By: Olive M. Jaramillo, Spanish major, Class of 2027
Railroad tracks in Oakridge, Oregon, near where Hipolito lived and worked. Photo by: Russell Lee, available from The Library of Congress
Hipolito Rico was born on August 14, 1903 to parents Alberto Rico and Juana Lopez. He was born and baptized in Purepero, Michoacan, Mexico. He had an older brother named Aurelio who was born in 1901, and a younger sister named Lorenza born in 1910. Hipolito was first documented crossing into the United States through El Paso, Texas on March 13, 1927. He crossed alone, with $50 on his person, which is about $800 in today’s money. He was recorded as being able to read and write, so it’s inferred that he received adequate schooling during his childhood in Mexico. While there is no earlier official documentation of any visits to the US prior, it is recorded on his 1927 border crossing document that he had been there before from November of 1925 to July of 1926. The nature of that visit was to visit his brother, Aurelio Rico, in Pittsburg, California. His visit in 1927 was recorded as being to look for work, and his final destination was once again Pittsburg, California. On his border crossing record, it was recorded that he was cleared to work for 4 years in the United States.
Between 1927 and 1930, Hipolito made his way north to Lane County, Oregon. Here he began working for the Southern Pacific Railroad company. On the 1930 census, Hipolito was recorded lodging in a crew house in Fields Station, near Oakridge, Oregon with 4 other Mexican railroad workers. Crew houses were typically used to house laborers close to their work site, especially immigrant workers who may not have had any other connections in the area besides their job.
Hipolito’s Childhood
Hipolito was growing up during the Porfiriato era. While this era is known for economic growth for Mexico as a whole in certain trades like agriculture and mining, it was done so at the expense of many small communities, Michoacan for example, which at the time was known for its mostly rural or indigenous population. The creation of new economic pathways and cities and the expansion in the mining industry disturbed the earlier social and economic equilibrium between larger cities and smaller villages.
In addition to the economic changes this era brought upon for Mexico as a whole, it also sparked smaller social reforms within the states. Prior to 1910, Michoacan didn’t have any type of rural education system. While efforts toward creating a formal system were made, the Secretary of Public Education wouldn’t be officially established until 1921. Hipolito was born in 1904, making him about 17 years old at the time of the system’s official creation, so while he wasn’t able to experience the fruits of its existence, he did experience the political instability from clashing constitutionalist and socialist powers that led up to and followed its establishment. While a socialist candidate won the election and was able to establish 4 main public schools in the state of Michoacan, many people both in and outside of the Mexican government still disagreed with socialist ideology leading to many uprisings and political blocks as a result of conflicting constitutionalist ideologies.
It is inferred that Hipolito, like many other Mexicans at the time of the Porfiriato era, migrated to the United States to escape this turmoil in hopes of seeking better work and a better life.
At the time, most Mexican men coming to the US for labor were male single immigrants, like Hipolito’s brother, Aurelio. It can be inferred that as the eldest brother, Aurelio was establishing roots in California so that his family could then follow him.
Border crossing record for Aurelio Rico, which included a photo of him at the time of crossing. Photo by: The National Archives and Records Administration, available from Ancestry Library
This was a common migration practice at the time where one person would go to create a web for the rest of their family or community back in Mexico to follow. This explains why Hipolito at least originally intended to join his brother in California. Of the people that Mexico’s national statistical agency recorded as emigrating to the United States from 1925-1934, over half of them were considered to be rural farmers or laborers. Hipolito didn’t specify at the time of his crossing what field of labor he was looking for in the US, but it can be inferred that because Pittsburg, CA is in the central valley, he originally was looking for agricultural work before deciding to move north to Oregon for railroad work. Working on the railroad (also known as doing track work) was seen as a profession for those who had fewer connections or networks established in the US; That being said, people rarely entered track work alone because of its dangerous nature. Hipolito most likely met a group of men who were going to Oregon for track work while in California with his brother, and may have even followed one or multiple of them to the Fields Station section crew house.
Hipolito’s Life in the United States
Due to their reputations as cheap hardworking laborers, Hipolito wasn’t alone among the Mexicano workers in the US. In terms of all Mexicanos living in just Lane County at the time however, Hipolito was a bit of an anomaly. Out of the five men living in the crew house, Hipolito and one other man were documented as being married, and he was only one of 27 married Mexican men recorded on the 1930 Lane County census, available from Ancestry Library. There is no record of Hipolito’s spouse in the United States or Mexico so it is inconclusive on whether he married once he was in the US to increase his societal status; perhaps had a common law marriage, an unofficial union made by a priest without any official certificate, which was more common at the time in rural Mexican states.
An alternative theory, however, is that given the machismo sentiment and negative attitude towards womens’ rights during the 20s in Mexico, his mystery wife was a victim of an arranged marriage at best, or bridenapping at worst.
Bridenapping was a practice where a woman would be forced into marrying a man either by threat of harm to her or her family, or by threat of sexual assault. Unfortunately due to the lack of official documentation, it is difficult to say with confidence who and where his wife was.
While Aurelio traced back to Mexico through his death record in Guadalajara, Hipolito’s trail ended with the 1930 Lane County census. No matter whether he returned to Mexico or whether he was able to bring his wife up to join him, it is important to acknowledge his and many other Mexicanos’ contributions to the railroads at the time. Immigrant laborers like Chinese and Mexican men were often sought out for track work because they were able to be paid lower wages without much protest, since they were still being paid more than in their country of origin. Hipolito’s whereabouts following 1930 may be unknown, but his contribution to the railroads in Lane County will always be acknowledged.
Bibliography
Alanís Enciso, Fernando Saúl, and Fernando Saúl Alanís Enciso. They Should Stay There : The Story of Mexican Migration and Repatriation during the Great Depression. Trans. Russ Davidson. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2017. Print.
![Ancestry.com. Michoacan, Mexico, Civil Registration Births, 1859-1934 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014.](https://lanehistory.uoregon.edu/files/2024/05/Hipolito-rico-birth-record-1.jpg){kind=link}
Original data: México, Michoacán, Registro Civil, Nacimientos, 1859-1934. Digital images. Archivo Estatal de Michoacán. Courtesy of the Academia Mexicana de Genealogia y Heraldica.
![Ancestry.com. Michoacan, Mexico, Civil Registration Marriages, 1859-1940 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.](https://lanehistory.uoregon.edu/files/2024/05/Lorenza-rico-lopez-marriage-record.jpg){kind=link}
Original data: Mexico. State of Michoacan Civil Registration. Registro Civil del Estado de Michoacan, México. Courtesy of the Academia Mexicana de Genealogia y Heraldica.
Garcilazo, J. M. (2012). Traqueros : Mexican railroad workers in the United States, 1870 to 1930 (1st ed.). University of North Texas Press.
Lee, Russell, photographer. Oakridge, Oregon. Railroad tracks. Oakridge United States Oregon Lane County, 1942. July. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017818959/.
Raby, David L. “Los Principios de La Educación Rural En México: El Caso de Michoacán, 1915-1929.” Historia Mexicana 22, no. 4 (1973): 553–81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25135379.
