Depression Era: 1930s: Repatriation for Mexican & Filipino Farm Workers
Click image to zoom in.Or view larger version. Imperial Valley – People in Camps. 1935. Dorothea Lange, photographer. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Oakland Museum of California. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.
"Shelters were made of almost every conceivable thing - burlap, canvas, palm branches." - A California minister's report of a labor camp in the Imperial Valley
In this photograph, a family gathers outside their "home" in California, a typical shack in a camp of Mexican and Mexican American migrant farm workers during the 1930s' Great Depression. The walls and roofs of the shack are patched together from different materials, reminiscent of the quote above. Migrant farm workers of all races lived in temporary camps like this as they moved from farm to farm to follow the seasonal work.