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The Hispanic Population of Rural Central Louisiana and Their Traditions By William F. Manger Agricultural Sector
Introduction Most Hispanic laborers enter Louisiana with temporary visas and return home at the end of each work season. Several occupations, however, require migrant labor for a large part of the year and a growing number have come to call Louisiana home. Hispanics and Hispanic culture are therefore gradually becoming a more familiar part of Louisiana. This essay explores some of the Hispanic communities found across central Louisiana. They include communities in CENLA or central Louisiana (Forest Hill, Bunkie, Alexandria, Pineville, Hessmer, Winnfield, and Natchitoches), in the Neutral Strip in western Louisiana (Leesville), and in Northeast Louisiana (Tallulah, Rayville, Columbia, and Delhi). (Also see Making Piñatas: Celebration Mexican-Style in North Louisiana about the Bernice community in North Central Louisiana.) Agricultural Sector Sweet potatoes are grown in Louisiana from Richland and Madison Parishes in the north, to Avoyelles Parish in central Louisiana. According to James Deshotel of Deshotel Farms, in Bunkie, sweet potatoes are cultivated in this area because they "do better" in the region's drier climate. Because of the labor-intensive nature of sweet potato farming and the difficulty of obtaining reliable seasonal sources of labor, sweet potato farmers have come to rely on Hispanic workers to plant and harvest their crops. Since the planting season extends from May to July and the harvesting takes places from September to November, Hispanic workers spend almost half of the year in the region. Several sweet potato farms are centered around the town of Bunkie, in Avoyelles Parish. James Deshotel, for example, owns a 500 acre sweet potato farm in the area.He first began to use Mexican workers in 1986 and presently employs some 30 seasonal workers that he houses in several houses he constructed behind the farm's packing plant.
The workers on Mr. Deshotel's farm all come from the town of Ciudad del Maiz, in the state of San Luis de Potosí. His workforce is composed of several generations of families who are related to one another and a number of them have worked for Mr. Deshotel for years. While he does not need to recruit workers, Mr. Deshotel hires a company called USAMEX LTD, located in Bald Knob, Arkansas, to take care of the paperwork involved in acquiring worker visas. Several of the older workers who have long been employed by Mr. Deshotel now have their green cards. Younger workers, on the other hand, have to obtain H-2A visas. During the off season, Mr. Deshotel tries to visit his workers in Ciudad del Maize and has noticed great material improvement in the lives of workers. Newton Produce, located down the road from Deshotel Farms, also employs Mexican workers. According to Adam Newton, the company usually brings in between 18 to 20 workers for the planting season and some 30 to take part in harvesting. They too hire USAMEX LTD to recruit their workers, take care of visas, and transports workers to and from Monterrey, Mexico each season. Workers are housed in a rented facility in the nearby town of Cheneyville and commute daily to the farm
Dawson Farms is a large sweet potato farm located in Delhi, Louisiana, in Richland Parish, which is in northeast Louisiana. The company grows, packs, and ships sweet potatoes and hires some 300 Mexican workers during the planting and harvesting seasons. According to Eva Dawson, the company began to employ Mexican workers around 1998 because they "couldn't get guaranteed attendance," from local workers. The company recruits its workers and picks them up each season in Monterrey, Mexico in a small fleet of yellow school busses that the firm owns. Most workers come from the states of Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi and several return each year to work for the company. At the end of each season all workers are returned to Monterrey.
Dawson Farms houses its workers in a former nursing home in the town of Tallulah, located some 30 miles away, in neighboring Madison parish. Workers commute back and forth each day in the school busses that first brought them to the area. It is very apparent when workers are town. Because they do not have automobiles, they can be seen walking to and from the former nursing home and local stores where they purchase their necessities. Other sweet potato growers house their workers in local motels. This is a common form of housing for non-agricultural laborers as well, and particularly construction workers who are frequently brought in from neighboring Texas.
One man noted that work on poultry farms is particularly tedious and consists of "work, home, work, home." In fact, poultry workers often work 18 hours a day and are usually given a day off on Sundays, although not always. They can be seen shopping for their weekly supplies at the local Super Wal-Mart in the town of Natchitoches on their free days. The town of Forest Hill, located 20 miles south of Alexandria, in Rapides Parish, is home to the largest concentration of Hispanic workers in Central Louisiana. Migrant laborers have come to the area since the late 1970s to work in the many plant nurseries located in Forest Hill and the surrounding area. According to Mayor Marcia Young approximately 250 to 400 Hispanics now live in Forest Hill area (see the related essay, The Mexican Community of Forest Hill, Louisiana). Most of the workers employed by local nurseries are also of Mexican origin and the majority come from the San Miguel de Allende area in Guanajuato state. According to José Candido Gutierrez, who owns In the Woods Nursery, the Mexican population of Forest Hill began to grow in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He attributes the growth of the Hispanic population to a "word-of-mouth process." Workers bring back family members and friends after they return home during the off season, he said. Most nursery owners therefore do not need to recruit workers, although many hire companies to take care of the tedious paper work associated with obtaining visas. Sweet potatoes farms, poultry farms, and plant nurseries are the largest employers of Hispanic workers, but other crops also require migrant labor. This includes sugar cane, which is grown in the southern part of Central Louisiana. Sugar cane workers, however, are primarily brought in during the planting season, which takes places between August and September. Sugar cane harvesting, on the other hand, does not require much manual labor and local labor usually suffices.
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