As we can see in the image below, many hop workers had to work closely together despite their ethnicity. It’s safe to assume that friendships and relationships were built while working in such close distances between each other.
In Peter Harder’s essay titled “Thanks for the Hops” he stated that “contacts were made between the Aboriginals and the Mennonites even though they both spoke their own language”. Harder then goes on to say that “the hopyards were a venue for courting and sexual activity, even with people outside the ethnic group”.
“Hop picking season was a time of work and play. While the work was hard, many look back at the picking season as a time for social interaction when life-long friendships and romances began or were nurtured”. -Ron Denman (The Chilliwack Story).
In the hopyards, ethnic backgrounds did not seem to matter to these workers. They viewed themselves as a unit, a family, all working towards the same goal. Sharing jokes and memories with each other while they picked hops closely together. Even though it was a rather racist age, racism didn’t seem to exist on the various Chilliwack hop farms. This brought together a multi-ethnic workforce in the mid-20th century that created a constructive and positive cultural sharing environment for these workers.