Filipe Ibarro’s Letter To New Masses Essay, Research Paper

Where the Sun Spends the Winter

San Antonio, Texas

Dear Editor:

I want the women of New York, Chicago and Boston who buy at Macy’s, Wannamaker’s,

Gimbel’s and Marshall Field to know that when they buy embroidered children’s dresses

labeled "hand made" they are getting dresses made in San Antonio, Texas, by

women and girls with trembling fingers and broken backs.

These are bloody facts and I know, because I’ve spoken to the women who make them.

Catalina Rodriguez is a 24-year-old Mexican girl but she looks like 12. She’s in the last

stages of consumption and works from six in the morning till midnight. She says she never

makes more than three dollars a week. I don’t wonder any more why in our city with a

population of 250,000 the Board of Health has registered 8000 professional "daughters

of joy" and in addition, about 2,000 Mujeres Alegres (happy women), who are

not registered and sell themselves for as little as five cents.

Catalina Torres has four children and her husband cracks pecans at thirty cents a

hundred pounds. He makes about two dollars a week. She says that they pay her thirty cents

a dozen for the embroidery and she can only make three dozen a week because of the

children.

Maria Vasquez, a spinster, sews the children’s dresses at home for fifteen cents a

dozen. If she works from dawn to midnight she can make three dozen a day. For each new

dress style you have to go to the office first and make a sample. I asked her if she

passed the test every time. She ran inside and came out with an envelope in her hand. Read

my diploma she says, and you won’t ask any more foolish questions.

The "diploma" is a circular letter printed by the thousands on the company

letterheads and is addressed to no one in particular. It says her work has been

satisfactory and that they are proud of her, and any time she wants work they will be glad

to give it to her. The company is the Juvenile Mfg. Corp. Their New York office is E.

Edar, 1350 Broadway.

Several years ago our Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign in competition with

Florida and California inviting tourists to come to San Antonio, "Where Sunshine

Spends the Winter." I don’t know whether the tourists came but Eastern manufacturers

and Capital came and let out the children’s dresses for home work. There are thousands of

American-born Mexican girls and women and they work at any price.

Ambrosa Espinoza is thirty and she has worked the last seven years on these "hand

made" dresses. I am enclosing her pay envelopes. One week three dollars, the next,

two fifty-five and the third only seventy cents. With this she has to pay rent for her

shack, pay insurance, support the Catholic Church and feed herself. When I try to talk to

her she says: Todos es de Dios, todos es de Dios–everything is from God,

everything is from God. She embroiders four dozen dresses a week at seventy-cents a dozen

and works from morning till late at night. At night she uses a kerosene lamp. She says

that times are getting harder and even American women will take the work. The boss knows

this so he reduces the prices every week, and if you don’t like it you can leave it. She

also works for the Juvenile Mfg. Corp.

She tells me about her brother and how he lost his leg. For twenty-five years he worked

for Southern Pacific Railway, and three years ago they laid him off. He looked high and

low for work. Then he decided to look in North Texas and he tried to hop a freight. But he

lost his balance and the train cut his leg the way the railroad cut the twenty-five years

from his life.

As I got out of the shack I can’t forget this brother who lies on his iron cot like a

skeleton. He uses rags for mattress, and lies motionless, gazing on the Virgin of

Guadalupe and the image of the young Jew of Galilee. He prays to them, dreaming of another

world.

I want you women up North to know. I tell you this can’t last forever. I swear it

won’t.

Felipe Ibarro