Central Coast Farm Labor Organizing Collection

A contingent of Mexican workers from Mexicali and UFW supporters from Santa Maria take a break while en route to a UFW strike near Yuma, Arizona sometime in 1972. Committee members in the photo also worked in Arizona as farm laborers. The bus in background was one of a fleet UFW used to shuttle supporters to the front lines.

As a result of low wages, day care was not an option for most farm workers in the Santa Maria Valley. Children also worked to help supplement income for the family. The girl helps her family plant strawberries during May to August season in 1969. Unfortunately, the practice continues to this day.

In March 1972, la causa came to Guadalupe. UFW supporters and organizers, otherwise known as the Santa Maria Ten, were charged with disrupting a public meeting in the towns grammar school. Witnesses testified that the 300 community members in attendance had in fact booed a member of the ultra-rightist John Birch Society incited by the Parent-Teachers Club to lecture against the UFW. A U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report concluded that the charges, most of which were dropped, illustrated a pattern of reprisals taken against Mexican-American UFW activists who spoke out against racist school officials. Starting from left to right in the first row, is Margarita Cabello, Juanita Estorga, Carmen Magana, Maria Manriques Cota Vaca, Jesus Ortiz. Starting from left to right in the second row, Angel Fierro, Sammy Gonzalez, Fermin Sepulveda, and Manuel Echavarria, the only one who served jail time.

It was a busy year. Members of Santa Maria's UFW chapter witnessed the bloody summer of 1973. The photograph captures a tense moment in which Cesar Chavez, hand on chin, and flanked by UFW supporters, is locked in a heated debate with a Coachella Valley grower. Chavez had asked the farm owner why he had picked the Teamsters, who are standing behind the owner, to represent the farm workers who picked his grapes. By accepting Teamster representation, Chavez argued, growers were trying to deny farm workers their democratic right vote for a union.

Demonstration against Minami continues at the packaging plant.

Guadalupe, a small farm worker community located 10 miles west of Santa Maria, was also a site of many rallies in support of various UFW causes. Guadalupe, una pequeña comunidad agrícola, situada a diez millas al oeste de Santa Maria, también fue escenario de numerosas demostraciones en apoyo a las diversas causas de la UFW.

That same year, Santa Maria UFW members learn another lesson in grassroots politics. They go to Los Angeles to join in letter writing campaigns urging state senators to support the lettuce boycott, and denounce unfair labor practices against farm workers.

The letter writing continues at a Los Angeles area gymnasium.

The UFW's national lettuce boycott is taken up in Santa Maria. Photograph shows local farm workers and UFW supporters striking in 1973 against one of the valley's largest lettuce growers, H. Y. Minami & Sons.

The children demonstrating in front of the Teamsters Santa Maria office show how the labor struggles of Cecilia came to Santa Maria in 1976. The picket signs urge a "Vote yes for Prop. 14." The initiative failed due to a grower-financed media scare campaign.

Farm workers harvest Anaheim chiles in a Santa Maria Valley field late in 1975. Echavarria recalls that these workers voted to join the UAW, but the grower refused to negotiate a contract.

Years of struggle are rewarded in 1975. Veteran UFW organizers Jessica Govea, far right, and Eugenio (Winnie) Arvallo, left, perform in the Guadalupe Recreation Center to celebrate Governor Jerry Brown's signing of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law. The act allows farm workers to vote and select the union of their choice, and UFW organizers to walk into the fields to talk to farm workers during specified break periods: a right enjoyed by industrial workers.

The Regalado family, followed by Jesus Loya and others, lead marchers during the Prop. 14 campaign.

A group of "gorillas" sit waiting for trouble to start in the Coachella vineyards.

Violence could erupt at any moment. Coachella Valley Sheriff's deputies take away a branch from one of the strike breakers. Sticks and two-by-fours often turned into fearsome weapons in Teamster hands.

Picketing and walkouts spread throughout the Santa Maria Valley strawberry harvest.

Picketing produced more than acrimony. Echavarria remembers lunchtime as a beautiful and blessed moment when local residents could show their support by preparing and donating food, and thus strengthening the bonds between local farm workers. From left to right: Lola Flores, Jesus Estorga, Maria Guzman, Leopoldo Rodrogues, and Fela Teniente.

Cesar Chavez, bodyguards at his side, tells workers how they can organize themselves to receive better wages, working conditions, and, most importantly, earn self-respect. Chavez had invited Santa Maria's UFW chapter to Coachella to help organize grape strikes and picket Teamster interference.

During this decade, hundreds would participate in the causa, thus making an historic upsurge in the Mexican and Chicano community's participation in the valley's public life. Durante esta década, cientos de personas participaron, incrimentando inesperadamente la participación de las comunidades mexicana y chicana en la vida pública del Valle de Santa Maria.

Farmers who have heeded call to halt work in the strawberry fields.

Meanwhile, local UFW organizers and supporters find a new way to support the national lettuce boycott: they target farm workers in the lettuce fields during the desaije, or the crucial thinning stage. Police stand by to keep the peace. Failure to thin could stunt the crop's growth. Echavarria estimated that as much as 50 percent of lettuce crop was made unfit for packing. The tactic proved so successful that Chavez used thinning strikes with other crops. Growers replaced workers who honored picket lines with scabs. Short-handled hoe remained in use.

Police video picketing action during lettuce thinning. Echavarria recalls how Roy Miname, son of grower Yataro Minami, gave him a karate chop to the neck after he had walked onto one of his fields to get workers to walk off their jobs. Echavarria said the Minamis filed trespassing charges against him, and made the charges stick. The incident was one of many in which UAW members committed civil disobedience to challenge laws that denied them access to the work place, a right long enjoyed by other industrial workers.

During the same picketing campaign, UAW supporters Maria Vac, far left, and Rosa Ischioneli, right, form groups to walk into the fields to urge workers to walk off their jobs.

Cesar Chavez, bodyguards at his side, tells workers how they can organize themselves to receive better wages, working conditions, and, most importantly, earn self-respect. Chavez had invited Santa Maria's UFW chapter to Coachella to help organize grape strikes and picket Teamster interference. Chávez, con sus guardaespaldas a sus lados, indica a los trabajadores como ellos pueden organizarse para recibir mejores salarios, improvisar las condiciones laborales, y, muy importante, ganar dignidad. Chávez había invitado la UFW de la región de Santa Maria a Coachella para ayudar a organizar boycoteos de uvas y vigilar las intervenciones de los traileros.

The hired "gorillas," as the UFW members called them, stand with Teamsters as the black-hatted man points his finger to underscore threats made against UFW supporters and organizers. Los gorilas contratados, como miembros de la UFW los llaman, se alinean junto a los traileros al momento que el hombre de sombrero negro apunta con su dedo para subrayar amenazas hechas contra los partidarios y organizadores de la UFW.

A day's work ends with UAW supporters and organizers picketing a vineyard at dusk.

A quiet moment in an escalating struggle. A UFW supporter takes time-out to snuggle up to his son. The eagle on the back of the boys shirt is the emblem of the UFW flag. The black eagle represents a re-birth and is borrowed from the Aztec myth.

During the early 1970's, UFW organizers and supporters took to the streets more than once to dramatize the union struggle. Durante los primeros años de la década del 70, organizadores y partidarios de la UFW se lanzaron a las calles más de una vez para enfatizar la dramática lucha de la UFW.

Constant bending over in the fields permanently injured the backs of many field workers. Working with the short-handled hoe, or el cortito, was considered one of the worst of agricultures labor-intensive jobs.

A family of sharecroppers, including children, plant strawberries the old fashioned way-- with the short-handled hoe [el cortito]-- in Santa Maria Valley fields. The UFW and its supporters succeeded in banning the backbreaking tool in 1975.

Immigrant workers marching with two flags expressing bicultural determination to preserve cultural identity while embracing a new national identity.

But not all was lost. Although the UAW would suffer some of its worst setbacks in the coming years, farm workers had won important social gains. Thanks to the UAW, toilets and fresh drinking water in the fields became work place improvements upon which campesinos now depend.

Early signs of a coming struggle. In 1969, Pete Velasco, UFW Treasurer, center facing right, came to spread the union's message in Tagalog, to immigrant Filipino workers in the Oceano area. Thirty-year resident, Paulino Pacheco, strands in the center joined by other Filipino farm workers. Tempranas señales de la lucha próxima a librarse. En 1969, Pete Velasco, tesorero de la UFW, al centro de cara a la derecha, vino para difundir el mensaje de la UFW en Tagalo a los trabajadores migratorios filipinos en el área de Oceano. Residente por 30 años en el área, Paulino Pacheco, de pie al centro, está acompañado de otros trabajadores agrícolas filipinos.

Members of the Santa Maria chapter get a national perspective when they attend their first UFW union meeting in Fresno. Chavez addresses the gathering from podium; UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta stands to his right. Miembros de la UFW de la región de Santa Maria pudieron apreciar una perspectiva nacional cuando asistieron a su primera reunión con la UFW en Fresno.

Chavez addresses Guadalupe residents in a local grammar school, campaigning for Proposition 14, a state initiative that attempted to secure permanent funding for the ALRB and require a statewide vote on any attempts to weaken the labor relations act. Former Santa Maria UFW organizer, Paulino Pacheco, stands on Chavez's left. Chávez se dirige, en su campaña para la Proposición 14, a los residentes de Guadalupe en una escuela primaria. Dicha proposición era una iniciativa estatal que intentaba asegurar fondos para el ALRB y requerir un voto mayoritario estatal para cualquier intento de debilitar el acta de relaciones laborales. Previo organizador de la UFW en Santa Maria, Paulino Pacheco se encuentra a la izquierda de Chávez en esta foto.

And UAW support came in all ages. Supporters march near the Hermosa and Main Street intersection. (Today, Hermosa does not intersect Main Street)

Local UFW members and supporters march down Main Street near West Alvin St. in Santa Maria. Partidarios y miembros locales de la UFW desfilan en la calle Main, cerca del oeste de la calle Alvin, en Santa Maria.

The setback in Santa Maria's chile fields signaled a discouraging trend. Grower-influenced legislators would cut off funding o the Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), the agency created to enforce the state's new labor act, while growers used bureaucratic and legal maneuvers to undermine or delay implementing hard-won contracts. The UAW would turn to the ballot box for justice.

UFW marches in Santa Maria followed the same route. They started on Main St. then onto Broadway until reaching Preisker Park, or "parque huelga" (striker's park) as the union workers called it. Los desfiles de protesta de la UFW en Santa Maria tomaron siempre la misma ruta. Iniciaban en la calle Main, seguian por Broadway y llegaban hasta el Parque Preisker, comunmente conocido como 'el parque huelga'.

Marching down Santa Maria's streets became a regular activity in which thousands of local residents expressed their support for la causa -- the UFW cause during the expanding Grape Boycott. Los desfiles de protesta en las calles de Santa Maria eran una actividad frecuente en la cuál miles de residentes locales expresaron su apoyo por la causa de la UFW a lo largo del boycoteo de las uvas.

Cesar Chavez, center right, and an unknown UFW female sympathizer, far right, attend one of several meetings held in Santa Maria cultivating support for Proposition 14. Chavez had community support from Pete Cohen, and Raul Ceja, two of the UFWs local strategists.

That same year, Santa Maria strawberry pickers took on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters when local growers signed sweet heart contracts with the Teamsters to avoid bargaining with the UFW. The UFW responded by striking Santa Maria growers who had signed with the Teamsters.

Tensions ran high during the picketing. UAW supporters shout at a rancher driving his car out of the packing house parking lot while the ever-present police, left, watch from the sidelines.