DEPARTED FROM
Maneadero, Mexico
ARRIVED IN
San Diego, California
YEAR
1991
AGE
17
NOW LIVES IN
Burlington, Washington
Pedro Alvarado arrived in the United States in 1991 at the age of 17 in search of a better life. He left his hometown of Maneadero, Mexico for California with two of his cousins where he met up with his uncle. They stayed in California for a couple weeks before their uncle brought them to Washington State in search of work. They found work in Burlington, WA at Sakuma Bros Farms inside the warehouse. Eventually, he left Sakuma Bros. for a job at Wallace Potato Farms where he continues to work today.
Pedro Alvarado still lives in Burlington, Washington. He has two kids, Elizabeth and Pedro Jr. He believes hard work is the key to success and encourages his kids to always work hard at everything they do.
TRANSCRIPT
I was 17 years old. I arrived in California where I had an uncle.
When we got to California it was night time already and my uncle had some friends from Oaxaca who lived in some apartments called La Paloma so my uncle asked if my cousins and I could stay there with them and they said okay. The dads of my uncle’s friends used to like drinking at night and we used to sleep on the living room floor and they would get up from wherever they were in the middle of the night and step on us. They would get mad because we were there and they’d ask if we wanted to fight them even though we'd been sleeping. That's how my first night went, I remember. It wasn’t the best experience, but I always remember that from my first night here.
