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Henry P. Anderson papers

 Collection
Identifier: larc-ms-0422

Content Description

This collection consists of the personal papers of researcher Henry P. Anderson. The materials cover to agricultural labor conditions; corporate agriculture and farm economy; pesticide use and effect on workers; agriculture-related legislation; farmer associations; and labor, religious and political organizing efforts to improve agricultural working conditions. Includes extensive correspondence and news clippings, and Anderson’s research into the California Bracero program during his graduate program at U.C.

The Bracero Program was a binational agreement between the U.S. and Mexico to import temporary agricultural workers to fill labor shortages. Also known as Public Law 78, it began in 1942 under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Labor. In California, the California Dept. of Employment managed the program which primarily served corporate agriculture. On paper, the binational agreement guaranteed decent living conditions and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour. However, there was little oversight and Anderson discovered many violations.

This collection contains extensive documentation on the California program, and the millions of Mexican men, mainly from rural communities, who participated in it. In the collection, they are mostly unnamed numbers but there are a few instances of interviews and photographs documenting names and voices.

The collection also contains documentation of Anderson’s communication and work with key people who worked with the agricultural workers. These include Fathers Thomas McCullough and Donald McDonnell, Catholic priests who served Spanish-speaking farm workers, Ernesto Galarza, one of the first Mexican scholars and labor organizers to write about the problems in the Bracero Program; and H. L. Mitchell, president of the National Agricultural Workers Union and co-founder of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union.

Series 1: Personal contains biographical material, including transcripts from several oral history interviews, his research and writings as a university student, and his work as a contract researcher on several studies.

Series 2: U.C. Berkeley includes Andersons’s thesis research on the Bracero Program, including interviews with braceros, camp employees, growers and health workers; copious notes, and a wide range of related research documents on farm work, foreign labor, child labor and the perspective of labor organizations and governmental agencies. It also includes several drafts and versions of his thesis on the California Bracero Program.

Series 3: Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee includes records Anderson produced during his tenure as the Director of Research, including numerous newsletters, research results, and surveys, in addition to extensive research and news clippings he collected.

Series 4: Citizens for Farm Labor contains administrative documents, the quarterly CFL journal, news clippings on agriculture labor, legislation and testimonies given before governmental bodies.

Series 5: Pesticides contains records produced during Anderson’s research assistant work on the Community Study on Pesticides and the Task Group on Occupational Exposure to Pesticides. This series includes administrative records (correspondence, minutes, recommendations, etc.) research documents on re-entry periods, farm worker health issues (sudden death syndrome, child and worker poisoning, and morbidity), pesticide producer documents, government publications on pesticide use, health insurance and Workmen’s Compensation, and studies on pesticide use and residue on various crops.

Series 6: Publications consists of drafts and rewrites of Anderson’s published books in addition to some copies of his self-published books.

Series 7: Correspondence and Collaboration includes correspondence between Anderson and individuals he considered mentors and partners in his work supporting farm worker rights. These include Ernesto Galarza, Father Thomas McCullough, H. L. Mitchell and Eugene Nelson, Prof. Gilbert Gonzalez, and Ben Yellen. This series also includes documents from the Community Service Organization and the National Sharecroppers Fund.

Series 8: Photography consists of mostly black and white images of Bracero Program activities (intake centers, health inspections, processing), farm worker housing; families; fieldwork; pickets; the Delano to Sacramento march; AWOC's Strathmore conference featuring labor leaders and farm workers, and the U.C. Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Photographers identified are Ernest Lowe, George Ballis, Harvey Richards, and Henry Anderson.

Series 9: Sound Recording consists of interviews, meetings, speeches and events. Featured people include Ernesto Galarza, Father Thomas McCullough, Maria Moreno, bracero workers, Prof. Paul Taylor, Norman Smith, Santa Cruz Filipinos, Vangie Buell speaking about Pete Velasco and more.

Series 10: Video Recordings consists of braceros, AWOC Strathmore conference, Podesta strike, National Farm Worker Association pilgrimage, Pete Velasco, and Vincent St. John's graveside.

Content Warning: This collection contains derogatory terminology to describe Mexican agricultural workers in the Bracero program and which was used to disempower them. The language is in the UC Berkeley series. If you have questions or comments about this language or description, please email us.

Dates

  • 1944-2014

Availability

Collection is open for research.

Restrictions

Some materials are in the public domain; transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. In addition, the reproduction of some materials may be restricted by terms of gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions, privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Biographical / Historical

Henry Pope Anderson was born on December 14, 1927, in Mexia, Texas, to Oscar Alban Anderson and Ethel Pope. After a freshman year at Pomona College, Anderson enlisted in the Army, serving at Fort Lewis, Washington, at the end of World War II. During this period he became aware of racial discrimination through the segregation of African American enlistees. When he returned to Pomona College he became involved in the Student Federalists, an organization pushing for a federal world government. Upon graduating in 1949, Anderson entered a graduate program at the University of Hawaii where he completed a thesis on the world government movement.

In 1954 Anderson became a teaching associate at U.C. Berkeley for Dr. Edward Rogers who was designing a course called “Medical Sociology,” to examine how attitudes affect health. Anderson began a second graduate program in the School of Public Health.

For his thesis, Anderson decided to study Mexican farm workers and their attitudes toward traditional folk medicine versus the western-style medical practices they encountered in the United States. When his VISA request to do research in Mexico was denied, U.C. Berkeley Professor Paul Taylor, husband of photographer Dorothea Lange, informed him of the Bracero Program.

Anderson shifted his focus to braceros in California. With a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Anderson hired Louis Tagaban as a bilingual interviewer. His goal was to interview 2,500 braceros as they came through the Welcome Center in El Centro, Calif.

Anderson discovered that governmental oversight for the Bracero Program was nonexistent. The program disempowered braceros while giving corporate farmers power to fend off local labor organizing efforts. In 1958 Anderson wrote up his impressions of the program at the behest of the American Friends Service Committee, who deciding their stand on P.L. 78. The eight-page document, titled "Social Justice and Foreign Contract Labor: A Statement of Opinion and Conscience," highlighted the problems and its abuse of braceros. Without his approval, the AFSC sent the statement to their mailing list, which included directors of the U.S. Dept. of Labor and California’s Dept. of Employment, who managed the program and who became angered by Anderson’s document. This event set into motion complaints that reached the Chancellor of the University of California system who shut down Anderson’s research and instructed him to either leave the university or re-write his thesis and remove several controversial chapters. Anderson choose to submit what he called a “sanitized” version in order to complete his graduate degree.

In 1958 Anderson moved his family to Stockton, Calif. Where he became the director of research for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a farm worker organizing effort funded by the AFL-CIO. He wrote numerous research newsletters, testified at public hearings, coordinated surveys of agricultural workers, and collected extensive research files relating to farm workers and agriculture-related issues.

After he was let go by the AWOC director in 1962, Anderson co-founded Citizens for Farm Labor, a farm worker advocacy organization which published a quarterly journal. He served as director for the run of the organization from 1962 to 1974.

From 1968 to 1974, Anderson also served as a research assistant on two committees examining agricultural pesticide use. The Community Study on Pesticides was followed by the Task Group on Occupational Exposure to Pesticides, which was charged with making recommendations to the Federal Working Group on Pest Management, especially in regard to re-entry periods after a field was sprayed with pesticides. Anderson threatened to quit the latter when he felt the focus of the group had shifted from worker safety toward the hardship felt by growers who had to keep their workers out of fields.

Anderson authored many books, pamphlets and essays over his lifetime. He had a regular 15-minute commentary on KPFA in the 1960s on farm labor issues, academic freedom and other social issues. Politicized by his early research of the Bracero Program and the events that happened at U.C. Berkeley, Anderson became a life-long supporter of farm workers and their organizing efforts.

Anderson died on October 24, 2016, in Oakland, California.

Extent

40.92 Linear Feet (39 cartons, 1 oversize box with 5 folders, 4 oversize items in flat files)

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

This collection is currently unavailable for research. This material is undergoing digitization and will be freely accessible in print and digital form in Spring 2024.

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This collection consists of the personal papers of researcher Henry P. Anderson. The materials cover to agricultural labor conditions; corporate agriculture and farm economy; pesticide use and effect on workers; agriculture-related legislation; farmer associations; and labor, religious and political organizing efforts to improve agricultural working conditions. Includes extensive correspondence and news clippings, and Anderson’s research into the California Bracero program during his graduate program at U.C.

The Bracero Program was a binational agreement between the U.S. and Mexico to import temporary agricultural workers to fill labor shortages. In California, the California Dept. of Employment managed the program which primarily served corporate agriculture.

This collection contains extensive documentation on the California program, and the millions of Mexican men, mainly from rural communities, who participated in it. In the collection, they are mostly unnamed numbers but there are a few instances of interviews and photographs documenting names and voices.

Arrangement

The collection is arranged in the following 10 series: Series 1: Personal; Series 2: U.C. Berkeley; Series 3: Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC); Series 4: Citizens for Farm Labor (CFL); Series 5: Pesticides; Series 6: Publications; Series 7: Correspondence and Collaborations; Series 8: Photographs; Series 9: Sound Recordings; Series 10: Motion picture. Series 5: Pesticides is arranged in two sub-series: 5.1: Community Study on Pesticides; 5.2: Taskgroup on Occupational Exposure to Pesticides.

Acquisition

Donated by Dorothy Anderson Rodriguez.

Condition Description

Mold on some open reel sound recordings. These items have been removed from the collecton for remediation.

Processing Information

Collection was processed by Eva Martinez, Ann Galvan, Angie Lin Mendoza, Krisbel Acevedo, and Marissa Friedman in 2019-2020.

Title
Finding aid to the Henry P. Anderson Papers
Author
Finding aid prepared by Eva Martinez with assistance from Angie Lin Mendoza and Krisbel Acevedo.
Date
2020
Description rules
Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid written in English.

Repository Details

Part of the Labor Archives and Research Center Repository

Contact:
San Francisco State University
J. Paul Leonard Library, Room 460
1630 Holloway Ave
San Francisco 94132-1722 USA
(415) 405-5571