Professor examines Cobden's migrants

COBDEN, Ill. -- A native of Southern Illinois who happens upon the western Mexican town of Cheran might find some surprising reminders of home.

If the visitor keeps his eyes open, he might spot someone wearing a Southern Illinois University Salukis sweat shirt or even a Cobden High School Appleknockers T-shirt. If the visitor walks into a bar and says he's from Illinois, he might be treated to a free drink and asked to pass on greetings to relatives working up north.

This familiarity is part of a longstanding link between Cheran in the Mexican state of Michoacan and the fruit-growing region of Southern Illinois that has employed its migrant laborers for decades.

The "sister city" relationship has fascinated Dr. Warren Anderson, a professor of anthropology at Southeast Missouri State University, ever since he first met a farmworker from Michoacan in 1979. Anderson has studied workers' migration trends since then and has made more than a dozen trips between Cobden and Cheran. Sometimes he travels in trucks crowded with other migrant workers and crosses the U.S. border at Laredo, Texas.

For more than 40 years people from Michoacan have voyaged to Illinois to earn money during the picking season, Anderson said. Some have made permanent homes and become part of the community in places like Cobden, Anna and Alto Pass, Ill. Others have saved money and elected to return home.

Despite fluctuations, the connection has lasted, he said, and today Cobden, population 1,100, boasts two grocery stores catering to Mexican residents and two Mexican-style churches -- one Protestant and one Roman Catholic. An estimated 20 percent of homeowners in Cobden are Mexican-Americans, and a majority of those homeowners trace roots to Cheran or the surrounding area.

Anderson said the earliest arriving migrant worker he knows of is Pedro Herrera, who came to Chester, Ill., in 1959. For two years Herrera worked for Ray Grammer's family orchard near Murphysboro picking apples and peaches.

After two years of hard work learning the trade, Grammer told Herrera, "You're a good worker. Go home and bring 12 more like you." Herrera did just that, and laborers have been coming ever since.

Anderson said the Mexicans quickly became favorites of orchard owners, and not only because they were cheap labor. "They were better, faster, they worked more carefully and they complained less," he said. "It's very hard work, but it's also work that requires very specific skills and expertise. You've got to know what you're doing."

By the early 1980s the Cobden area was the seasonal home to between 1,500 and 1,700 Mexicans, according to Anderson's research.

Yet unlike some other towns absorbing an influx of foreigners, Cobden did not have terrible growing pains. Anderson said this is due in large part to migrants arriving in family units.

"Cobden has historically attracted intact families. So it wasn't just the young single men coming. There were women and children moving there very early on. ... That tends to stabilize a community," he said.

Anderson said a migrant workers camp was constructed in 1964, giving workers a solid foothold in the community. The Mexican community grew steadily and put down deeper roots.

By the mid-1980s, second generation families were living there. In part through their advocacy, the workers camp founded Migrant Education Inc., which became one of the largest Head Start programs for migrants in the state. The Cobden School District also developed one of the state's best English as a Second Language programs.

That's why, Anderson said, when the Illinois Migrant Council successfully petitioned to get migrants jobs in nonagricultural fields in 1994, many took the jobs but stayed in Cobden. The migrants commuted as much as 90 minutes -- one of the first employers was Seaboard Foods in Mayfield, Ky. -- but kept their homes.

"Despite a dearth of good employment opportunities, people have by and large stayed in Cobden," Anderson said.

Anderson hopes other communities will examine Cobden as a way to handle migrant communities. "Cobden is truly a veteran at this intercultural surviving. It's a scrappy hard life for the migrants, and it's very hard for the recipients," he said. "This is globalization at its rough and tumbleset."

The example may be badly needed in the upcoming years, Anderson said. "We have a 2,000-mile border that is superporous. There are very few points where you can't cross undetected," he said. "... Honestly, it's amazing there are not more people coming this way. "

tgreaney@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 245