Around Mattawa, neatly planted rows of fruit trees emerge like an oasis from the sagebrush, thanks to the federally managed Bonneville Power Administration. The BPA's water has turned this brown region into a fertile landscape. In the fall, at the height of apple-harvesting season, Mattawa resembles a Mexican community, where one hears Spanish more than English. The local taqueria, La Popular, is crowded at night, selling traditional soft-shell meat tacos and pan dulce . Because of the lack of permanent worker housing, hundreds of the guest workers camp on Sentinel Gap, a section of the Columbia River's riverbank owned by the Grant County Public Utility District.
Some workers live in their cars, and a few in tents.
Garbage is strewn around campsites, while clothes hang to dry from trees. Everyone uses river water for showers, even as temperatures drop to 40 degrees by nightfall. In October 1998, farm-worker activists asked Gov. Gary Locke to declare a state of emergency to get the squatters into permanent shelters. In response to the housing crisis, the state stepped in and constructed the La Esperanza housing complex in 1999. About 60 percent of the state's migrant workforce, more than 37,000 mostly Spanish-speaker men and women, are homeless during the growing season, according to state officials.