Our Stories
Starting a New Life By Jess D. Haro U.S. Marine Corps Veteran
Fortunately, my father found a factory job with the Columbia Steel company. Every week he would commute by train to the Bay area where he lived in a boarding house and came home on the week- ends. He did that for the next 20 years until his retirement in 1956. In 1962, after serving as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps at MCRD, San Diego became my home for me and my wife Jane where we proudly raised two sons. I often think about my hardworking parents who brought up nine children, six boys and three girls. Five of us brothers served our country in the military service. Our contributions of labor, love of country and a profound belief in the most noble ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness reflected the promise of America.
The poverty and violence of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 caused my father, Pedro Garcia Haro, at the age of 19 to leave his hometown of San Martin de Bolanos in the state of Jalisco for the United States. He first worked on the railroads in Colorado, and arrived in 1923 to Campo Hicks, a farm labor camp that housed about 600 residents in El Monte, California.
Jess D. Haro
I recall my father telling us that the city of El Monte would not allow Mexicans to live within the city limits, but the owner of Campo Hicks did allow Mexican families to live on his property, which created a permanent workforce for Mr. Hicks and other farmers.
Families, however, had to build their own shelter with whatever materials they could find and outhouses were the norm.
It was at Campo Hicks where my father met my mother, Maria Lugo Retamoza, a 30-year-old widow with three young sons and a daughter who had left Mexico in 1924, seeking a better life. My parents spent about 4 years in Campo Hicks then moved to Oxnard in 1928, where they worked as farm laborers. In 1935 they moved to Stockton and settled there.
Pedro Garcia Haro and Maria Lugo Haro (Photos courtesy Haro family archives)
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San Diego Latino Legacy – Timeline • Milestones • Stories
Chapter 2 – Rebuilding Lives, Against All Odds
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