Swap Meets and Socioeconomic Alternatives for Mexican Immigrants: The Case of the San Joaquin Valley1

Human Organization, Fall 2009 by Nock, Magdalena Barros

Swap meets have a long tradition in California's San Joaquin Valley. These are markets of different sizes and characteristics that have changed and adapted to demographic changes in the Valley. This article has two interrelated objectives. The first is to describe swap meets' main characteristics and how they have changed, paying special attention to changes introduced by Mexican vendors and consumers. The second is to discuss the different strategies implemented by men and women of Mexican origin in order to open a business at the swap meets. This article is based on qualitative data gathered during four months of field work in southern Central Valley. Seventeen swap meets were studied in Kern, Tulare, Kings and southern Fresno Counties.

Key words: swap meets, international migration, Mexican entrepreneurs, California

Introduction

Swap meets have a long tradition in San Joaquin Valley. They started as flea markets where people would gather to sell used commodities such as clothes, home decor, kitchen ware, toys, and occasionally antiques. Before the sixties, most vendors were non-Hispanic whites. Mexican workers who migrated to the Valley in search of work during the Bracero Program were encouraged by their employers to go to the flea markets to buy used clothes, tools for work, and kitchen ware for cooking.

Through time swap meets have changed. Not only the number of swap meets in the area under study has increased, but the social relations between vendors and consumers, the kind of goods sold, and the channels through which vendors are supplied have also changed. Around the seventies, Mexican migrants started to try their luck as vendors at the swap meets, first selling used merchandise and slowly introducing new goods used by the Mexican population. Now each day in every swap meet we find stands with Mexican music and films, exotic boots, belts and hats, Mexican handcrafts, toys, herbs and vitamins from Mexico, t-shirts with Mexican symbols, blankets with the Virgin of Guadalupe and flags, religious paraphernalia with all sorts of virgins and saints including the migrant saint; and dresses for quincea�eras (15th year parties), baptisms, and first communions. All sorts of chilies, beans, and com are being sold at swap meets. Swap meets have grown to be vibrant markets, especially the larger ones, where migrant families can find almost everything they need for their households: from linen clothes to furniture, from fruits and vegetables to garden flowers and plants, from electric appliances to work tools, from cosmetics and accessories for young girls to gold jewelry for the whole family and decorations for all sorts of parties.

This article has two related objectives. The first is to describe the swap meets' main characteristics and how they have changed in the past four to five decades, paying special attention to changes introduced by Mexican vendors and consumers. Swap meets not only play an important economic role but also a socioculturel role among the Mexican population of the Valley. The second is to explore how Mexican immigrants have become self employed by opening businesses at swap meets. I discuss how Mexican vendors use social, human, and financial capital to start their businesses and follow entrepreneurial strategies.

The study of ethnic entrepreneurship has been mainly concentrated on urban settings. The importance of ethnic businesses for the urban economies in the United States is unquestionable (Light and Rosenstein 1995 ; Portes and Stepick 1993). Most of the research done on Mexican entrepreneurs has been done in an urban context (Alvarez 1990, 1994; Barros 1998, 2007a; Guarnizo 1997; Tienda and Raijman 2000; Pedraza & Rivas 2005). Only a few recent studies have been done on Mexican migrant entrepreneurs in the rural areas of the United States (Zarrugh 2007; Barros 2007b). This article contributes to the study of the struggles and challenges faced by Mexican immigrant farm workers - men and women - who have become entrepreneurs in California's Central Valley.

This research is based on qualitative data gathered during four months of field work in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley in 2005. Seventeen swap meets were studied in four counties: Kern, Kings, Tulare and southern Fresno County. Interviews were conducted with 34 vendors and their family members: out of these, 20 stands were owned by couples who worked together; ten businesses were owned by women; and four were owned by men. Life histories were elicited from selected entrepreneurs, who were followed to the different swap meets where they conducted business and to Los Angeles where they bought merchandise for their stands. Genealogies were done of six family enterprises, and observations were carried out. I also interviewed consumers.2

The Context

The swap meets in this study are located in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley, home to one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world. At a national level, California's agricultural output received 32.8 billion dollars in 2005.3 In the seventies with the energy crisis and an increase in inflation, California's agriculture underwent important changes that led its producers to search for new alternatives and adaptations: farmers substituted mechanized, extensive crops with high quality fruits, vegetables and nuts and moved into organic produce in the eighties and nineties. This new production regime needed large amounts of labor. Another transformation was the increase in wine production: cheap wine was produced in the Valley and higher quality wine on the coast. New technologies increased crops' resistance to the pests and disease, new varieties, such as special grapes for diabetics, were introduced, and production became less seasonal. Agriculture underwent a process of intensification and the demand for labor increased (Palerm 1999, 2000).