Napa History: Home

An account of the managed migration of Mexican farm workers in California

In this title, editor C.J. Shane has compiled primary-source information that outlines the depth and breadth of Mexican immigrants' experiences in America. Ironically, the ancestors of a significant minority of these Mexican immigrants probably had some stake in lands that now are American but once were Mexican.

As part of a bilateral commitment to focus on winning World War II, over 100,000 contracts were signed between 1943 and 1945 to recruit and transport Mexican workers to the United States for employment on the railroads. A little-known companion to the widely criticized agricultural bracero program, the railroad bracero program corresponded in its implementation more closely to the original intent of both governments than did its agricultural counterpart.

>In A Sense of Place , renowned wine expert and writer Steven Kolpan tells the story of how Francis Ford Coppola brought California's most distinguished and historic vineyard back to life.

Gustave Niebaum's Inglenook Estate, started in 1879, was one of the Napa Valley's first established vineyards and the birthplace of its premium wine industry. Generations after Niebaum's death, the vineyard was sold to Heublein, the wine and spirits monolith, who broke up the land and changed the Inglenook brand from a premium, connoisseur wine to a mass-market jug wine.

The focus of this study of Mexican Agricultural workers in United States, 1900-1960, is directed to an economic analysis of international labor mobility in its broader terms and bi-national basis. This involves examining political realities within each country involved and by the relationship between their governments.