Transborder Lives Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico

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transborder lives
transborder lives
Indigenous Oaxacans in
Mexico, California, and Oregon

Lynn Stephen

duke universit y press Durham and London 2007

∫ 2007 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper $
Designed by C. H. Westmoreland
Typeset in Adobe Minion with
Adobe Jenson display
by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-
Publication Data appear on the last
printed page of this book.
 contents

Illustrations and Tables vii

Preface ix
Acknowledgments xix
chapter 1 Approaches to Transborder Lives 1
chapter 2 Transborder Communities in Political and Historical
Context: Views from Oaxaca 35
chapter 3 Mexicans in California and Oregon 63
chapter 4 Transborder Labor Lives: Harvesting, Housecleaning,
Gardening, and Childcare 95
chapter 5 Surveillance and Invisibility in the Lives of Indigenous
Farmworkers in Oregon 143
chapter 6 Women’s Transborder Lives: Gender Relations in Work
and Families 178
chapter 7 Navigating the Borders of Racial and Ethnic
Hierarchies 209
chapter 8 Grassroots Organizing in Transborder Lives 231
chapter 9 Transborder Ethnic Identity Construction in Life and on
the Net: E-Mail and Web Page Construction and Use 274
conclusions 309
epilogue Notes on Collaborative Research 321
Notes 327
Works Cited 335
Index 359
 illustrations and tables

Maps
1. The state of Oaxaca 2
2. San Agustín Atenango and surrounding area 2
3. Teotitlán del Valle and surrounding area 10
4. California indigenous migration and immigration sites mentioned in
text 77
5. Oregon indigenous migration and immigration sites mentioned
in text 85
6. Teotitlán internal migration paths, 1920s to 1990s 104
7. Teotitlán del Valle migration paths during bracero program, 1944–
64 105
8. Teotitlán del Valle migration paths to the United States and U.S.-Mexico
border 105
9. San Agustín Atenango internal migration paths 1930s to 1950s 109
10. San Agustín Atenango bracero program migration, 1942–64 112
11. San Agustín Atenango migration paths 1960s to 1990s 115
12. San Agustín Atenango migration paths to the United Sates, late
1970s to present 115

Illustrations
All photos are by the author unless otherwise specified in the captions.
1. New, unoccupied home in San Agustín Atenango 4
2. Older homes on outskirts of San Agustín Atenango 4
3. Pedro Martínez Morales (age ninety-seven), Ermelinda Reyes Ramírez
(age ninety-two) 7
4. Elena Martínez Ruis, Petrona Martínez Reyes, and Laura Ruiz
Martínez 7
5. Teotitlán marketplace 11
6. Julián Mendoza, Emiliana Pérez, Pancho Mendoza Pérez, and Armando
Mendoza 12
7. Minuteman online poster 30
8. Daniel Cruz Pérez on the outskirts of San Agustín Atenango 36
9. Mexican braceros weeding a sugar beet field. 82
10. José Valdez, who worked in the Hillsboro pea harvest. June 20, 1943 82
11. Emiliano Gómez in Teotitlán del Valle 98
12. José Luis García López relaxing in San Agustín Atenango 110
13. Catalina García with her mother 135
14. Soledad Cruz Hernández and her granddaughter in 1999 198
15. Pancho Mendoza Pérez in 2004 217
16. First page of U.S. 2000 Census Form 228
17. Women of the Mujeres Luchadoras Progresistas (mlp) assembling wreaths
in 1999 232
18. Participants at the pcun 2001 annual convention 235
19. Ramón Ramírez, pcun president since 1995 245
20. pcun members at an immigrant rights rally in Salem, Oregon,
in 2003 251
21. Eric Chávez, his father, Federico, and siblings in Teotitlán del Valle
textile market 276
22. X́iabetz, or ‘‘brother rock,’’ in Teotitlán del Valle 288
23. Sixteenth-century church in Teotitlán del Valle 288
24. Archaeological site behind church in Teotitlán 289

Tables
1. Greatest Mexican-Origin Population Changes in Absolute Numbers in
California Counties, 1980–90 75
2. Leading Mexico-Based Migration Networks in Woodburn, Oregon 87
3. Cities in Oregon with Significant Latino Populations, 2000 89
4. Hispanic or Latino Population and Race in Woodburn, Oregon, 2000 90
5. Language Profile of Woodburn, Oregon, Heads of Household, Overall
Population, and Minors, 2003 92
6. Mexican Immigrant Heads of Household’s Length of Time in United
States, Woodburn, Oregon, 2003 93

viii Illustrations and Tables

 preface

In July 1997, I drove with Alejandro de Avila from Oaxaca City to the
Mixtec Baja town of San Miguel Cuevas. The drive is long, and the road
is filled with curves. Alejandro’s jeep plowed up and down the hills slowly
but safely. Cuevas, as it is known, is perched on a blu√. Parked below the
main part of town were more than a dozen pickup trucks. Almost all had
license plates from the United States, and more than half a dozen were
from the state of Oregon. I was going to visit Santiago Ventura, who now
resides in Woodburn, Oregon, and works as an advocate for indigenous
Mexican migrants with the Oregon Law Center; he has started a pan-
ethnic Oaxacan indigenous migrant organization, Organización de Co-
munidades Indígenas Migrantes Oaxaqueños (ocimo) (discussed in
chapter 8). At the time we were visiting Santiago in Cuevas, he was home
to carry out a cargo in his community as Secretario del Consejo de
Vigilancia del Comisariado de Bienes Comunales (Secretary of the Board
of the Communal Lands Commission) (see chapter 2),∞ and was working
out a new set of laws to regulate communal land in his community.
The cargo spanned a period of three years, which for many men in
positions like this was a very long time. Part of the work Santiago and
others did was to reduce the time that cargos had to be served as a part of
the Communal Lands Commission in his community from three years
to two years. Almost all of the men who were on the Communal Lands
Commission had returned home from Mexico City or various parts of
the United States to serve out their cargo. Part of what they accomplished
was to help adjust the local system of governance to meet the reality of
San Miguel Cuevas as a transborder community where many resided
outside of Oaxaca for significant periods of time. Another accomplish-
ment of the Communal Lands Commission during the term Santiago
served was to resolve a pending lawsuit involving a local land conflict
that no one else had been able to achieve agreement on. Prior to this,
Santiago had been at the center of a historic court case that has had a
lasting impact nationally on the right of immigrants to a certified trans-
lator in their own language in U.S. courts.
In 1986, Santiago was falsely accused and convicted of murdering a
fellow farmworker in Oregon. During his trial he had di≈culty under-
standing and communicating with the interpreter selected by the court,
who spoke Spanish and English. Santiago’s native language is Mixteco.
He understood very little Spanish, as did many of the witnesses in his
case, who also spoke Mixteco. Santiago and the other Mixteco witnesses
were often confused by the questions posed to them in Spanish by the
court-appointed interpreter. The jury found him guilty, and he was
sentenced to life in prison.
Four years after his conviction and imprisonment, a reinvestigation of
the case established that another person was the killer. In addition, lin-
guistic and cultural barriers were strongly implicated in the wrongful
conviction. The conviction was overturned, and Santiago was released
from prison. He later received a degree in social work from Portland
State University. The case received national attention and resulted in
major changes as courts and judges across the United States began to
examine and improve the use of interpreters in the courts. In 1993, the
Oregon Legislative Assembly passed Senate Bill 229, instructing the Of-
fice of the State Court Administrator to establish a certification program
to ensure a minimum level of competence and quality of interpreters
who work in the courts (Rhodes 1999: 1). Oregon’s state court system has
since developed a robust certification program, and has certified inter-
preters in Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Akateco, Kanjobal, Q’uiche,
and Mam (Maya languages spoken by Guatemalan indigenous farm-
workers) as well as indigenous languages of Mexico, including Mixteco
Alto (a variety of communities), Mixteco Bajo (a variety of commu-
nities), Nahuatl, Poqochi, P’urepecha, Triqui (Copala and Itunyonso),
and Zapoteco (Ocotlán de Morelos) (see chapter 8). Now, more than half
of the states in the United States belong to a consortium that trains legal
interpreters in a broad range of languages. Santiago’s case was funda-
mental in bringing about these changes.
Reflecting back on his experience, Santiago commented, ‘‘I think my
case had an impact in the sense that before a criminal court wasn’t
required to have certified interpreters. At least now, an interpreter work-
ing in Spanish has to be certified in order to work in the court. Unfortu-
nately, in order to have this law, a tragedy like my case had to take place.’’
In 1997, he returned to San Miguel Cuevas in order to continue his

x Preface
pathbreaking legal work. His accomplishments included the forging of a
new set of local laws to regulate his community’s use of the land base and
protect it from privatization. During our visit to Cuevas, Santiago and
his wife treated Alejandro and me with great hospitality. We talked for a
long time about indigenous rights in Mexico and the United States, the
Zapatista movement in Chiapas (which I was researching and writing
about at the time), and life in Oregon, where I was thinking of moving
with my family. Santiago told me about a farmworkers’ union there
called Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (Northwest Treeplant-
ers and Farmworkers United, pcun) that I had heard about from other
West Coast friends. He told me that many pcun members were from
Oaxaca and that many were Mixtec.
Later that summer, in August 1997, Ellen Herman, my partner, and
I drove from Tieton, Washington, where we had family, to Eugene, Ore-
gon. On the way, we stopped by the pcun o≈ce in Woodburn, Oregon.
It was literally our first stop in what was to become our new home state. I
spoke with the pcun secretary-treasurer, Larry Kleinman, and gave
copies of some of my books and publications to people on the sta√,
saying I would look forward to being in touch with them and perhaps
working on a project together. We then went on to Eugene to look at
schools, housing, and public parks.
In September 1998, my family and I moved to Eugene, and Ellen and I
began work as professors at the University of Oregon. Soon after mov-
ing, I made a trip up to Woodburn to visit pcun again. The pcun sta√,
having looked at my materials, decided to work collaboratively with me
and a group of students, primarily members of Movimiento Estudiantil
Chicano de Aztlán (mecha). The project they proposed was not the one
I had presented to them, which had focused on gender relations within
Mexican immigrant farmworker households. Instead, they proposed
that we do a general history of the union and of farmworker organizing
in the state. The project involved interviewing pcun sta√ and members
and people who had worked with the organization and also organizing
their archives. The primary product of this research turned out to be a
history of the organization that proved useful to pcun in educating sta√
and in organizing and perhaps was also helpful in fundraising. In addi-
tion, we produced a bilingual time line of the organization’s history that
was mounted in the Union Hall; a copy of it is kept in the union’s library.
About ten of the organizers and union participants we interviewed for
the history were Mixteco, several from San Agustín Atenango, in the

Preface xi
southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. After we completed this project, I
carried out a second collaborative research e√ort with pcun and a group
of graduate and undergraduate students. Called ‘‘The Life of the Straw-
berry,’’ it documented gender, labor, and racial/ethnic relations in the
movement of Oregon strawberries and other produce from the fields of
the Willamette Valley to food processors, frozen food warehouses, food
distributors, and food service corporations and then to their final desti-
nation in University of Oregon restaurants and dorm cafeterias. We
interviewed more than twenty workers, again including quite a number
of indigenous Mexican migrants who worked in the fields and process-
ing plants. Students presented the results of their research in papers and
in a bilingual theatrical piece profiling workers’ stories; the enactment
was presented to the pcun membership, to university and junior high
classes, and at conferences. We also created a webpage, which can be
found at http://waynemorsecenter.uoregon.edu/berry.
While working on these two projects I met a number of Mixtec mi-
grants in the state of Oregon and became further connected to the
community of San Agustín Atenango. Most of these people were work-
ing in the fields and the canneries of Oregon and had lived previously in
California, Baja California, and Sinaloa.≤ In 2003 and 2004 I worked with
a former pcun organizer from San Agustín Atenango and interviewed
members of the San Agustín transborder public works committee who
were based in the Salem, Oregon, area. In association with ten other
committees spread out across the United States, they were pulling to-
gether an impressive cross-border organizing and fundraising e√ort to
expand their public cemetery in Oaxaca. In August 2004, I visited San
Agustín Atenango and saw the progress of the transborder public works
committee firsthand. I brought with me letters and photographs from
people in Oregon and also their contributions to the local fiesta, which
takes place at the end of August. During this visit I got to know the
extended families of many people with whom I had become acquainted
in Oregon as well as families who had been living elsewhere in the United
States and had returned to Atenango for a variety of reasons. Most of the
men serving in posts in the municipal government had returned from
the United States with their families to do so. I also met women who were
raising children in Atenango while their husbands were in the States.
During this trip I conducted more than eighteen in-depth interviews
and began to investigate the history of the community. I also visited the
Juxtlahuaca o≈ce of what was the Indigenous Oaxacan Binational Front

xii Preface
(fiob, Frente Indígena Oaxaqueño Binacional), which became the Front
of Indigenous Binational Organizations in March 2005. I discussed a
variety of issues with sta√ during that visit.
I returned in August 2005 to meet again with members of fiob in
Juxtlahuaca, attended part of a regional women’s council meeting, and
visited fiob women’s income-generating projects in several commu-
nities focused on raising chickens and mushrooms for sale in conjunc-
tion with communal credit associations. I also returned to San Agustín
Atenango.
I continued work from the previous year, but this trip was deeply
marked by an unfolding tragedy. On July 16, 2005, seven people left
Atenango on a bus to go to the border town of Sonoyta, Arizona, where
they expected to cross over to the United States. Sonoyta is located across
the border from Lukeville, Arizona, and crossings take migrants into the
most desolate areas of the western Arizona desert that incorporate the
Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation and Organ Pipe National Monu-
ment. In July, the temperature often goes well above 110 degrees Fahren-
heit. The group of seven that left San Agustín Atenango consisted of five
men between the ages of twenty-six and forty-nine and two boys ages
fifteen and sixteen. By August 16, a month after they had left, there was
no word from any of them. In conjunction with local o≈cials, their
families created and circulated flyers with their photographs, called and
faxed family members in California, Oregon, Arizona, and elsewhere,
and began to phone and fax Mexican consulates in Arizona and else-
where. The o≈ces of the fiob in Juxtlahuaca, Tijuana, Los Angeles, and
Fresno were alerted, and ngos and government organizations such as
the Oaxacan Institute for Attention to the Migrant (Instituto Oaxaqueño
de Atención al Migrante) were notified of details of the seven desapare-
cidos. The mothers of the two boys, Pablo, age sixteen, and Ubaldo, age
fifteen, were unable to eat or sleep and made their way endlessly around
San Agustín, Juxtlahuaca, and elsewhere seeking help in locating their
children.
In early September, two men from San Agustín Atenango who have
legal residency in the United States set out to retrace the steps of the
desaparecidos, going to Sonoyta and crossing the border. It was not the
first time such a search party had been put together in San Agustín. In
2002, a couple with young children disappeared while trying to cross the
border and was never found. In discussing the missing seven in 2005,
people recalled the eerie tale of this couple and hoped for a di√erent

Preface xiii
outcome. During my trip in August 2005 I continued some of my pre-
vious fieldwork focused on collecting oral histories and work and migra-
tion histories, reviewing the community archives, and exploring the
gendered impact of migration, but the disappearance of the seven people
came to dominate my work. Producing flyers, e-mailing, and faxing as
well as talking with family members about what could be done occupied
a central part of my time there and continues to haunt me daily. I
returned to San Agustín Atenango in August 2006. More than a year after
their disappearance, there was still no word on the seven disappeared.
Their whereabouts remain unknown. Most people assume they are dead;
some continue to hope they are alive. They remain suspended, between
life and death in the collective memory of San Agustín Atenango.
The frame for this and many similar tragedies—as many as thirty-five
hundred people are believed to have died crossing the U.S.–Mexico bor-
der since 1995 (Berenstein 2005)—is U.S. border policy, which since 2001
has formed part of a larger discourse and policy centered on homeland
security that is supposed to keep out terrorists and keep American cit-
izens safe. Beginning with the administration of President Bill Clinton in
1995, U.S. border protection policy has pushed migrants out of such
classic crossing areas as San Diego/Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez/El Paso
and into more and more desolate areas such as the inhospitable western
Arizona desert (see chapter 4). The result has been an increasing number
of fatalities due to exposure to extreme heat and cold, unprecedented
inflation in the cost of crossing (averaging from two thousand to three
thousand dollars in 2005), and the replacement of locally run border-
crossing operations with operations in which the smuggling of people is
integrated with gun and drug smuggling on routes often controlled by
drug cartels. Because most migrants coming over the border now need a
guide to help them cross, business is booming. In addition to the physi-
cal risks of walking long distances in the desert, as the smuggling of
people has gotten more profitable, it has become more dangerous. Rob-
bery, rape, and kidnappings of groups of border crossers by competing
coyotes (border-crossing guides and smugglers) or by Mexican police or
others are further risks migrants assume in attempting to reach the
United States. While the U.S. Border Patrol has focused on border de-
fense during the past ten years, increasingly o≈cers are spending their
time rescuing people along the border. Those they encounter are men,
women, and children, even babies attempting to enter the States to work
and to be united with their families.

xiv Preface
 The term used by people from San Agustín Atenango to describe those
who set out to cross the border and are never heard from again is
desaparecidos. This is the same term used to describe those who were
forcibly abducted by paramilitaries, police forces, and o≈cial military
units in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, and
elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s, never to be seen again. The conse-
quences for the relatives of the disappeared are that they have no knowl-
edge of what became of their loved ones, of where they are, of whether
they are dead or alive, and of how they may have su√ered. They can only
imagine, hope, and pray they are alive while grappling with the horror of
how they might have su√ered and died. This is what family members of
the seven desaparecidos from San Agustín Atenango were feeling in
Oaxaca, Baja California, California, Oregon, Arizona, Illinois, and other
states where they live. Their network of help, love, worry, and prayer is
transborder, as is the rest of their lives.
As I show in this book, the experiences of Mixtec and Zapotec mi-
grants both within Mexico and in the Unites States are often quite dif-
ferent. Beginning in the summer of 2001, I returned to Teotitlán del Valle,
a Zapotec community where I had conducted my doctoral research from
1983 to 1986 to document changes in community life related to globaliza-
tion and migration. Part of this research focused on the emergence of
more than a dozen weaving cooperatives beginning in the mid-1980s that
have come to be a significant economic and political force in the com-
munity, particularly for women. Much of this research is documented in
an updated and rewritten edition of Zapotec Women: Gender, Class, and
Ethnicity in Globalized Oaxaca (Duke University Press, 2005). A second
piece of the research, however, involved talking in-depth with people in
the community about their personal experiences of migration in the
United States and focusing on how continued migration had changed
the community and also a√ected those who never left.≥
The migration networks of Teotitecos di√er from those of the people
of San Agustín Atenango. After working as braceros (referring to brazos,
arms or helping hands) in the Midwest and the western United States,
Teotitecos concentrated their border crossings and bases of support
in the Tijuana, San Diego, and Los Angeles corridor. By the 1980s, Teoti-
tecos had set up craft stores and stalls in the markets of Tijuana and
Ensenada, and many families set down roots in the Santa Ana and Ox-
nard areas of southern California. While people from San Agustín Ate-
nango first went to the United States with labor contractors who worked

Preface xv
in Baja California, Teotitecos tended to cross through independent con-
nections, and a thick network of border-crossing knowledge and re-
sources sprang up in the Tijuana area. Those who were the first in their
family to cross the border often had very di≈cult experiences, while
those who came later were able to travel through known networks.
In discussions in Teotitlán from 2001 through 2005 as well as with
Teotitecos in the United States, I found people interested in sharing their
border-crossing stories as well as their thoughts about living and work-
ing in the United States. Many were eager to discuss U.S. foreign policy
and events that a√ected their experience here, such as how the impact of
September 11 decreased the amount of work available in the hotel, res-
taurant, and tourist sectors in southern California. Here, the increasing
dangers of crossing the border were present as well. In 2003, a group of
twelve people from Teotitlán crossed the border at Ciudad Juárez to enter
the United States. Their coyote abandoned them right over the border,
and a group of men assaulted the migrants, robbed them of all their
money, and beat some of them severely. They crossed back into Mexico
and managed to secure rides all the way west to Tijuana, where they had
relatives who received them. Many believe that the coyote received pay-
ment from the group who robbed them for revealing where they were.
Since that time, people have counseled each other not to cross in Texas
and Arizona. In August 2005, Marcelina Ramírez, whose husband was
among those beaten up and robbed in 2003, commented to me, ‘‘He did
make it across later through Tijuana, but he hasn’t been home for two
years and says he will wait two more years. It is too dangerous to go back
and forth. I really miss him. It is sad. We are here with the children, with
a lot of work, and always feeling his absence. . . . Now my son wants to go,
but I am so afraid of what can happen. We are looking for a way for him
to go that isn’t so dangerous, but it’s hard to find. Now it costs more than
twenty-five hundred dollars to cross on the line. That is the only way to
try. People here no longer want to go over in the desert. . . . they don’t
want to die.’’∂
The migration testimonies and experiences of migrants and non-
migrants from Teotitlán have added an important dimension to my
understanding and framing of that community’s histories. Like Mixtec
friends and acquaintances from San Agustín Atenango who live close to
me in Oregon, some of my friends from Teotitlán have also settled near
my home. In September 2005, I became the baptismal godmother of the
daughter of my first godchild from Teotitlán. The little girl, Cynthia, was

xvi Preface
born in Portland, Oregon, and is a U.S. citizen. Her parents were born in
Teotitlán del Valle and have been living in Oregon for the past two years.
They were nineteen and twenty years old when they came to the United
States.
My family attended Cynthia’s baptism and shared in a day of eating,
talking, feasting, and celebrating with her family. While it seems so
simple to convivir (share) in the delightful event of the baptism of a child
and to blend several cultural traditions into something that is opti-
mistically transborder and may represent new possibilities for Amer-
icanness, these moments coexist with the ongoing anguish of the family
members of the seven desaparecidos from San Agustín Atenango.

Preface xvii
 acknowledgments

This book has been a transforming experience in both my personal life

and my research. While it bridges the move that my family made from
Boston to Eugene, it also marks the beginning of my strategy of engaging
in multisited research in order to understand the meanings of trans-
border lives. As discussed in the preface and epilogue, several of the
projects that fed into this book emerged out of collaborative processes
that involved transborder Oaxacan communities based in Oregon, Ore-
gon’s farmworker union Pineros y Campesinos Unidos, and my ongoing
relationship with friends, compadres, and ahijados from Teotitlán del
Valle who are now here in Oregon as well as in California and many
other locations.
My twenty-two-year history of doing research in Oaxaca is a part of
this project. Old friends who continue to be key to my life in Oaxaca
include Margarita Dalton, Paola Sesia, and Julia Barco. Juanita Ramírez
is a dear friend who helps to make life possible in Oaxaca on a daily basis.
She and her son Gus are a part of our family.
In Teotitlán del Valle, I would like to express my gratitude to my
longtime friends and compadres Paco González and Petra Vicente and
to my other compadres Andrés Gutiérrez and Margarita Alavez, who
opened their homes and hearts to me and my family as always. Efraín
Gutiérrez Alavez and Aurora Lazo González have become good friends,
and I thank them for their contribution to my new research in Teotitlán.
I would particularly like to thank a group of women active in the cooper-
atives for their enthusiasm and support. They include Aurora Bazan
López, Aurora Contreras, Reina González Martínez, Isabel Hernández,
Pastora Gutiérrez Reyes, Josefina Jiménez, Guadalupe Ruiz Soza, Fran-
sisca Ruiz García, and Violeta Vásquez Gutiérrez. Arnulfo Mendoza and
Mary Jane Gagnier were particularly generous with their time. I also
thank the many people who took the time to share their stories with me
in Teotitlán del Valle and in California or Oregon who remain anony-
mous in order to protect their identities.
In San Agustín Atenango, I want to thank former Presidente Munici-
pal Mateo Sánchez and the rest of the local authorities for their support
of my research. I would also like to thank Dagoberto Gómez Morales,
Juana Cruz Ramírez, and Paulina Ramírez Pérez for opening up their
homes to me when I visit. Lorenzo Justiano Solano López has been a
valuable translator, collaborator, and fellow historian during my visits to
San Agustín Atenango. Presidente Municipal Elías Díaz Solano and other
municipal authorities and sta√ who began their term in 2005 were also
very helpful, and I thank them for their support. In addition, I want to
thank the many people from San Agustín who took time to speak with
me in Oregon and in Oaxaca who will remain anonymous to protect
their identities. Leonides de Avila has been a steadfast friend and sup-
porter of my research with the transborder community of San Agustín
Atenango. I thank him for opening many doors for me in San Agustín
and among those in the community living in Oregon.

Moving to Oregon in 1998 truly marked a new beginning for me in many

ways. There, I was able to begin the process of doing research where I
lived that profoundly connected with my past work in Mexico. In 1999, I
began an ongoing collaborative relationship with the sta√, leadership,
and members of Oregon’s farmworker union pcun. I particularly want
to acknowledge the support and encouragement of pcun President
Ramón Ramírez, pcun Secretary Treasurer Larry Kleinman, and former
pcun organizers Erik Nicholson, Jan Lanier, Susan Dopkins, and Leo-
nides Avila. For their support of a project focused on the history of the
farmworker movement and pcun in Oregon and a later project titled
‘‘The Life of the Strawberry,’’ I would like to thank Demetria Avila,
Cristina Bautista, Javier Ceja, Sara Luz Cuesta Hernández, Lucía Zuriaga,
Fransisca López, Marion Malcolm, Macedonio Mejía, Efraín Peña, and
Guadalupe Quinn. Two very special groups of University of Oregon
graduate and undergraduate students, including María de la Torre,
Mayra Gómez, Gabriel Guzmán, Rachel Hansen, Tami Hill, Rosa Itzel
López, Sarah Jacobson, Marcy Miranda Janes, Julie Meyers, Jill Nicola,
Kristina, Jamie Shephard, and Kristina Tiedje, were wonderful research-
ers and collaborators in these two projects.
In the fall of 2003, I collaborated on a project titled ‘‘Towards a New
Pluralism: Strategies for Rural Communities Impacted by Immigra-

xx Acknowledgments
tion,’’ funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, dispersed through
Aguirre International. The project was led by Ed Kissam. Interacting
with fellow researchers Ed Kissam and Anna García was a rare pleasure. I
continue to enjoy exchanges with them and learned a great deal from
working with them in Woodburn, Oregon. I also want to thank the
group of outstanding students who worked with us in Woodburn, in-
cluding Rachel Hansen, Tami Hill, Jessica Lowen, Gabriela Romero, and
Edwin Vega. Their hard work and persistence in carrying out a large
household survey made for a successful project. Julie Samples, Valentín
Sánchez, and Santiago Ventura have provided me with invaluable assis-
tance, advice, and education in this project.
In Eugene, my friends and colleagues Terry O’Nell, Margaret Hallock,
and Sandi Morgen were very supportive of my research and writing
e√orts over the years. I gratefully acknowledge two project grants from
the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics at the University of Oregon
that were crucial to getting the research in this book started and funding
students to work with me. Additional grants that supported the research
reflected in this book include a research grant from the Center for the
Study of Women in Society at the University of Oregon and a Summer
Research Award for Faculty from the University of Oregon. A sabbatical
leave granted during the 2004–05 academic year and funds from my
award as a Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University
of Oregon have also supported the research and writing that went into
this book.
I had the pleasure of drafting this book while a fellow at the Radcli√e
Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University during the 2004–05
academic year. I wish to thank Drew Faust, Judy Vichniac, Sophia Heller,
Tony Ru√o, and Melissa Synnott for making the Institute such a wonder-
ful place to be during my sabbatical. Each and every one of my ‘‘fellow’’
fellows provided unique gifts that year. I would especially like to thank
Kim DaCosta, Kathy Davis, Julia Glass, Wendy Jacob, Evelyn Fox Keller,
John Kelley, Linda Hamilton Krieger, Sue Lanser, Claire Messud, Steven
Nelson, Mica Pollock, Karen Rosenblatt, Martha Selby, Ann Sternegal,
and Michael Woolrich for friendship, good ideas and writing tips, music,
and fun—all of which made for a terrific year. Conversations with Robert
Hunt and Peggy Levitt were fun and provided me with very useful in-
sights while writing. While living in Boston in 2004 and 2005 I enjoyed
the friendship and support of Kate Dobroth, Jennie Purnell, Petri Flint,
Je√rey Rubin, Kate Raisz, and Lynn Tibbets. It was a joy to live near my

Acknowledgments xxi
brother Bruce Stephen and to see my nephews Ben, Jordan, and Daniel
on a regular basis–particularly at Ana’s Taqueria.
During the fall of 2005 and the winter of 2006 I was able to make
revisions and finish the manuscript with the support of National En-
dowment for the Humanities grant No. FA-50220–04. During this time I
received excellent suggestions for revisions to the manuscript from two
anonymous reviewers for Duke University Press and from Jonathan Fox,
Julie Samples, Valentín Sánchez, and Santiago Ventura. I sent chapter 5 to
the journal Cultural Anthropology and received three very thoughtful
reviews with very good ideas. One of these suggested that the piece
would make an excellent book chapter, which it now is. Jacob Bartu√
worked tirelessly to produce the excellent maps for this book, and I
thank him for his persistence and high quality maps. Jonny Fox’s intel-
lectual and personal friendship was an important contribution to this
book, as was the work of Michael Kearney and Gaspar Rivera.
I wish to express a special thanks to my editor at Duke University
Press, Valerie Millholland. It was originally through a long conversation
that she helped me to see how this book could take shape. I have enjoyed
our evolving friendship as well as our mutual passion for Mexico and
look forward to more projects with her.
As I put the last words of acknowledgment on paper, I must end with
my family. Alejandro de Avila, the father of my children, has provided
invaluable emotional and intellectual support to this project, but also as
a member of my family. My partner, Ellen Herman, is the other half of
me, and our walk through life together is a unique gift. Our sons, Gabriel
and José Angel, have grown up a great deal while I worked on this
project, and they are woven into its core.

xxii Acknowledgments
 chapter 1

Approaches to Transborder Lives

San Agustín Atenango:

Three Generations on the Move

San Agustín Atenango straddles a paved road that runs between Hua-
juapan de León and Santiago Juxtlahuaca in the Mixteca Baja region of
Oaxaca—paved being a relative term in some stretches that sport pot-
holes wide enough to lose a pig in. During the past several years enter-
prising migrant workers from the region have used their U.S. earnings to
set up an e≈cient system of regional transportation between Oaxaca
City, the state capital, and this region. Several privately owned regional
transport companies equipped with fleets of new Ford and Toyota vans
shuttle passengers between terminals in downtown Oaxaca to regional
destinations. To travel to San Agustín, you purchase a ticket in Oaxaca
and get into the van with ten to twelve people bound for the Mixteca.
The group often includes students who may be returning home from
studying in Oaxaca, men and women carrying large bundles of things
they have bought or are selling, families, and others. Leaving Oaxaca, the
van cruises along the new autopista, or superhighway, to Mexico City,
zooming past trucks, and eventually enters dry countryside. One hour
out of Oaxaca, outside of Asunción Nochixtlán, it moves o√ of the
autopista and onto regional two-lane roads. Two and a half hours after
leaving Oaxaca, the van pauses for about fifteen minutes to pick up
passengers in Huajuapan de León and then heads down a winding two-
lane highway for Juxtlahuaca. The ride to San Agustín takes about four to
four and a half hours—depending on the potholes and the weather. The
van stops right at the edge of town and then bolts down the road to its
next stop.
Passengers get down from the van and proceed first downhill and then
(above) m a p 1 .
The state of Oaxaca

m a p 2.
San Agustín Atenango
and surrounding area
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 the flowers are in clusters. Why?

Fig. 304. The Baldwin apple. How

many kinds of apples do you
know?

Fig. 305. The same Baldwin apple

cut in two.

Ten Things to Learn from an Apple.

When you write your dues to Uncle John on the apple, answer as
many of the following questions as you can. You can get the answers
from an apple itself. He does not want you to ask anyone for the
answers:

1. How much of the apple is occupied by the core?

2. How many parts or

compartments are there in the
core?

3. How many seeds are there in

each part?

4. Which way do the seeds point?

5. Are the seeds attached or

joined to any part of the core?
Explain.

6. What do you see in the Fig. 306. This is an apple in

blossom end of the apple? which a worm made its home.
7. What do you see in the
opposite end?

8. Is there any connection between the blossom end and the core?

9. Find a wormy apple and see if you can make out where the worm
left the apple. Perhaps you can make a drawing. To do this, cut the
apple in two. Press the cut surface on a piece of paper. When the
apple is removed you can trace out the marks.
 Fig. 307. These are the apples on which other plants are living.—
The apple-scab.

10. When you hold an apple in your hand, see which way it looks to
be bigger—lengthwise or crosswise. Then cut it in two lengthwise,
measure it each way, and see which diameter is the greater.
Fig. 308. Here is where city boys and girls buy their apples.

LEAFLET LIV.

TWIGS IN LATE WINTER.[72]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
 long a country road, through a
drifted field, over a rail fence, and
into the woods I went, gathering
twigs here and there as I passed. A
February thaw had come and these
first messengers of spring, reaching
out from shrub and tree, were
beginning to show signs of life.
Many young people do not believe
that spring is near until they hear a robin or a bluebird. The bare little
twigs tell us first. Look at them as you go on your way to school. Are
they the same color in February that they were in the short December
days?

When I reached home with my bundle of twigs, it

was "fun" to sit by the window and study the
strange little things. They were so different one
from another, and so interesting in every way, that
I decided to ask our boys and girls to gather some
winter twigs and tell us about them. Select your
twigs from the butternut, willow, hickory,
horsechestnut, apple, plum, plane-tree, maple, or
any other tree that you come across. Here are
some suggestions that will help you in your study:
Fig. 309. Red or
1. How many colors do you find in one twig? Count
swamp maple.
the tints and shades. I found eight colors on a
small maple branch (Fig. 309).

2. Notice the differences in several twigs as they lie on the table.

What makes them look so different: size, shape, color, arrangement of
buds, the size or shape of the buds?

3. On how many twigs are the buds opposite each other? Note the
opposite buds on the horsechestnut (Fig. 310). On how many are
they alternate? Are the buds opposite on the butternut (Fig. 311)?
 4. Which twigs bear the buds
singly?

5. When you find two or more

buds growing together on a
stem, is there any difference in
the size of the buds?

6. On how many of the twigs

can you see a scar left by the
leaf when it dropped off (Fig.
310 and Fig. 311 a, a)?
Compare the leaf scars on
different twigs. Notice the
strange scar on the butternut
(Fig. 311). It looks like the face
of an old sheep.

7. Do you see any cocoons on

your twig?

8. You all know the rings on an

apple twig that tell how much it
Fig. 310. grew each year. Do you find
Horsechestnut. rings on other twigs? Do you
see them on any of these
pictures?

9. What do you suppose makes these rings? Do

you think there was once a large terminal bud
where these rings are?
 LEAFLET LV

PRUNING.[73]
By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.

(Compare Leaflet XLVI.)

irst snow, then sleet, and then a down-pour

of rain—it stormed all day. At night-fall it
grew colder. The wind blew fiercely. The
twigs and branches fell on the white crust
which covered the earth. Nature was
pruning the trees.

Have you ever seen your father go into the orchard and prune his
trees? Why did he do it? Compare the work done by nature and that
which your father does. Which seems to be the more careful pruner?

Let us experiment a little. It will please Uncle John. He always wants

his boys and girls to find out things for themselves. Select a branch of
lilac or some other shrub. Mark it so that you will always know it.
Count the buds on the branch. Watch them through the spring and
the summer. Note the number that become branches. You will then
know that nature prunes the trees.
If you think a minute, you will see that pruning is necessary in the
plant world. Suppose a branch has thirty buds, and that every bud
should produce thirty branches, each of which in turn should produce
thirty more,—do you think there would be any room left in the world
for boys and girls? Would a tree be able to hold so many branches?

You certainly have noticed decayed holes in trees. Did you ever
wonder why they were there? I suppose that most persons never
wonder about it at all; or if they do give it any passing thought, they
say it is only "natural" for trees to have rotten spots. But these rotten
spots mean that once the tree was injured. Perhaps the injury was the
work of a careless or thoughtless man who pruned the tree. Very few
persons seem really to know how to remove the limbs of a tree so
that the wound will heal readily.

As you go and come, observe

how the trees have been pruned.
Do you see long "stubs" left,
where limbs have been cut? Yes;
and that is the wrong way to cut
them. They should be cut close to
the main branch or trunk, for
then the wounds will heal over
better (Fig. 312). If we abused
our cows and horses, as we
sometimes abuse our shade
trees, what would become of the
animals?
Fig. 312. The wrong way and the
right way to remove a limb. Did you ever see trees that were
mutilated to allow of the stringing
of telephone and telegraph wires?

Who owns the shade trees along a street or public highway?

 LEAFLET LVI

THE HEPATICA.[74]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
(Compare Leaflet XL.)

omething new and pleasant happened in my life

this year. In February, while the wood was snow-
covered and the roadsides piled high with drifts, I
saw hepaticas in bloom.

Oh, no! I did not find them out of doors. I had all
the fun of watching them from my warm chimney-
corner. Then when winds blew fiercely I often went
to the window where they grew and buried my head in the sweet
blossoms. What do you suppose they told me? If some winter day you
feel their soft touch on your face, and smell their woodsy fragrance,
you will hear the message.

Perhaps you want to know how the hepaticas found their way into my
window-box. Last fall as I walked through a leafy wood I gathered a
few plants, roots and all, that I had known and loved in spring and
summer days. Among them were hepaticas. These I laid away in the
cellar until the first of February. Then I planted them in a corner of
the window-box that I had left for them.

Since the little woods plants have come to live with me I have learned
to know them well. Perhaps the most important lesson they have
taught me is this: The blossoms may be the least interesting part of a
plant. Will you find out what hepaticas have to tell as the seasons
pass?
Even before you hear the first robin, go into the woods, find one of
the hepaticas, and mark it for your own. You will know it by the old
brown leaves. Then watch it day by day. The following questions will
help you to learn its life story:

1. Where do hepaticas grow, in sunny or shady places? During which

seasons do they get the most sunlight?

2. Watch the first sign of life in the plant. Do the new leaves or the
flowers come first?

3. Look at the hepatica blossom a long time. How many different

parts can you see in it? Whether you know the names of these parts
now does not matter. I want you to see them.

4. Notice the three small, green, leaf-like parts that are around the
flower bud. As the flower opens see whether they are a part of it, or
whether they are a little way from it on the stem.

5. Observe the stem closely. Is it short or long? Hairy or smooth?

6. As the new leaves appear find out whether they are fuzzy on the
inside as well as on the outside. Notice how they are rolled up and
watch them unroll.

7. In how many different colors do you find hepaticas?

8. Do some smell sweeter than others? If so, does color seem to have
anything to do with it?

9. Look at a hepatica plant at night or very late in the afternoon. Also

watch it early in the morning and in cloudy weather. Then look at it in
bright sunshine. Do you see any change in the flowers? I think you
will discover something of much interest.

10. Seed-time among hepaticas is very interesting. Notice what

becomes of the three small, leaf-like parts that were underneath the
flower. How many seeds are there?
11. How long do you think the leaves of hepatica remain on the plant?
Do you suppose they remain green all winter?

12. What becomes of the hepatica plant after it blossoms? Did you
ever see one in summer? Describe.

LEAFLET LVII

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.[75]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
(Compare Leaflet XLI.)

hey call him Jack-in-the-Pulpit, he stands up so stiff and

so queer

On the edge of the swamp, and waits for the flower-

folk to come and hear

The text and the sermon, and all the grave things that he has to say;

But the blossoms they laugh and they dance, they are wilder than
ever to-day;

And as nobody stops to listen, so never a word has he said;

But there in his pulpit he stands, and holds his umbrella over his
head,

And we have not a doubt in our minds, Jack, you are wisely listening,
To the organ-chant of the winds, Jack, and the tunes that the sweet
birds sing!

Lucy Larcom.

"It is Indian turnip," said I.

"No," said Grandmother, "it's memory root. If you taste it once you
will never forget it." And what Grandmother said to me so long ago, I
say to every boy and girl, "If you taste it once you will never forget
it."

But of all the names for this strange little wood plant, I like Jack-in-
the-pulpit best. Though never a word has it said in our lifelong
acquaintance, it has been a helpful little "country preacher" to me. As
we go into the woods this year, let us make up our minds that we will
know more than we ever have known before of its interesting life.

Where do you find the Jack-in-the-pulpit? In what kind of soil does it

grow? How does it first come up?

What is the shape of the root? One is enough for the whole class to
study and it should be planted again. We do not want the Jack-in-the-
pulpit to disappear from our woods.

Does the little hood fold over at first?

The hood or "umbrella" is not the flower. You will find the flowers on
the little central stalk that you call "Jack." See whether the blossoms
are alike. Look at the blossoms on several plants. Place a stick by the
side of one of these plants so that you will know it later in the year
when the Jack-in-the-pulpit has disappeared.

Notice whether there are insects in the lower part of the flower stalk.
If so, can they get out?

When the blossom has gone, look for the seeds. What color are they
in June? In August?
Have you any house plant that you think is related to Jack-in-the-
pulpit?

Fig. 313. Tubers of Jack-in-the-

pulpit, or Indian turnip.

LEAFLET LVIII.

THE DANDELION.[76]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY and L. H. BAILEY.

he first warmth of spring brought the dandelions out of the banks and
knolls. They were the first proofs that winter was really going, and we
began to listen for the blackbirds and swallows. We loved the bright
 flowers, for they were so many reflections of
the warming sun. They soon became more
familiar, and invaded the yards. Then they
overran the lawns, and we began to despise
them. We hated them because we had made
up our minds not to have them, not because
they were unlovable. In spite of every effort,
we could not get rid of them. Then if we
must have them, we decided to love them.
Where once were weeds are now golden coins scattered in the sun,
and bees revelling in color; and we are happy! L. H. Bailey.

Suggestions for Study.

I. Ask your teacher to let you go out of doors for ten minutes to look
at dandelions. In your note books write answers to the following
questions:

1. At what time of day are you

looking for the dandelions? Is
the sun shining, or is the sky
overcast? Make up your mind
to notice whether dandelions
behave the same at all hours
of the day and in all kinds of
weather.

2. How many dandelions can

you count as you stand on the
school-ground? The little
yellow heads can be seen a
long distance.

3. Where do they prefer to

grow,—on the hillsides, along
the roadsides, in the marshes,
or in your garden?
II. Gather a basket full of Fig. 314. Blow the dandelion
blossoming dandelions, roots balloon!
and all, take them to school, and
ask the teacher to let you have a
dandelion lesson. Here are some suggestions that will help you:

1. Each pupil should have a plant, root and all. Describe the
plant. Is it tall or short? How many leaves are there? How many
blossoms?

2. Hold the plant up so that you can see it well. How many
distinct colors do you find? How many tints and shades of these
colors?

3. Look carefully at the blossom. How many parts has it? How
much can you find out about the way in which the yellow head is
made up?

III. Mark a dandelion plant in your garden. Watch it every day. Keep a
record of all that happens in its life. Later in the year send Uncle John
a little history or account of the plant you have watched.

Dandelion.

Dear common flower, that grow'st beside the way,

Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold,
First pledge of blithesome May,
Which children pluck, and, full of pride uphold,
High-hearted buccaneers, o'erjoyed that they
An Eldorado in the grass have found,
Which not the earth's ample round
May match in wealth, thou art more dear to me
Than all the prouder summer-blooms may be.

—Lowell.
 LEAFLET LIX

MAPLE TREES IN AUTUMN.[77]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
(Compare Leaflets XLVII and XLVIII.)

The hills are bright with maples yet,

But down the level land
The beech leaves rustle in the wind,
As dry and brown as sand.
The clouds in bars of rusty red
Along the hill-tops glow,
And in the still sharp air the frost
Is like a dream of snow.—Alice Cary.

he hills are bright with maples about the time

Jack Frost appears, and many people say that
he makes the leaves turn red and yellow. Wise
folk tell us, however, that Jack Frost is not the
artist; that leaves change to autumn tints when
their work is completed.

Boys and girls may not know that leaves "work;" yet all through the
long summer days when you have been playing in the shade of some
old maple, the leaves over your head have been very busy. Uncle John
says that each leaf is a "starch factory," and this is true. Starch is
necessary for plant food and it is manufactured in the leaves. The
green leaves and stems are the machinery, which is run by sunlight.
Look at a large branch of maple and see how the leaves are arranged
to catch every sunbeam. The more light the green parts of the tree
get, the more plant food can be made and the sturdier and
handsomer the tree.

But the story of the way in which the plant food is made is a long one
and not easy for young people to understand. This can come later
when you have become familiar with the many interesting things that
you learn by watching the tree and by studying with the microscope.

If I should to go into your school-room and should ask how many

boys and girls know a sugar maple, I suppose every hand would be
raised. But if I should ask: "When does the sugar maple blossom?"
"What do the blossoms look like?" "When do the winged seeds fall?" I
wonder how many could give me satisfactory answers to my
questions!

Choose some fine old maple for study. The one that stands near the
door will be best, since you can see it every day. Write in a note book
all that you can find out about it as the weeks go by.

Suggestions for Fall Study.

1. Notice how the leaves turn to the sunlight.

2. Try to find two leaves exactly alike in color, form, size, length of
stem, etc. If you succeed send them to Uncle John.

3. How many different tints can you find in a single leaf?

4. As you look at two sugar maple trees, do they seem to be colored

alike?

5. Are all sugar maples that you know the same shape?

6. How are the leaves arranged on the branch?

7. Can you find any winged seeds near the tree? If so, plant one in a
box of earth and see whether it will grow.

8. If you find any plants growing beneath the maple tree, describe
them or tell what they are.

9. Do you know any other kinds of maples? How do you distinguish

them?

Child's drawing of a maple leaf.

Fifth grade. (Reduced.)

LEAFLET LX

A CORN STALK.[78]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
 (Compare Leaflets XLII and XLIII.)

om,"
" said I to a young friend who stood by
the window tossing a ten-cent piece into
the air, "what plant is used for part of the
design on that coin?"

The boy did not answer right away. I do not

believe he had ever looked at it closely; yet
this is one of the prettiest of our silver
pieces. After a few minutes he said, "It is
corn, isn't it?"

Hearing a note of surprise in his voice, I

told him something about corn-raising in
this country. We then decided that it is a good thing to represent corn
on one of the United States coins, since it is a source of much of our
wealth.

But aside from its value, Indian corn should interest us because it is a
wonderful plant. Boys and girls do not know much more about it than
does any old black crow. You have watched the farmer plant corn and
you like to eat it. Jim Crow has watched the farmer plant corn and he
likes to eat it, too. The time has come, however, when you can get
ahead of him if you care to; and to get ahead of crows on the corn
question is worth the while. Let me tell you how to do it.

1. Secure a kernel of corn, cut it in halves, and note the food inside it.
This food was stored in the seed by the parent plant. Uncle John
would say that it is the "lunch" that the mother puts up for her
children. What must happen before the food can be used by the little
plant?

2. Place some moist soil in a tumbler, and put a kernel of corn in it

near the side so that you can watch it grow. How soon does the root
appear? The leaves? How many leaves come up at one time?
3. Ask your father to give you a small piece of ground in the garden.
Plant a few kernels of corn so that you will have some plants of your
own to study this summer. Other people's plants are never so
interesting as our own.

4. As your corn plants push their way up into the light and air, watch
them every day. Notice how the new leaves are protected by the next
older ones.

5. Is the stem hollow or solid? In which way would it be stronger?

6. Notice the joints. Are they the same distance apart throughout the
length of the stem? Does the distance between the joints always
remain the same? Measure them some day; then in a week measure
them again.

7. Where does the stalk break most easily?

8. Where does the leaf clasp the stalk?

9. Notice how strong the leaf is. In what direction do the ribs extend?
If these long narrow leaves were not strong what would happen to
them as they wave back and forth in the wind?

10. Have you ever noticed the ruffled edges of the leaves? As you
bend them you will see that the edges do not tear.

11. There are two kinds of blossoms on a corn plant. The ear bears
one kind, the tassel the other. If you were to cut all the tassels from
the plants in your garden, the kernels would not grow on the ears.
Later on you will learn why.

12. Watch the ear closely as it grows.

13. Follow a thread of silk to the place where it is attached. Notice

whether there is one silk for each kernel.
14. When the corn is in the milk stage it is preparing to store up food
for the young plants. How does it taste at this time?

15. Look closely at the base of the corn stalk and you will see roots
extending obliquely into the soil. These are the brace roots. Of what
use do you think they are to the corn stalk?

LEAFLET LXI

IN THE CORN FIELDS.[79]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
(Compare Leaflets XLII and XLIII.)

"Caw caw!" said Jim Crow as he flew over our

heads. "Was he jeering at us?" we wondered,
the children and I. Perhaps he was inquisitive
to know what business we had in the open country and in the fields of
corn. Perhaps he was not concerned with us at all. Very likely crows
are less concerned with us than we think they are.

Jim Crow flew on out of sight, but we stayed among the ripening
corn. The ears were filling out. The ends of the silk were turning
brown. We saw many things that we had planned to look for in
vacation: the tall stem, the brace roots, the long strong leaves and
the way the ribs extend in them, the ruffled edges of the leaves, the
two kinds of blossoms, and where each silken thread is attached. The
whole story was before us.

But this is the harvest time and

we are ready to learn a new
lesson from the corn fields. As we
watch them now let us answer
the following questions:

1. How is the corn cut?

2. How many ears do you find on

a stalk?

3. Are the ears on the same side

of the stalk or on opposite sides?

4. Take into the school room as Fig. 315. Over the fields in corn-
many kinds of corn as you can harvest time.
find and describe each as follows:

a—The shape and color of the

kernel.
b—Number of rows of kernels.
c—The number of kernels in each row.

5. Perhaps the girls will pop some corn and bring it to the Junior
Naturalist Club meeting. Let them try to pop field corn. Cut kernels in
two of field corn and pop-corn, and report whether they differ. Why
does pop-corn pop?

6. Make a list of the foods for which corn is used.

7. Why are pumpkins planted among corn?

8. Why not make for your school room some decorations from ears of
corn?
 LEAFLET LXII.

THE ALFALFA PLANT.[80]

By L. H. BAILEY and JOHN W. SPENCER.

(Compare Leaflet XXXIV.)
 ll the things that the farmer sells are
produced by plants and animals. The
animals live on the plants. It is important
that we know what some of these plants
are.

Some plants are grown for human food.

Such are potato, wheat, apple, lettuce.
Some are grown only to feed to animals.
Such are grasses and clover,—plants that
are made into hay.

Hay is the most important crop in New

York State. In fact, New York leads all the
States in the value of the hay and forage. This value is more than 66
millions of dollars.

Hay is important in New York also because there are so many dairy
cattle in the State. There are more than one and one-half millions of
dairy cattle in New York. In the value of the milk and butter and
cheese, New York also leads all other States. There are also great
numbers of beef cattle, horses, mules, and sheep. All these millions of
animals must be supplied with hay in our long cold winters.

Hay is made in New York State from grasses and clover. Suppose we
could find some plant that would yield twice as much hay as clover
yields, and yet be as nutritious,—you can readily see how valuable
such a plant would be to the State. It would be better than a gift of
millions of dollars. Such a plant is alfalfa.

Now that you know something about alfalfa in a general way, I want
you to know how the plant looks and how it grows. It is not yet very
well known even among farmers, but its cultivation is increasing every
year. You will probably know where there are fields of it. Sometimes it
grows along roadsides as a weed. Last spring Uncle John offered to
send a small packet of alfalfa seeds to any Junior Naturalist who
wrote for it. He sent about 5,000 packets. But if you do not know the
plant or cannot find it, write at
once to Uncle John and he will
send you some by mail from the
University farm.

Let us see how many school

children in New York State will
know what alfalfa is between now
and Thanksgiving time. When
writing to Uncle John about
alfalfa, try to answer as many of
the following questions as
possible from your own
observation:

1. Does the plant remind you of

any other plant that you ever
saw? Of what?

2. How does it grow,—straight up

or spreading out on the ground?

3. How many stalks come from

one root?

4. What are the leaves like? Mark

out the shape with a pencil.

5. What are the flowers like? Do

you know any other flowers of Fig. 316. Sprig of the alfalfa
similar shape? What is the color? plant.

6. If possible, dig around a plant

and describe how the root looks. Does it branch into many fibres, as
grass roots or corn roots do?

Uncle John's Letter About the Alfalfa Gardens.

My Dear Boys and Girls:

Do you know much about the alfalfa plant? Do you remember that
last spring we promised to send a packet of seed to each of you who
asked for it? Did you send your name asking that you be served? We
received the names of several thousand children asking for seed and I
am wondering whether you are one of them. If so, did you sow the
seed? Will you write me a letter telling me what became of it?

Fig. 318. Leaf of alfalfa. What

significance have the spots?

Fig. 317. What leaf is this? Is it

enlarged?
Fig. 319. Flowers of the alfalfa. Are they natural size?
 Fig. 320. Alfalfa pods. How much enlarged?

I am very fond of children's letters. Each year I receive more than

thirty thousand of them. I sometimes wonder whether there is
another man who is honored by so many letters from young people,
for I count it an honor to be so remembered.

As large as that number is, I cannot spare one letter. I always want a
few more. All your letters are read and I take great pains to answer
all questions. If, by any oversight, you have been missed I am sorry. I
know what it costs a boy or girl to write a letter. I never open one
without feeling that the writer is a friend of mine, otherwise he would
not have expended so much hard work to write it.

School has now begun and of course you are very busy, and so is
your teacher. One of the best opportunities to write letters is in
school. Please ask your teacher whether you may not write me during
your language period. You may say that she may make authors of all
of you if she can, but I will do all I can to help you become good
letter writers. Ask her whether a letter to me may not be a substitute
for a composition.

In your letter you may tell me your experience with alfalfa. Tell me
your failures as well as your successes. Even though you received
your seeds and did not sow them, tell me that. I shall never find fault
with you for telling me the truth. If you sowed the seed and the
plants did not do well, tell me that also. The plants may look very
small and uninteresting to you this year, but next year they may
surprise you.

In some parts of the United States the alfalfa crop is of great value
and the loss of it would bring distress to many farmers. I am
wondering whether the crop, as raised in all parts of our country, is
not worth more money than all the gold found in the Klondike, taking
the two year by year. I do not know how that may be. I am
wondering. Men by the thousand have gone to the gold mines and
Fig. 321. Crown of the alfalfa plant, showing how root and top start
off.
endured many hardships and later returned with less money than
those who had remained at home and took care of their alfalfa.

It may be that a mine of wealth lies very near you, and to get it you
may have to ask alfalfa to find it and bring it to you. Gold cannot be
found in all places in a gold country and alfalfa may not feel
comfortable and grow in all parts of a good farming country. What we
asked of you last spring was that you become alfalfa prospectors and
later tell us what you found.

JOHN W. SPENCER.

LEAFLET LXIII

THE RED SQUIRREL.[81]

By ALICE G. McCLOSKEY.
(Compare Leaflet XLIX.)

The squirrel came running down a slanting bough, and as he stopped

twirling a nut, called out rather impudently, "Look here! just get a
snug-fitting fur coat and a pair of fur gloves like mine and you may
laugh at a northeast storm."—Thoreau.

or a cheery companion give me the red squirrel! I enter the woods and
there the little fellow is, ready to welcome me. "What a fine day it is
for gathering nuts!" he seems to say, and straightway, as I listen to
his merry chatter, I think it is a fine day for any sport that includes
him and the brown November woods.
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