The “Betabeleros” were Mexican-American workers, recruited from the southwest United States to Wyoming for the emerging sugar beet industry in the early 1900s. Their history isn’t highly documented, and they experienced segregated housing, labor issues and financial hardships. University of Wyoming Professors, Professor Conxita Domenech and Professor Chelsea Escalante, want to share that history with the public.
They are doing that through an exhibit at the American Heritage Center. It features a number of pictures and highlights a newspaper article that detailed daily life.
“I didn't know anything about the sugar beet workers at that time, had no idea of this community existing in Wyoming 100 years ago,” said Escalante. “[Until] a professor from Macalester College, Dr. Gonzalo Guzmán, contacted me. And he had basically uncovered these newspapers, these Spanish written newspapers”.
Communities of Betabeleros existed throughout Wyoming in the early 1900s, as the labor force was desperately needed in a relatively young state. Mexican and Mexican-Americans often faced discrimination and segregation.
“This [discrimination and segregation] was also in advertising. If you look at the pages in the newspaper, you will see that there are advertisements for ‘Come to my store. Put your money in my bank.’ So the thing is that, they wanted to integrate [Betabeleros] somehow. But at the same time…they didn't want them in their swimming pools or [their schools],” said Domenech.
Many of the workers and their families that traveled to Wyoming often could speak English or were U.S citizens born in U.S states.
“They were bilingual kids, but they were still being put in the ‘Spanish school’. Even though they were U.S citizens born in the U.S,” said Escalante.
These discriminatory practices made the history of Mexican-American beet farmers harder to record. However, the Betabeleros themselves also had trouble recording their own history. While newspapers in town could often be in Spanish and English, there weren’t many beat farmers with time to double as a historian or writer, as Domenech explains.
“Even though this is a newspaper, the [stories in the] newspaper is very oral, because the people who were writing these pages were Betabeleros. They 're not journalists”.
While the two professors hope to discover more about these lesser known groups from Wyoming history, they are excited to bring these historical Wyomingites to the forefront. The professors' exhibit will be open for viewing all week at the American Heritage Center.
