Strikes

 “This is a White Man’s Country.

Get Out of Here if You Don’t Like What We Pay.”

Thus read a sign when vigilantes in Salinas Valley drove out 500 to 800 striking members of the Filipino Labor Union (FLU) on September 5, 1934, and burned down a Filipino labor camp.[1] This strike was one of 275 in the nation’s agricultural industry during the 1930s, and half of these strikes took place in California. In the Imperial valley and San Joaquin valleys in particular, large white-owned vegetable grower-shipping corporations, along with local authorities and vigilante groups, at times responded brutally to suppress these strikes, in what the national media often described as “California’s Reign of Terror.”[2]

Interestingly, the characterization of Filipinos as a labor menace at times was closely tied to their characterization as a social menace. As noted by the California Department of Industrial Relations special bulletin, "Facts about Filipino Immigration" (1930), “The question of the displacement of white labor by the Filipino was a vital factor in the antagonism that was aroused between the races. The fact that Filipinos found it necessary to hire white female entertainers only added to the tension of the situation and afforded the spark which fanned the racial hostility into open warfare.” Filipinos experienced hostilities which included stereotyping, social segregation, economic discrimination and even physical violence.

Strikes were the only way that Filipino agriculture workers could voice their opinion about working conditions and pay. By standing up and striking against the growers, the Filipino laborers showed that they could achieve unity in a common cause. Striking was a dangerous enterprise. One faced expulsion from the county, brutality at the hands of law enforcers, and loss of work. However, this did not stop many Filipinos from striking and not giving in until the demands were met by the growers.

Notable local strikes:

• 1934 South SLO County Vegetable Workers Strike

• San Luis Obispo Vegetable Strike 0f 1937

• The Salinas Lettuce Strike of 1934

• The Salinas Lettuce Strike of 1936

For further reading:

• • DeWitt, Howard. "The Filipino Labor Union: The Salinas Lettuce Strike of 1934." Amerasia 5:2 (1978): 1-21.

  • Federal Writers' Project. "Unionization Filipinos in California Agriculture." Monographs prepared for A Documentary History of Migratory Farm Labor in California. 1938.

  • Haldan, Kent Edward. "Our Japanese citizens": A Study of Race, Class, and Ethnicity in Three Japanese American Communities in Santa Barbara County, 1900-1960. Diss. University of California Berkeley, 2000. p. 337.

• Street, Richard Steven. "The 'Battle of Salinas': San Francisco Bay Area Press Photographers and the Salinas Valley Lettuce Strike of 1936." Journal of the West 26.1 (1987).