelder tomato-harvesting machine and also for developing the almost cubic tomatoes, designed to be suitable for mechanical harvesting. Unfortunately the ‘improved’ tomatoes lack taste. The university has little interest in farm workers: during my studies, UC Davis employed one sociologist, Isao Fujimoto, who was in a lonely and vulnerable position. I attended a conference at UC Davis where he and I were the only voices speaking for the farm worker: everyone else was primarily concerned to improve productivity, and paid little attention to human factors. (I was later at a conference organised by the California State Employment Agency on problems of farm labour, attended by all stakeholders – all, that is, except farm labourers or Mexicans.) UC Berkeley had one distinguished economist, Paul Shuster Taylor, who made important and sympathetic studies of farm labour in California, but after his retirement he was not replaced.

The facts of migrant labour are ‘rediscovered’ every few years, there being no fewer than forty-six US reports in the period from 1930 to 1950, including twenty from federal and state agencies, with others from growers, labour, churches and private welfare agencies. Many appeals have been made to America’s conscience, but migratory labour remains a feature of the Californian rural landscape. In 1968 farm labour in the Patterson area peaked from 4000 in April to 9350 in September, two thirds of the labour force being seasonal.

Farmers in the USA have felt paranoid and antagonistic towards farm workers’ unions ever since the late nineteenth century. They succeeded in having agriculture excluded from the provisions of the 1935 Wagner Act, which regulated trade unions in other industries. Their opposition was based on the importance of food for the nation and on the perishability of their product; they claimed that strikes at harvest time would be disastrous for the national economy. Yet farm workers have been unionised in Hawaii since 1946, and receive an adequate minimum wage ($3.50 per hour in 1968), medical scheme membership, paid holidays, sick pay, and, most important, the right to collective bargaining. What made this possible was the isolation of Hawaii, farm workers being difficult to replace. Regarding the perishability argument, those in favour of unions point out that canneries have been unionised for many years and have nonetheless operated smoothly.

The farm workers were wooed both by the powerful Teamsters Union, and also by the charismatic Cesar Chavez, head of UFWOC, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. Not all farm workers are enthusiastic about unions, some fearing retaliation by their employers. A Mexican nurse told me that she dared not express any sympathy for unions, lest it jeopardise her husband’s job in the fields; others are against the unions because they mistrust the leaders. Farm workers are the lowest paid in the labour force, have the fewest benefits, and are subject to many dangers – they account for only seven per cent of all workers, but suffer twenty-five per cent of all industrial accidents – so their opposition to farm unions surprised me: figures fluctuated, but at any one time, fewer than one third of all farm workers had joined unions.

PATTERSON HIGH SCHOOL

When I arrived in Patterson in 1965 for my first period of research, I quickly realised that the high school was a key feature of the district. By then it was integrated, in that students included a significant number of Mexicans. It was clearly a major socialising institution for both Anglos and Mexicans. Unlike my American anthropological colleagues, I had had no personal experience of an American high school so I set out to repair this deficiency. The principal kindly allowed me to interview all the Mexicans in the junior and senior classes; in return he asked me to give some talks ‘about Africa’ to these classes.

In the whole Patterson United School Districts, only five of the one hundred and twenty teachers were Spanish-speaking (including two Cubans), so there were few role models for the Mexicans. Forty per cent of all Mexican students (twenty-five per cent at the high school and seven and a half per cent of the senior classes) were not fluent in English. Not surprisingly, there was a high drop-out rate, and in a later year, 1973, only a quarter of the one hundred and twenty graduating seniors were Mexicans, although by then they comprised half the student body.

I read essays by pupils on what they did in the summer holidays and was struck by the stark contrasts: the Anglo students talked of trips to Europe with their parents, and of visiting friends and relatives all over the United States, horse-riding, canoeing, swimming, sailing, hiking and other recreational activities. For many of the Mexicans, summer was a time of work: ‘I worked with my uncle in the fields in Texas’, wrote one boy. Many Mexicans had never seen the sea nor had they eaten in a restaurant.

Most Anglo senior students owned, or had access to, a car. It was not unusual for a wealthy grower to give his son or daughter a new motor car as a sixteenth birthday present. Cars represented not only prestige and status, but also they provided the ability to participate in after-school activity, including sport and clubs such as the FFA (Future Farmers of America – this federally funded programme allowed youngsters to gain experience and confidence, and gave them a good start if they wished to become farmers).

Cars were the central feature of a Saturday evening ritual, when young men, many of them high school students, slowly drove their cars, usually packed with admiring friends, round and round Del Puerto Plaza, in the town centre. Both the drivers and their cars were subjected to intense scrutiny, being seen as an ensemble. I was reminded of Godfrey Lienhardt’s description (1961) of young Dinka men parading with their oxen, while the girls commented on both the boys and their oxen: Godfrey thought that a plain boy with a remarkably beautiful ox might be more attractive to the girls than a handsome boy who was accompanied by an ordinary sort of ox. Perhaps this applied to the boys with the cars too.

Football (American football) was, of course, a major activity, though in 1965 very few Mexicans participated. Some did not have the time and most lacked transport; a few were dissuaded by their mothers who feared injuries; still others may have been put off by the coaches, who hardly went out of their way to welcome them.

Mexican students were easily distinguished from the Anglos not only because most of them had a slightly darker skin colour, but also because of their grooming and dressing habits. The Mexicans, particularly the boys, took better care of their hair and their dress than did their Anglo contemporaries, who tended to adopt a very casual style. (This is similar to the difference between white and black students at the University of Cape Town today, where the former, especially the young men, are generally quite sloppy in appearance, whereas the latter tend to dress neatly. Another similarity is that in the periods between classes little intermingling happens between the two groups, both in Patterson and at UCT.)

In my, admittedly biased, judgement the Mexicans, both boys and girls, were often more attractive than the Anglos, yet in 1969 a very pretty Mexican girl, who stood for Homecoming Queen, was vetoed by the football team. However in 1972 a minor victory occurred when Mexican Alice Rubia was voted as ‘Apricot Queen’ for the year.

At this time the administration at the University of California was trying to recruit more ‘minority’ students – this term referring to African-Americans and, in California, to Hispanics particularly. Many parents, both Anglo and Mexican, had negative stereotypes of UC students, regarding them as hippies with bare torsos and bare feet, who were involved in sex and drugs, and used vulgar language. Anglo parents might have been more worried by the revolutionary threats, whereas Mexican mothers were horrified by the lack of modesty, as frequently shown on the TV news when pictures of protesting students were seen on their screens. Both kinds of reaction were understandable.

I first met Leonard Reza when he was an eighteen-year-old senior at Patterson High School. He was interested in my research, and often accompanied me, helping me by interpreting when I had difficulty in understanding rapid conversations. Leonard, a bright lad, told me that it was difficult for him to study because his friends would come to his home and say, ‘Hey, come out with us for some fun; we’ve got a six pack [of beer].’ Leonard found the peer pressure difficult to resist. He had a good school record which would gain him admittance to UCSB and I persuaded him to come to the university for an interview. He met my Mexican-American colleague, Manuel Carlos, and also a group of Chicanos (as Mexican-Americans were beginning to be called) who were already enrolled at UCSB. We all encouraged Leonard, who seemed keen to come to our university, and he gained provisional admission, but in September 1969, when the school year started, he did not appear. My friends in Patterson told me that he had – presumably again under peer pressure – volunteered to join the army. (With his acceptance by UCSB, Leonard would have been exempt from the draft.) After basic training he was sent to Vietnam, where, a few months later, he was killed in action. When his coffin came home for burial his mother wept bitterly when she was not allowed to see her son. But there was a good reason for this: his injuries had been so extensive that he was not recognisable.

PATTERSON AND THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY

When I began working in anthropology, most studies made were of ‘bounded’ communities, with little reference to the outside world. Even then, however, some anthropologists, including Monica Wilson, insisted that it was essential to take into consideration the effects of Christianity, schools, new crops, labour migration and other new social factors. When I studied social change at Larteh in Ghana in the early 1960s, I was well aware of the importance of links with the wider world and I explicitly addressed this. So I was prepared to look at Patterson in a global context, but I did not initially appreciate just how complicated that would be.

Looking back, more than forty years after I first set foot in Patterson, I realise that I was being unrealistically ambitious in making inquiries in so many avenues. For example, I looked at the different levels of government – the City of Patterson, Stanislaus County, the State of California and the Federal Government – all of which had some impact on what happened to the Mexican farm workers in Patterson. But it was difficult to ascertain precisely what those impacts were.

I drove to the neighbouring towns to see how they compared to Patterson, especially in the relations between Anglos and Mexicans, and in the provisions made for migrant farm workers. Of the six towns that I visited, Patterson was probably the most liberal, in that some changes were taking place there. I frequently visited the county seat, Modesto, and interviewed a range of county officials, most of whom received me cordially.

The time that I spent in Patterson, from the mid-1960s to the mid1970s, coincided with President Lyndon Johnson’s ‘ War on Poverty’, which had far-reaching results in Patterson. In 1964 Johnson said, ‘There are millions of Americans – one fifth of our people – who have not shared in the abundance which has been granted to most of us, and on whom the gates of opportunity have been closed.’ This led to the passing of the Economic Opportunity Act, designed to eliminate poverty. The emphasis was on Community Action Agencies which were to involve ‘maximum feasible participation’ – about which I wrote an article (Brokensha, 1974). The programme had many problems, some of which concerned the relations with ‘City Hall’ – the established local city, county and state government bodies. Another problem was the lack of cohesion in the supposed ‘communities’: for example in Stanislaus County the poor included significant numbers not only of Mexicans but also of ‘Okies’ and African-Americans, all of whom concentrated their efforts on improvements for their own people.

Numerous agencies, both public and private, came into existence expressly to help the poor, and were often directly aimed at farm workers. I needed to become familiar with the structure, aims and effectiveness of these new agencies. Those involved in the various programmes included a small number of radical activists who caused alarm among the dominant conservative community. (For a devastating critique of the war on poverty, I recommend Tom Wolfe’s satirical piece, Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak-Catchers, which brilliantly captures the spirit of those times.) Despite the lack of clear goals, the difficulty of retaining effective and acceptable senior staff, problems in appointing representatives of the poor, the vagueness of the definition of jobs for community organisers, and the sheer magnitude of the problem of poverty, much was achieved. Whether all the millions of dollars were spent effectively is another question altogether.

One major bonus for me was that I was introduced to several bright, dedicated young men and women who had moved into the valley, attached to one of the most effective agencies, the California Rural Legal Assistance programme (CRLA). Financed by federal funds, this programme brought young, often newly-graduated lawyers, into the valley, specifically to see that the growers’ and contractors’ obligations to their farm workers were enforced, and that the workers received the benefits to which they were entitled. These lawyers became involved in conditions in the field, such as the provision of toilets and cold drinking water, pay, health, education, hire purchase agreements (which often involved Mexican purchasers being cheated) and other consumer fraud. The lawyers, and workers in the other new agencies, realised that commitment, ingenuity and creativity were the prime ingredients for an effective outreach programme. As well as being interested in what the CRLA lawyers were achieving, I valued their stimulating, iconoclastic and lively company, frequently joining them for supper (usually pasta and red wine) in the evening. These were heady times, when we thought that the country had a bright future.

The various outreach programmes included ‘Head Start’ for pre-school children; a summer school for Mexican children, with bilingual teachers’ aides. (In an ironic twist, some Anglos complained that they were being discriminated against because, lacking Spanish, they were not eligible for these jobs. This is similar to the position in contemporary South Africa where white job-seekers are often disadvantaged.) There was also a ‘mini-corps’, a sort of domestic Peace Corps, which helped to motivate Mexican-American children, and a mobile dental clinic – which reported that only three per cent of migrant children had ever had any dental treatment. The federal programmes included the important AFDC – Assistance to Families with Dependent Children – whose grants formed a significant addition to the income of many Patterson families.

A co-operative society was set up to help Mexicans buy small farms – from forty to one hundred acres in size – which could be planted with trees to provide an income. The programme director, David Talamante, was determined and charismatic, so much so that some of the Mexicans turned against him claiming – quite unjustifiably I believe – that ‘David was just in this for his own ends’.

METHODS

I realised that I would have to learn some Spanish before I started inquiries among the Mexicans. Luis, a young UCSB Mexican-American student, became my encouraging tutor, so that I had at least a basic command of the language. I also decided that I should focus particularly on two areas, agriculture (especially farm labour) and Anglo-Mexican relations at the high school. In all my enquiries the people, both Anglo and Mexican were open, friendly and hospitable. By contrast, during the limited time I spent at Bonnievale, in South Africa, I encountered several whites who were defensive and unfriendly, and many coloured workers who were scared and evasive.

It is usual to check archival sources before starting fieldwork: in the mid-1960s this was a fairly easy task because literature on Chicanos in California was limited. Forty years on the position has completely changed, so that I doubt if any one individual could possibly read all that is now available. Some anthropologists are highly specialised, focusing on a very specific line of inquiry; by contrast, others – including myself – are dilettantish and spread their net ever wider. I constantly had to restrict my reading to that which was strictly relevant to my study. Even so there seemed no end to what I had to read, and I spent many evenings in the UCSB library looking at references on labour relations, international migration, labour migrants in South Africa, Mexican history, and agriculture in California.

There were very few sociological studies of farm labour in California. The anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt, who later made significant contributions to East African ethnography, wrote As You Sow (1940). Carey McWilliams’ two books – Factories in the Fields: the story of migratory farm labour in California (1939) and Ill fares the Land (1942) – were both important contributions. These writers were shocked by the conditions that they saw on Californian farms, and were critical of the growers, who promptly denounced the writers as communists. The 1930s had been a turbulent time in the fields of California: between 1933 and 1939 there were a hundred and eighty agricultural strikes, each one involving an average of eight hundred farm workers.

I collected a mass of quantitative information, gathering data and statistics on agriculture – production, crops, farm size, labour – as well as on migration, pay, benefits, child labour, education, health, welfare, crime: all was grist to my mill, even if the relevance of the information was not always clear.

I interviewed the town clerk, the police chief, city councillors, teachers and administrators at the high school, church ministers, and county and state officials. For agriculture, I interviewed growers and, where possible their wives, contractors, farm labourers and providers of ancillary services in the town. I had only one difficult interview, with the owner of Patterson Frozen Foods who was very much on the defensive and resentful of my questions. I also saw the agricultural extension officer, the supervisor of the irrigation district, and the town librarian. Throughout my enquiries I gained a mass of useful information from a banker friend who had a keen and probing mind, and, like the best anthropological informants, could stand outside and analyse the community. (He reminded me of Mr Eugene Ohene Walker, my main informant at Larteh.) When working with Mexicans, I interviewed Sam Cuellar, a member of the city council, and José Santana, who stood for the council but who was not elected – I think because he was young, Texan, had long hair, and radical views.

When I was working in the fields I briefly used a tape recorder, for the first and last time in my fieldwork career. I was staying at the home of the family Garza who were immensely hospitable, but it was always noisy, with constant television and radio, and a lot of traffic. So I accepted an offer from a kind Anglo woman to use a room in her home for working on my notes. I dictated my frank impressions, not all of which were favourable to the Anglos and then I was shocked to find that someone had been playing my tapes. I was pretty sure that it was the fifteen-year-old schoolgirl daughter of the household but I said nothing and simply abandoned the practice. It would have been embarrassing for me if the contents of my indiscreet tapes had become public.

Although seldom explicitly recommended in fieldwork manuals, simply ‘hanging out’ is a good way of getting to know any community.

Throughout my stays in Patterson (except for the summer of 1969, when I lived, and ate my meals, with the Garza family) I took all my meals out. I would go for an early breakfast at the popular Mil’s Drive-in café on Route 33, where I would meet the leading townsmen, usually poring over the green (sports) pages of the San Francisco Chronicle. For my evening meal I could go to Wally’s Aloha, the Paradise or the Vegas Cafe, the cuisine and the clientele differing at each place. On Sundays I liked to drive (twenty miles) to Gustine, and sit in the town plaza, listening to the mariachi band, and drinking a Dos Equis beer.

I joined in group outings: Chuck, my bank manager friend, invited me to accompany him and two hundred and fifty others, nearly all men, to my first baseball game at Oakland. And Eulogio Garza persuaded me to come with him and his friends to a bowling alley in Modesto. Both occasions provided good insights as well as congenial company. One Sunday I went with the Garzas to the County Agricultural Fair at Modesto, where we saw a large group of Anglos from Patterson. We were all small – including myself – and the

Anglos, I distinctly remember, all seemed to be big, strong, blonde, loud and confident. They did not notice us, but we (or was this my imagination?) instinctively shrank away.

I was allowed, even encouraged, to attend many meetings of different community organisations, including those of the Board of the high school, and, most important for me, of the Voluntary Fire Service. Patterson, like countless other American small towns, has no formal fire brigade, but it does have a fire engine, with fire protection being provided by volunteers, of whom thirty were regulars and thirty reserves. The monthly meetings were not only convivial but also valuable in indicating social status in the town: membership of the Voluntary Fire Service was highly prized. All the volunteers were men, and all were Anglos.

DWB, Eulogio Garza, at his wedding, and a bridesmaid. Patterson 1972. A mariachi band is playing in the background.

I accepted invitations to give talks to local groups including the Rotary Club, the Lions, and the American Association of University Women. Most of my talks were about Africa, the topic which my listeners preferred, rather than hearing me analyse their own community.

A memorable and important part of my study was participant observation, a commonly used method in anthropological fieldwork. Given the importance of agriculture and of agricultural labour, my obvious course was to participate in seasonal farm labour. My banker friend arranged for me to spend a few days at a farm contractor’s camp – having assured the suspicious contractor that I was not a spy, and that I would cause no trouble. The contractors were responsible for recruitment, transportation, housing, wages, tools, field toilets and other ancillary requirements. They were notorious for their exploitative practices and, as I soon learnt, for the minimal housing that they provided. My camp consisted of three sheds which had been converted into dormitories, with rudimentary showers and toilets without seats. (I had never got accustomed to communal toilets when I was in the army, and I still found them difficult.) The beds were arranged in blocks of four, two up and two down, an arrangement similar to our prisoner of war camp in Dresden but the facilities in California were vastly inferior and the general appearance was depressing and dirty.

My fellow workers were a very mixed lot including blacks, Hispanics, old winos – a cross-section of America’s underclass. I kept my head down and had no trouble from my new mates, some of whom told dreary tales of prison life, their limited travels and their marital upsets. I saw no need to dissemble; conversation was limited, and if I were asked directly what I did, I would mutter that I was a teacher, in a tone that discouraged further questioning. My new pals probably thought that I was down on my luck, and desperate to earn some money. I found the sleeping arrangements a severe trial, being relieved when Pancho, the young cook, took pity on me, after the first night, and offered me a bed in his caravan.

I was part of the contractors’ task force for two weeks, when I would get up at 5.30 a.m., and be sent out, as part of a gang, to do various tasks, including hoeing, weeding, stacking branches, and whatever else needed doing On my first day of weeding a field of tomatoes, my co-workers laughed, then told me that I was pulling up the tomato plants and leaving the weeds in the field. The foreman, who was friendly and helpful, showed me how to weed properly, and helped me finish my row. Lunch, brought out to the fields at noon, consisted of five enchiladas – three chicken and two bean. They were tasty but I could manage only two. After our half-hour lunch break we worked another two hours until 2:30 p.m. when we finished for the day, because by then it was really hot in the fields.

The next day I was given a short-handled (fourteen inch) hoe, which has since been banned in California. Some growers said that ‘it weeds better’, and even claimed that the workers liked it, but that was not my experience: it was back-breaking work and at the end of the morning I was working on my hands and knees. I had originally contemplated spending most of the summer doing participant observation in the fields, but I was too exhausted at the end of the day to make notes, or even to contemplate what I had learnt. The work was hard and it was extremely hot in the fields, with temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

I spent a week picking apricots, an important experience for me because of the significance of apricots in the economy of Patterson, ‘The Apricot Capital of the World’. On my first day I was given a metal bucket, with a strap to put around my neck, and a ten foot ladder. My fellow pickers and I were then addressed by the foreman and also by the Anglo grower, both of whom impressed on us that we must pick only the ripe apricots. (I had met this employer socially but he did not recognise me. I made sure that my sombrero was pulled down over my face and in any case I soon realised that to the employer, I was invisible – ‘my hand was anonymous’.) Arriving in the orchard, I carefully set up my ladder, making sure that I did not trap my fingers, clambered up, only to find that the nearest apricots were just outside my reach. On the second attempt I was close enough to start picking the fruit. I started by selectively choosing the ripe apricots, picking them one by one, and carefully putting them in the bucket around my neck. I was reminded of a scene from Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride, where happy peasants, perched on ladders, carefully pick fruit, one at a time, in just the same way as I was doing. I had to move my ladder several times to gain access to enough fruit to fill my bucket.

When I descended I was taken in hand by a middle-aged Mexican, who had already filled three buckets. ‘Listen, amigo,’ he said, ‘you have to learn. You put your bucket near the fruit and you use both hands (demonstrating with a sweeping gesture) and you simply pull all the fruit within reach into your bucket’. I said, ‘But the patron told us that we must only pick the ripe fruit’. ‘Fuck the patron,’ said my new friend, ‘we must earn some money: you put the unripe fruit at the bottom of the bucket and no-one will notice.’ Two or three pickings take place on apricot orchards, and the unripe fruit should have been left for the next picking. It may have been my strict Methodist grandfather, but I could never bring myself to pick really unripe apricots.

Maureen Kearns, a UCSB anthropology graduate student, accompanied me that particular summer, also staying with the Garzas. She spoke Spanish fluently, was young, had an easy social manner, and – an important factor – was female, and so she gained much valuable information that would have been difficult, even impossible, for me to learn. She was great company and we worked together, picking apricots, earning $18 between us on our first day. Although we filled forty-two boxes of apricots, we did not earn more than the basic $1.35 per hour wage. Our gang included some workers who liked ladder work, and who followed the fruit, working their way north through California, Oregon and finally, Washington State. The highest paid worker, one of these ‘fruit tramps’, received $44 for his day’s work, averaging $2.75 per hour. Despite those exhausting hot hours in the orchards, apricots remain my favourite fruit: there is nothing better than a fresh, perfectly ripe apricot.

I worked for different employers and contractors, most of whom treated us fairly, but one Mexican contractor (whom I learnt later was a notorious exploiter) tried to cheat several of us on our pay. I kept a note of my hours and boxes of fruit filled, but many workers were illiterate and they would have been easy to deceive. At the other end of the scale, one employer actually worked with us, trimming his trees, paying us $2.10 per hour (50 per cent more than the minimum wage) and even offering us iced beer at the end of our work.

Sometimes we heard anxious cries of ‘Migra! Migra!’ (immigration officials) and the illegal Mexican migrants would scatter, desperately trying to hide. In the summer of 1968 no fewer than 38 000 illegal migrants were arrested in California, sometimes with low-flying aircraft directing the ground crew.

My experience in the fields confirmed my impressions of conditions of work: by law contractors were obliged to provide cold drinking water, with individual throwaway paper cups, as well as field toilets, which were particularly necessary for the women workers. A few of the more liberal growers did ensure that their contractors followed the law, but many were happy to leave all such arrangements to the contractors, who often cut corners. Aerial spraying of pesticides, insecticides and fungicides, particularly on orchard crops, was then common, and I had heard growers assert that the spraying had no harmful effects. One day, when I was picking apricots the trees were sprayed, and I became ill, with nausea and a severe headache. My one day of picking peaches resulted in skin irritation caused by the fuzz. The irritation was severe enough for me to see a doctor, who confirmed that he often had to deal with the harmful results of aerial spraying.

Perhaps this is a romantic notion, but I do believe that my hours in the fields, working with the migrant labourers, provided better insights than interviews and reports could have given me: my toil and sweat were rewarded. Some years later I corresponded with John Coleman, president of the prestigious Quaker establishment, Haverford College in Pennsylvania, who had taken time off to work as a manual worker, graphically describing his experiences in his book Blue-Collar Journal. Coleman told me that his visits to ‘the other world’ had been invaluable. I have at times wondered whether universities should follow the Cuban model, and send professors for a spell in the cane fields, or their equivalent.

I wanted to speak to the trade union officials at UFWOC, so I sought the help of Martina Zuñiga a lively, outspoken and radical young woman. The Garzas tried to discourage me, both because they distrusted the union and also because Martina defied all the attributes of a modest, quiet, polite young Mexicana. ‘Watch out,’ said Paula Garza, the elder daughter, ‘Martina will ruin your reputation.’ However, I persuaded them that it was necessary for my study, so Martina, Maureen and I drove to Livingston, forty miles to the south, where we met two union organisers, Aggie Rose, of Portuguese background, and Juan Perez. They cross-examined us critically about our inquiries, eventually saying, ‘We have no time to talk more now, but if you like you can meet us tomorrow, when we picket Gallo, we will have plenty of time to talk then.’ Gallo was one of the biggest wine producers in the world, with huge vineyards and wineries; we had often served Gallo Hearty Red Burgundy at our UCSB student parties. I soon learnt that Gallo also had one of the worst records for housing and treatment of their workers, which was why they were being picketed by the union.

This was a classic moment of truth for me as an anthropologist: we are told that we should be objective observers, not taking sides, yet here I was being invited to publicly ally myself with what was seen by the growers as a revolutionary cause, led by Cesar Chavez, a ‘dangerous communist’. I did not hesitate to picket Gallo, partly because I had already got what information I needed from the growers, so that if I alienated them by supporting the union, I would not lose much. I also realised that my solidarity in joining the picket line was an ideal opportunity for finding out more about the union. But my main reason was because I sympathised with the aims of UFWOC, who were trying to improve conditions of work and get a decent basic wage for the farm workers.

On the Sunday evening before the picketing, I accompanied the Garza family to mass, where Father Mac, the parish priest, announced that Cesar Chavez would be visiting Livingston that week and that he, Father Mac, would be saying masses in Livingston. At the end the service some growers in the congregation avoided Father Mac, who told me later that evening (when I joined him for a whisky nightcap) that he had been warned by the chairman of the Parish Council, an influential Italian-American grower, that if he wanted the proposed parish hall to be completed, he should ‘cut down on [his] radical politicking’. Father Mac was a good and caring parish priest, but he had to be careful about his personal liberal views when with his wealthy, conservative parishioners. (However, the Catholic Bishop of the Diocese of Stockton, of which Patterson was a part, was outspoken in defence of the rights of Mexican farm workers.)

The next day Maureen and I were up at 5.30 a.m., and found a note from Paula stuck to the refrigerator door – our usual location for communication, when everyone in the household kept different hours. It said: DAVE, in case you get arrested tomorrow who do we notify? I was immensely touched, and I wrote down for her the telephone number of Mike Reiss, one of my lawyer pals at CRLA. Paula’s concern was not misplaced: there was an ugly mood in the valley that summer, with tensions running high between the UFWOC and the growers.

Thus heartened, we set out to join the picket line at one of Gallo’s vineyards, where we were given red flags with the black UFWOC emblem and joined a group of about twenty pickets, mostly Mexicans, but including two other Anglos (they were students). It was a lucky day for us because Cesar Chavez joined us and stayed with us for several hours. He was unassuming but confident, reminding me of Julius Nyerere in 1956. He had the same easy manner with everyone, greeting us all individually, giving autographs to the children, posing for the press: ‘Hey Cesar, shake hands again … that’s a good shot.’ He was interested in what I was doing, wishing me well and I was proud to be addressed by him as hermano (brother).

We were joined briefly by a bizarre surrealist group, Teatro Campesino, touring players who were Mexican, black (including one African from Mali), Anglo, and even one Japanese. After their agit-pop anti-grower performance, we dispersed to do our picketing, with Cesar Chavez walking round to encourage each of the six groups. At noon we had an half-hour break for lunch, a simple meal which had been donated by a few (surprisingly sympathetic) local businesses. We waved our banderas (our flags) and called to the workers and tractor drivers, urging them, with little success, to join us. Gallo security guards and Californian policemen came round from time to time, looking, I thought, like fraternity boys – smug, bland, a little overweight. Although there was tension, there was no

Huelga! Strike! Livingston, California, 1969

aggression, no violence. At 3 p.m. Father Martin, a parish priest from Stockton, said mass in the shade of the trees, using a half bottle of Gallo cocktail sherry for communion wine. Afterwards we continued picketing, and Cesar Chavez joined us again. He was interviewed by a reporter from Channel Five, the local TV station, when I was standing next to him, so I appeared on the evening TV News – causing both congratulation and criticism when I returned to Patterson.

Some of Gallo’s housing was even worse than the old location in Bulawayo, which was by far the worst housing in that town. The toilets at Gallo were broken down and everything was in a disgraceful condition. This camp was later pulled down after the union obtained a court order. For some years after my brief picketing, a state-wide boycott (in which Bernard and I joined) against Gallo products continued, with some success, particularly in the more liberal locations like the Bay Area (San Francisco, and Berkeley) and the universities.

I encountered more ethical problems during my fieldwork in the valley than I had done in Ghana or than I did later when Bernard and I were doing research in Kenya. When I started in Patterson I was a permanent resident of the United States, later becoming a US citizen. This meant that I had to accept more responsibility and it was difficult not to become involved. (See Becker et al, 2005 for an examination of the ethical complexities of doing anthropological fieldwork ‘at home’ in South Africa.) I was frequently asked whether my study would help anybody; some people also expected that I would be committed to la causa¹ The ‘cause’ of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers of America and la raza².Although la raza means ‘the human race’, in California the term became synonymous with ‘the Mexican-American community’, particularly in its more radical aspects. I was asked to advise on legal rights, to help people seek redress on various irregular procedures, and to assist them gain admission to college. Once, driving to Modesto, I picked up a young hitch-hiker, Jesus, who told me that although he was an epileptic, he had a doctor’s certificate stating that he was entitled to have a driving licence. Jesus had had problems with the licensing officer in Modesto and he asked me if I would come with him to help him plead his case. I showed my visiting card, which contained the magic word Professor, and Jesus got his licence.

I continued to see many parallels with South Africa as well as many contrasts. For example a boy from Grayson, the poorest Mexican settlement, was given a scholarship to Harvard University. It was true that he stayed only a year, finding the institution too alien and the pressures too great. He then enrolled in a local community college, where he felt more comfortable. But at that time, in the 1960s, it would have been difficult for a young coloured boy from Bonnievale to gain entrance to a top university. South African farmers had told me that they did not need to provide toilets in their fields – ‘these people just go into the bush, you know’. Also, at that time the iniquitous ‘tot system’ was in force in South Africa, and farm labourers were given wine as a daily allowance; this degrading custom of course only encouraged the prevalent alcoholism among the coloured farm workers. Some farmers and and even some officials in both California or South Africa were deliberately cruel, but most of them had little idea of the cultural background of their workers, nor of the difficulties that they faced on a daily basis, and remained at best patronising and unimaginative.²
.

CONCLUSIONS

Many anthropologists have described how their experiences in the field have affected them. We undertake fieldwork with the main intentions of understanding another society, another culture, and of writing up our findings to share with others. On the journey, however, many unexpected happenings can occur. In some senses my Californian fieldwork was a failure in that it did not result in a major publication, yet I derived many benefits. First I gained insights into two important areas of American life, about which I had had only hazy ideas. These were both ‘other Americas’, first the Republican heartland, and second the Mexican-American community.

When I first saw Patterson in 1964 I had lived in the United States for only one year so I was by no means familiar with the country. I had spent my first year at the University of California at Berkeley, a liberal enclave and a leading university, hardly typical of the US. I do not think that I had met a single Mexican-American during that year and I knew very little about ‘red’ America. When I had given talks to various groups, and at schools and colleges, I had briefly met people who expressed conservative views and fears, but I had no real understanding of where they came from, nor who they were.

Another major benefit for me was the range of people whom I met, many becoming good friends. First in importance was the Garza family, not only for their kindness and hospitality when I stayed with them, nor for Sra Garza’s chiles rellenos (stuffed peppers), and her corn tortillas (freshly made, daily), but also for the insights that I gained, on a daily basis, of what it is like to be a hard-working, ambitious Mexican-American family in a town such as Patterson. Sr Garza worked at a pipe-laying company – a nearly year-round job – as did his older son Andres. Paula, the elder daughter, had a position in an office and the younger daughter, Gerry, was a teacher’s aide, working with small children. The younger son, Eulogio, also had an off-farm job. Yet, although no-one in the family worked as a farm labourer, they were surrounded by people who did, and through them I met many residents of the camp.

With five incomes in the family, the Garzas had been able to buy a pleasant house. Contrary to the degrading stereotypes held by so many of the Anglos, it was a well-ordered household, whose members led disciplined lives. Sra Garza saw that everyone – including me – had their meals ready on time, even if it meant, as it often did, that she was up at 4 a.m., and she often worked late in the kitchen as well. The family members who worked were valued employees because of their efficiency and reliability. Neither of the parents spoke English but the four children were fluent, with conversation (and television and radio programmes) shifting easily between English, Spanish, and ‘Spanglish’.

The Garzas refused to accept any payment for my rent, making it clear that they had accepted me as a friend of Hope Lewis (the banker’s wife who had persuaded me to start my study), and as a temporary member of the family and that payment was out of the question. I tried to be reciprocal but it was difficult to find something acceptable: the parents were not inclined to eat out at restaurants. We had a few successful outings: once I took them to San Francisco to see a popular musical which they did enjoy. I had hoped to take them afterwards to Fisherman’s Wharf for a nice meal, but we ended up quite happily eating hamburgers and drinking Coca-Cola in a cafeteria. One Sunday I drove them to Carmel, an exclusive coastal town, where Sra Garza commented, without a trace of envy, on the mansions of los ricos.

On another occasion I persuaded Paula to visit Bernard and me in Santa Barbara (they had met Bernard several times when he visited me at Patterson). This required elaborate precautions because it was out of the question for Paula to stay with us, or for her to travel alone. Fortunately she had a good friend, Maria, who was happy to drive her to Santa Barbara, where we booked them into a motel near our home. We lived on the Riviera in Santa Barbara where the houses had large gardens and there was little noise. When we were in the living room, admiring the view over the Pacific Ocean, Paula asked us, ‘How can you stand living here, it is so quiet?’ (Many years later, after we had moved to Cape Town, we were told that many students found it difficult to use the UCT library because it was so quiet. When you have been used all your life to noise and bustle, its absence could well make you feel uneasy.)

Paula, like Mr Walker in Ghana, was someone partly outside her own society: she was proud of her Mexican heritage and culture, but she was also critical of her people who, she thought, could do more for themselves. She was my best informant: when I was away from Patterson, Paula wrote frequent, detailed accounts of what was happening in the lives of people whom I knew, and generally in Patterson. She was a keen and analytical observer, and was genuinely interested in my study. Not completing my research, or rather not publishing it, left me with a guilty feeling that I had let down Paula and others who had helped me. My Oxford mentor E-P had told me that anthropological field workers had an obligation to ‘their people’: ‘You have taken up the time of these people, David, and they have been kind to you, you now owe it to them to publish their story.’

The non-completion of my study was due partly to my losing my way in the complexity of the investigation. Another important factor was that my time as chairman of the Department of Anthropology at UCSB (1969–70) was harrowing – I wanted to go away and to lick my wounds. I found the solution by going to Kenya, where Bernard and I were able to do joint research, rewarding for us both.

CHANGES

In 1973 I spent a few days in Patterson, trying to investigate and estimate what changes had been made over the previous decade, and finding many improvements.

Housing was certainly better: most of the dilapidated houses had been demolished, and many Mexicans had been able to build decent self-help housing. All the accommodation in the camp had indoor facilities, and there was a mail delivery, although few

Paul, Sr Garza (back to camera), DWB, Paula Garza and Jil. Patterson, 1973

households took advantage of it. There was a noticeable increase in the proportion of Mexicans employed – in the police force, in all official agencies, and in private businesses. Health facilities, especially for migrants, had improved, and a flourishing ‘well baby’ clinic was held regularly. In the schools more attention was being paid to Mexican students, who were achieving better results, and more were attending the junior colleges.

Among the Mexican workers there seemed to be clearer goals and a better idea of the need for a united front. One of the most dramatic changes was the decline in seasonal workers, their numbers having decreased by more than half. Among the Anglos there had been a gradual, albeit sometimes reluctant, acceptance that the town had a substantial number of Mexican permanent year-round residents, who had certain rights and were not simply summer transients – although there were still several thousand migrant workers whose conditions of housing and work left much to be desired. More Mexicans had joined the middle-class, a number having crossed the tracks and bought nice homes in the Anglo part of the town.

The other Mexicans regarded those who had crossed the tracks with a mixture of pride in what they had achieved and, sometimes, a resentment because of their good fortune. This is a universal phenomenon which the anthropologist George Foster called ‘the image of limited good’. Mexican peasants, Foster claimed, were inclined to blame their failures on the success of others, believing that those who succeeded had done so at the expense of those left behind – that ‘good’ in whatever form – wealth, health, jobs, opportunities – was limited. The achievers were in a difficult situation, which has been described all over the world: they were living in two cultures and had to be very careful not to appear to forget or neglect their native language and world. Charles Erasmus, my UCSB colleague, and others have refined Foster’s theory, which still holds good for many communities all over the world.

I am left with many unresolved questions. I have no doubt that the Mexicans, particularly the migrant farm workers, were poor, they lacked opportunities and they were exploited and discriminated against. One Mexican said, ‘If there is a wall, it takes two to build it,’ meaning that the Mexicans themselves contributed to their misfortunes by not being more positive and not taking advantage of what opportunities existed.

I have made several comparisons between farm workers in Patterson and in South Africa, and I have also compared the attitudes of the two dominant groups towards the subordinate ones. I need to make it clear that I am not in any way defending apartheid, merely trying to point out that certain features of this policy are found in California, and, indeed, in many other countries in the world. It would, I think, be easier to compile a list of those countries where discrimination is absent, than where it is present, albeit in not such a virulent form as in apartheid South Africa.

LEFTOVERS

All but the most systematic and best-organised anthropologists collect what I call ‘leftovers’ – bits and pieces of information, impressions, all sorts of field notes of interviews with all sorts of people. Many of those interviewed relate information, or supposed information, often on quite irrelevant topics. I append some of these here, to indicate both my moods and my too-wide interests …

• Rural poverty. Why is it that this dominates what I see in the valley, and the growers and the officials fail to see it at all?
• An Anglo grower. ‘We work so hard for so little, we pay high taxes and the Mexicans do not pay taxes, nor do they work hard and many are on welfare.’
• It seems that domestic assaults are common; the police chief told me that few charges are made, and that witnesses are hard to find.
• The vice-principal of the high school, leaving after two and a half years in Patterson, told me that he and his wife had been lonely here: ‘We were only invited once to a local home’ (that is to a non-teacher’s home). He ascribed this to the low standard of education and to cultural insecurity.

• The nurse at Westley: ‘The Spanish Apostolic church members do not wash their hair, so the children have a major problem with head lice.’

• Same nurse: ‘Mexican boys are uncircumcised and their mothers do not teach them basic hygiene, do not show them how to keep their penises clean, so they often get infection.’

• On 4 April 1968, I stopped at a bar for a cool drink, and heard the news on TV of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Two white men, drinking beer at the bar, cheered.

• Air-conditioning in a tractor cab is NOT a luxury.

• A television programme has been proclaiming ‘Summertime is fun time’ – but not for Mexican kids.

• The Superintendent of Irrigation employs twelve men, (no Mexicans) on a year-round basis, at $450/month. This is a sought-after job.

• A sheriff in a neighbouring town, when I asked if any African-Americans lived there, said, frankly, ‘NO, if we see any blacks in town, we advise them to get out before sunset.’

• When running round the high school track for exercise, I heard two teenagers say, ‘Gee, look at that old timer running.’ It took me a while to realise that they were referring to me – I was forty-five years old at the time.

Paul,"Look at that old-timer".... DWB at Santa Barbara 1970

THREE CASE STUDIES Manantali Dam and the Senegal River basin

(background, left to right), 2 Senegalese elders, Ted Scudder, Michael Horowitz , a Tijani Marabu (religious leader), Muneera Salem-Murdock. taken between Podor and Madam, Senegal, 1986.

Michael Horowitz, Ted Scudder and Muneera Salem-Murdock, together with a number of American and African colleagues, made significant contributions to the study of the Senegal River basin in the 1980s and early 1990s. IDA was originally asked – at a very late stage – to comment on resettlement resulting from the construction of the Manantali Dam on the River Senegal. We were nevertheless able to extend enquiries, with two significant results. First, IDA encouraged the establishment of an International Senegal River Authority, which included the neighbouring states of Mauritania and Mali; this undoubtedly decreased the chances of later friction over water rights. In addition, planning, implementation and management involved some (though never enough) participation of the local people. Second, the emphasis had been mainly on hydroelectricity and irrigation, for rice production. IDA, after undertaking extensive research from 1988 to 1992, persuaded the governments and the donors to think more of a multi-purpose dam, paying attention to the nearly one million people who lived downstream. For nearly a thousand years, the farmers, fishermen and herdsmen had made intensive and ingenious use of the periodic floods, achieving a good living for themselves. This would all have been threatened had the flow been stopped, as had been planned. Instead, controlled flows continued, enabling the downstream folk to survive.

Onchocerciasis (river blindness) in West Africa

In one of our biggest projects (in financial terms), USAID contracted IDA in 1988 to make enquiries and recommendations regarding the resettlement of people in eleven West African states, following the eradication of the black fly which causes onchocerciasis. (In the early 1960s, I had seen, in Northern Ghana, lines of blind men,

Cameron Miller, 1st Engineer, DWB, crew member and Ted Scudder on Lake Volta steamer. March 1988

linked by sticks they held, being guided by a small boy; this remains in my memory as one of the most poignant sights I have ever seen.) Under the direction of Ted Scudder and Della McMillan, extensive studies were made, in all cases involving local social and natural scientists. One of the main achievements was to persuade donors and governments to think of diversification in planning, that is, to integrate the range of local economic activities – off-farm work, markets, livestock – rather than promoting a single crop, without reference to local needs. IDA was also able to show that governments had to take a longer-term view, because initial difficulties always resulted in production being disappointing in the first few years.

Social forestry

While Michael Horowitz concentrated on pastoralists in West Africa, and Ted Scudder on resettlement, my own emphasis was on fuelwood, which I arrived at by serendipity. During our Mbeere studies in Kenya in the 1970s, the women complained that ‘the woodlands were further away’ and they were having increasing difficulty in collecting fuelwood. At the same time we also noticed

DWB, Bernard, foresters and villagers. Karnataka, India, 1987

a dramatic increase in charcoal production: we would see stacks of charcoal along the roadsides, waiting for collection. When we wrote a paper on fuelwood problems for USAID in 1978, we became instant pioneers, identifying the scope and management and use of wood and other forest products.

In 1984, Garry Thomas and I directed, for the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, a three week workshop in Malawi for twenty-five mid-level forestry officials, from eleven East and Central African countries. (We were assisted by Bernard, Peter Little and two FAO officials.) We aimed to show that foresters needed to see forests as part of a complex social and ecological whole, and not consider only the trees. We stressed the wealth of indigenous knowledge of vegetation, the desirability of allowing local people into forests to collect minor forest products, the advantages of indigenous species, the problems of communal wood-lots, the need for diversification, and the problems of charcoal production. Through discussions, role playing and field trips, we succeeded in expanding the horizons of these forest officers.

USAID

The USAID Mission Directors were powerful figures. In a poor country, such as Niger or Mali, he (or occasionally ‘she’) wielded more influence than did the ambassador, simply because he was in control of large amounts of money. A Mission director was judged in Washington DC – so it was alleged – more by how much money was moved than by what was actually achieved. This certainly seemed to be the case in some instances where the Mission director was at best indifferent, at worst hostile, to any intervention by IDA or other tiresome social analysts, who were likely to slow up the process of distributing funds. Mission directors seldom had prior experience of Third World countries; certainly not much contact with the poor of such countries.

World Bank

Michael Cernea, a Romanian, was the first sociologist to be appointed to the World Bank, in 1974. Until his retirement, Michael worked effectively to persuade his colleagues of the value of social science to the Bank. Although his achievements were remarkable, there is still much to be done in making the World Bank more focused on the needs of poor people. Cernea firmly believed the words of the title of his edited book, Putting People First. After taking part in a World Bank task force seeking to integrate the social and economic dimensions of development, Michael Horowitz (1996: 4) pointed out that ‘merely the presence of anthropologists and other social scientists is hardly a sufficient condition to assure poverty reduction, equity, sustainability and social justice.’

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) consists of fifteen well-funded and well-staffed centres located throughout the world, including centres for wheat in India, maize in Mexico, rice in the Philippines, potatoes in Peru, and insect research in Kenya. These centres are exactly the sort of institution that could benefit from the input of anthropologists, but regrettably very few social scientists have been involved. Rather the research has been dominated by agronomists. Because the research was aimed at poor farmers in the Third World, scientific knowledge was not enough – the centres would have been much more effective had the scientists worked hand in hand with anthropologists who were familiar with the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of local farmers. There were a few successes: one of our graduate students, Tom Conelly, was attached to ICIPE ( International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology), located in Western Kenya. When Bernard and I visited him in 1984, Tom told us how his suggestions had initially been met with scepticism, the regular scientists being very dubious as to what he could contribute. Eventually he encouraged them to develop integrated pest-management techniques, using pest-resistant varieties (many identified by local farmers), with encouraging results: crop yields improved, and farmers were more cooperative.

SOME PROBLEMS Community

There is a widespread naive assumption that Third World peoples live in clearly defined communities, with acknowledged leaders, and a community of interests among all members: such assumptions are flawed. What frequently happens with development projects is that self-appointed and self-serving men (seldom women) emerge and capture the project, making sure that most benefits go to themselves, their families and their entourage, and the truly poor end up worse off than ever. In this connection, development practitioners write ironically of ‘ the Matthew principle’: Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath (Matt. 25: 29). Marginal people – poor women, refugees, nomadic pastoralists and others – are often both misunderstood and neglected in development efforts. In many cases the donors, including both the big bilateral and unilateral agencies and also some of the leading western NGOs, ignore this distortion of development, being content as long as money is being spent. Some commentators, like the late Ryszard Kapu´sci´nski, saw this problem as an inevitable creaming off, which the donors feel they have to live with in order to get the remainder filtering through to the poor.

Corruption

It is a commonplace that corruption is endemic in development; but the World Bank has only belatedly addressed this problem, under the presidency (1995–2005) of James D Wolfensohn. The Bank, according to Wolfensohn, is ‘determined to root out fraud and corruption’ and has pursued allegations, as well as promoting good governance and transparency, but there is still a long way to go. Recently, ‘the World Bank called corruption “the single greatest obstacle to economic and social development” and particularly harmful to the poor, and has even developed a special anti-corruption unit’ ( Bahre, 2005: 107). When anthropologists have been whistle-blowers, their actions have seldom been acclaimed or rewarded: on the contrary they are seen as an embarrassment and an obstacle to the completion of proposed developments. There is, unfortunately, a frequent lack of transparency and accountability in development circles.

As Robert Chambers (1997; 2005) has trenchantly pointed out, the current power and incentive structures of development professionalism, particularly in the major agencies, but also in some NGOs, constitute the major obstacles to pro-poor, participatory development.

There is a range of other problems – ethical, bureaucratic, political, economic – which I do not attempt to describe here.