1321
Interview in Spanish. Interviewee addressed as Alfredo Angulo Castro
Summary of Interview
Mr. Alfredo Angulo Castro recalls his childhood and the financial difficulties he and his family endured; he was a racehorse jockey at the age of five; in 1949, at the age of nineteen, he traveled to the United States; his godfather was the foreman for a company in Holtville, California; in order to work for the company, he returned to Mexico and joined the bracero program; he recalls going through the processing center in Mexicali, Mexico; as part of the process, he was medically examined, shaved, and deloused; he worked twelve to twenty-four hour shifts as an irrigator in the melon, lettuce, and alfalfa fields of Holtville, California; he goes on to detail the camp size, living conditions, provisions, duties, payments, deductions, remittances, treatment, friendships, correspondence and recreational act ivies; he and his family lived in Mexicali, Mexico and he would commute to and from work; many braceros went to the movies, drank, attended mass, and congregated at a local park nearly every weekend; he mentions the tension between the braceros from northern Mexico and the braceros from southern Mexico; he also discusses the tension between Mexican American workers and the braceros; in addition, he witnessed several types of unjust treatment at the Saikhon ranch; he mentions that some braceros earned sixty cents a day; undocumented workers made fifty cents a day; he discusses his amicable friendship with his boss, Frank Watt; in 1962, with the help of his boss, he and his family became United States residents; Mr. Alfredo Angulo C. concludes that he is very proud to have worked with the bracero program.