In 1968, Nora Zavala Gallion and her family embarked on a journey that took them over 2,000 miles from their home in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley to a farm labor camp in Caldwell, Idaho, where they would harvest sugar beets as migrant workers. Now 11 years old, Nora felt a haunting familiarity with the camp’s small, dilapidated wooden barracks, which featured open latrines and communal showers. Despite her youth, she sensed that this place bore a troubling history.
Reflecting on her experience, Nora shared, “My memories of that time were deeply affected by the segregation we faced. We were not allowed to live within the white city limits of Caldwell. Instead, we had to travel 10 miles outside the city on a gravel road to reach this fenced camp, surrounded by barbed wire. Even at that age, I realized that this place had once been a prison camp. Now, it was the only place Mexicans were permitted to stay.”
It wasn’t long before other Mexican American farm workers revealed the camp’s grim past—a site once used to incarcerate Japanese Americans during World War II. This period saw over 120,000 individuals of Japanese descent forcibly removed from their homes due to racial prejudice. In Caldwell, these individuals were expected to prove their loyalty to the U.S. by laboring in the sugar beet fields, essential for the war effort.
Nora’s family became part of a long line of laborers who had been drawn to Caldwell, including white migrants from the Great Depression and Japanese Americans displaced from their lives. However, many of these workers, including Nora’s family, lacked the freedom to come and go, even with labor contracts. Caldwell exemplified the disturbing intersection of farm labor and incarceration.
“My family’s story is reflective of countless Mexican American migrant farmworkers from the 20th century,” Nora noted. “They were forced into labor camps, sacrificing education and stability for seasonal jobs with minimal pay, crossing barriers—geographical, cultural, and linguistic.”
Although Nora never worked the fields herself, she absorbed her family’s narratives of the struggles faced by migrant workers. “Being a farm worker feels akin to being a prisoner, living in constant fear of police and state violence,” she explained. This perspective fueled her academic interests, focusing on the intricate relationship between prison systems and the culture of punishment that impacts migrant labor.
For Nora, the history of Caldwell and its sugar beet industry is crucial for understanding this culture. During World War II, the demand for migrant workers soared as military efforts ramped up agricultural output deemed vital for the war. Sugar beets, in particular, were essential, as refined sugar was necessary for producing military weapons and explosives. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, American sugar production in Hawaii became a battleground, significantly increasing demand, driving companies like Amalgamated Sugar in Idaho to capitalize.
The sugar beet harvest season typically ran from early spring to fall, characterized by grueling stoop work that subjected laborers—often including children—to exhausting hours. Nora vividly recounted, “My hands would get so sore from holding the hoe that I could barely close them after working from dawn until dusk.”
The challenges faced by farm laborers were often racialized. Historical accounts show that specific groups were seen as suitable for this labor, with a Colorado sugar beet farmer stating in 1926 that no educated white man would take on such work. Consequently, Asian, Mexican, and Indigenous workers filled these roles.
Initially established in 1939 to house displaced white workers after the Great Depression, the Caldwell labor camp underwent a disturbing transformation during World War II. In March 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9102, leading to the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans. As they were forcibly removed from the West Coast, military and agricultural leaders expected this group to meet the labor demands arising from the increasing need for sugar beets.
This led to the establishment of the Seasonal Leave Program (SLP), which allowed Japanese Americans from larger camps like Minidoka to work in smaller labor camps like Caldwell. However, control in these locations remained strict, with reports indicating that, although they weren’t under armed guard, their movements were continually monitored.
In 1943, the Caldwell camp also became a labor depot for the Bracero program, further complicating its legacy. Mexican workers found themselves in similar conditions as their Japanese American counterparts, effectively becoming “inmates” in these labor camps. The trauma experienced within these oppressive environments has persisted across generations, as reflected in the experiences of Taka Mizote, who endured life in both larger assembly centers and smaller labor camps.
When the Zavala family arrived, the shadows of the camp’s oppressive history were unmistakable. Nora’s late uncle Marcus recalled, “There was a prison light in the middle of the camp. That kind of setup was common wherever we went—whether it was in Washington, Oregon, or Texas.”
Their experiences illuminate the lingering legacy of Japanese incarceration in Caldwell, where systems of control and surveillance continued long after the release of Japanese Americans. This historical overlap underscores how farmworkers in the U.S. are often viewed as a type of prisoner, even outside prison walls.
Today, the only remnant of the Caldwell camp’s original architecture is an abandoned barrack. During a visit in 2021, Nora connected with former residents who now live in an area with a significant Latino population. As she stood in that barrack, running her hands along the walls, she understood why her mother compared her time there to a prison sentence. Although her family built a life in Caldwell, it was within an institutional setting—encased in a fragile structure with a single window overlooking the fields where generations had toiled to produce sugar for the war.
