Red River Valley man preserves legacy of Hispanic migrant workers who settled there
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Ken Mendez lives in Minnesota’ s Red River Valley, where some of the first Hispanic communities settled in the state. They arrived in the early 1900s as migrant farmers to the area and played a part in building the sugar beet industry.
Mendez is part of one of those families, and he has spent much of his life preserving their legacy.
Mendez’s father, Jesus Mendez, came to East Grand Forks from Mexico in 1927. Mendez’s mother, Ramona Mendez, arrived in the 1940s from Texas.
Together, they raised 10 children and became a pillar for migrant workers in the region.
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“My father worked for the migrant council and for the migrant school,” Mendez said. “My mother was very important, too. When the families came up, they generally always seemed to stop at her house.”
Ken Mendez works for the University of Minnesota Crookston and is dedicated to preserving the history of his family and of the Hispanic communities in the area.
A few years ago, he organized a photo exhibit of Russell Lee’s work capturing the sugar beet harvest. It was a glimpse into what life was like for his parents and other migrant workers.
“The literal labor by everyone that went into the sugar beet harvest back in the ‘20s and early ‘30s was [nothing] short of back breaking.”
Recently, he brought onto campus the art of Ross H. Hier who paints hummingbirds. It’s an homage to his mother’s love of hummingbirds — a love that was passed onto him and his daughter.
It’s been decades since the first migrant farm workers arrived in the Red River Valley. A lot of the work that was before done by hand is now being done by machines. There are fewer migrant workers coming nowadays, too. But that’s not all that’s changed as Mendez sees it.
“For the migrant families that now have a couple of generations — now grandkids — that are living here, they’re working, they have good jobs, [and] they have education, too.”
To hear the conversation with Ken Mendez on his family’s history in the Red River Valley, click play on the player above.