Starting in the 1930s and continuing for decades, farmers in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota depended on Hispanic field workers—laborers from Texas and Mexico who arrived to help with hoeing beet fields, tending crops, and bringing in the harvest.
These families’ migration stories are as compelling as those of the families that migrated centuries earlier. They took extensive risks and experienced culture clashes, climate shock, and language barriers.
Now, one and two generations later, these migrant workers have assimilated and settled in the region. Their children and grandchildren are working as professionals. They have contributed their own cultural stamp to the region’s art, cuisine, diversity, and economy.
Prairie Public has produced a half-hour documentary to examine the amazing journey of the Red River Valley’s Hispanic community.
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DVD. 30 Minutes.
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Producer/Writer/Narrator: Matt Olien
Editor: Meghan Vettleson
Videographers: Andy Garske, Cassie Pierce, Meghan Vettleson
Production Manager: Barbara Gravel
Executive Producer: John E. Harris III
©2021
Closed Captioning by John Armour
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ÉSTA ES MI CASA – THIS IS MY HOME is a production of Prairie Public, in association
with Moving Lives Minnesota: Stories of Origin and Immigration. Made possible by
the state’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and by the Members of Prairie Public.
