Continental Europeans in Utah Mrs. Nick Mageras ("Magerou") was midwife to two generations of Greek, Italian, and Slav women in the Magna-Midvale-Tooele area. She was renowned for her folk cures. Many of Utah's oldest ethnic communities came from continental Europe. Today their descendants are blended into dominant "America" culture, but in the early part of the 1900s, newcomers from continental Europe stood out. Slavic miners from Eastern Europe and Greeks and Italians helped mine silver and copper ore when Utah's mines were among the most productive in the world. Basques from northern Spain came in large numbers to work as sheepherders. Later in the 20th century, Germans fled the insecurity of war-torn Europe. New immigrants often formed organizations to help each other--like the Slovenian National Benevolence Association, the German-American Federal Credit Union, or the "Holland- American Friendship is Ours" club. For many years the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints organized foreign language congregations, and the state was home to a number of foreign language newspapers.
All these institutions provided needed services and helped new immigrants get adjusted to American society and feel at home in Utah. To learn more, read about Greek Sheepmen in Beehive History 2, the Deutches (German) Theater in Beehive History 24, an Italian family whose father was killed in a mining accident ("Mrs. T is Very Sad") in Beehive History 25, and immigrants from Lebanon keeping their musical tradition alive ("Fiddle and Darbukee") in Beehive History 25. Latinos in Utah Jesus Arinaz was working at the Utah Copper Company mine in 1942. The lonely life of a strike-breaker It was a cold morning in November 1912. Thousands of Mexicans, most of them single men, got off the train in Bingham, Utah. They had come to work in the Utah Copper Company mine as strikebreakers. They had come to replace miners who were refusing to work until the management improved working conditions and salaries. Imagine the lives of these strikebreakers.
The striking miners must have despised them. And they were far from their families in Mexico, their parents, sweethearts and wives. They lived in boardinghouses and sent money and homesick letters to their families. Most of these men stayed only until the strike was settled; then they went home. The Rogue Garcia family in Monticello, Utah, in 1927. Finding work in Utah Since then, people from many Latin America countries have come to work and live in Utah. In the early 20th century, many Hispanic/Latinos came to San Juan County to work with sheep and other livestock. Work on the railroad and sugar beet farming drew many Latino families to northern Utah, especially during World War I. Agricultural work Taking care of sugar beets is back-breaking work, from planting, to thinning, to weeding, to harvesting. Field workers labored long hours in the heat, bent over most of the day, and they didn t get paid very well. Many families pulled their children out of school to help work in the fields. In places where many Spanish-speaking workers gathered, they lived together in colonias. But these colonias shrank when the price of sugar beets fell. When things got
worse during the difficult years of the Great Depression, many more Latino workers and their families left Utah. For those who remained, life was hard. On top of the falling prices for sugar beets, which meant lower wages for the workers in the beet fields, a drought hit Utah in the 1930s. Farmers all over the state lost crops and income. Railroads and mines "Traqueros" worked to maintain railroad tracks. Large numbers of Latino immigrants worked on the railroad or in the mines. This was hard work too! Men called traqueros worked in crews that repaired the rail lines and helped with their upkeep. Some of their families lived in old rail cars that weren t being used anymore, next to or near the tracks. Many people lost their jobs when the Great Depression of the 1930s came, so many railroad families left Utah looking for better jobs elsewhere. For those workers who remained in Utah, many could only work a few days a week, which was not enough to feed their families. Who will lose the job? When companies choose which workers they re going to lay off today, they usually do it by seniority. The person who was hired most recently is the first person to get laid off, and so on.
The companies in Utah in the 1920s and 1930s did it differently. You see, immigration was like a ladder in Utah. The earliest immigrants, the Mormon settlers and the British and Scandinavian converts, had settled in nicely. They had been in Utah for two or three generations. So they were at the top of the ladder, with the best jobs and educational opportunities. Then, as different groups like the Greeks or the Chinese or Latinos began to come in, they would start at the bottom of the ladder. The newcomers would take the dangerous, lowpaying jobs in mining, agriculture, or railroads. They would work for lower pay than the group before them. Then the next group would come in and work for still lower pay, and force the earlier group out. Why would the newcomers accept lower pay? This all came with a lot of resentment and racial prejudice usually targeted at the last group through the door of Utah. So at this time, even though Utah once belonged to Mexico, one of the last groups to come in before the Depression was the Latinos, and they were the first to be fired. Supporting each other Hispanic children dressed for a festival, date unknown. In the time of economic hardship some members of the community came together to form Centro Civico Mexicano, a place for the Hispanic community to come together in festivals
and celebrations. It also became a mutual aid society. Others turned to religion, with the Guadalupe Mission serving the Catholic families and the Rama Mexicana branch of the LDS church serving the Mormons. The Great Depression was a time of great suffering for many families in Utah, but as any economic trouble tends to do, it hit the people who were living closest to poverty the hardest. Many families had to perform a balancing act of going without and stringing together multiple jobs in order to have some place to live, food to eat, and enough coal to get through the winter. And on top of the economic struggles, they faced prejudice at work and in the community because of their skin color and accented English. Of course, along with immigrants from many places, Spanish-speaking people are still coming to the United States hoping to make a better life. Many of them face similar challenges as those faced by immigrants 100 years ago. Polynesians in Utah The headstone of Kapainui Kalauao in the cemetery at Iosepa, a Hawaiian colony that was in Utah's West Desert. Hawaiians in Utah
Utah's first Polynesian immigrants left the warm humid climate of Hawaii in settle here in 1889. Drawn by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they established the village of Iosepa in the desert of Skull Valley, 40 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Despite the harsh surroundings, they created a beautiful little town, but most of them returned to Hawaii when the LDS church announced in 1915 plans to build a temple in Hawaii. Tongans and Samoans Fifty years later, looking for educational and economic opportunities, Polynesians began arriving again. They knew about Utah because of their Mormon ties. Non-Mormon family and friends joined them, and other religious congregations developed. There are now Polynesian congregations of Methodist, Seventh-Day Adventist, Catholic, and otherh churches. Polynesians today Today, Utah's Polynesian community includes Tongans, Samoans, Hawaiians, New Zealanders, Tahitians, and people from other Pacific Islands. Artistic and cultural traditions have kept Polynesian community and family ties strong. Each group works hard to maintain their distinctive storytelling traditions that feature dancing, isnging, and chanting. They make traditional leis, woven mats and belts, brightly colored quilts, and crocheted afghans. Master Tongan and Samoan composers write modern songs for ancient dance forms. A number of active Samoan and Tongan brass bands deliver a unique island-based repertoire. Polynesian reggae bands present a fascinating blend of traditional and western music.
African Americans in Utah An African American child in Utah. Her age and the date are unknown. Fur trappers Utah's black African American heritage dates back to the 19th century, when fur traders and adventurers James P. Beckworth and Jacob Dodson explored the mountain meadows in search of beaver pelts. Settlers Then, in 1847, Utah's first black settlers arrived as slaves of the Mormon pioneers and established a small but lasting presence. In the last half of the 1800s, railroad, mining, and the military provided employment. Utah's black population grew. Churches and culture Various African American protestant church congregations helped Utah's religious diversity grow. Today, churches still provide social, cultural, political and spiritual support. They also nurture gospel music, with choirs that perform both in church and in the community. Other African American arts include jazz, soul, and rhythm and blues music and a style of quilting that is colorful and vibrant like jazz.
Utahns celebrate Black History Month each February with several events. Juneteenth is a summertime celebration of black culture, which commemorates the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln (officially ending slavery in the United States). Refugees The turn of the new century brought a new wave of settlement by refugees directly from Africa. These new immigrants bring to Utah tribal traditions, languages, and lifestyles that are very different from their black predecessors in the state--once again bringing a new richness of cultures to Utah. For more information, see "Utah in the 40s: An African American Perspective," by France A. Davis, in Beehive History 25. Information courtesy of the Utah Folk Arts Program