What About Texas? the Forgotten Cause of Antonio
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WHAT ABOUT TEXAS? THE FORGOTTEN CAUSE OF ANTONIO ORENDAIN AND THE RÍO GRANDE VALLEY FARM WORKERS, 1966-1982 by TIMOTHY PAUL BOWMAN Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON May 2005 CHAPTER 1 THE MAKING OF A HUELGISTA Antonio Orendain was born on May 28, 1930, in Etzatlán, Mexico.1 He was only educated through elementary school and often worked as an impoverished campesino (a Mexican farm worker). In 1950 at the age of twenty, Orendain entered California illegally. Hungry and broke, he heard that American farm owners suffered from a labor shortage following World War II. Like many of his compatriots, Orendain thought the United States was the “land of opportunity.” He crossed the border and entered San Ysidro, California, lured by rumors of farm workers making as much as $1.60 per hour –a sum which in Mexico was unheard of. To Orendain, the decision to cross the border illegally seemed logical: The worst part of it in Mexico [was] to be too close to the United States and so far away from God. If I [had] a great need in Mexico, I am pretty sure need is the mother of all inventions. And I was hungry and needy, and since I was so close to the United States, I [did not] have to invent some way in order to solve the problem. I didn’t have to break my head to solve the problem, because everybody said the United States was easy. So maybe with those ideas, like there [was] a lot of work here, is [why] I migrated here. This enterprising young man sought a better life and brighter future.2 The harsh realities of farm labor in the United States soon darkened his optimism. With only seasonal work available, Orendain migrated between California, Idaho, Oregon, 1 Antonio Orendain to Allen McCreight, November 14, 1978, Folder 1, Texas Farm Worker’s Union Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin (hereafter TFWUP-UT); Antonio Orendain, interview by Charles Carr Winn, 20 July 1971, transcript, Oral History Project, University Library Special Collections, University of Texas at Arlington (hereafter OHP-UTA). 2 Orendain interview by Carr Winn, OHP-UTA. 2 and Montana. He began noticing injustices growers on large farms committed against workers. For example, Orendain noticed that he and other young, healthy workers were often hired to displace older, slower workers. Since farm workers had no legal recourse, Orendain recognized this as opportunistic cruelty by the growers. He also fell victim to cruel growers who threatened to have him and other illegal workers deported unless they agreed to work for free. To avoid this, Orendain adopted Americanized Hispanic last names (such as Gómez or Hernández), claiming that people would be less likely to assume he was an illegal than when used his real name. In this manner Orendain struggled from 1950 until 1955, migrating from place to place and making about $2.35 per day. After seeing how bad conditions were for Mexican workers, he realized that the only medium capable of changing this unfair system would be a farm workers’ union. This epiphany would change his life.3 While working in Los Angeles in 1951, Orendain met a dynamic young man who steered him toward labor organizing –César Estrada Chávez. Originally from Yuma, Arizona, Chávez came to Los Angeles to work for the Community Service Organization (CSO).4 CSO was based in East Los Angeles and its purpose was to assist Mexicans and Mexican Americans living in barrios across California. Its activities included protesting police brutality, helping people with immigration issues, and assisting the unemployed. The 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.; Jacques E. Levy, Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa (New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1966), 9; Juan Gómez-Quiñónez, Mexican-American Labor, 1790-1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994), 243. Levy’s book contains autobiographical passages by Chávez and other UFW leaders on the first 10 years of the movement. 3 talented and energetic Chávez rose through the ranks of CSO, eventually becoming its national director.5 Orendain joined CSO and became friends with Chávez. At CSO Orendain also met his wife Raquel, a dedicated woman who provided moral and intellectual support throughout his subsequent career as a labor organizer. They married in 1952 and both worked in the CSO from 1953 to 1962.6 Aside from Orendain’s newly formed relationships, Chávez was also developing an ideology that would later be crucial to the farm workers’ movement. As a devout Catholic, Chávez “expected the churches to minister to the poor and the needy,” arguing they should be a “pillar of support” to his organization since both pursued similar objectives.7 Also during these years Chávez began studying nonviolent protest as a form of civil disobedience. Although his mother had preached nonviolence since he was young, Chávez began studying the tactics of St. Paul and Mohandas Ghandhi.8 This would shape not only the farm workers’ movement but would also be thrust into the disputes between Chávez and Orendain that developed later in the 1970s. Since Orendain was a farm worker, he originally joined CSO to volunteer in the Oxnard, California anti-bracero program. The U.S. government developed the Bracero Program during World War II as a means to import cheap labor into the Southwest’s 5 Levy, Cesar Chavez, 3; Gómez-Quiñónez, Mexican-American Labor, 243. 6 Raquel Orendain, interview by Martha Cortera, 23 May 1976, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin. 7 Gómez-Quiñónez, Mexican-American Labor, 244. 8 César Chávez, “Cesar Chavez Speaks With Bob Fitch About La Causa, 1970,” interview by Bob Fitch in, Major Problems in Mexican-American History, ed. Zaragoza Vargas (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999), 387-389; John C. Hammerback and Richard J. Jensen, The Rhetorical Career of Cesar Chavez (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1998), 17-18. 4 agribusiness sector.9 Chávez learned that growers in the Oxnard area were employing Mexican braceros instead of U.S. citizens, and accused them of using the program to increase their profits while perpetuating poverty among American workers. Through the CSO he pressured the Department of Labor to force the growers to hire local workers.10 This was the first time both Chávez and Orendain had aroused the antagonism of wealthy growers. After the Oxnard incident, CSO became more focused on the plight of California’s farm workers. This comes as no surprise; like Orendain, as a farm worker Chávez had experienced firsthand the injustices growers committed.11 In 1962 Orendain and Chávez lobbied California lawmakers in Sacramento for a minimum wage law and various other workplace improvements such as toilets, clean drinking water, and aid for needy children. While in the capitol building during the 1962 legislative session, one grower informed them that if the minimum wage passed he would simply move his farm to Central or South America. Orendain responded dryly: It’s alright with me if you go and farm in Mexico or any other South American country and develop a good industry out there; but please, when the governments there take over your interests, please don’t try and send our people to fight for your interests out there. Thus CSO’s efforts were strongly opposed, and Orendain began losing faith in the democratic system. Also for the first time Orendain and Chávez understood the political 9 Craig J. Jenkins, The Politics of Insurgency: The Farmworker Movement in the 1960s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 133; Marion Beth Morris, “The History of the Mexican Contract Labor Program, 1942-1966” (M.A. thesis, North Texas State University, 1967), 9-10. 10 Eugene Nelson, Huelga: The First Hundred Days of the Great Delano Grape Strike (Delano: Farm Worker Press, 1966), 50. 11 For more information see Levy, Cesar Chavez, 45-93. 5 clout of the growers, learning they had successfully lobbied the California state legislature in opposition to CSO’s proposal.12 Orendain’s frustration at the organization’s inability to accomplish its objectives grew. Moreover, he was frustrated at his own limited role in CSO’s activities; as an illegal immigrant, he remained a peripheral contributor until his naturalization in 1959.13 Still, concerning farm worker assistance the group had little to be excited about. They did receive some help from the “politically active Anglo middle class,” but Orendain likened this to tokenism, claiming that politicians would use CSO “just to get elected:” In the CSO we were trying to give voting power to the Mexican Americans. We were working real (sic) well, but when the doctors, lawyers, and the middle class got into it, they used us just for political power and to win elections. Therefore, by 1962 we had gotten completely away from the farm workers’ problems, and so we got out of the CSO and formed the National Farm Workers’ Association. Chávez, realizing that CSO could not properly assist the farm workers, resigned first, and Orendain soon followed. Personally committed to assisting the poor farm workers, Chávez decided to form a farm labor union.14 In the summer of 1962, Chávez formed the National Farm Workers’ Association (NFWA). Chávez worked feverishly to publicize the NFWA among workers, and on September 30, they held their first meeting in Fresno with about 150 delegates. Here leadership was solidified, and many of the important players in the subsequent farm workers’ movement were elected to key leadership positions: Chávez was elected Director, Orendain Secretary-Treasurer, and Dolores Huerta and Gilberto Padilla Vice Presidents.