1304
Interview in Spanish. Interviewee addressed as Rosa Maria Navarro.
Summary of Interview
Mrs. Navarro Quemé briefly recalls her childhood and the financial difficulties she and her family endured; at the age of five, she began picking cotton to supplement the family’s income; her mother took in laundry on the occasion that her father did not send money home while working as a bracero; Mrs. Navarro Quemé discusses the American Consul’s notification of her father’s hospitalization; she says that her father told them that the braceros were made to donate blood every eight days so that it could be sent to the soldiers fighting in WWII; she suspects that his illness was caused by this practice; she recalls that her father did not visit them often while working as a bracero; he was not able to return despite the death of his two-year-old daughter; she states that her father used a short-handled hoe while working in the lettuce fields; in addition, her father was allowed to stay and work as a foreman after his contracts expired; after his last contract, Mr. Navarro Segovia worked in the fields of Mexicali, Mexico; Mrs. Navarro Quemé discusses how she helped her father in the fields; in addition, Mrs. Navarro Quemé discusses the ten percent monetary deductions taken from the braceros; she gives her opinion of both the United States government and the Mexican government and the role she thinks they both played in exploiting the braceros.