Labor Under Siege: First the farmworkers, then who?
by Guillermo Márquez
Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15–Oct. 15) celebrates the many contributions of the community to the society and culture of the United States. We intend for the images, audio, and video selected for this month’s newsletter to highlight some of the struggles of resistance and affirmation embraced by many farmworkers during the 1960s and 70s in California and the new challenges they face today.
Just two months ago, on June 23, 2021, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) dealt a blow to organized labor when it struck down a key United Farm Workers (UFW) victory: the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975. A Chávez era regulation, the act created the Agricultural Labor Relations Board and squared the rights of workers against the rights of property owners by allowing labor organizers to enter the private property of growers during work hours to inform of the UFW’s existence and of their rights. As farmworkers often lived in distant, company-owned housing and worked long and odd hours, it was difficult to reach them; thus, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act was necessary to inform and protect them against the abuses of growers by educating and helping them organize.
Unfortunately, with a 6-3 decision for Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid, the Court’s conservative majority inflicted an almost mortal blow to labor unions’ ability to organize farmworkers. The decision has potentially far-reaching ramifications that can affect more than just farmworkers. The Court leaned on the Fifth Amendment’s protection of private property, specifically on the notion that the government cannot seize private property for public use without fair compensation, giving owners the “right to exclude” individuals and groups from private property, with some exceptions for health and law enforcement personnel. This decision may further erode other government regulations.
What is equally troubling is the fact that 1960s segregationists used the same reasoning, most notably in Heart of Atlanta Hotel v. United States (1964). Segregationists sought to challenge the 1964 Civil Rights Act by arguing that its prohibitions on racial discrimination violated their Fifth Amendment “right to exclude.” To them, serving African Americans because they were black was tantamount to the seizure of their property without just compensation. While past courts have noted that this applies to complete seizures of land, this Court decision contradicts all legal precedents, echoing antilabor decisions going as far back as the 19th century.
As we here at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center work on the Farmworker Movement Collection, which includes images taken by Emmon Clarke and John Kouns, let’s remember the farmworkers’ embrace of the American tradition of protest. Let us also acknowledge that the Court’s decision on Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid will have serious consequences for picketing and labor organizing activities by UFW, and will also reverberate throughout the labor movement, likely for years to come.
Watch the Black Power Hour
The purpose of the Black Power Hour is to provide students with an opportunity to learn about the historical Black power movement in Los Angeles by presenting segments of conversations with former activists. The Black Power Hour features segments of oral history interviews with Ron Wilkins, Bernard Arafat, Watani Stiner, and Kumasi. The Hour was hosted by the Center’s Keith Rice and Dr. Karin Stanford, with technical and editing support by Xina Muñoz, as part of Professor James Simmons’s course, “American Political Institutions: A Black Perspective.” Here is one episode in the series and a link to the entire playlist on our YouTube Channel.
Listen to our podcast, Emancipated (episode 10).
by Marta Valier
In this episode 10, Marta Valier talks with Ada Trillo about her latest exhibition, La Caravana del Diablo. Trillo is a Philadelphia-based photographer, born and raised in the bi-national border region of Juarez, Mexico, and El Paso, Texas. In her work, she focuses on the violent impact of the U.S. border policy on migrants. Trillo is the most recent affiliate to the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, and in this episode, she explains how she set up to fly to Honduras to join the caravan in January 2020, where she joined the migrants fleeing violence and poor economic conditions and documented their travels through Guatemala and into Mexico.
Trillo’s work is in the Library of Congress, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and several other collections. She is the recipient of the British Journal of Photography’s Female In Focus 2020 Best Series Award and has been featured in The Guardian, Vogue, Smithsonian Magazine, and Mother Jones, among other publications. She has also been awarded The Me & Eve Grant from the Center of Photographic Arts in Santa Fe and received First Place in Editorial in the Tokyo International Foto Awards. Trillo has exhibited across the world in New York City, Philadelphia, Japan, Luxembourg, Italy, England, France, and Germany.
Episode produced by Marta Valier and available on all podcast platforms via Anchor, https://anchor.fm/emancipated.
Inside Caravanas del Diablo
by Marta Valier
Ada Trillo’s photo exhibition Caravanas del Diablo will open at the Museum of Social Justice in downtown Los Angeles on September 16. The exhibition will stay open until January 30, 2022.
In January 2020, Ada Trillo joined the caravan of migrants that traveled from Honduras through Guatemala and into Mexico. She was able to document their strenuous journey intimately. After traveling for eight days the caravan crossed the Suchiate River into Mexico, where it was met by the Mexican National Guard, which had orders to prevent Central American migrants from entering Mexico. By that time, Trillo had stayed with the migrants day and night for more than a week, allowing her to establish mutual trust. As Trillo recalls, and as she documents in her photos, the group that tried to cross the river was teargassed and had to retreat. They tried again in the middle of the night, but once they were on Mexican soil, the National Guard detained them and deported them to Honduras immediately. Meanwhile, a smaller group arrived at the border town of El Ceibo, Guatemala, where they were briefly kept in detention centers and then deported back to Honduras without being allowed to seek asylum.
MEET THE TEAM
Eduardo García is a senior at California State University, Northridge, where he studies broadcast journalism and Spanish-language journalism. He has served in several leadership positions for student clubs on campus, is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and had been a fellow for the NAHJ Student Project. He is co-editor of the bilingual student publication El Nuevo Sol and he is web editor of the brand new AFLX website devoted to providing information and resources for Afro-Latinx college students. He started working at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center, on the Farmworker Collection Project, with photographs by John Kouns and Emmon Clarke.