Andrew Zermeño (born 1935) is an American cartoonist from Salinas, California. [1] During the 1960s and 1970s, he was the art director and cartoonist for the Chicano/a labor newspaper El Malcriado . [2]
Zermeño was born in 1935 to a working-class Mexican-American family in Salinas, California. [1] While attending college at the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, his brother introduced him to Cesar Chavez, who asked Zermeño to design the eagle logo for the United Farm Workers labor union. [3] When Chavez established El Malcriado in 1964, he brought Zermeño on as the cartoonist. [2] : 117–118
Zermeño's drawings were critical in communicating criticisms of labor conditions and other political commentary to illiterate farmworkers. Chavez described his drawings as "a work of genius." [4] The cartoons featured the iconic characters of Don Sotaco, the farm worker; Don Coyote, the contractor; and El Patroncito, the grower. [2] Don Sotaco represented the Mexican-American worker without class consciousness. Zermeño recalled that "We wanted [farmworkers] to identify with this character and show that if you didn’t know your rights, you would get into a lot of trouble." [5] Zermeño also created strike posters and calendars for the union. [1] In 1971, he returned to Los Angeles to work as a freelance illustrator, and he retired in 1998. [3]
Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ideologically, his worldview combined leftist politics with Catholic social teachings.
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.
The Bracero Programs were the result of a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated on August 4, 1942, when the United States signed the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement with Mexico. For these farmworkers, the agreement guaranteed decent living conditions and a minimum wage of 30 cents an hour, as well as protections from forced military service, and guaranteed that a part of wages was to be put into a private savings account in Mexico; it also allowed the importation of contract laborers from Guam as a temporary measure during the early phases of World War II.
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the United Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
Obreros Unidos (1966–1971) was an independent agricultural labor union founded in Wisconsin in 1966 by Mexican American civil rights activists Jesus Salas, Francisco Rodriguez and many more, originally Texas-based farm workers from the small town of Crystal City. The union took root after a march from Wautoma, Wisconsin, to Madison, Wisconsin that state's capitol to protest the working conditions of the thousands of annual Mexican-American migrant workers who traveled from Texas to Wisconsin each year. This protest march was inspired by the similar march of César Chávez' United Farm Workers (UFW) in California earlier that spring, and the Texas Farmworker march on Austin, Texas of 1966. Obreros Unidos engaged in its first labor action by seeking to organize migrant potato harvest and processing workers in the town of Almond, WI, and received support from the AFL-CIO, Cesar Chavez, and other labor unions.
Philip Villamin Vera Cruz was a Filipino American labor leader, farmworker, and leader in the Asian American movement. He helped found the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which later merged with the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). As the union's long-time second vice president, he worked to improve the working conditions of migrant workers.
The Delano grape strike was a labor strike organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino and AFL-CIO-sponsored labor organization, against table grape growers in Delano, California to fight against the exploitation of farm workers. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and one week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.
Miguel Contreras was an American labor union leader. He "was known as a king-maker for both local and state politicians." Contreras was born in Dinuba, a city in California's agricultural Central Valley, to farmworker parents who had immigrated from Mexico during the 1920s under the Bracero Program.
Eliseo Vasquez Medina is a Mexican-American labor union activist and leader, and advocate for immigration reform in the United States. From 1973 to 1978, he was a board member of the United Farm Workers. He is currently secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. He was previously an international executive vice president, the first Mexican American to serve on the union's executive board. Medina announced his resignation as an SEIU executive vice president effective October 1, 2013.
KLXY is an American non-commercial educational radio station licensed to serve the community of Woodlake in Tulare County, California. The station is owned and operated by the Educational Media Foundation, and is an affiliate of the Christian contemporary network K-Love.
The Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that began on August 23, 1970 and led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. The strike was led by the United Farm Workers against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Salad Bowl strike was only in part a jurisdictional strike, for many of the actions taken during the event were not strikes. The strike led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.
Richard Steven Street is an American photographer, historian and journalist of American farmworkers and agricultural issues. He is well known for his multi-volume history of California farmworkers and photo essays.
Ernesto Galarza was a Mexican-American labor organizer, activist, professor, poet, writer, storyteller, and a key figure in the history of immigrant farmworker organization in California. He had a dream of giving better living conditions to working-class Latinos.
Helen Fabela Chávez was an American labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Aside from her affiliation with the UFW, she was a Chicana with a traditional upbringing and limited education. She was also the wife of César Chávez.
Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong, also known as "Seven Fingers", was an American labor organizer. He organized West Coast agricultural workers starting in the 1930s, and rose to national prominence in 1965, when he, Philip Vera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, that became known as the Delano grape strike. He has been described as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor movement." He is regarded as a key figure of the Asian American movement.
Cesar Chavez is a 2014 Mexican American biographical film produced and directed by Diego Luna about the life of American labor leader Cesar Chavez, who cofounded the United Farm Workers. The film stars Michael Peña as Chavez. John Malkovich co-stars as the owner of a large industrial grape farm who leads the opposition to Chavez's organizing efforts. It premiered in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
A school bus-type vehicle carrying farm workers fell into a drainage canal near Ripley, California, southwest of Blythe, California, at approximately 6:30 a.m. PST before sunrise on January 15, 1974, killing 19 and injuring 28.
John Kouns was a photographer and social justice activist who played an important role in documenting the United Farm Workers movement and the Civil Rights Movement.
El Malcriado was a Chicano/a labor newspaper that ran between 1964 and 1976. It was established by the Chicano labor leader Cesar Chavez as the unofficial newspaper of the United Farm Workers during the Chicano/a Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Published in both English and Spanish editions, El Malcriado provided a forum for migrant workers to criticize working conditions and served as a way to organize the collective voice of Mexican American farmworkers. The newspaper's contents ranged from articles on union activities, coverage of labor issues, political commentary, cartoons, satire, and artwork. It is an example of ethnic press or alternative media that developed from political movements and immigrant communities within the United States to challenge existing power structures and gain political leverage.