Mexican -American
Gender Role 
Mexican Californians Before the 1900

By Yaolee Chen

Were the types of job very much different for man and woman who worked in California by the turn of the century?  

The history of Mexican can be traced back to the 18th century when the Spanish missionaries brought their wives and children to live in California.  The man was a missionary.  He played a role like a shepherd to his sheep.  The Spanish woman worked as a midwife, who helped the Indian woman to deliver the babies.  After the babies were delivered, the Spanish woman often baptized the Indian babies and converted the Indian babies into the Catholics.  The Spanish woman during the colonial period played a role like a mother to the Indian children.

The Napoleon War fought in 1815-1820 around.  Because of the political instability in Spain, the Mexican Government stroke for the independence.  In the year of 1820, the Mexican government received California from the hand of Spain.  And the California became a state of Mexico.  The Rancheros were the Mexican governors who lived in California.  The Rancheros often received a huge land grand from the Mexican government.  The population of Rancheros was only 3% of the Californian’s.  The rest of the people, they worked in the Ranchos.  There were the Mestizo and the Indians worked in the Ranchos.  There were the Russians did fur trades with Indians in Los Angeles.  There were the Americans, who came from New York, lived in the Big Bear areas.  There were the Chinese Farmers lived in the Central Valley.  The Indian man crafted tools, chairs, and other valuable materials for the Rancheros.  The Indian woman cooked the dishes, cleaned the houses, and baby-sat the children for the families of Ranchero.  And, there were the cowboys and the cowgirls, watching cattle on the Ranchos. In general, the man's job and the woman's jobs in the Ranchos were different, except the children.

The story changed since the rise of Industrialization.  In the 1920s the Mexican girls and women worked in the laundry shops, the hotels, the restaurants, the garment factories, or the cannery industries with very little wages.  Mexican boys worked in the coal mining camps.  They were muddy and dirty.  Children, who worked in the factories, they often lost their fingers or toes during the works.  Mexican man performed woman's jobs in the cities because of that the types of job were well paid in the cities.  And they were the food processors, chefs, bakers, laundry operators, and garment factory workers, and other factory workers.  By the turn of the century, the types of job for men and women in California were not much different.

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