Labor Camps

Labor camps were home to migrant workers. Through word of mouth, newly arrived Filipinos heard of available work in the pea, lettuce or asparagus fields in the Central Coast. Oftentimes, a worker would be informed of available work, depending on what season, then if hired, would be transported to a farm labor camp. Labor camps were bunkhouses supervised by a crew chief who often spoke a Filipino dialect familiar to the laborer. When the season was over and the farm work completed, the laborer would have to go pack all his belongings and move on to the next job.

The labor camps were different in every location but what was similar for all of them is "the Laborer's Closet." There were also inspections by the CCIH or the California Commission of Immigration and Housing to make sure that the conditions in these camps were up to par to the standard set by the government. Sadly, these inspections were rarely effective, and Federal Labor Camps hoped to change the poor living conditions.

Estalio's labor camp in Santa Maria, 1936.                 Saba's labor camp in Lompoc, 1936            Los Berros labor camp in Lompoc, circa 1930.

*Picture on top of this page: Migrant worker housing in Guadalupe, California, around 1930. Filipino field workers paid $16 in monthly rent. Courtesy of the Helen Gahagan Douglas Collection, Carl Albert Center, Congressional Archives, University of Oklahoma.

*Photos on the bottom of this page are courtesy of Central Coast Filipino American National Historical Society.