Migra Raid

By kiki

One summer morning circa 1948, the La Migra (immigration) threw a raid on the Simons Brickyard. They drove up with several migra buses. They then round up the workers since every worker who worked in the yard was Latino/Mexican. I stood watching as the workers were lined up to get into the buses. As I watched, I spotted my dad, who was in line to get into one of the buses. Not knowing any better at age twelve, or so, I ran to my dad and said to him: "Pops, they can't take you, you have papers, you're legal" I said that because I had overheard some migra agent ask some of the workers something about "your papers" I didn't know anything about "papers" I just assumed my pops had them.

"Hijo (son), let me get on the bus. La migra will be passing out sandwiches, and after I get some, I'll get off," my Pops whisper to me. Not long after, my pops walked off the bus, eating a baloney and cheese sandwich and another one he gave to me. Later at home, he told us how when the la migra agent passed out the sandwiches, my Pops asked him in excellent English if he could have two sandwiches since he had not had breakfast yet. Pops said the agent told him, "you speak excellent English for a Mexican" Pops replied to the agent: "I should, I've been here all my life and went to the local schools" My Pops said the agent threw two sandwiches at him and told him to get his ass off the bus. I wonder how Pop knew about the sandwiches, I asked him, and he said to me that this was not the first time he had pulled this scam. Pops was an honest man, but in those years, you did whatever you had to do to get something to eat besides; getting it from la migra felt good, he said!!

I later learned that many illegals worked at the brickyard since about 30% of the workers were taken away. By the following summer, most of them were back working at the brickyard.