Today in Labor History April 14, 1935: The Black Sunday dust storm swept across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. This was one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl. 4 years later, on this same date, John Steinbeck published his classic working-class novel, The Grapes of Wrath, about Dust Bowl refugees in California.
Today in Labor History August 27, 1934: 7,000 Filipino lettuce cutters and mainly white packing shed workers went on strike against the powerful Salinas Valley growers and shippers, demanding union recognition & improved wages and working conditions. Many of the white workers were Dust Bowl refugees. Most of the Filipino workers had immigrated as U.S. nationals, after the U.S. took over the Philippines, in the wake of the Spanish-American War. There was rampant persecution of Filipino workers in California. Laws prohibited Filipino women from immigrating to the U.S. and prevented Filipino men from consorting with Anglo women. The American Federation of Labor initially refused to recognize or support the Filipino Labor Union (FLU). Scabs and vigilantes viciously beat Filipino strikers and chased 800 out of the Salinas Valley at gunpoint. They also burned down a labor camp. Police arrested picketers and union leaders for violation of the Criminal Syndicalism laws (laws that prohibited advocating any change to the economic and political status quo). The FLU ultimately won a raise and union recognition. However, discrimination and racist violence against Filipinos continued.
Steinbeck wrote about the plight of Filipino migrant farmworkers in the Salinas Valley in a 1936 series of articles for the San Francisco News called “The Harvest of Gypsies,” which formed part of the basis for his novel, Grapes of Wrath. He said they were among the most discriminated, and best organized, ethnic group in the U.S. Their organizing, he went on to say, brought on terrorism against them by vigilantes and the government.