United Farm Workers pt 2

http://ufw.org/the-rise-of-the-ufw/

The Rise of the UFW

"Things hadn’t changed. Grape pickers in 1965 were making an average of $.90/hour... State laws regarding working standards were simply ignored by growers... No ranches had portable field toilets. Workers’ temporary housing was strictly segregated by race, and they paid two dollars or more per day for unheated metal shacks-often infested with mosquitoes-with no indoor plumbing or cooking facilities... Farm labor contractors played favorites with workers, selecting friends first, sometimes accepting bribes. Child labor was rampant, and many workers were injured or died in easily preventable accidents...The Civil Rights movement focused attention on the treatment of Blacks in the south. But the situation in the fields of California proved similar enough that the largely Chicano and Filipino farmworkers benefited by the new public understanding of racism. As a result, millions of consumers stopped buying table grapes."

This quotation largely follows the ideas found in Nelson's "Resisting Whiteness." It openly uses the paradigm of race and segregation/unfair practices to juxtapose the ideas of equality. The people working in the fields experience situations of extreme prejudice while also not having a true voice. Despite all the suffering they endure, they are not heard or properly cared for by the owners of the farms. Their working environment directly correlates to the oppression of a group and loss of voice which is further supported by the identification of themselves (migrant workers, hispanics, chicanos, etc.) as being an oppressed minority similar to the Blacks in the South around the same timeframe.

A large part of the arguments posed by the UFW are describing their suffering and implying it shouldn't be this way. They are being oppressed and not facing justice. This fits with the idea that they "deserve" to be treated a certain way and are not being treated the way they should be. Therefore, they are oppressed and the victims of racism/inequality. These people are being drowned out by the majority (presumably white farm owners) and lose their right to voice. The loss of basic rights isn't just about inequality and racism, it's because their needs are being drowned out by a more powerful majority and this is used in UFW argumentation (albeit indirectly.)