The Hop Fields Open for White Labor
As harvest approaches, growers pivot toward white pickers and away from Indigenous labor, offering special rail rates to bring in thousands of workers.
The story, cleaned up
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The hop picking season will begin in two or three weeks, and there is every prospect that there will be an abundance of white pickers to harvest the crop. The experience of the last few years has made it popular for whole families to betake themselves to the fields and combine money-making with picnicking in the open air. The Northern Pacific railroad has made a special rate for pickers of $1.50 for the round trip to North Yakima for parties of fifty or more. President D. E. Lesh, of the Moxee company, writes that Yakima county will require about 4,000 hop pickers from Puget Sound points. In discussing the prospects, General Agent I. A. Nadeau said, 'I think there will be plenty of white pickers this year. Indian pickers seem to be decreasing all the time and the rumor that the collector of customs would interfere with the coming of British Columbia Indians would naturally cause the growers to look for white help.'
“Indian pickers seem to be decreasing all the time and the rumor that the collector of customs would interfere with the coming of British Columbia Indians would naturally cause the growers to look for white help.”
This article captures a pivotal moment in Washington's agricultural history as growers systematically displaced Indigenous labor—who had powered the regional hop economy—in favor of a 'white picker' demographic. This manufactured labor transition reflects the era's broader exclusionary impulses, which frequently saw economic shifts used as tools for demographic engineering.
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