Before the Californian Mexican Mafia took over almost all vegetable growing in the USA,
To be fair California took over most vegetable growing because it can be done year round out there. Mexicans had very little to do with it back then. White people were an overwhelming majority of the farm workers back then because of the dust bowl, and the depression. Unions came in and priced the white people right out of jobs. They as always didn’t care about working people, just their dues. Also some people decided, when jobs became more plentiful, that the work was too hard for the money paid.
The US then allowed Mexicans to come across as migrant workers, but at the end of the job they had to return home. When some of them decided to stay illegally, and weren’t punished for it is when the wheels came off the wagon.
Now we get rock hard peaches and leather skinned tomatoes. Great.