Traquero
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A traquero is a railroad track worker, especially a Mexican or Mexican American railroad track worker ("gandy dancer" in American English usage). The word derives from "traque", Spanglish for "track". The peak of traquero employment programs took place between 1880 and 1915, right before the Mexican Revolution and federal restrictions placed on Mexican immigration by the 1930s.
While the U.S. railroad track force in the Southwest 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 and the Southern Pacific.
The Pacific Electric interurban system in the Los Angeles area was constructed by a workforce which was largely comprised of traqueros. Mexican Americans formed a large percentage of railroad servants and stewards in the mid 1900s, but the industry was also composed of African Americans from the Southeast US.
Many traqueros lived in characteristic shanty towns of old boxcars which could be seen throughout the U.S. Southwest, in some places right up to the middle of the 20th century. The Watts section of Los Angeles originated as a traquero settlement. The twin cities of Coachella and Indio in Southern California was founded by traqueros in the early 1900s.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930, Jeffrey Marcos Garcilazo, dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara (University of Michigan microfilm edition, UMI Microform #9542027)
