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Bert Corona TAPE 48, CR 48, SR 23, TC 6:30 06:30:21 What Is Your Bert Corona TAPE 48, CR 48, SR 23, TC 6:30 06:30:21 What is your recollection of significant attempts to organize farm labor prior to the 50s and 60s? 06:30:30 Well in 1937 I was active in two movements one the CIO organizing in Southern California and the other one the formation of the Mexican-American youth movement which was starting about that time and in both they were very significant coincidences that the youngsters who were going to highschool and community colleges at that time they were called junior colleges were for the most part sons and daughters of farm workers who had been trying to organize in Orange County in San Bernardino and in parts of los angeles county ot organize agricultural workers, whose fathers were active and of course then their children were the ones who were most likely to finish highschool and try to go on college and I recall strikes and efforts to organize in Orange County around Westminster and outside of Anaheim and places like that, where they invoked the criminal syndicalism laws which was a threat and more than a threat it became a a very powerful tool in the hands of growers because actually men or women who tried to organize farm workers could be sent to jail, they were such a thing as criminal syndicalism, syndicalism means unionizing and so interwoven with the lives of these young people to finish just a very incipient higher education were the struggles of the parents in those towns of Orange County and Southern Los Angeles County San Bernardino and Rverside where there was an orange large orange growing operations. Corona 1 06:32:30 What were the other obstacles to organizing labor? 06:32:35 well the the obstacles of course, had always been removal. Removal. If your seen the shots of the corporate strike where they packed up the strikers in trucks in just took the to the nearest railroad head and loaded them up and in in box cars heading back to Texas, removal deportation to Mexico, in fact some of those Southern California judges still .. we've had cases where a person has been arrested for driving under the influence a couple of times, or has been involved in a wreck or to his not insured where the judges order the person to leave or I will deport you from from this county.. in those terms you know, and Peter Shay who heads up the Coalition for Human Rights and Constitutional Liberties he's had cases where he's had to go and defend people in counties like oh King County, and north of that in Lindsey, Porterville in places like that and... judges in terms of California could not deport people out of its out its boundaries and ..in the same period of time we saw.. start again of organizing packing shed workers and cannery workers primarily by the United Cannery Agricultural and Packing Workers of America a union that was formed in those year 36, 37, 38 in the south a professor by the name of Leon Henderson was one of the organizers he organized tobacco, and sugar cane and cotton field workers in the south and then he came out here and tried to organize cannery and packing sheds, not necesarily picking as such but the shed would be organized and that would bring in also those who did the picking of the ... supposed to bring to the sheds, and very much involved in that of couse was Luisa Moreno a woman organizer I don't know if you've had if you have Corona 2 material on her we have her life pre-United States life, we have a an album on her activities in Mexico and Guatemala 06:35:09 Why were agricultural laborers not included in the National Labor Relations act? 06:35:20 because of the power of the Western Federation of Growers, Western Association of Growers and powerful interest in agriculture that were closely linked to the railroad, the big railroads that had long lines into California also supported the growers efforts to keep unions out of the fields, and the big canners Levy and Swift and all kinds of cannery operations Del Monte, Calpac, Rosenberg all those played, Hunts, Wesson Oil, the Norton family all those forces were very active in in processing food grown in California, so they were very much interested in keeping the fields unorganized, thus keeping the packing sheds unorganized and the canneries but Luisa Moreno did finally succeed in organizing ninety canneries in Northern California before she had to leave for Mexico 06:36:20 in the 1960s was there someting particular going on? 06:36:26 there were efforts in the sixties of course the United Farm Workers had formed the National Association of Farm Workers, NAFW, but there was the AWOC, Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee that was formed by the AFofL, with forces from other unions who came to California and joined with Larry Itliong, and the Filipino Workers Union and with the vestages of old unions in Stockton and other cities where there were large packing and canning operations that were organized by the Longshoremans Corona 3 Union. The Longshoreman remember had a long history of organizing caneries and packing workers here and in Hawaii, and so in early sixties that was what was going on in the Filipinos were moving and organizing and the AWOC were moving and organizing and Cesar was building the basis for an association that would then lead to a union, he felt that the unions were not able to mobilize intelligently the farm workers that could be organized and so he felt that there was a step that they had to take in terms of maturing and development and sophistication of how the organization could be used. There was also the tremendous threat of violence that was always heaped upon efforts to organize farm workers by the growers themselves, the growers would burn their sheds would put bombs in their warehouse and so forth, and attribute all this to the workers and of course they would also foment a very supermilitant voices amongst the ranks you know people that we can't win but lets burn t.. you know there was always that fifth column type of infiltration into efforts and to groups that were trying to organize workers legitimately for peace or collective bargaining purposes, so Cesar taking all these things into consideration, the need for preparation for development for education and the need for firmly establishing the concept and the strategy of non-violence was very important to him, and he felt that there should be a period where workers could be trained and could be developed to think in these terms and to aware of the dangers of falling prey to fomented violence from within and so forth that let to nowhere, and also just a simple question of building unity you know around not only just the need to confront the grower and the packer unitedly, but also united to become more self-sustaining empowerment self-empowerment by participating together they could obtain many other needs that had to be filled such as social services mutual aid assistance food clothing shelter so Corona 4 forth medical care all those needs were very present in the minds of farm workers and also Cesar thought that it was important to address those needs through the association 06:40:03 Cesar and you were doing some of the same stuff in LA and CSO, prior to this, could you tell us about this? 06:40:12 well CSO and there was an organization called Alma that was active from the unions from the left unions of that time the international unions of mine and smelter workers from the activities of CIO unions here the furniture workers this gentleman who owns the house Gus Brown can tell you about his history 06:41:16 Tell us about the early days at CSO? 06:41:26 the main effort was to try and organize barrios, comunidades, communities in San Jose in Oakland, in Salinas, in Los Angeles, in San Diego in the Imperial Valley, and of course in and around Fresno and other agricultural towns in central California their effort was significant in as much as it sought to involve the people to build an organization that would serve them defend them and speak for them and great efforts were made to train the people on how to organize how to conduct the organization, which I think was different from what other efforts had been doing in the past, that were primarily efforts at waging the struggle but the CSO was involved in civil struggles as well against discrimination in housing against police brutality againt discrimination in the schools and in employment and I think that it laid the ground work for much of what had taken place later on in the Corona 5 building of MAPA I think that the fact the CSO existed along with with ANMA made it possible for MAPA to develop, to be Mexican American Political Association that by the end of the 60s reached as many as a 100 chapters in the state 06:43:08 Where did this the philosophy come from? 06:43:15 I don't think so, I think that he has very specific ideas, Alinsky, Alinsky and Fred Ross had, well some had specific ideas about moving people and taking advantage of the weaknesses and structures that were oppressing oppresing the Mexican people, such as chambers of commerce, employer associations, the civic leagues of enterpreneurs, and so forth and he was a good tactician and strategist I think though however that and Fred Ross was magnificent as an organizer, as a person that could impart and foment and inspire, people to move for themselves but I think that one must attribute also to the history of organization amongst the Mexican and other Spanish speaking people in the United States and in their home countries, the history that was laid down such as Flores Magon movement which for Mexico the
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