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American dreams
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| H&N photo by Andrew Mariman Ashley Zendejas, 4, and brothers Manny, 6, and Leonardo, 9, watch television, play video games and attend public school in Tulelake, returning to the family’s home in the Newell migrant worker camp each day. |
Migrant camp in Newell is a vital part
of community and its labor force
By CATALINA VAZQUEZ
H&N Staff Writer
NEWELL — When Rosario Flores left Mexico to seek better opportunities in the United States she had two goals: find a living-wage job and a decent place for her family to live.
Her journey ended in Newell, a small community just south of the Oregon-California border, where she found affordable housing in a migrant camp.
The camp doesn’t just help people like Flores. It also is a vital part of the Newell community and its labor force.
“Everyday they come in here and shop,” said Joe Paquette, who works at Homestead Market, the only grocery store in Newell.
“We get along. They’re good people,” Paquette said.
Paquette said migrant workers are an important part of the community because they provide an asset other community members won’t.
“As a white guy, I’ll tell you, white people won’t work in those fields,” he said. “Four guys who just graduated were looking for work, and I told them a farm was hiring. They all said no.”
Since the 1970s, the camp has provided housing from May through October annually for seasonal migrant workers. Like many other camps scattered around California, it was created and funded by the state to support agriculture businesses and their workers.
“This place is famous back home,” said Flores, who lives in a camp apartment with her three children. “And we’re all friends here.”
Most of the Newell camp residents come from Mexico, and all of them work in agriculture. To live in the camp, at least half of a resident’s income must come from farm work.
The 46 units resemble bungalows. They’re small and sit side by side within a barbed wire fence. Children play outside and makeshift clotheslines dry everything from socks to pillowcases.
Small trailer and cottage homes surround the camp.
Residents begin their days early in the fields and return to the camp in the afternoon. Apartment doors remain open while they mill about and visit one another. Children ride their bikes down narrow concrete pathways, while little ones sit in their mothers’ arms. On weekends, camp residents carpool to Klamath Falls to shop for groceries and fill up their gas tanks.
Rosario Flores migrated to the U.S. four years ago, landing at the Newell Migrant Camp.
She works in the fields eight months of the year, and this month worked as a strawberry field worker in Tulelake.
“They let us borrow some things,” she said about her present employer’s approach to equipment workers need. “But we have to buy most of it.”
She clasped her hands together. They had burns from chemicals she handles while working.
Like many seasonal migrant workers, Flores will have to find another home soon because the migrant camp will close for the year in October. She’ll continue to calm her children when they ask about their father — he was deported a year ago — and she must accept that she can’t see her friends and family members back home.
But Flores said she’s happy for the opportunities.
Affordable housing is a big deal for a now-single mother in a new country. Living in a community of similar people and paying $5.50 per day for rent helps.
“It’s peaceful here,” she said. “And the work is better than what’s back home. We have factories there, and people are fighting to work in them because that’s all there is.”
Settling down
Newell Migrant Camp residents move there to work living-wage jobs, and to do so they follow doors that open along the way. Lately, that’s meant sticking around.
“My youngest daughter was born and raised here,” Flores said. “For her, this is home.”
Flores is among migrant workers and their families who don’t leave town when the camp closes for the winter. Instead she and her children find housing nearby. She tries to secure work as a potato packer during the winter months.
“We’re seeing a decline in students who are actually migrating,” said Debi Worch, secondary adviser for the Tulelake Basin Joint Unified District. “Which is good for the students’ education.”
The Tulelake School District is accustomed to migrant students. Staff members have taught them since before the camp opened, and they’ve adapted to their needs.
“We have some migrant students who started here in kindergarten … now they’re star athletes in our high school,” Worch said.
During the academic year, migrant students are mixed in classes with the rest of the student body. But they are offered after-school immersion programs as well as summer camp programs.
Worch said Latino students are now becoming the majority in Tulelake’s district, and for migrant students, that means fitting in and focusing on school. That focus helps when their parents are struggling to find housing and work between seasons.
“School is a safe place with warm meals,” she said.
Her journey ended in Newell, a small community just south of the Oregon-California border, where she found affordable housing in a migrant camp.
The camp doesn’t just help people like Flores. It also is a vital part of the Newell community and its labor force.
“Everyday they come in here and shop,” said Joe Paquette, who works at Homestead Market, the only grocery store in Newell.
“We get along. They’re good people,” Paquette said.
Paquette said migrant workers are an important part of the community because they provide an asset other community members won’t.
“As a white guy, I’ll tell you, white people won’t work in those fields,” he said. “Four guys who just graduated were looking for work, and I told them a farm was hiring. They all said no.”
Since the 1970s, the camp has provided housing from May through October annually for seasonal migrant workers. Like many other camps scattered around California, it was created and funded by the state to support agriculture businesses and their workers.
“This place is famous back home,” said Flores, who lives in a camp apartment with her three children. “And we’re all friends here.”
Most of the Newell camp residents come from Mexico, and all of them work in agriculture. To live in the camp, at least half of a resident’s income must come from farm work.
The 46 units resemble bungalows. They’re small and sit side by side within a barbed wire fence. Children play outside and makeshift clotheslines dry everything from socks to pillowcases.
Small trailer and cottage homes surround the camp.
Residents begin their days early in the fields and return to the camp in the afternoon. Apartment doors remain open while they mill about and visit one another. Children ride their bikes down narrow concrete pathways, while little ones sit in their mothers’ arms. On weekends, camp residents carpool to Klamath Falls to shop for groceries and fill up their gas tanks.
Rosario Flores migrated to the U.S. four years ago, landing at the Newell Migrant Camp.
She works in the fields eight months of the year, and this month worked as a strawberry field worker in Tulelake.
“They let us borrow some things,” she said about her present employer’s approach to equipment workers need. “But we have to buy most of it.”
She clasped her hands together. They had burns from chemicals she handles while working.
Like many seasonal migrant workers, Flores will have to find another home soon because the migrant camp will close for the year in October. She’ll continue to calm her children when they ask about their father — he was deported a year ago — and she must accept that she can’t see her friends and family members back home.
But Flores said she’s happy for the opportunities.
Affordable housing is a big deal for a now-single mother in a new country. Living in a community of similar people and paying $5.50 per day for rent helps.
“It’s peaceful here,” she said. “And the work is better than what’s back home. We have factories there, and people are fighting to work in them because that’s all there is.”
Settling down
Newell Migrant Camp residents move there to work living-wage jobs, and to do so they follow doors that open along the way. Lately, that’s meant sticking around.
“My youngest daughter was born and raised here,” Flores said. “For her, this is home.”
Flores is among migrant workers and their families who don’t leave town when the camp closes for the winter. Instead she and her children find housing nearby. She tries to secure work as a potato packer during the winter months.
“We’re seeing a decline in students who are actually migrating,” said Debi Worch, secondary adviser for the Tulelake Basin Joint Unified District. “Which is good for the students’ education.”
The Tulelake School District is accustomed to migrant students. Staff members have taught them since before the camp opened, and they’ve adapted to their needs.
“We have some migrant students who started here in kindergarten … now they’re star athletes in our high school,” Worch said.
During the academic year, migrant students are mixed in classes with the rest of the student body. But they are offered after-school immersion programs as well as summer camp programs.
Worch said Latino students are now becoming the majority in Tulelake’s district, and for migrant students, that means fitting in and focusing on school. That focus helps when their parents are struggling to find housing and work between seasons.
“School is a safe place with warm meals,” she said.
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