By Lauren Martinez, Family & Human Services major, class of 2025

Setting the Stage

Mexican women are not often seen as leaders of their families. Juanita E. Hovgaard, formerly Valencia, and her family did not follow the typical narrative of Mexican railroad workers. Juanita was born in Mexico City around 1906. While it is currently unclear as to when she crossed the border, she was in San Francisco and assimilated by marrying a White man, Henry C. Hovgaard, and started a family with their first child, Norman H. Hovgaard in 1931. Much of their family’s lives were spent in San Francisco, California, but for a few years, Juanita and her family lived in Lane County, Oregon. Making her one of the only single Mexican women in Lane County during the 1940s.

Life in California

San Francisco had just healed from the 1906 catastrophic earthquake, inciting a boost in construction. At the time, the city was receiving a high amount of Latine immigrants for a variety of reasons. With the beginnings of the Mexican Revolution coupled with news of available work in the United States, people were willing to take the chance to create a better life for themselves in the United States.

While San Francisco has been described as an ever-flowing chamber of diversity and acceptance, Mexican immigrants struggled to preserve their culture and visibility within society.

Juanita was a housewife for her husband and four children, Barbara, Norman, Lyon and Joann, meanwhile Henry was the sole provider working in the steel industry. While it is not certain as to what Henry might have built, it is possible that he was working on building ships in the San Francisco Bay or constructing the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. Before 1940, The Hovgaards lived at 286 Lobos St., which was near Lake Merced and later moved to 1450 44th Avenue, a few blocks away from Golden Gate Park. Insinuating the family was earning more money.

 

Life in Oregon

Around 1944 – 1945, Juanita traveled up to Lane County, Oregon with her four small children, leaving her husband behind in San Francisco. Juanita was likely pregnant at the time as she gave birth to her fifth child, Paul A. Hovgaard in Oregon. Around this time, big agricultural businesses were struggling as there was a labor shortage due to World War II. In response, the federal government implemented a series of farm labor programs, such as The Braceros, The Emergency Farm Labor Service, and The Women’s Land Army. These programs worked with state and local governments to allocate thousands of workers of different races, nationalities and varying immigration statuses to farms in need. Marketing for this program relied on patriotic language, posters, and magazines shared amongst other women. Working for these farms was seen as “doing your part” for the war effort; helping for the betterment of your country.

Many farmers would discourage White married women from becoming farmhands as societal norms enforced the idea that White married women were the keepers of the home and had to continue domestic work.

Many of these women received small salaries for their efforts as this was a volunteer-based position. During the family’s stay, Juanita was recorded as the head of her household on a farm in Long Tom as well as unemployed with the children. This could have been due to the phrasing of the questions the enumerator had asked in conjunction with English being a second language. While there is no concrete evidence that Juanita and her children worked on the farm, it can be assumed that she was working on a farm in Long Tom with her children as part of the Women’s Land Army. It is not confirmed when Juanita, Barbara, Norman, Lyon, JoAnn, and Paul moved back to California, but were there by 1950. Once the Hovgaards moved back from Oregon, they rejoined Henry and continued their lives in San Francisco. At this point in time, it is not noted as to how each child spent the rest of their lives, but they may have gone off to marry or to join the workforce.

Juanita actively defied the stereotypical role of a Mexican woman, not out of choice but survival. She chose to come to the United States, escaping a dictatorship and the bloodshed of revolution, and ended up making a life for herself. She defied Mexican societal norms by marrying a White man forming a blended family and created a new generation of Mexican-Americans in the United States. It remains a historical mystery as to what made her go up to Oregon, but there was a reason she left San Francisco and Henry for those few years. While still not known, there was a reason she traveled with four children under the age of ten and possibly pregnant. This choice was made, which can only be assumed as the best option for their family. In making these decisions, Juanita acts outside of the stereotypical Mexican housewife.

Bibliography

Ancestry.com. Birthdate: 27 May 1930; Birth County: San Francisco

Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Ancestry.com. Year: 1940; Census Place: Long Tom, Lane, Oregon; Roll: m-t0627-03369; Page: 2B; Enumeration District: 20-82

Government & Geographic Information Collection, Northwestern University Libraries. “Pitch in and help! : join the Women’s Land Army of the U.S. Crop Corps”, World War II Poster Collection, Accessed Sat Feb 22 2025. https://dc.library.northwestern.edu/items/b3f07e0a-66ba-46ab-b6f7-cb1df9e3b5fb

Marcela Mendoza and Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives (Oregon: Oregon State University Press, 2010)

National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: San Francisco, San Francisco, California; Roll: 5536; Page: 10; Enumeration District: 38-1150 

State of Oregon, “Life On The Home Front: Oregon Responds to World War II,” Oregon Secretary of State: Tobias Read, State of Oregon, accessed February 21, 2025, https://sos.oregon.gov/archives/exhibits/ww2/Pages/services-farm.aspx

Stephanie A. Carpenter, On the Farm Front: The Women’s Land Army in World War II (Illinois: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003), 115

Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr., Latinos at the Golden Gate (North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 84

Unknown Photographer, San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library