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    History Essay

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    1) In late 19th/early 20th century California, the agricultural industry was reliant on immigrant labor from non-Anglo backgrounds due to the unwillingness of Anglo-Americans to perform the difficult field work. Wages were set differently based on race in order to maximize profits and pit racial groups against each other. 2) Mexican and Chinese immigrant farm workers faced particularly harsh discrimination and exploitation, being paid substandard wages. Despite the hopes of economic opportunity, these groups encountered inequality and an inability to achieve fair treatment. 3) Attempts by Mexican and other immigrant farm workers to organize unions met with resistance from farm owners, who refused to recognize the unions and took steps like integrating different ethnic groups to divide

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    History Essay

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    1) In late 19th/early 20th century California, the agricultural industry was reliant on immigrant labor from non-Anglo backgrounds due to the unwillingness of Anglo-Americans to perform the difficult field work. Wages were set differently based on race in order to maximize profits and pit racial groups against each other. 2) Mexican and Chinese immigrant farm workers faced particularly harsh discrimination and exploitation, being paid substandard wages. Despite the hopes of economic opportunity, these groups encountered inequality and an inability to achieve fair treatment. 3) Attempts by Mexican and other immigrant farm workers to organize unions met with resistance from farm owners, who refused to recognize the unions and took steps like integrating different ethnic groups to divide

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    1) In late 19th/early 20th century California, the agricultural industry was reliant on immigrant labor from non-Anglo backgrounds due to the unwillingness of Anglo-Americans to perform the difficult field work. Wages were set differently based on race in order to maximize profits and pit racial groups against each other. 2) Mexican and Chinese immigrant farm workers faced particularly harsh discrimination and exploitation, being paid substandard wages. Despite the hopes of economic opportunity, these groups encountered inequality and an inability to achieve fair treatment. 3) Attempts by Mexican and other immigrant farm workers to organize unions met with resistance from farm owners, who refused to recognize the unions and took steps like integrating different ethnic groups to divide

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    110 views4 pages

    History Essay

    Uploaded by

    api-310541270
    1) In late 19th/early 20th century California, the agricultural industry was reliant on immigrant labor from non-Anglo backgrounds due to the unwillingness of Anglo-Americans to perform the difficult field work. Wages were set differently based on race in order to maximize profits and pit racial groups against each other. 2) Mexican and Chinese immigrant farm workers faced particularly harsh discrimination and exploitation, being paid substandard wages. Despite the hopes of economic opportunity, these groups encountered inequality and an inability to achieve fair treatment. 3) Attempts by Mexican and other immigrant farm workers to organize unions met with resistance from farm owners, who refused to recognize the unions and took steps like integrating different ethnic groups to divide

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    of 4

    Bartman 1

    Jessica Bartman
    LBS 375
    31. October. 2012
    Professor Namala
    Buried Amongst the Races:
    Californias Agriculture Race Game
    Throughout time California has been centered on its inhabitants races. It seemed that the
    darker the color of ones skin the lower a person was on the social ladder. During the gold rush
    California became a prosperous place for immigrants of all kinds. But racial inequality would
    become prominent all over California. Despite all the efforts California placed on immigrants
    more and more of them showed up daily. With agricultural work on the rise, it was no surprise
    as to where people of non-Anglo descent would be allowed to work. The Anglo-Americans
    werent willing to work the long hours in the unbearable heat for a meager pay, so in turn the
    accessibility to immigrant labor was high. According to the book Major Problems in California
    History, the total labor required in the industry, 10% was factory labor and chiefly whiteAmerican, and 90% was field labor which was practically 100% foreign labor. (Major
    Problems, p. 87) With the need for foreign labor on the rise, Anglo-Americans would soon prove
    to be unwilling to treat a foreign workforce the same as the Anglo-American workforce. In the
    late 19th and early 20th centuries California thrived solely upon agricultural labor. Unfortunately
    for men on non-Anglo backgrounds, these jobs were accessible to them based primarily on race

    Bartman 2
    and nationality, they were restricted from organizing, and forced to struggle to live with menial
    wages as 3rd class workers.
    With race being the determining factor for wages, men of non-Anglo descent only had
    access to Californias harsh agricultural labor. Farm labor in California was race driven, with
    Anglo-Americans organizing; farmers had to develop an alternative way to increase labor with
    no decrease to their profits. According to McWilliams, a notable fact about farm labor in
    California is the practices of employers to pay wage rates on the basis of race, i.e. to establish
    different wage rates for each racial group, thus fostering racial antagonism and incidentally,
    keeping wages at the lowest possible point. (McWilliams, p. 118) With wage rates being
    classified by race, and wages being set at the lowest possible rates farm workers struggled to
    survive. With no other jobs open to hiring non-Anglo Americans, the farm workers had no
    choice but to suffer through this discrimination and inequality.
    This maltreatment of farm workers was not distributed to one specific race in fact all
    races and nationalities other than Anglo-American were exploited in Californias agricultural
    work force including the Mexican farm workers. With the false idea of being able to make
    money for their families back home, Mexican farm workers traveled to California with the hope
    of achieving the American dream, but awaiting them was a harsh and crude reality. In the article
    Grower Frank Stokes Defends Mexican farm Workers efforts to Organize, 1936 Frank Stokes
    tells of this alternative reality, not only in the fields are the Mexican people exploited, legitimate
    prey. (Stokes, Major Problems, p.276) With an already preconceived disgust, the Mexican
    workers faced the same harsh reality as the immigrants before them. Along with the Mexican
    farm workers the inequality spread throughout the non-Anglo nationalities for example to the
    Chinese immigrants. The Chinese farm workers originated in the gold rush, already

    Bartman 3
    discriminated against and despised it was no surprise that this horrible treatment would continue.
    McWilliams states, The Chinese, being a despised minority fighting for the right to exist in a
    hostile territory, could be employed at sub-subsistence wages. In other respects, moreover they
    were ideal farm workers. (McWilliams, p.70) With race being the ultimate determination of
    wages, no non-Anglo immigrants were even given a chance to achieve the American dream.
    With the low wages and discrimination many immigrants like the Chinese and Mexican farm
    workers had no choice but to keep working in the fields.
    Faced with a never-ending battle of hatred, inequality, and lack of choices; Many farm
    workers tried to organize a union and fight for their own justice. Coming up with the idea wasnt
    difficult, finding the people to join was manageable, but making a difference proved exhausted.
    According to Frank Stokes, These Mexicans were asking for a well-deserved wage increase and
    free transportation to and from the widely scattered groves, finally they asked for recognition of
    their newly formed union. The growers and packers agreed to furnish tools, to furnish
    transportation they even agreed to a slight wage increase but recognition of the Mexican
    workers union? Never. (Stokes, Major Problems, p.275) Even though the Mexicans were able
    to organize a union, the Anglo-Americans wouldnt see them as an actual union like the growers
    union was. Farm owners still continued to treat Mexicans unjustly but turned up the stakes by
    making the fields more diverse. Changing the dynamic on the field caused a big problem for the
    ability to unionize for Mexican farm workers, which helped keep the unions from gathering.
    According McWilliams, the foreman of the Griffin ranch, in the same area, stated to a reporter
    that; Last year our Hindu workers struck. So this year we mixed half Mexicans in with them,
    and we arent having any labor trouble now. (McWilliams, p. 118) Although the farm owners

    Bartman 4
    caused a language barrier between the farm workers, they would never stop the unions from
    growing and fighting for a chance to change the system.

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