Week 3: Political, Labor, and Educational Struggles

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering political, civil rights, and labor movements among Mexican Americans and Latinos in the 19th and 20th centuries, including LULAC, El Congreso, early agricultural strikes, and the United Farm Workers.

League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC)

The oldest and largest surviving Latino civil rights organization, founded by a middle-class, educated elite in response to discrimination and immigration restriction; it advocated for ethnic uplift, assimilation, and civil rights by asserting Mexicans were white and model citizens.

Naturalization Act of 1790

Federal legislation establishing that only "free white persons" were entitled to U.S. citizenship, creating the historical basis for Mexican Americans to claim whiteness on paper.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

The 1848 treaty granting U.S. citizenship to Mexican citizens in the conquered region, establishing an indirect, contested "white" legal status on paper that was rarely recognized in practice.

Ladies Auxiliary (LULAC)

A segregated division within LULAC where women played critical roles supporting organizational goals and received political training that prepared them for broader civic engagement.

Alicia Dickerson Montemayor

A prominent LULAC member who won elected office within the organization and publicly critiqued male privilege.

El Congreso de pueblos de hablan Española (1939)

A Pan-Latino civil rights organization established in 1939 by labor activists that took a non-nativist, non-assimilationist stance and demanded democratic ideals and equal rights through direct action.

Luisa Moreno

A Guatemalan-born labor activist of upper-class origins who gave up family privilege, helped lead El Congreso, organized cannery and agricultural workers into UCAPAWA, and was later red-baited and deported.

Josefina Fierro de Bright

A prominent leader within El Congreso de pueblos de hablan Española who advocated on behalf of workers and the Spanish-speaking community.

Eduardo Quevedo

A political activist and leader in El Congreso de pueblos de hablan Española who defended Mexican American youths.

Wagner Act (National Labor Relations Act of 1935)

New Deal legislation guaranteeing workers the right to organize and bargain collectively, but which explicitly excluded domestic and agricultural workers, thereby excluding the vast majority of Mexicans and Mexican Americans.

San Joaquin Valley Cotton Strike (1933)

One of the largest agricultural strikes in U.S. history involving 12,000 to 18,000 cotton workers ($80\%$ Mexican-origin alongside Filipinos) who struck for a wage increase from $40\text{ cents}$ to $\$1$ per $100\text{ lbs}$, settling at $75\text{ cents}$ per $100\text{ lbs}$ after facing gunfire.

El Monte Strawberry Strike (1933)

A 1933 agricultural strike in California against Japanese farm owners triggered by a severe wage cut to $9\text{ cents/hr}$, executed by a multiracial coalition of Mexican, Japanese, and Filipino workers.

Emma Tenayuca

A prominent labor leader nicknamed "La Pasionaria" who organized pecan shellers in San Antonio, Texas, led marches and protests, and fought for wage equality between White and Mexican workers.

Workers' Alliance (1934)

A labor organization formed in 1934 by Emma Tenayuca with support from the Communist Party to organize unemployed and low-wage laborers.

Southern Pecan Strike (1938)

A major strike of 10,000 San Antonio pecan shellers led by Emma Tenayuca demanding equal wages for White and Mexican workers, which met swift police repression, arrests, red-baiting, and eventual mechanization of the industry.

UCAPAWA

The United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, & Allied Workers of America; a union organized across the U.S. and in Southern California by Luisa Moreno that primarily represented women workers.

Community Service Organization (CSO)

An urban civil rights organization joined by Dolores Huerta in 1952 before she redirected her efforts to organizing rural farmworkers.

National Farm Workers Association (NFWA)

A farmworker organization co-founded by Dolores Huerta in 1962 to organize San Joaquin Valley agricultural laborers, establishing a credit union, health insurance, and a newspaper.

Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC)

A Filipino labor organization that initiated the 1965 grape strike in Delano, California, and encouraged the NFWA to join their efforts.

United Farm Workers (UFW)

A labor union formed in 1966 through the merger of AWOC and the NFWA; it coordinated a five-year national grape boycott and grew to 17 million supporters by the 1970s.

Dolores Huerta

A pioneering labor and civil rights activist, former teacher, and co-founder of the NFWA/UFW who became the first Latina to negotiate a collective bargaining contract with agricultural growers.

Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) of 1975

Landmark California legislation co-shaped by Dolores Huerta that granted agricultural workers the legal right to vote for union representation, bargain collectively, and established an enforcement board.