President of the Southern Tenant Farmer's Union, Harry Leland Mitchell (1906 – 1989), made an announcement on the pages of Commonweal Magazine concerning the National Farm Labor Union's strike that took place in Bakersfield, California, in October of 1947:
"This strike is the first known instance [in which] foreign nationals have been forced by the U.S. Government to become strikebreakers... 130 Mexican nationals working under contract between the Mexican and American governments have been forced to work by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under threat of deportation... The use of foreign nationals as strikebreakers sets a serious precedent* that must not be allowed to go unchallenged."
[*Perhaps this was the first time in the history of his labor union, but it was a common practice in the Western states when the railroads were being built.]
More on this topic can be read here...
Click here to read about the tremendous hardships that fell upon the fertile San Joaquin Valley in 1937...
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