By Carlos H. Orozco, Human Physiology major/ Latinx Studies Minor, Class of 2025

The Mendoza Family Arriving in Lane County

Juan Mendoza was born in 1896 in Mexico and was living in Lane County, Oregon, in the 1930s with his wife Margarita and daughter Guadalupe. His wife Margarita was born sometime in 1907 and was also born in Mexico before coming to the United States. We also know that Juan and Margarita are considered aliens, but they both speak English. Before moving to Oregon, their daughter Guadalupe, age 5, was born in Arizona, meaning that the family at one point lived in Arizona. From the early 1900s to the 1930s, we saw Mexican migration due to the development of the railroad on the West Coast. It is safe to assume that the family moved to Oregon due to Juan’s job as a laborer for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. He would’ve been part of the 85% of Mexican men living in Lane County who worked on the railroad.

Juan was found 10 years later to still be working to still be working on the railroad in Oregon as a section hand. In the 1940s, a Juan Mendoza was found on two census forms, one being in Lane County and the other being in Portland, Oregon. Both Juans worked as a section hand for the railroad, were married, and were around the same age. The censuses were taken 10 days apart, so there is a chance that the two Juans were the same Juan as he is found to be living with other railroad workers in the Lane County census and living with his family in the Portland census. He could have been traveling for work and been caught by the census on both days. This also means his family had probably moved sometime before 1940.

Juan was part of a group of people that were migratory and settled in Oregon, which is typical of what we saw with more and more Mexican families in Oregon. By the 1940s, we look at the census and can see Mexican people start to settle, families got bigger, and children continued to be born.

A Growing Family that is Breaking Barriers

Juanita Mendoza (second row from top, second girl from the right) with the Spanish Club in the 1946 Commerce High School yearbook in Portland, Oregon. From Ancestry “U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012”; School Name: Commerce High School; Year: 1946

These growing families include Juan and Margarita who had another daughter in Oregon on November 11, 1930, named Juanita Mendoza. She was born in Portland, Oregon, which would corroborate the family most likely moving to Portland sometime in the 1930s while Juan stayed back to work on the railroad or was back and forth between the two, Lane County and Portland. Juanita has her own amazing story as in May of 1951, Juanita got married to an African American man named George Bishop Jr., who was born in Texas on April 17, 1927. His parents were George Bishop Sr. and Susie Bishop, also born in Texas. In1950, George Bishop Jr. was working as an electrician in Multnomah County, Oregon, prior to getting married to Juanita. George Bishop Jr most likely arrived in Portland sometime between 1940 and 1950 as there was a large increase of African Americans moving to the Pacific Northwest at the time. The Great Migration by Quintard Taylor looks at this influx of African Americans moving into the Northwest and he even notes that of all the African Americans moving to Portland, over sixty percent of those moving were from the south. George fits this description being an African American from Texas which can tell us maybe why George arrived at that time.

This was an early interracial marriage that gives us an example of how marrying a black man changed how Juanita’s race was seen c. 1951. From Ancestry Oregon State Archives; Salem, Oregon; Oregon, Marriage Records, 1906-1910, 1946-1966

The Mendoza family is an example of a typical Mexican family in Lane County at the time becoming a greater story. In the 1930s and 40s, for Mexican men living in Lane County, it was typical that they worked for the railroads in Oregon. The men and their families settling in Oregon and growing made sense for the time. Where we get to see growth in Mexican history and in Lane County comes from the children of Juan and Margarita, especially Juanita, who did something uncommon at the time: marrying an African American man. Interracial marriage in the 1950s, let alone in Oregon, was not common, and if there were interracial marriages, it was more common between a white person and a Mexican person. Portland and Oregon, in general, have a racist past, so seeing an African American man marrying someone who would have been considered white was new, and what was more interesting was that following their marriage, Juanita was considered a negro on federal documents. It actually was not until 1951 that interracial marriage was legalized in the state of Oregon, the same year that Juanita and George got married. I think that brings up many questions such as why was Juanita listed as negro on the marriage certificate following the marriage and maybe even broader questions like was their interracial couples before this who were not able to be married due to their races. Stories like the Mendoza family were not seen much at the time, but for us today, they are much more common. We can use the interesting story of the Mendoza family to look at more interracial marriages and the stories of more Mexicans moving to Oregon, and connect their stories kind of like we did for this family in Oregon.

Bibliography

Year: 1930; Census Place: Oakridge, Lane, Oregon; Page: 6A; Enumeration District: 0094; FHL microfilm: 2341680

Year: 1940; Census Place: Alderdale, Klickitat, Washington; Roll: m-t0627-04349; Page: 3A; Enumeration District: 20-4

Year: 1940; Census Place: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon; Roll: m-t0627-03391; Page: 11B; Enumeration District: 37-387

“U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012“; School Name: Commerce High School; Year: 1946

Oregon State Archives; Salem, Oregon; Oregon, Marriage Records, 1906-1910, 1946-1966

National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: Portland, Multnomah, Oregon; Roll: 3882; Page: 8; Enumeration District: 37-278

Taylor, Q. (1981). The Great Migration: The Afro-American Communities of Seattle and Portland during the 1940s. Arizona and the West, 23(2), 109–126.

Orenstein, D. (2005). Void for vagueness: Mexicans and the collapse of miscegenation law in California. Pacific Historical Review, 74(3), 367–407.