Imperial Valley

This research paper will be an analysis of the differences of language, cultural and historical barriers between the third and fourth generation descendants of the Californios and the Mexican Revolution immigrant refugees in the 1900’s to the end of the 1920’s in greater Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Area.

In 1850’s, thousands of Californios, Mexican citizens living in the Alta California Territory, had a country’s boundary cross them, and they became American citizens when the United States annexed this part of the former Mexican Empire. This paper will ask “How did crossing this new cultural and physical boundary of the Northwest Territory affect their Mexican descendants fifty years later?” During the time of the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1924, there were no restrictions on Mexican immigration at this time and many Mexican nationals were fleeing México and crossing a physical boundary, the United States - Mexican Border. How did this open border policy affect Mexicans in California at this time? Are these two groups similar? Or do they clash having been raised in different countries the last 50 years? What changes occurred in California make the groups similar or different? How do the descendants of the Californios view themselves ethnically at this time, Mexican, Spanish? Are both groups bilingual or exclusively monolingual English or monolingual Spanish? Is one group fully assimilated and the other is not or are they bridged by a common culture and history?

Of the many overland trails used during the vast Gold Rush immigration of 1848–50, the Southern Emigrant Trail is the least recognized for its importance.  Thousands followed its various branches westward across the deserts of Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona, to Yuma Crossing at the junction of the Gila and Colorado Rivers.  The route became the major overland entrance to Southern California prior to construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad.  Accounts of travel over the portion west of the Colorado River have been considered some of the most distressing records of overland Gold Rush emigration. The Southern Emigrant Trail's origins preceded the Gold Rush by many decades.  Late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Spanish and Mexican military explorations first established the route by following Native American trails.  It became well used by traders and trappers who journeyed between California and Sonora in the 1830s.  The 1840s and 50s saw invading American armies follow the route to California during the Mexican War, followed by thousands of Gold Rush Argonauts.  Then, in 1857, overland mail service was established along the road.  This two part series for Desert Tracks will document the development and use of the trail from Yuma Crossing to Warner’s Ranch in the San José Valley from its inceptions during the late 18th century through the emigrations of the Gold Rush in the mid-1850s. Part I will cover the period up though the American invasion of Mexico in 1846-47.  Part II will explore the travels of various groups that used the trail from the beginning of the Gold Rush in 1848 until the mid 1850s.  The use of the road by overland mail stage coach lines was presented in Desert Tracks in June 2011.

The citations listed here have been extracted from Volume 1 of THE GRAND CANON, a far more expansive bibliography of the Grand Canyon and lower Colorado River regions of southwestern North America. (THE GRAND CANON is a series of publications accessible online at https://ravensperch.org.) This bibliography complements other biologically focused bibliographies that have been prepared for these regions (also accessible on the Raven’s Perch Media website). Environmental issues include atmospherics and concerns of human health. Agricultural topics principally on the Imperial Valley and Mexicali Valley are included in this bibliography. The Yuma Valley region is not included. As a matter of geographical–ecological necessity, citations pertaining to locales that are near to the Salton Sea and Imperial Valley are also included in this bibliography; specifically, the southern Coachella Valley, the Algodones Dunes, and peripheral ecological reserves (for example, Dos Palmas).

El contexto en el que inició el progreso productivo en la región delta del río Colorado se configuró en torno a la disputa por el agua y la tierra. La posesión de ambos recursos posibilitó el desarrollo de un sistema de irrigación en la zona que por sus características permitió la derivación de las aguas del río Colorado por medio de gravedad. En consecuencia, entre 1874 y 1911, el actual valle de Mexicali quedó inmerso en un proceso de disputa de recursos naturales y de paulatina expansión de actividades agrícolas en medio del auge del agribusiness en California, Estados Unidos, lo que favoreció que Mexicali se convirtiera, en menos de dos décadas, en un emporio algodonero con una moderna infraestructura hidráulica (Kerig, 2001).

This is the second of a two-part series for Desert Tracks on the development and use of the Southern Overland Trail between Yuma Crossing and Warner’s Ranch in the San José Valley, from its inception during the late 18th century through the emigrations of the Gold Rush in the mid-1850s.  Part I, which appeared in the August 2020 issue, covered the period up though the American invasion of Mexico in 1846-47, ending with the arrival of Colonel Cooke and the Mormon Battalion at Warner’s Ranch in January 1847.  Part II will explore the journeys of various groups that used the trail from the beginning of the Gold Rush in 1848 until the mid 1850s. [Editor’s Note: Also see an earlier article which can in some ways be considered “Part 3,” “How the West Was Linked or ‘From Ocean to Ocean in Stage Coaches’: The Establishment of the First Transcontinental Overland Mail,” by Stephen R. Van Wormer and Sue A. Wade in the June 2011 issue of Desert Tracks.]

Travel accounts west of the Colorado River have been considered some of overland Gold Rush emigration’s most distressing.  The river crossing at Yuma and the journey through the Colorado Desert constituted two of the journey’s most difficult obstacles (Figure 1).  This story has been told many times before.  Many notable historians have provided narration.  Yet, like any really-good tale of the triumph of human perseverance over insurmountable barriers, be it the Odyssey, the Iliad, the Wizard of Oz, Robin Hood, or Zorro, this one is worth revisiting one more time.

To explore the historical roots of the multiracial strike actions that took shape in Cali-fornia's fields during the 1930s, this essay examines the social and cultural practices of Imperial Valley farm workers during the years that preceded the 1930 lettuce strike. It illuminates how cross-racial alliances among Imperial Valley farm workers were shaped by radical traditions that overlapped in the Imperial Valley's fields, in grassroots knowledge about racial capitalist development in the region, and in the community ties and networks that farm workers forged in the course of their everyday struggles. I ultimately argue that, by 1930, the Imperial Valley saw the crystallization of an oppositional expression of multiracialism at the grassroots. Against dominant patterns of racial competition and hierarchy that governed the region's political economic development, grassroots expressions of oppositional multiracialism hinged on a sense of mutual interdependence and shared vulnerability that linked the variegated struggles of farm workers with one another. Indicative of neither a unifying political agenda nor of a homogenizing ''class'' or ''American'' identity, this was a multiracialist politics that treated difference and inter-sectionality as constitutive features of political solidarity, within a collective struggle against the dehumanizing effects of racial capitalism and American imperialism.

THE GRAND CANON  is a worldwide bibliography of the Grand Canyon and lower Colorado River regions in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico (in Arizona, Nevada, California, Baja California, and Sonora). This is a historical record of activities and interests, divided into 32 subject areas, including a Cartobibliography, containing 106,000 citations in 114 languages pub­lished during 487 years—from circa 1535 to 2021—produced in countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Proving a long-lasting, worldwide engagement with this region, the items embrace general and specific subjects including history, biography, and geography; social, natural, physical, and environ­mental sciences; engin­eering projects and water manage­ment policies; administrative over­sight; legislative and judicial affairs; concerns of public-interest and special-advocacy organizations; interests and activities of Indi­genous peoples; and works for and by youth and young adults. Publications are commonplace, technical, and special­ized; in inkprint, special media for the visually impaired, and audio, audio-visual, and digital media. They have been published in popular, academic, commercial, and govern­mental venues, and privately.

No com­par­able bibliography exists for any other historical, natural, recrea­tional, or utili­tarian area overseen by federal or state agencies of the United States or Mexico. Value-added products can be created by academics, profes­sionals, and avoca­tional enthusiasts. Trends in personal, professional, and official interests may be detected in citations spanning decades and centuries. It serves, too, as a unique eviden­­tiary record for administrators and resource managers who work within federal, state, Native American, and other jurisdictions covered by this work, and for specialists in public advocacy and not-for-profit organizations that have concerns in this region. Subsets of citations from this bibliography may serve as foundations for specialized and applied uses, scholarly studies, and administrative analysis and record. For the Grand Canyon–lower Colorado River region this canon—a single, essential resource and guide—saves the extensive record of general, creative and technical compositions about, or even just touching upon, the land, the river, and the people there.

Additional parts of THE GRAND CANON introduce readers to the Grand Canyon and lower Colorado River regions, and to the continued value of bibliographies even in the digital age.

An explanation of why the management of natural resources sometimes benefits an
elite few, how the exercise of expertise contributes to this, and how traditional and
inefficient resource use can continue. Water scarcity in Southern California forces the
nation's largest irrigation district to conserve and transfer water to urban areas. Elites resist
reform with expert help, and when overcome by events, use the authority of expertise to
legitimize reforms which benefit their interests.

Une tentative d'explication des raisons pour lesquelles la gestion des ressources
naturelles tend à profiter à une élite restreinte et comment le travail des experts maintient
cette tendance à l'utilisation éhontée de ces ressources. La rareté de l'eau en Californie du
Sud pousse le plus grand district d'irrigation des Etats-Unis à emmagasiner d'importantes
quantités d'eau pour les besoins des centres urbains. Grâce à l'aide des experts, les élites
résistent à tout effort de reforme de cette politique. Quand les élites sont acculées par les
événements, elles utilisent l'autorité des experts pour orienter les reformes dans le sens de
leurs intérets.

Este artículo presenta una explcación del por qué la administración de los recursos
naturales a menudo beneficia a una pequeria élite, de cómo se utiliza el trabajo de los
expertos para contribuir a tal fin y de cómo tal patrón de aprovechamiento tradicional e
ineficiente de los recursos puede continuar. La escasez de agua en el Sur de California
obliga al mayor distrito nacional de irrigación a conservar el agua, para luego transferirla a
las áreas urbanas. Las élites resisten, con la ayuda de los expertos, los intentos de
reforma. Cuando los acontecimientos las rebasan, entonces las élites utilizan la autoridad
de los expertos para legitimar aquellas reformas que benefician sus intereses.