A traquero is a railroad track worker, or "section hand", especially a Mexican or

Mexican American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...

railroad track worker ("

gandy dancer Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early Rail transport, railroad workers in the United States, more formally referred to as "section hands", who laid and maintained Track (rail transport), railroad tracks in the years before the work was don ...

" in

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances ...

usage). The word derives from "traque",

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is m ...

for "track".

Background

While the U.S. railroad track force in the Southwest and Midwest had always included some Mexican and Mexican American workers, their numbers were greatly increased following the exclusion of the Chinese and the recruitment and training of Mexican rail workers in Mexico as part of the construction of railroads in Mexico, financed largely by U.S. railroad companies, in particular, the Santa Fe, the

Denver & Rio Grande Western The Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad , often shortened to ''Rio Grande'', D&RG or D&RGW, formerly the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad, was an American Class I railroad company. The railroad started as a narrow-gauge line running south from ...

and the Southern Pacific. The peak of traquero employment programs took place between 1880 and 1915, right before the

Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...

and federal restrictions placed on Mexican immigration by the 1930s. The

Pacific Electric The Pacific Electric Railway Company, nicknamed the Red Cars, was a privately owned Public transport, mass transit system in Southern California consisting of electrically powered streetcars, interurban cars, and buses and was the largest electr ...

interurban system in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

area was constructed and maintained by a workforce which was largely made up of traqueros. Many traqueros lived in characteristic shanty towns of old boxcars which could be seen throughout the U.S. Southwest and Midwest, as far north as Chicago. Some of these could still be seen during the middle of the 20th century. Other communities of traqueros were founded as mobile

tent A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using ...

camps, subsequently improved by the construction of more permanent dwellings, sometimes with the assistance of the railroad companies, but more often not. The

Watts Watts is plural for ''watt'', the unit of power. Watts may also refer to: People * Watts (surname), list of people with the surname Watts Fictional characters *Watts, main character in the film '' Some Kind of Wonderful'' * Watts family, six cha ...

section of Los Angeles originated as a traquero settlement at the intersection of the two major lines of the Pacific Electric. Another known community sprouted from its traquero origins was

Perris, California Perris is an old railway city in Riverside County, California, United States, located east-southeast of Los Angeles and north of San Diego. It is known for Lake Perris, an artificial lake, skydiving, and its sunny dry climate. Perris is with ...

, about 30 miles south of

Riverside, California Riverside is a city in and the county seat of Riverside County, California, United States, in the Inland Empire metropolitan area. It is named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It is the most populous city in the Inland Empire an ...

. The twin cities of Coachella and

Indio Indio may refer to: Places * Indio, Bovey Tracey, an historic estate in Devon, England * Indio, California, a city in Riverside County, California, United States People with the name * Indio (musician), Canadian musician Gordon Peterson * Índi ...

in Southern California were founded by traqueros in the early 1900s. Black historian and journalist Thomas Fleming began his career as a

bellhop A bellhop (North America), or hotel porter (carrier), porter (international), is a hotel employee who helps patrons with their luggage while check-in, checking in or out. Bellhops often wear a uniform (see bell-boy hat), like certain other Page (a ...

and then spent five years as a cook for the Southern Pacific Railroad. In a weekly series of articles, he wrote of his memories of the Mexican section hands in the 1920s and 1930s. He recalled that the Southern Pacific gave them a place to sleep: old boxcars converted into two-room cabins. The company would take old boxcars, remove the wheels, and lay them alongside the tracks. He remembers that the workers had a lot of children who attended the public schools, but the ones he met during his childhood were "kind of meek, and took a lot of abuse from the other kids". Fleming says that "you found them right outside of all towns in California; that was part of the landscape." He suggests that they may have been the only ones who wanted to do the job because they got the lowest pay of any railroad workers, only about $40 a month.{{Cite web, url=http://www.freepress.org/fleming/flemng51.html, title = The Columbus Free Press - Reflections on Black History

Background

See also

References

Further reading