CALDWELL, Idaho — In our continuing coverage of Hispanic Heritage Month, we take a close look at a community you may know about, but not really know much about it's role in the Treasure Valley.
Farmway Village has a long history of welcoming farm workers and their families to a safe place they can call home. Rosario Soto is the son of migrant workers and was raised at Farmway Village. His parents were migrant workers who worked in the fields in Canyon County.
I asked Soto what they did during the winter months. "We would go back to Mexico every year until 1992," he replied. A three-day drive twice a year to work a seasonal job that is essential to Idaho's agricultural industry.
Mike Dittenber is the Executive Director of the Caldwell Housing Authority, which oversees Farmway, and he says the village is a big part of their mission to help meet the growing demand for affordable workforce housing.
"They are no domestic farmworkers anymore. I look at my kids and grandkids, they never thought about working in the farm fields, so we have about two generations that never knew about summer farmwork," said Dittenber.
Farmway is part of a federal program that built 96 labor camps across America for those displaced from the Midwest Dust Bowl during The Great Depression of the 1930s, then the Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during WWII, and migrant workers coming up from the southern border.
"From the early 60s, probably until today, it is the housing opportunity of choice for many people who work in the agricultural industry," said Dittenber.
Today, the neighborhood vibe is alive and well at the local market. Just ask Toby Gonzales, who works behind the counter.
"It's so fun. We always have a lot of stuff going on for the people who live here. I honestly believe that the store is the heartbeat of the Caldwell Housing Association because we have so many people who live here," says Gonzales.
When I asked Soto what he wanted people to know about Farmway Village, that they may not know, he replied, "That it's a community like any other community. It's not where poor people live, it's not isolated, it's where people help each other out, when they say it takes a village to raise a family, this is what they're talking about."
