6
Racial Domination and Class Conflict in Capitalist Agriculture
The Oxnard Sugar Beet Workers' Strike of 1903

Tomás Almaguer

Editor's Introduction

By the early twentieth century, a profound transformation had taken place in California's economy, with agriculture superseding mining as the state's most important industry. From the gold rush until the early 1870s, relatively few Californians had been employed in agriculture; mining continued to be the most important source of employment through the 1860s. Aside from the lure of the mines, several factors retarded the expansion of California agriculture during these early years. First, until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, California was relatively cut off from the national market. Second, the ongoing legal disputes about ownership of the lands covered by the Spanish and Mexican land grants discouraged farmers from migrating to California and discouraged farmers within the state from expanding and diversifying their production.

California agriculture was dominated by cattle farming until the early 1860s, when wheat farming began to supplant cattle raising as the major agricultural activity. Although wheat remained California's most important crop until almost the end of the nineteenth century, a major change in the nature of California agriculture began in the 1870s, as increasing numbers of farmers engaged in fruit growing, a much more intensive form of agricultural production. This change was facilitated by the resolution of most of the Spanish and Mexican land grant disputes; the development of irrigation and land reclamation plans; the completion of the transcontinental railroad and the spread of interstate and intrastate railroad networks; and the availability of Chinese labor to work in this labor-intensive form of agriculture.

The intensification and expansion of California agriculture required a large agricultural proletariat. But as a result of the Chinese Exclusion Act of

1882, the Chinese population of California dwindled dramatically. During the early twentieth century, two other ethnic groups, the Japanese and the Mexicans, began to predominate in the agricultural labor force. In 1903, an alliance of more than 1,200 Mexican and Japanese farm workers conducted one of the first successful strikes of California agricultural workers.

Tomás Almaguer provides an account of this strike, describing the complexity of the relationships among workers, labor contractors, and employers. The success of the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) forced the American Federation of Labor in California to confront the issue of organizing minority and agricultural workers. Samuel Gompers, president of the national AFL, agreed to issue a charter making the JMLA an AFL affiliate on the condition that Asians were excluded. The JMLA refused to accept this condition for joining the AFL.

In February 1903 over 1,200 Mexican and Japanese farm workers organized the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) in the southern California community of Oxnard. The JMLA was the first major agricultural workers' union in the state composed of different minority workers and the first to strike successfully against capitalist interests.^[1] In addition to being significant to labor history, the Oxnard strike also has sociological importance. The strike raises issues such as the historical interplay between class and racial stratification, the importance of these factors in labor organizing, and variations in Anglo-American racial attitudes at the time. Emerging as one of the many "boom towns" in California at the turn of the century, Oxnard owed its existence to the passage of the 1897 Dingley Tariff Bill, which imposed a heavy duty on imported sugar, and the introduction of the sugar beet industry to Ventura County. The construction of an immense sugar beet factory in Ventura County by Henry, James, and Robert Oxnard, prominent sugar refiners from New York, drew hundreds into the area and led to the founding of the new community. The sugar beet factory quickly became a major processing center for the emerging U.S. sugar beet industry, refining nearly 200,000 tons of beets and employing 700 people by 1903.^[2]

The developing Ventura County sugar beet industry had an important social impact on the new community. One major repercussion was the racial segregation of Oxnard into clearly discernible white and non-white

social worlds. The tremendous influx of numerous agricultural workers quickly led to the development of segregated minority enclaves on the east side of town. The Mexican section of Oxnard, referred to as "Sonoratown," was settled by Mexican workers who migrated into the area seeking employment.^[3] Arriving in the early 1900s, the Mexican population was viewed by the Anglo population with disdain. The local newspaper, for example, disparagingly reported on the Mexican community's odd "feasting," "game playing," and "peculiar customs." Mexicans were seen as a "queer" people who could be tolerated so long as they kept to themselves.^[4]

Also segregated on the east side of town, adjacent to the Mexican colonia, was the "Chinatown" section of Oxnard. This segregated ethnic enclave was even more despised by the local Anglo population than "Sonoratown." Chinatown was described in the Oxnard Courier as consisting of numerous "measley, low, stinking and dirty huts with all kinds of pitfalls and dark alleys where murder can be committed in broad daylight without detection."^[5] Despite widespread anti-Oriental sentiment in the local community, the Asian population grew to an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 people in less than a decade after the founding of Oxnard.

Ventura County residents greatly disapproved of the impact that the minority population of Oxnard had on the social character of the county. Popular opinion blamed the minority population for all the detested vices (such as gambling, liquor, drugs, and prostitution) existing in Oxnard. One prominent Anglo pioneer described Oxnard at the time as a "very disreputable town," primarily inhabited by "riff raft" and "Mexicans." Corroborating this description, one visitor of Oxnard in 1901 described the community as a "characteristic boom town," with "many saloons" and numerous "Mexicans and others loitering around."^[6]

Thus, two very different social worlds emerged in Oxnard during its early years. On the east side of town were the Mexican and Chinese enclaves, whose presence contributed to Oxnard reputedly having a "damning influence on her neighbors." The Anglo residents on the west side of town, in contrast, consisted of "upstanding" German and Irish farmers and several Jewish families.^[7] "While the east side of town was a rip-roaring slum," according to one local historian, "the west side was listening to lecture courses, hearing WCTU [Women's Christian Temperance Union] speakers, having gay times at the skating rink in the opera house, [and] putting on minstrel shows. . . ."^[8]

Underlying the segregated social worlds existing in Oxnard was the organization of the community along distinct racial and class lines. Along the class axis there existed a small class of large-scale entrepreneurs (such

as the Oxnard brothers and the major growers); an intermediate stratum of farmers and independent merchants operating small-scale concerns; and a large working class composed of skilled and unskilled wage workers tied to the local agricultural economy.

Closely paralleling this class structure was a racial stratification system that divided Oxnard into white and non-white spheres. The most obvious outward feature of this racial stratification was the residential segregation of the community. Also important, however, was the organization of the local labor market along racial lines. Anglo-Americans, for example, in the main constituted the upper class stratum of large-scale entrepreneurs and major agriculturalists. The 1900 federal manuscript census for Ventura County shows that nearly 95% of all farmers in the county were Anglo-American. In addition, white men completely monopolized the middle strata of the local class structure and held the best jobs in the low white-collar, skilled, and unskilled labor stratum.^[9] At the Oxnard sugar beet factory, for example, only Anglo-American men were employed as permanent staff. All of the major department heads, foremen, supervisors, office, and maintenance staff were white men. The only exceptions to this were the few white women employed as secretaries and stenographers.^[10]

Members of the minority population in Oxnard, in contrast, were overwhelmingly employed as unskilled laborers and were the primary source of contracted farm labor in the area. Nearly 50% of the Mexican and Japanese population and over 65% of the Chinese in the county were farm laborers in 1900. Another 18 to 33% of these groups were unskilled laborers in the same year.^[11]

Only a small segment of the minority population in the county was in the middle strata of the local occupational structure. The most important segment of this strata in Oxnard was made up of the minority labor contractors. The existing racial and class stratification system in the county placed these contractors in a unique position. On the one hand, the class position of contractors resulted in their having class interests that conflicted with those of their working-class compatriots. These contractors, for example, received a sizeable portion of the wages earned by those working under their supervision and thus benefitted directly from the exploitative contract labor system. At the same time, however, ties of ethnic solidarity led some labor contractors to protect their workers from abuses at the hands of unscrupulous farmers. In return for securing employment and receiving a portion of their workers' wages, labor contractors actively bargained to secure an equitable wage for their laborers and to ensure that they toiled under fair working conditions.

The existence of a racial-class stratification system that was not completely symmetrical had important consequences for the contending forces involved in the 1903 Oxnard strike. While racial status and class position were closely related, there did exist some fluidity in the stratification system. The particular location of minority labor contractors in the local class structure played a key role in the 1903 strike.

The development of the sugar beet industry in Ventura County led to a precipitous increase in the demand for seasonal farm laborers in Oxnard. Initially, sugar beet farmers in Oxnard relied upon Mexican and Chinese contracted laborers. The decline in the local Chinese population and the utilization of Mexicans in other sectors of agriculture, however, led to the recruitment of Japanese farm laborers to fill this labor shortage. Japanese farm laborers were first employed in the Oxnard sugar beet industry in 1899. By 1902 there were nine Japanese labor contractors meeting nearly all the seasonal need for farm laborers in the area.^[12]

In the spring of 1902, however, a number of prominent Jewish businessmen and bankers in Oxnard organized a new contracting company, the Western Agricultural Contracting Company (WACC). Among the first directors and principal organizers of the company were the presidents of the Bank of Oxnard and the Bank of A. Levy and two of the most important merchants in Oxnard. The major sugar refiner in the county, the American Beet Sugar Company, also played an instrumental role in supporting the formation of the WACC.^[13]

The initial purpose in forming the WACC was to provide local farmers with an alternative to the Japanese labor contractors in the area. Anglo farmers and the American Beet Sugar Company feared that these contractors would use their control of the local labor market to press for wage increases and improvements in working conditions. Under the leadership of Japanese contractors, Japanese farm laborers had already engaged in work slowdowns and strikes to secure concessions from Anglo farmers elsewhere in the state.^[14] Thus, Anglo businessmen formed the WACC in order to end reliance on Japanese labor contractors, stabilize the local sugar beet industry, reduce labor costs to local farmers, and provide a profitable return to investors. Since the businessmen and bankers behind the WACC already worked closely with local beet farmers, they easily secured contracts with them and quickly became the major suppliers of contracted labor in the area.

Undermining the position of Japanese labor contractors and gaining control of approximately 90% of the contracting business by February 1903, the WACC forced all minority labor contractors to subcontract

through their company or go out of business.^[15] Through this arrangement, minority contractors and their employees were both forced to work on terms dictated by the WACC. The commission formerly received by minority contractors was reduced severely through this subcontracting arrangement, and they could no longer negotiate wages directly with local farmers. The minority farm laborers employed on this basis also were affected negatively. In addition to paying a percentage of their wages to the minority contractor who directly supervised them, they also paid a fee to the WACC for its role in arranging employment. Furthermore, the WACC routinely required minority workers to accept store orders from its company-owned stores instead of cash payment for wages. Overcharging for merchandise at these stores was common.

To facilitate its operation, the WACC established two different divisions to supervise the recruitment and assignment of minority laborers. All the labor contractors and farm laborers employed by the WACC worked through these two major departments. The so-called "Jap department," located in the Chinatown section of Oxnard, was under the supervision of Inosuke Inose. Inose had formerly worked for the American Beet Sugar Company and had been one of the Japanese labor contractors in the area. Inose's association with the ABSC led to his selection as the head of the Japanese department. In addition to serving as department supervisor, Inose also managed the WACC's Japanese-American Mercantile Store. Supervising the WACC's Mexican department was Albert Espinosa. Little is known about Espinosa other than his being an experienced beet worker who had won the confidence of the WACC's directors.^[16]

Most of the Japanese farm laborers and labor contractors working in Oxnard were extremely dissatisfied with having to subcontract through the WACC. Mexican farm laborers in the area and the other numerous minority laborers recruited from other parts of the state also expressed displeasure with the new system. In direct response, a large group of disgruntled Japanese laborers and contractors organized a grievance meeting in Oxnard during the first week of February 1903. At this meeting a group of sixty Japanese contracted laborers recruited from San Francisco by Inosuke Inose complained bitterly about the operation of the WACC's Japanese department. The workers claimed that working conditions and wages promised by the WACC and Inose had not been met. Instead of paying each worker a ten-hour-day's wage of $1.50, Inose gave them a piecework rate returning them considerably less. The workers thinned beets at $3.75 per acre instead of the prevailing piecework rate of $5.00 to $6.00 per acre.^[17]

The grievances of these disgruntled workers provided the key impetus for forming a union made up of Japanese and Mexican farm workers and contractors in Oxnard. At a subsequent meeting held on February 11, 1903, approximately 800 Japanese and Mexican workers organized the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association, electing as officers Kosaburo Baba (president), Y. Yamaguchi (secretary of the Japanese branch), and J. M. Lizarras (secretary of the Mexican branch). Among the charter members of the JMLA were approximately 500 Japanese and 200 Mexican workers.^[18] The decision to form this union and challenge the WACC marked the first time the two minority groups successfully joined forces to organize an agricultural workers' union in the state. This was no minor achievement, as the JMLA's membership had to overcome formidable cultural and linguistic barriers. At their meetings, for example, all discussions were carried out in both Spanish and Japanese, with English serving as a common medium of communication.

Although the JMLA was primarily a farm workers' union, it actually was composed of three distinct groups: labor contractors, contracted laborers, and boarding students who were only temporary workers. Japanese labor contractors and, to a lesser extent, boarding students provided the leadership for the new union. Kosaburo Baba, the union's president, was one of the labor contractors displaced by the WACC. It is also likely that J. M. Lizarras, the JMLA's Mexican secretary, was a labor contractor. The Japanese secretary of the union, Y. Yamaguchi, is identified in one Japanese-language source as a boarding student recruited from San Francisco.^[19]

Although it cannot be determined with certainty, it is likely that some of the Japanese leaders of the union, particularly the boarding students, were influenced by the Japanese Socialist Movement. This movement flourished in Japan after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 and had a following among some of the Issei population who immigrated to California after that date. It is known, for example, that by 1904 there existed two Socialist groups among the Issei in California: one based in San Francisco and the other in Oakland. Originally organized as "discussion-study societies," these groups were led by prominent socialists such as Katayama Sen, who helped organize the short-lived San Francisco Japanese Socialist Party in February 1904.^[20]

The major purpose of the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association was to end the WACC's monopoly of the contract labor system in Oxnard. By eliminating the WACC's control, the JMLA sought to negotiate directly with local farmers and to secure better wages. Since the formation of the

WACC, the prevailing rate of $5.00 to $6.00 per acre of beets thinned had been reduced to as low as $2.50 per acre. The new union wanted to return to the "old prices" paid for seasonal labor. By eliminating the WACC from the contracting business, the JMLA also sought to end the policy of enforced patronage. One of the WACC's company stores—the Japanese-American Mercantile Store—routinely overcharged for items by more than 60%. Japanese contracted laborers patronizing the store, for example, paid $1.20 for a $0.75 pair of work overalls.

In order to secure their demands, the JMLA membership agreed to cease working through the WACC and its subcontractors. This decision was tantamount to calling for a strike.^[21] In striking, the JMLA threatened seriously the success of the local sugar beet crop because its profitability rested on the immediate completion of the thinning operation. This labor-intensive process required that workers carefully space beet seedlings and allow only the strongest beet plants to remain. Unlike the harvest, where timeliness was not as crucial, beet thinning required immediate attention in order to ensure a high-yield crop.

Although the JMLA was largely concerned with wages and the policy of enforced patronage, there is evidence that the leadership of the union saw their struggle in broad class terms. The reforms demanded by the union struck at the heart of the existing relationships between major capitalist interests in the county. Chief among these was that between the businessmen and bankers who owned the WACC, the American Beet Sugar Company, and the major sugar beet farmers in the area. All these special interests were benefitting from the exploitative use of the minority farm laborers working through the WACC. Although Anglos were primarily guilty of exploiting Japanese and Mexican laborers, individuals such as Inosuke Inose and those minority contractors still subcontracting through the WACC were also seen as adversaries. Thus, the JMLA did not simply define their struggle in racial terms. Eloquent testimony of the JMLA's position is captured vividly in one news release issued by the Japanese and Mexican secretaries of the union. In putting forth the union's demands, Y. Yamaguchi and J. M. Lizarras wrote:

Many of us have families, were born in the country, and are lawfully seeking to protect the only property that we have—our labor. It is just as necessary for the welfare of the valley that we get a decent living wage, as it is that the machines in the great sugar factory be properly oiled—if the machines stop, the wealth of the valley stops, and likewise if the laborers are not given a decent wage, they too, must stop work and the whole people of this country suffer with them.^[22]

Reacting to the JMLA with hostility and mistrust, the Oxnard Courier posed the issue of the union's demands as "simply a question of whether the Japanese-Mexican laboring classes will control labor or whether it will be managed by conservative businessmen." There was no particular reason for local farmers to prefer dealing with the JMLA, the Courier's editor asserted, when there existed "reliable American contractors" who could provide labor at lower costs. Furthermore, the editor continued, "if an organization of the ignorant, and for the most part alien, contract labor is allowed to over-power an American company, the farmers will find themselves in a state of dependence on irresponsible contractors." To support this claim, the editor noted that it was primarily a small number of Japanese and Mexican contractors who were "the real inspiration of the union."^[23]

In another editorial, the Courier contended that only a union "in the hands of intelligent white men" could provide the "enlightened management" needed to run such an organization and to provide the "mental and moral uplifting and material advancement" of the Japanese and Mexican laborers in Oxnard. The JMLA would not succeed, therefore, because it was essentially a minority union "in the hands of people whose experience has been only to obey a master rather than think and manage for themselves. . . ."^[24]

Reacting to the organization of the JMLA, the American Beet Sugar Company made clear that it would do everything in its power to ensure that the new union did not disrupt the smooth operation of the sugar beet industry in Oxnard. It immediately informed the union that the company was fully in support of the WACC. In outlining the company's position, the manager of the American Beet Sugar Company, Colonel Driffill, stated to the union:

I have heard that you have a scale of prices which is detrimental to the interests of the farmers, and the interests of the farmers are our interests, because if you raise the price of labor to the farmers and they see that they cannot raise beets at a profit, we will have to take steps to drive you out of the country and secure help from the outside—even if we have to spend $100,000 in doing so.^[25]

The only segment of the local Anglo population expressing any support for the JMLA consisted of a few merchants in Oxnard. Their support of the minority union, however, was not based on humanitarian concerns. Instead, self-interest was the motivating factor. These merchants were anxious to see the WACC's enforced patronage policy ended so minority workers could freely patronize their businesses.^[26]

By the first week in March, the JMLA had successfully recruited a membership exceeding 1,200 workers, or over 90% of the total beet work force in the county. The JMLA's recruitment drive resulted in the WACC losing nearly all of the laborers it had formerly contracted. The growing strength of the JMLA greatly alarmed beet farmers in the area, for nothing like the new union had been organized in Ventura County or, for that matter, anywhere else in southern California.

One of the first public displays of the JMLA's strength was exhibited at a mass demonstration and parade held in Oxnard on March 6, 1903. Describing the event, the Oxnard Courier reported that "dusky skinned Japanese and Mexicans marched through the streets headed by one or two contractors and beet laborers four abreast and several hundred strong." Although impressed by their numbers, the Courier described the JMLA's membership as "a silent grim band of fellows, most of them young and belonging to the lower class of Japanese and Mexicans."^[27]

Unwilling to allow this exhibition of strength to go unchallenged, the WACC initiated an effort to undercut the solidarity of the JMLA and regain its position as the major supplier of contracted labor in Oxnard. During the second and third weeks of March, the WACC helped form an alternative, minority-led union. In supporting the organization of the Independent Agricultural Labor Union (IALU), the WACC sought to undercut the organizational successes of the JMLA and use the IALU to help regain its former dominance. The WACC believed it wiser to support a non-threatening, conservative union than face complete ruination at the hands of the JMLA.

Inosuke Inose of the WACC and "some of the most influential and best-educated of the Japanese residents of Oxnard" were among the initial board of directors of the IALU. The IALU described itself as a union striving "to secure and maintain harmonious relations between employers and employees of agricultural labor. . . ." Seeing this as its primary purpose, the IALU sought to defend its members from "any person or organization" preventing them from working "for wages and for such persons as shall be mutually satisfactory. . . ."^[28] Thus, the IALU's purpose was not to eliminate the abusive treatment of minority laborers but to help regain the stability of the sugar beet industry in the area.

Immediately after its formation, the IALU began working in conjunction with the WACC to meet the pressing labor needs of local farmers. These efforts were, of course, seen by the JMLA as a strikebreaking tactic. Describing the ensuing tension, one county newspaper reported that "Oxnard is up against labor turmoil, and bloodspots are gathering on the face

of the moon as it hovers over the sugartown. The Japanese-Mexican labor union has inspired an enmity and opposition that threatens to terminate in riot and bloodshed. . . ."^[29] This proved to be prophetic, as an outburst of violence occurred a few days after the IALU was organized.

Occurring on March 23, 1903, in the Chinatown section of Oxnard, the violent confrontation was triggered when members of the JMLA attempted to place their union banner on a wagon loaded with IALU strike-breakers being taken to a ranch of a local farmer. The union's insignia consisted of a white banner with a red rising sun and pair of clasped hands. Superimposed over this insignia were the letters "J.M.L.A."

One newspaper described the ensuing confrontation in the following way: ". . . [A] fusillage of shots was fired from all directions. They seemed to come from every window and door in Chinatown. The streets were filled with people, and the wonder is that only five persons were shot." When the shooting subsided, two Mexican and two Japanese members of the JMLA lay wounded from the erupting gunfire. Manuel Ramirez was shot in the leg, and two Japanese workers were struck, one in the arm and the other in the face. Another Mexican, Luis Vasquez, was dead, shot in the back.^[30]

Responsibility for the violent confrontation was placed on the JMLA. The Los Angeles Times , for example, reported that "agitation-crazed striking Mexicans and Japanese" had attacked "independent workmen" and precipitated a "pitched battle" in which dozens had been wounded and "thousands gone wild." The Times charged that "loud-mouthed and lawless union agitators" had directly triggered the violence. More specifically, it was the "trouble-making" Mexican leadership of the JMLA that had inflamed the "ignorant peons" into action, and "most of the firing was done by Mexicans." Even the Japanese laborers, seen as being "inclined to be peaceable," were "excited by their leaders" and fell victim to their exhortations "a good deal like sheep."^[31]

Although more restrained than the Times , the Oxnard Courier also blamed the union for precipitating the confrontation. The local weekly summed up the situation in the following way:

Naturally the riot and its causes have been a topic of general conversation on the streets [of Oxnard]. In most cases the union adherents are blamed for resorting to illegal and forceful methods to prevent men who are willing from working for the Western Agricultural Contracting Company. It is this that is primarily responsible for the riot. The attempt to place a union label where it was not wanted is at the root of the disturbance, and in reality the union has only itself to blame for the riot. . . .^[32]

There was scarcely a newspaper account of the "riot" in Oxnard that did not blame the union for igniting the outburst. The only weekly that did not directly blame the JMLA was the Ventura Independent . This newspaper's editor, S. Goodman, argued that:

The root of the evil lies in the fact that ten men for every single job were shipped into the sugar beet territory [of Ventura County], bringing together a restless irresponsible element, only lacking in leadership to make all kinds of trouble. . . .

In the riot of Monday last, the Contracting Company is a measure at fault. Had someone of authority in the employment of the company, possessing a cool head, superintended the sending out of laborers, the restless element could have been subdued and all trouble averted.^[33]

Outraged over the biased coverage of the March 23rd confrontation, the JMLA issued its own public statement. It was subsequently published in only two newspapers: the Los Angeles Herald and the Oxnard Courier . The newspaper that the JMLA was principally responding to, the Los Angeles Times , refused to publish the following release:

Owing to the many false statements printed in the Los Angeles Times about our organization, and the murderous assaults made upon the union men last Monday afternoon, we ask that the following statement of facts be printed, in justice to the thirteen hundred men whom the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association represents.

In the first place, we assert, and are ready to prove, that Monday afternoon and at all times during the shooting, the Union men are unarmed, while the nonunion men sent out by the Western Agricultural Contracting Company were prepared for a bloody fight with arms purchased, in many cases, recently from hardware stores in this town. As proof of the fact that the union men were not guilty of violence, we point to the fact that the authorities have not arrested a single union man—the only man actually put under bonds, or arrested, being deputy Constable Charles Arnold. Our union has always been law abiding and has in its ranks at least nine-tenths of all the beet thinners in this section, who have not asked for a raise in wages, but only that the wages be not lowered, as was demanded by the beet growers. . . .

We assert that if the police authorities had done their duty, many arrests would have been made among the occupants of the company's house, from which the fatal volleys of bullets came. In view of the fact that many disorderly men have recently been induced to come to Oxnard by the Western Agricultural Contracting Company, and that they took part in the assaults of Monday afternoon, we demand that the police no longer neglect their duty, but arrest those persons who plainly participated in the fatal shooting.^[34]

Shortly after the shooting, Charles Arnold was arrested for the murder of Vasquez, and a coroner's inquest held to determine his guilt or innocence. The conflicting testimony of 50 eyewitnesses was heard at the inquest. A number of witnesses testified that Arnold did not shoot Vasquez and, in fact, that they had not even seen him raise a gun. One witness testified that an examination of Arnold's weapons after the shooting showed that they were fully loaded and had not been fired.

Testifying against Arnold were a number of Mexican witnesses claiming to have seen Arnold fire at JMLA members. Among these witnesses was Manuel Ramirez, a victim of the shooting, who testified that it was a Japanese strikebreaker in the WACC wagon who had shot him in the leg. Despite the evidence presented to the all male Anglo jury, it soon became apparent to JMLA members that Arnold would be cleared. At the close of the second day of hearings, for example, the county coroner notified the jury that another round of testimony was needed so that more Japanese witnesses could be heard. Angered by this request, the jury protested further continuation and stated that they were "prepared to render a verdict without further evidence." After a brief adjournment, the inquest reconvened and Arnold was cleared of any complicity in the death of Luis Vasquez.^[35]

Outraged at what they believed to be a gross miscarriage of justice, members of the JMLA stepped up their efforts to win the strike. Following the March 23rd confrontation, the union took the offensive and escalated militant organizing activities. In one incident, the Oxnard Courier reported that "a gang of 50 Mexicans, many of them masked, visited a contracting company camp on Chas. Donlon's ranch, cut the guy ropes of the tent and made the crew of some 18 men desert and come to town. . . ." A similar incident occurred at a labor camp on another local farmer's property near Oxnard.^[36]

Soon thereafter, Andres Garcia, the foreman on Charles Arnold's ranch, was fired upon and nearly killed by an unknown assailant. One county newspaper speculated that the assailant mistook Garcia for Arnold, the man originally charged with Luis Vasquez's murder. Since being cleared of the charge, Arnold had openly expressed opposition to the JMLA and hired nonunion laborers to work on his ranch.^[37]

In response to further strikebreaking efforts, the JMLA organized laborers being brought to Oxnard and succeeded in winning them over to the union's side. In doing so, the union stationed men at the nearby Montalvo railroad depot and met the newly recruited laborers as they arrived

in the county. In one incident reported by the Ventura Free Press , a local rancher attempted to circumvent JMLA organizers by personally meeting incoming laborers and scurrying them off to his ranch. Before arriving at his ranch, however, the farmer was intercepted by a group of JMLA members who unloaded the strikebreakers and convinced them to join the union.^[38] In discussing the success of the JMLA in organizing potential strikebreakers, one county newspaper summarily noted that "by the time these men reached Oxnard they were on the side of the union and against the Western Agricultural Contracting Company."^[39]

The success of the JMLA in maintaining their strike led to a clearcut union victory. In the aftermath of the violent confrontation in Chinatown, representatives of local farmers, the WACC, and the JMLA met at the latter's headquarters in Oxnard to negotiate a strike settlement. Representing the farmers were Colonel Driffill (manager of the American Beet Sugar Company's Oxnard factory), T. H. Rice, P. S. Carr, Charles Donlon, and L. S. Rose. The WACC representative was the company's president, George E. Herz. The JMLA negotiating team was led by J. M. Lizarras, Kosaburo Baba, Y. Yamaguchi, J. Espinosa, and their counsel, W. E. Shepherd.^[40] Also representing the union were Fred C. Wheeler and John Murray, socialist union organizers affiliated with the Los Angeles County Council of Labor, the California State Federation of Labor, and the AFL.

J. M. Lizarras forcefully presented the JMLA's demands at the initial meeting. Insisting that the union wanted to bargain directly with local farmers, Lizarras threatened that the union would take all of their members out of the county, thereby ensuring the loss of the entire beet crop, if their demands were not met.^[41]

John Murray chastised farmers at this meeting for not quickly coming to terms with the JMLA. He impressed upon them that they should be thankful that the union was not striking for more than it was demanding.^[42] Fred Wheeler also addressed the assembly. In restating the JMLA's demands, he pointed out to local farmers that "you have the beets and we have the labor and want to work directly with you. We are members of the American Federation of Labor and are here to stay. It is bread and butter to us and we will deal directly with farmers."^[43] As will be seen, Wheeler's statement, giving farmers the impression that the JMLA was affiliated with the AFL, was premature.

The first sign of JMLA winning the strike occurred when the WACC partially acceded to the JMLA's demand to negotiate contracts directly with local farmers. The WACC offered the JMLA the right to provide labor on 2,000 of the 7,000 acres of farm land it had under contract. In return,

the WACC requested that the JMLA order its men back to work and agree not to unionize men working for the WACC on the remaining farm land. This offer was flatly rejected by JMLA negotiators, who insisted that they would not end their strike until the WACC's monopoly was broken and all farmers agreed to contract directly with them. At one point in the negotiations the JMLA mockingly offered a proposal whereby each party would receive the right to provide labor to local farmers in proportion to the number of men they represented. Spokespersons for the JMLA noted that they represented 1,300 men while the WACC had only sixty men under contract.^[44] The union's strong showing at this initial session led one local county newspaper to report that the JMLA "showed a strong front, clearly demonstrating to the ranchers that they controlled the labor necessary to do their work, and without their services beet crops must perish."^[45]

On the second day of negotiations, Lizarras and Yamaguchi met with representatives of local farmers and the WACC at the American Beet Sugar Company factory in Oxnard. During this session the union firmly stood by its demand and gained the first important concession in the negotiations. It was an agreement from the farmers' committee to establish a minimum wage scale of $5.00, and a high of $6.00, per acre for the thinning of beets by union laborers. This was nearly double what the WACC was paying laborers before the strike.^[46]

On March 30, 1903, the tumultuous Oxnard sugar beet workers' strike ended with the JMLA winning a major victory. The agreement reached included a provision forcing the WACC to cancel all existing contracts with local sugar beet growers. The only exception to this was the 1,800 acre Patterson ranch, which was owned by the same family that operated the American Beet Sugar Company. This ranch remained the only farm to which the WACC would continue to provide labor. Thus, the final settlement meant that the WACC relinquished the right to provide labor to farmers owning over 5,000 acres of county farm land.^[47]

The success of the Oxnard strike of 1903 raised a number of important issues for the labor movement. For years, trade unions were opposed to organizing minorities in industry and were even less interested in organizing agricultural workers. The JMLA's victory, however, forced the union movement to confront the issue of including agricultural workers in its ranks. It also forced white unions to clearly articulate their position on the organization of Japanese and Mexican workers.^[48]

The issue of admitting Mexican and Japanese workers to the trade union movement became an important issue in both northern and southern California after the JMLA victory. In reporting local union discussion

on whether or not to organize Asian workers in Oakland, the Oakland Tribune , for example, noted that the "recent strike of about 1,000 Japs and Mexicans at Oxnard against starvation wages and hard-treatment has brought the matter to the front."^[49]

The official attitude of organized labor toward the JMLA was, from the very beginning, mixed and often contradictory. Certain local councils, for example, supported the JMLA and further organizing of Japanese and Mexican workers. This tendency, led by prominent union socialists, also supported organizing all agricultural workers and including farm labor unions in the AFL. Most union councils and high-ranking AFL officials were, on the other hand, opposed to any formal affiliation with the JMLA. This position was based, in part, on organized labor's anti-Asian sentiment and its general opposition to organizing agricultural laborers.

Despite union opposition to minority labor and agricultural workers' unions, Fred C. Wheeler and John Murray convinced the Los Angeles County Council of Labor (LACCL) to adopt a resolution favoring the unionization of all unskilled laborers regardless of race or nationality. Shortly after the March 23rd confrontation in Oxnard, the LACCL unanimously adopted a resolution supporting the JMLA. This resolution, the San Francisco Examiner noted, represented "the first time that a labor council had put itself on record as in any way favoring Asiatic labor."^[50]

Although the LACCL's resolution supported organizing minority workers already in the United States, it also reaffirmed the local's staunch opposition to further Asian immigration. Thus, an important element of self-interest played a role in the LACCL's decision to support the JMLA.^[51] The LACCL's resolution expressed the contradictory views of the radical elements of the trade union movement concerning the organization of Japanese workers. Behind its public support of the JMLA, the LACCL acknowledged that Japanese and Mexican workers could successfully organize on their own and, therefore, it was in the interest of the trade union movement to include them in its ranks. Additionally, if left unorganized, these racial minority workers could become strikebreakers and pose a serious threat to the white labor movement in southern California.

That self-interest played a key role in the passage of this resolution was later acknowledged by E B. Preble, secretary of the Oakland Federated Trades Council and a high-ranking member of the AFL. In a candid interview with the Oakland Tribune , Preble discussed the LACCL resolution in the following terms:

This is one of the most important resolutions ever brought to the attention of the [AFL] Executive Council. It virtually breaks the ice on the question

of forming Orientals into unions so keeping them from "scabbing" on the white people. . . .

Down there [southern California] the white workingmen have been plumb up against it from Japs and Mexicans who were being imported wholesale. . . . Down there, the Union has succeeded in putting this important company out of business, and the men are now selling their labor at the Union scale, without any cutting by middle men being done.^[52]

The message was clear. The success of the JMLA forced the white trade union movement to either include or specifically exclude Mexican and Japanese workers from its ranks. In Preble's words, it became an issue only "when the forces of circumstances demand it."^[53]

While left elements in the trade union movement supported the JMLA, labor's principal organization—the AFL—was essentially hostile. Although the AFL convention of 1894 formally declared that "working people must unite to organize irrespective of creed, color, sex, nationality or politics," the reaction of the Federation leadership to the JMLA belied this stated purpose.^[54] Following the JMLA victory in March 1903, J. M. Lizarras—secretary of the Mexican branch of the union—petitioned the AFL Executive Council for a charter making the JMLA the first agricultural laborers' union to be admitted into the AFL.

Upon receiving the JMLA's petition, which was submitted under the name of Sugar Beet and Farm Laborers' Union of Oxnard, Samuel Gompers granted the union a charter but stipulated a prohibition on Asian membership. In his letter notifying Lizarras of his decision, Gompers emphasized that:

It is . . . understood that in issuing this charter to your union, will under no circumstance accept membership of any Chinese or Japanese. The laws of our country prohibit Chinese workmen or laborers from entering the United States, and propositions for the extension of the exclusion laws to the Japanese have been made on several occasions.^[55]

Evidence suggests that the San Francisco Council of Labor contacted Gompers and expressed their vehement opposition to the JMLA's request for a charter. Although the LACCL publicly supported the JMLA, the prevailing union movement's opposition to Asian labor, which Gompers shared, undoubtedly influenced this decision.^[56]

Left elements in the AFL reacted bitterly to Gompers' decision. In discussing the AFL's refusal to grant the requested charter, the American Labor Union Journal from Chicago charged that Gompers had "violated the express principles of the A.F. of L." and that it would "be impossible, so long as this ruling is sustained, to organize wage workers of California . . .

for there are between forty and fifty thousand Japanese in this state, and nothing can be effectively clone without their cooperation."^[57] Despite the objections of a few locals and councils, there is little evidence to suggest that most unions expressed anything but tacit approval of Gompers' decision.

Gompers' refusal to grant an AFL charter allowing Japanese membership was vehemently denounced by the Mexican branch of the JMLA. Outraged at Gompers' action, the Mexican membership of the union directed Lizarras to write Gompers what is undoubtedly the strongest testimony of the solidarity reached between the Mexican and Japanese farm workers of Oxnard. On June 8, 1903, Lizarras returned the issued charter to Samuel Gompers with the following letter:

Your letter . . . in which you say the admission with us of the Japanese Sugar Beet and Farm Laborers into the American Federation of Labor can not be considered, is received. We beg to say in reply that our Japanese brothers here were the first to recognize the importance of cooperating and uniting in demanding a fair wage scale. . . .

They were not only just with us, but they were generous when one of our men was murdered by hired assassins of the oppressor of labor, they gave expression to their sympathy in a very substantial form. In the past we have counseled, fought and lived on very short rations with our Japanese brothers, and toiled with them in the fields, and they have been uniformly kind and considerate. We would be false to them and to ourselves and to the cause of unionism if we now accepted privileges for ourselves which are not accorded to them. We are going to stand by men who stood by us in the long, hard fight which ended in a victory over the enemy. We therefore respectfully petition the A.F. of L. to grant us a charter under which we can unite all the sugar beet and field laborers in Oxnard, without regard to their color or race. We will refuse any other kind of charter, except one which will wipe out race prejudices and recognize our fellow workers as being as good as ourselves. I am ordered by the Mexican union to write this letter to you and they fully approve its words.^[58]

In refusing to join the AFL without the Japanese branch of the union, the JMLA ultimately closed the door to any hopes of continuing its union activities in Oxnard. The AFL decision not to admit all members of the JMLA undoubtedly contributed to the union eventually passing out of existence. A systematic review of newspaper accounts of labor activities in Ventura County through 1910 failed to uncover further mention of the JMLA after its success in April 1903. No other evidence could be found concerning further JMLA activities or the exact date that the union ceased to exist. What appears to have happened is that the union continued operating for a few years and eventually disbanded. By 1906 there existed

further discontent on the part of sugar beet workers in Oxnard, but no mention is made of the JMLA.^[59]

For years after the Oxnard strike, AFL hostility toward organizing Japanese workers and farm laborers persisted. Not until 1910 did the AFL Executive Council attempt to organize farm workers as an element of the Federation. These efforts, however, accomplished very little. According to one authority, the AFL's activities after 1910 were explicitly "designed to favor white workers at the expense of Orientals."^[60] Finally, during the war years, the Federation's efforts to organize farm laborers were abandoned altogether.^[61]

Beyond its significance for labor history, the Oxnard sugar beet workers' strike also has sociological importance. The strike, for example, provides us with important clues into the nature of class and race relations in California at the turn of the century. As in other parts of the state, the capitalist economy emerging in Oxnard gave birth to a class structure in which racial divisions closely paralleled class divisions. The overrepresentation of Mexicans and Japanese as contracted farm laborers and unskilled workers, and of Anglo-Americans as farmers and businessmen, in Oxnard reveals the important convergence of racial and class stratification lines during this period. The class structure in Oxnard was not, however, a static one that approximated a caste system. Instead, a modicum of fluidity existed, and some minorities successfully made inroads into the middle strata of the local class structure. Among the most important members of this stratum in Oxnard were the numerous minority labor contractors, who served an intermediary function in the procurement of farm labor. Labor contractors were both the benefactors and exploiters of the men who worked under their direction. The peculiar position of these contractors in the minority community undoubtedly contributed to their playing a leadership role in the formation of the JMLA.

In the final analysis, it was the displacement of these minority contractors by local Anglo elites that led to the unification of minority contractors and farm laborers in a common cause. An alliance based on ethnic solidarity and common, short-term interests provided the impetus in forming the JMLA and overcoming the existing differences in the class position of minority labor contractors and farm laborers. Whether the JMLA merely wanted to return to the state in which minority contractors provided labor for local farmers or whether it truly sought to operate as a traditional union cannot be determined with certainty. The paucity of available information on the JMLA after the strike makes it impossible to know the

extent to which the JMLA actually functioned as a union or if it merely became an instrument used by minority contractors to regain their dominance of the local market. Regardless of the motives of the various elements in the JMLA or which of many forms the union took after the strike, it appears that local agribusiness elites ultimately regained the upper hand and made it impossible for the JMLA to continue to function. Whether internal divisions between farm workers and labor contractors within the JMLA played a role in its demise is not known. In any event, the unique class alliance and bonds of ethnic solidarity that underlay the JMLA proved to be short-lived.

The experience of the JMLA with organized labor at the time also clearly reveals differences in the racial attitudes of Anglo-Americans. Mexican and Japanese workers were not perceived as posing the same threat to the white working class. Differences between these two groups in racial and political-legal status, religion, language, and previous competition with white labor shaped the way that the AFL reacted to the JMLA's petition for a Federation charter. Gompers' attitude toward the Japanese branch of the JMLA clearly illustrated that white racism at the time was not a monolithic structure that affected all minority groups in precisely the same way. Instead, important differences existed in the way Anglo-Americans viewed and discriminated against different minority groups.

Anglo-American attitudes toward the Japanese were essentially an extension of their earlier view of the Chinese. Like the Chinese, the Japanese were seen as a direct threat to the jobs, wages, and working conditions of white labor. Furthermore, the non-white, alien status of the Japanese also contributed to their being seen as a threat to the preservation of the white race and American cultural standards and ideals.^[62]

Mexican workers, on the other hand, were not perceived at the time as posing the same threat to white labor. A number of factors account for this important difference. Foremost among these was the legal status of Mexicans as U.S. citizens and their racial status as a "white" population. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 had extended all U.S. citizenship rights to Mexicans and socially defined them as "free white persons." Also important in mitigating Anglo racism toward Mexicans was the latter's perceived assimilability. Unlike Asians, who were viewed as uncivilized "pagan idolators," Mexicans were viewed as a Christian population possessing a culture that was not as completely foreign as that of the Asian groups. In addition, economic factors tempered anti-Mexican sentiment at this time. The late entry of Mexicans into the capitalist labor market in California resulted in their not openly competing with Anglo workers for

jobs. Additionally, Mexicans were concentrated largely in the rural backwaters of southern California, away from the urban manufacturing centers where white working-class opposition to minority laborers emerged first. Finally, the Mexican population was relatively small. There were, for example, fewer Mexicans than Japanese in California at the time of the Oxnard strike. All of these factors contributed directly to the existing differences in Anglo attitudes toward the Mexican and Japanese populations.

The Oxnard strike vividly captured these differences in racial attitudes. Anglo reaction toward these two groups in Oxnard and Samuel Gompers' reaction to the JMLA request for an AFL charter provide clear examples of this. In both cases, reaction to the Japanese was more vehement and hostile than that toward the Mexican. Further Mexican immigration and direct competition with Anglos in later years would, however, lead to an anti-Mexican sentiment that was just as intensely racist as that against the Japanese in 1903. Thus, racism must be viewed in historical terms as a form of group domination that is shaped by the interaction of social, political, economic, and demographic factors. It was the unique interplay of these factors in California at the turn of the century that accounts for the different reaction of Anglos to the Japanese and Mexican membership of the JMLA.

Further Reading

See also the lists of suggested readings for chapters 7 and 9 .

Acuña, Rodolfo. Occupied America: A History of Chicanos . 1988.

Almaguer, Tomás. Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California . 1994.

Barrera, Mario. Race and Class in the Southwest: A Theory of Racial Inequality . Chapters z and 3. 1979.

Camarillo, Albert. Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848-1930 . 1979.

Cardoso, Lawrence A. Mexican Emigration to the United States, 1897-193I: Socioeconomic Patterns . 1971.

Friday, Chris. "Asian American Labor and Historical Interpretation." Labor History 35 (Fall 1994): 524-546.

———. Organizing Asian American Workers: The Pacific Coast Canned Salmon Industry, 1870-1942 . 1994.

Gamio, Manuel. The Mexican Immigrant: His Life Story . 1931.

Gómez-Quiñones, Juan. "The First Steps: Chicano Labor Conflict and Organizing,

1900-1920." Aztlan: Chicano Journal of the Social Sciences and Arts 3 (Spring 1972): 13-49.

Gonzales, Gilbert G., and Raul Fernandez. "Chicano History: Transcending Cultural Modes." Pacific Historical Review 63 (Nov. 1994): 469-498.

Hallagan, William S. "Labor Contracting in Turn-of-the-Century California Agriculture." Journal of Economic History 40 (1980): 757-776.

Higgs, Robert. "Landless by Law: Japanese Immigrants in California Agriculture to 1941." Journal of Economic History 38 (1978): 205-225.

Ichioka, Yuji. The Issei: The World of the First Generation Japanese Immigrants, 1885-1924 . 1988.

Iwata, Masakazu. "The Japanese in California Agriculture." Agricultural History 36 (1962): 25-37.

———. Planted in Good Soil: A History of the Issei in United States Agriculture . 1992.

"Japanese Americans in California." Special issue. California History 73 (Spring 1994).

McWilliams, Carey. Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California . 1939.

Modell, John. The Economics and Politics of Racial Accommodation: The Japanese of Los Angeles, 1900-1942 . 1977.

Reis, Elizabeth. "Cannery Row: The AFL, the IWW, and Bay Area Cannery Workers." California History 64 (Summer 1985): 174-191.

Reisler, Mark. By the Sweat of Their Brow: Mexican Immigrant Labor in the United States, 1900-1940 . 1976.

Sanchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945 . 1993.

Strong, Edward K. The Japanese in California . 1933.

Wilson, Robert A., and Bill Hosokawa. East to America: A History of the Japanese in the United States . 1982.

Wollenberg, Charles. "Working on El Traque: The Pacific Electric Strike of 1903." Pacific Historical Review 42 (August 1973): 358-369.

Yoneda, Karl G. "100 Years of Japanese Labor History in the U.S.A." In Roots: An Asian American Reader , edited by Amy Tachiki, Eddie Wong, and Franklin Odo, pp. 150-158. 1971.

———. Ganbatte: Sixty-Year Struggle of a Kibei Worker . 1983.