Oregon chronology
1850s During the Rogue River war, Mexican mule packers supply the Second Regiment of the Oregon Mounted Volunteers, who are fighting against Oregon’s native peoples.
1869 Mexican vaqueros bring up large herds of cattle driven up from California to eastern Oregon.
1910 Oregon ranks seventh among states outside the Southwest with Mexican born residents working on farms and railroads.
1910-1925 Mexican workers are contracted to work on sugar beet farms and on railroads in Portland, eastern Oregon, and other parts of the state. The first Mexican families settle permanently in the state.
1942-1947 More than 15,000 bracero workers come to the state to work in agriculture. Other bracero workers are employed on railroads.
1950s Mexican and Mexican American families settle in several areas of the state.
1955 The Portland Catholic Archdiocese establishes a Migrant Ministry to serve the Mexican migrant population. In 1964 the name of the organization changes to Oregon Friends of Migrants.
1964 The first Fiesta Mexicana is held by the Mexican committee in Woodburn, Oregon. The Valley Migrant is formed. It is later known as Oregon Rural Opportunities (ORO), and it ends in 1979.
1971 The Commission for Chicano Affairs is established. In 1983 the group is renamed Governor’s Commission on Hispanic Affairs.
1973 Colegio Cesar Chavez, the first Latino four-year college in the United States, is created on the former campus of Mt. Angel College in Silverton, Oregon. It closes in 1983.
1977 The Willamette Valley Immigration Project opens in Portland. It then moves to Woodburn to protect and represent undocumented workers.
1979 The Salud de la Familia Medical Clinic is established in Woodburn, Oregon.
1981 El Hispanic News begins publication.
1985 Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Nordoeste (PCUN, or in English, Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United) forms as Oregon’s only farmworker union.
1995 The Chicano/Latino Studies Program is established at Portland State University.
1996 CAUSA, the Oregon Immigrant Rights Coalition, is formed.
2005 The census shows that Latinos compose 9.9 percent of the state’s population.
Paul J. De Muniz becomes the first Latino chief of Justice in the Oregon Supreme Court.
