Doris Cruz-Mestizo

I am a senior at the University of Notre Dame Majoring in Honors History and Latino Studies, with a minor in International Security Studies. I am currently writing a senior thesis, focusing on Latino labor migration from California to Minnesota. Within my research I was using the California Social Welfare Archives Collection #0449 California Migrant, Transient and Homeless Population collection to build a basis and multiple viewpoints of Migrants in California. I was able to read first hand accounts and newspapers that pertained to the migrant experience and hardships that presented themselves while migrating. I was also able to identify a possible future chapter to my thesis, which is the transient youth to labor migration that participated within undocumented forms of labor and brought forward a population I had overlooked within my previous research.

In addition to this I was also able to see a longer standing connection between California and the Midwest, when it comes to laboral migration as there were archives that dated from the 1930's pertaining to labor actions and protocols from Minnesota and other midwestern states. The California Social Welfare Archives provided both present day and historical accounts of mobilization that will supplement my ideas and writing within my senior thesis.