Ventura County 1941 Great Citrus Strike Refugees · Before Silicon Valley

Title: Ventura County 1941 Great Citrus Strike Refugees
Description: One group of Mexican migrants that came to Santa Clara County were from the citrus region of Ventura County, or the Southern Santa Clara Valley. (We use the term Santa Clara County here instead of Santa Clara Valley so as to clarify which region we are referring to.) In Ventura County citrus workers harvested the lemon crop during the winter months and were then available for other crops during the more traditional summer harvest season. Historian Margo McBane found that growers from the north sent trucks down to Ventura County (around the Santa Paula region) to pick up citrus worker families to live and work in Santa Clara County for the summer fruit harvest. After the Great Citrus Strike of 1941 in Ventura County, many of these workers, who had been evicted from company housing during the strike, as well as family and friends from the Santa Paula region, chose to come to work permanently in Santa Clara County.
Scholar Talk: https://vimeo.com/812900940
Additional Online Information: Puentes Brothers Mexican Family History San Jose, CA 2/24/2019; Racial Segregation Practices at the Limoneira Company and Santa Paula, 1893–1919
Identifier: B4SV Exhibit Topic Two: Slide 007

Media: Workers Loading Boxes Marked "Limoneira Company" with Oranges, ca.1920