Vargas Labor Rights Are Civil Rights

Mexican American Workers in Twentieth-Century America
Course Book
ISBN: 978-1-4008-4928-4
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: PDF
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 52, 400 Seiten

Reihe: Politics and Society in Modern America

No detailed description available for "Labor Rights Are Civil Rights".

Autoren/Hrsg.

Vargas, Zaragosa

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Gewerkschaften, Industrielle Beziehungen
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Volkskunde
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgments xiii

Abbreviations xv

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER ONE: We Are the Salt of the Earth: Conditions among Mexican Workers in the Early Great Depression Years 16

The "Big Swing": The Peregrinations and Tribulations of Tejano Cotton Harvesters 18

"In the Land of Bondage": Colorado's Mexican Sugar Beet Workers 27

Summer in the Country: California's Mexican Farm Workers 34

The Great Depression Hits the Mexicans of Texas and the Western States 39

Work, Leave, or Starve: Limiting Relief to Mexicans 43

"Send Them Back to Where They Came From": The Repatriation Campaign Unfolds 46

Causes and Consequences of Mexican Repatriation and Deportation 55

CHAPTER TWO: Gaining Strength through the Union: Mexican Labor Upheavals in the Era of the NRA 62

Revolt in the Cotton Fields: Tejano Pickers Strike the El Paso Cotton District 67

Radical Labor Unrest in the Colorado Beet Fields 70

In Unity There Is Strength: Strikes by Tejana Domestic, Cigar, and Garment Workers 76

Learning the Lessons of Rank-and-File Trade Unionism: The Los Angeles Garment Workers' Strike 83

For the Union: Los Angeles Furniture Workers Organize 89

"Are You A Bolshey?": The 1933 Gallup, New Mexico, Coal Strike 90

The Red Menace: The National Miners Union Enters Gallup 94

Guns, Bayonets, and Clubs: Martial Law Descends on Gallup 97

Revolutionary Unionism at Work 99

Class against Class: The Gallup Coal Strike Escalates 103

APyrrhic Victory: The Gallup Coal Strike Ends 105

The Big Payback: The Crusade against Foreigners and Subversives 108

CHAPTER THREE: "Do You See the Light?": Mexican American Workers and CIO Organizing 114

The Labor Offensive in South Texas and Cross-Border Organizing 117

A Power to Be Reckoned With: Emma Tenayuca, La Pasionaria 123

"She's Nothing but a Damned Communist": Emma Tenayuca's Work in the Unemployed Councils and the Workers' Alliance of America 126

"The CIO Doesn't Exist Here": The 1938 Pecan Shellers' Strike 134

Educating the Party: Emma Tenayuca Pens "The Mexican Question in the Southwest" 143

"Pushing Back the Red Tide": The Downfall of Emma Tenayuca 146

Left Behind: UCAPAWA and Colorado's Mexican Sugar Beet Workers 148

Shifting Gears: UCAPAWA Organizes Cannery and Food Processing Workers in California 150

Collective Action: Mexican American CIO Unionists Organize Los Angeles 154

CHAPTER FOUR: Advocates of Racial Democracy: Mexican American Workers Fight for Labor and Civil Rights in the Early World War II Years 158

Inclusive Unionism: The Case of Mine-Mill and Mexican American Miners and Smelter Workers 162

"A Society without Classes": Mine-Mill and CTM Undertake an Organizing Drive in El Paso 164

Texas Showdown: The CIO on Trial in El Paso 168

The Push by Mexican American CIO Unionists for Labor and Civil Rights Continues 170

Getting a Foot in the Door: Mexican American CIO Unionists Enter Los Angeles War Defense Industries 175

Allies of Labor: The Popular Front of the Congress of Spanish-Speaking Peoples 179

Suppressing Fascism: Mexican Americans Battle the Sinarquistas 188

Labor, the Left, and Sleepy Lagoon 192

Mexican American Unionists Press On to End Discrimination 198

CHAPTER FIVE: The Lie of "America's Greatest Generation": Mexican Americans Fight against Prejudice, Intolerance, and Hatred during World War II 203

Eternal Victims of Race Hatred: The Predicament of Tejanos 206

"Working Overtime on the Riveting Machine": Mexican American Women War Workers 212

Fleeing Poverty: The Case of the Spanish-Speaking of New Mexico 214

Remaining Separate and Unequal: Colorado's Mexican Americans 217

"Stolid and Stunned, Brother to the Ox": The Mexican Copper Miners of Arizona 220

"Dirty, Noisy, and Lawless": The Further Segregation of Mexican Americans in Wartime Los Angeles 224

"It's the American Way": The Racial Assault against Mexicans in Los Angeles 227

Getting the Union Involved against Discrimination in Los Angeles 232

Focusing Government Efforts on Racial Inequality 235

The Beginnings of the Mexican Contract Labor Program 238

No Freedom from Fear: The Federal Government, Race Relations, and Mexican Americans 243

"They Just Don't Get It": Fighting Racism within Labor's Ranks 246

CHAPTER SIX: Labor Rights Are Civil Rights: The Emergence of the Mexican American Civil Rights Struggle 252

Expressions of the Mexican American Union Movement and Its Repression 254

Mexican Americans Fight for an FEPC Bill 258

"Nothing --We Shot a Mexican": Mexican Americans Fight Racism 260

Last Hired, First Fired: Mexican American Job Loss after the War 265

The Right-Wing Backlash against the Mexican American Struggle for Labor and Civil Rights 270

Achieving Mexican American Civil Rights through the Ballot Box 273

Mexican American Workers Confront Braceros and the Wetback Tide 277

CONCLUSION 281

Notes 291

Index 361

Über Autor(innen)

Zaragosa Vargas is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Proletarians of the North: A History of Mexican Industrial Workers in Detroit and the Midwest, 1917-1933.