Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Fall/105/Section 061/Dr. M. Santos

Overview
Dr. M. Santos immigrated from Cuba to America at eight months. In 1935 Santos was interviewed for the Federal Writer's Project. Before becoming an Optometrist, Santos worked in a Florida cigar factory.

Early Life:
Santos was born in Sagua la Grande, Cuba in 1888, though he moved to Key West, Florida at the age of eight months, then to Tampa, FL at age six. Santos unlike other immigrants lived a comfortable life economically. His father started a bakery in Tampa that became very successful which contributed a big portion to their middle class economic status. Santos was never married, he fell in love with a prostitute but could not marry her because he did not want to damage or ruin his family's goos name. Santos is not religious nor is his family, he was baptized when he was young because his school teacher in Tampa was an ardent Catholic. As Santos grew older he began reading books by Karl Marx and other philosophers; he began to realize that he did not believe in the ideologies of religion.

Professional Life:
Santos first started working at a cigar factory in Florida, he did this work for many years. As the years went by machines and different types of molds began to take the jobs from his coworkers and this infuriated him. A family friend from Cuba named Dr. Ubaldo suggested the occupation of Optometrist to Santos. Soon after the recommendation Santos began school at the American Optical College of Philadelphia and eventually obtained the title of doctor. Santos had strong political views, and he was a strong democrat until Franklin D. Roosevelt released The New Deal. He believed that the New Deal did not help America the way it needed to, so he began to think that the American government is not ran like a true democracy should be. Santos stated that he would never vote in a presidential election again because both parties are corrupt.

New Deal:
The New Deal was a program introduced in 1933- 1939 by the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. This program was an effort to provide economic relief and other reforms in the housing, agriculture, finance, and labor to Americans during the Great Depression. In the November before the Roosevelt administration the majority American people voted Democratic for the promise of this New deal and for the lower economic classes to be recognized and supported. The New Deal used government regulated programs as its starting point to achieve the support from all economic classes. This created many social programs to help support the unemployed lower class while getting a lot of work done for America such as road work, or farming. While the New Deal was cut out of our government because of how much money it takes to run, the Democratic party still uses many concepts of this in our government today. Social programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are programs that stemmed from the New Deal and its ideology for providing support to the lower economic class.

Factory Conditions and Work:
In the early 1900s factory work was very demanding on the American people. As America entered the Industrial revolution factories work became even more prevalent in the American life. Many workers would spend the entire day by a machine with barely any breaks while they were also being exposed to many chemicals that the product was releasing into the air. A typically workday was at least 12 hours and most of the time six days a week, while most workers were not paid well, and the owners spent very little to improve work conditions. There were no laws to protect the workers so the owners would take no responsibility for working conditions. Most of the workers were immigrants who spoke little English and had limited skills because they could be taking advantage of and worked harder for less pay.