El pasado 08 de septiembre, se llevó a cabo la sexta edición del encuentro «La Ciencia También es Cosa de Mujeres», en el que alumnas de educación media superior convivieron y charlaron con mujeres científicas quienes les compartieron sus experiencias e investigaciones con el fin de fomentar las carreras de Ciencia, Tecnología, Ingeniería y Matemáticas (STEM) en las nuevas generaciones. Desde el CIO nos sumamos a la celebración de este momento histórico para la Universidad de Guanajuato, nuestras comunidades académicas y nuestro estado. ¡Enhorabuena a la Dra. Claudia Susana Gómez López! En el encuentro pudieron convivir de cerca investigadoras y alumnas de posgrado del CIO, con las estudiantes de preparatoria. Sin duda, fue un espacio en el que se compartieron grandes experiencias. Hubo conferencias, talleres de experimentos científicos, visitas a los laboratorios, pláticas de liderazgo, entre otros. Se abre una segunda convocatoria nacional, para nuestros posgrados. La fecha límite para envío de documentos es el 31 de octubre de 2023. Da clic en el banner para más información.
Convocatoria para presentar trabajos en la novena edición del Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Sociales organizado por el Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales (COMECSO) en conjunto con el Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (IISUNAM). El congreso se celebrará del 8 al 12 de abril de 2024 en Ciudad Universitaria, CDMX. […] Leer más
El Consejo Mexicano de Ciencias Sociales Convoca a participar en la 6ª Semana Nacional de las Ciencias Sociales del 9 al 13 de octubre de 2023 Se convoca a las entidades académicas de las ciencias sociales (escuelas, facultades, centros e institutos de investigación) a participar en la 6a Semana Nacional de las Ciencias Sociales (6SNCS), […] Leer más
En la década de los cincuenta del siglo pasado Daniel Cosío Villegas integró a un grupo de historiadores para elaborar la Historia moderna de México, finalmente publicada en diez gruesos volúmenes, resultado de diez años de investigación. Esta obra abarca desde la República Restaurada hasta el Porfiriato. El Colegio de México, fiel al compromiso de […] Leer más
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Colegio de Estudios Latinoamericanos Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos de las Revoluciones de México (INEHRM) Coloquio A 50 años del golpe de estado en Chile Memoria, Arte e Historia Lunes 11 de septiembre Modalidad híbrida Plaza del Carmen 27, col. San Ángel, alcaldía Álvaro Obregón, […] Leer más
La Universidad de Guanajuato, Campus León, La División de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades y el Cuerpo Académico “Transformaciones Sociales y Dinámicas Territoriales” CONVOCAN A LA Comunidad académica nacional e internacional a la VI Bienal Internacional Territorios en Movimiento División de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Campus León Reflexiones desde las múltiples crisis en un contexto de […] Leer más
Centro de Investigaciones Interdisciplinarias en Ciencias y Humanidades Conferencias en el marco del Seminario Permanente Interinstitucional en Emociones, Activismo y Cambio Social La cultura emocional del capitalismo Arlie Hochschild La cultura emocional del capitalismo 21 de septiembre de 2023, de 12:00 a 13:00 horas Modalidad en línea y traducción simultánea al español UNAM-DGAPA- PAPIIT-IA300123 TRANSMISIÓN […] Leer más
Facultad de Economía, División de Estudios de Posgrado Seminario de Estudios de Trabajo y Desarrollo Social Subcontratación en México: Resultados e interrogantes a dos años de la reforma 29 de septiembre, 10:00 am Ponentes: Alfredo Hualde El Colegio de la Frontera Norte Redi Gomis El Colegio de la Frontera Norte Comenta: Clemente Ruíz Durán Facultad […] Leer más
Centro Peninsular en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales Seminario Permanente Visiones, imaginarios y representaciones culturales Representaciones de Yucatán en el cine mexicano de la edad de oro Ponente Dra, María de la Cruz Castro Ricalde TEC, Monterrey 11 de septiembre de 2023, de 17:00 a 19 horas Modalidad presencial y transmisión por Facebook Live y Zoom […] Leer más
Centro Peninsular en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales Seminario Permanente Procesos socio-territoriales y urbano-ambientales en el Sureste mexicano Discursos de la conservación ambiental en las reservas de la biosfera: Montes Azules y Maya Ponente Dra, María Luisa Ballinas Aquino Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas 14 de septiembre de 2023, de 12:00 horas Modalidad Transmisión […] Leer más
Dossier temático Hacia una política exterior con perspectiva de género en América Latina Sobre este dossier y sobre el futuro de la política exterior feminista En estas páginas, nos propusimos identificar la complejidad de definir e implementar programas gubernamentales de PEF, y traer la reflexión sobre cuáles serían los marcos epistemológicos y las definiciones analíticas […] Leer más
We can’t talk about defending the human and labor rights of farm workers without talking about their history of organizing unions-and the efforts by the government to suppress them. Liberal mythology holds that farm worker unions didn’t exist until the creation of United Farm Workers in the ’60s and that the farm worker unions and advocacy organizations of today appeared out of nowhere, with no history of struggle that went before.
But in fact, during the 1930s Filipinos and other farm workers organized left-wing unions and huge strikes. According to Rick Baldoz, a professor at Oberlin College, «The burgeoning strike activity involving thousands of Filipinos in the mid-1930s occasioned a furious backlash from growers who worked closely with local law enforcement.»
The people who fought to organize unions in the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s on the West Coast were the same people who fought for Spain-in the same organizations, like the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and especially ILWU Local 37. Of all the efforts to organize farm workers, the ones that were closest to the International Brigades were those of the Filipinos during those years. And the forces that later went after the Lincoln vets were the same as those that went after the farm worker unions, using the same tools: blacklisting and deportations.
Baldoz gained access to the FBI files on one of the most radical of the Filipino leaders, Carlos Bulosan. «The fact that these partisans attracted the attention of federal authorities during the Cold War is hardly surprising,» he says. «Filipino workers had developed a well-earned reputation for labor militancy in the United States dating back to the early 1930s. That a considerable number of Filipinos (both from the U.S. and the Philippines) had volunteered for the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War… only added to the perception that they were immersed in international left-wing politics.»
In their history of Asian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, Nancy and Len Tsou write: «At least 11 Filipinos went to Spain to join the International Brigades. Among them, several came from the United States. [Pedro] Penino was able to establish the Rizal Company, a part of the International Brigades named in honor of a Filipino national hero.» The Tsous name the following volunteers: Manuel Lizarraga, Artemio Ortega Luna, Enrique Almenar Gabra, Modesto Ausobasa Esteban, Dimitri Gorostiaga, Eduardo Miranda Gonzales, Pedro Penino, Carlos Lopez Maestu, Mark Fajardo, Servando Acevedo Mondragon and Aquilino Belmonte Capinolio.
A group of International volunteers in Spain (L-R): a seaman from Chile; Sterling Rochester (USA); Artemio Luna Ortega (Philippines); Juan Santiago (Cuba); and Jack Shirai (Japan). Artemio Luna Ortega was born in the Philippines, 1901. He served in the Constabulary from 1922-1925. He immigrated to the US in 1927 where he worked as a draftsman after college. He was a member of the CPUSA and FAECT. He arrived in Spain on January 14, 1937. Artemio served with ALB at Jarama, Brunete and as a guard Villa Paz. He also the joined the GTU. His fate beyond Spain is currently unknown. Bulosan had worked as a farm laborer since his arrival in the U.S. in 1930, but after his health was destroyed by his work he tried to make a living as a journalist. «Every word is a weapon for freedom,» the FBI reported him telling a colleague. In 1946, Bulosan wrote America Is in the Heart, a classic and moving account of life as a Filipino migrant farm worker during the 1930s. The FBI viewed the book as evidence of his Communist associations during the Cold War. Bulosan was hired by leaders of Local 37 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Ernesto Mangaoang and Chris Mensalvas, to edit the union’s yearbook in 1952. Among its many appeals for support for radical causes, it urged solidarity with the Huk movement in the Philippines, against continued U.S. imperialist domination of its former colony. Carlos Bulosan, a farm worker and later an acclaimed author, caught the attention of the FBI.
In the 1930s, Local 37 was organized by Filipinos who were the workforce in the salmon canneries on the Alaska coast. They were mostly single men, recruited to come to the U.S. from the Philippines. They were shipped to the canneries from Seattle every season, where they faced discrimination and terrible conditions. They organized Local 37 to change those conditions and forced the fish companies to sign contracts.
Until 1949, Local 37 had been part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations’ (CIO) farm workers union, the United Cannery, Agricultural and Packing House Workers of America. From 1936 to 1953, the U.S. labor movement was split between the left-wing CIO and the rightwing American Federation of Labor. In 1949, as the Cold War started, the CIO expelled nine unions, including UCAPAWA and the ILWU, because of their left-wing politics and often Communist leaders.
At the height of the McCarthyite hysteria more than 30 members of Local 37 were arrested and threatened with deportation to the Philippines. Raymundo Cabanilla, a former CIO organizer, named names to the FBI, identifying fellow labor activists, including Ernesto Mangaoang, as Communists. Eventually Mangaoang’s deportation case was thrown out by the courts. He argued that he couldn’t be deported, given that he was a U.S. «national» when he arrived in Seattle in the 20s. «National» was a status given Filipinos because the Philippines was a U.S. colony at the time. Filipinos couldn’t be considered immigrants, but they weren’t quite citizens either.
Meanwhile, the Federal government tried to bankrupt Local 37 by forcing the accused workers to pay high bails and lawyers’ fees. Union leaders were so tied up in legal defense that a conservative faction took control of the local. That group held it until it was thrown out in the 1980s by a new young generation of radical Filipinos, two of whom, Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes (a former farm worker) were assassinated.
UCAPAWA (renamed the Food, Tobacco and Agricultural Workers) was destroyed in the 1949 purge of the CIO, and the Filipino local in Seattle was taken in by Harry Bridges’ union, becoming ILWU Local 37. It survived, and today is part of the ILWU’s Inland Boatman’s Union.
Today, 52 years after the historic 1965 Delano grape strike, it is important to reexamine this history, especially the radical career of Larry Itliong, who headed the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). Itliong not only shared leadership with Cesar Chavez but actually started the strike. He had a long history as an organizer. Labor leaders Larry Itliong (left) and Cesar Chavez (Right) at the Delano Grape Strike (Source: CAAM.org)
Itliong was Ernesto Mangaoang’s protégé. In the late 1940s, he was Local 37’s dispatcher, sending workers on the boats from Seattle to the Alaska salmon canneries. After the salmon season was over, many Filipinos would return home to California’s Salinas and San Joaquin Valleys, where they worked as farm laborers for the rest of the year. In the segregated barrios of towns like Stockton and Salinas they organized hometown associations and social clubs. Itliong used these networks to organize Filipinos when they went to work in the fields. Along with Chris Mensalvas, at the time Local 37 president, Itliong organized a strike in Stockton’s asparagus fields in 1949.
Once the left-wingers lost power in the union, however, its conservative leaders stopped its farm worker organizing drives. Still, in the early 1950s Filipino farm workers continued to organize. Ernesto Galarza (author of «Merchants of Labor») started the National Farm Labor Union, which struck the giant DiGiorgio Corporation, then California’s largest grower. In 1959 the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) was set up by the merged AFL-CIO. After hiring Itliong as an organizer because of his history among Filipino workers, AWOC used flying squads of pickets to mount quick strikes. In 1962, it struck the Imperial Valley lettuce harvest, demanding $1.25 per hour.
The grape strike started in Delano on September 8, 1965, when Filipino pickers walked off the fields. Mexican workers joined them two weeks later. The strike went on for five years, until all California table grape growers were forced to sign contracts in 1970. The strike was a watershed struggle for civil and labor rights, supported by millions of people across the country, breathing new life into the labor movement and opening doors for immigrants and people of color. Filipino workers on strike (Source: Harvey Richards Media Archive)
California’s politics have changed profoundly in these 52 years, in large part because of that strike. Delano’s mayor today is a Filipino. That would have been unthinkable in 1965, when growers treated the town as a plantation. Children of farm worker families have become members of the state legislature. Last year they spearheaded passage of a law that requires the same overtime pay for farm workers as for all other workers-the first state to pass such a law.
The 1965 Delano grape strike did not, however, start in Delano. It was in the Coachella Valley, near the Mexican border where California’s grape harvest begins, that Filipino workers struck the vineyards that summer. They won a 40¢/hour wage increase from grape growers and forced authorities to drop charges against arrested strikers. The Coachella strike was organized by Larry Itliong. After the grape harvest moved north to Delano, he and the Filipino workers of AWOC walked out again.
The timing of the 1965 strike was not accidental. It took place the year after Galarza, Bert Corona, Cesar Chavez, and other civil rights and labor activists forced Congress to repeal Public Law 78 and end the bracero contract labor program, under which growers brought workers from Mexico under tightly controlled, almost slave-like conditions. Farm worker leaders acted after the law’s repeal, because once the program was ended growers could no longer bring braceros into the U.S. to break strikes.
The Delano strike was a movement of immigrant workers. To organize farm labor, both Filipinos and Mexicans wanted to keep growers and the government from using immigration policy against them. In ending the bracero program, they sought instead immigration policies favoring families and communities. In the 1965 immigration reform they established family reunification as a basic principle of immigration policy. This enabled thousands of people, especially family members of farm workers, to come from the Philippines, Mexico and other developing countries.
The Delano strike was not spontaneous or unexpected. It was a product of decades of worker organizing and earlier farm worker strikes. Many Filipino workers in Coachella and Delano were members of ILWU Local 37 in 1965, when the grape strike began. Every year they still traveled from the San Joaquin Valley (where Delano is located) to the Alaska fish canneries. Through the end of their lives, they were often active members of both Local 37 and the United Farm Workers.
Cold war fears of communism were strong in the 1960s-one reason why the contributions of Itliong and the Filipinos were obscured. The strike in Delano owes much to Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla, and other Chicano and Mexican leaders who came out of earlier community organizing movements. But the left-wing leadership of Itliong, Philip Veracruz and other rank-and-file Filipino workers was equally important.
Chavez willingly acknowledged that the NFWA hadn’t intended to strike in 1965. The decision to act was made by left-wing Filipinos, a product of their history of militant fights against growers. Their political philosophy saw the strike as the fundamental weapon to win better conditions. And it was a decision made by workers on the ground, not by leaders or strategists far away.
Growers had pitted Mexicans and Filipinos against each other for decades. The alliance between Itliong’s AWOC and the Cesar Chavez-led National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) was a popular front alliance of workers who had, in many cases, different politics. AWOC’s members had their roots in the red UCAPAWA. NFWA’s roots were in the Community Service Organization (CSO), which was sometimes hostile to Communists. Yet both organizations were able to find common ground and support each other during the strike, eventually forming the UFW. Fred Abad and Pete Velasco, Filipino veterans of the United Farm Workers and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. (Photo by David Bacon, Special Collections in Stanford University’s Green Library)
Strikers in Delano developed close friendships. Cesar Chavez’s son Paul recalls the way the older Filipino men looked at him and other children of Mexican strikers as their own family. Most of the Filipinos were single men, because anti-miscegenation laws prohibited them from marrying non-Filipinas, and the immigration of women from the Philippines was limited until the late 1960s. In the wake of the grape strike, the UFW and scores of young activists from California cities built a retirement home for them in Delano, Paolo Agbayani Retirement Village, to honor their contribution.
Philip Vera Cruz, a Filipino grape picker who became a vice-president of the UFW and later left over disagreements with Chavez, wrote during the strike’s fourth year: «The Filipino decision of the great Delano Grape Strike delivered the initial spark to explode the most brilliant incendiary bomb for social and political changes in U.S. rural life.» Philip Vera cruz, a Filipino grape picker, was one of the initial leaders of the Delano Grape Strike.
Liberal mythology has hidden the true history of the grape strike’s connection to some of the most radical movements in the country’s labor history. The contribution of that generation of Filipino radicals, including some who went to Spain, should be honored- not just because they helped make history, but because their political and trade union ideas are as relevant to workers today as they were in 1965. Those ideas, which they kept alive through the worst years of the Cold War, led to a renaissance of farm worker organizing that is still going on.
More Than a Wall / Mas que Un Muro explores the many aspects of the border region through photographs taken by David Bacon over a period of 30 years. These photographs trace the changes in the border wall itself, and the social movements in border communities, factories and fields. This bilingual book provides a reality check, to allow us to see the border region as its people, with their own history of movements for rights and equality, and develop an alternative vision in which the border can be a region where people can live and work in solidarity with each other. – Gaspar Rivera-Salgado.
David Bacon has given us, through his beautiful portraits, the plight of the American migrant worker, and the fierce spirit of those who provide and bring to us comfort and sustenance. — Lila Downs
Published by El Colegio de la Frontera Norte with support from the UCLA Institute for Labor Research and Education and the Center for Mexican Studies, the Werner Kohlstamm Family Fund, and the Green Library at Stanford University
«The «border» is just a line. It’s the people who matter.» – JoAnn Intili, director, The Werner-Kohnstamm Family Fund
IN THE FIELDS OF THE NORTH / EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE
Photographs and text by David Bacon University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte 302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9” paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website: ucpress.edu/9780520296077 use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount
Exhibited throughout the pandemic in the Cecil H. Green Library at Stanford. The online exhibition (https://exhibits.stanford.edu/bacon), which includes additional content not included in the physical show, is accessible to everyone, and is part of an accessible digital spotlight collection that includes significant images from this body of work. For a catalog: (https://web.stanford.edu/dept/spec_coll/NonVendorPubOrderform2017.pdf)
Online Interviews and Presentations
Red Lens Episode 6: David Bacon on US-Mexico border photography Brad Segal: On episode 6 of Red Lens, I talk with David Bacon.
David Bacon is a California-based writer and documentary photographer. A former union organizer, today he documents labor, the global economy, war and migration, and the struggle for human rights. We talk about David’s new book, ‘More than a Wall / Mas que un muro’ which includes 30 years of his photography and oral histories from communities & struggles in the U.S.-Mexico border region. https://www.patreon.com/posts/71834023?fbclid=IwAR0BRhHYbrYU3BoeoAMFKU_zdHs5Xirmmt1LzQtfwf1yD8p9EYLXKhzzbDE
Letters and Politics – Three Decades of Photographing The Border & Border Communities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvs6SyXsM-4 Host Mitch Jeserich interviews David Bacon, a photojournalist, author, broadcaster and former labor organizer. He has reported on immigrant and labor issues for decades. His latest book, More Than A Wall, is a collection of his photographs of the border and border communities spanning three decades.
Exploitation or Dignity – What Future for Farmworkers UCLA Latin American Institute Based on a new report by the Oakland Institute, journalist and photographer David Bacon documents the systematic abuse of workers in the H-2A program and its impact on the resident farmworker communities, confronted with a race to the bottom in wages and working conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXKa2lHJXMs
There’s More Work to be Done Housing Assistance Council and National Endowment for the Arts This exhibition documents the work and impact of the struggle for equitable and affordable housing in rural America, inspired by the work of George “Elfie” Ballis. https://www.thereismoreworktobedone.com/david-bacon
Illegal People — How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008) Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008 http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
Boletín del Centro de Investigaciones en Óptica, A.C. (CIO) | 04 al 10 septiembre | 2023 Este 01 de septiembre de 2023, el Dr. Ricardo Valenzuela González fue designado como Coordinador de la Unidad Aguascalientes del CIO, en un acto protocolario que reunió a la comunidad académica y administrativa en el auditorio principal de dicha unidad. El CIO dio la bienvenida a la nueva generación de estudiantes de posgrado 2023, quienes aplicaron sus solicitudes para la convocatoria de otoño. Con la presencia del Cuerpo Directivo del CIO, se contó con las palabras del Dr. Rafael Espinosa Luna, Director General y del Dr. Raúl Alfonso Vázquez Nava, director de Formación Académica. En esta ocasión, se integran al Centro 18 estudiantes. «Este número de Ciencias Aplicadas se centrará en los desarrollos más recientes de diferentes tipos de láseres de fibra, brindando una descripción completa del estado actual de la técnica, incluidos los últimos avances, de sus principales representantes. También describirá las perspectivas de aplicación y las tendencias de desarrollo frente a los desafíos técnicos que aún existen en el campo. Por lo tanto, presentará una visión amplia sobre el tema de los láseres de fibra y, con suerte, será de utilidad, no solo para los profesionales involucrados en el área sino también para los académicos que contribuyen a ella en un futuro próximo.» Fecha límite para el envío de manuscritos: 20 de octubre de 2023. Jóvenes Construyendo el Futuro es el programa del Gobierno de México que une la experiencia de los centros de trabajo con la energía de los jóvenes para impulsar las oportunidades laborales en el país y, con ello, contribuir en la economía de los beneficiarios y sus familias. El CIO convoca a jóvenes aprendices para divulgar la Ciencia y la Tecnología. El pasado fin de semana, se llevaron a cabo sesiones de ciencia en los barrios más populares de León, Guanajuato, donde niñas y niños pudieron ser partícipes de diversos experimentos, demostraciones e interactuaron con instrumentos ópticos, como telescopios y microscopios, logrando así un acercamiento al maravilloso mundo de la ciencia.
Estimado/a profesional de las ciencias sociales: Sabemos de su compromiso y relevancia para el desarrollo y promoción de las ciencias sociales en nuestro país. El COMECSO comparte estos objetivos y uno de los instrumentos que permite su continuación es el IX Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Sociales llevado a cabo bianualmente. El que usted participe es de enorme relevancia para elevar la calidad del evento, visibilizar el importante lugar que tiene el trabajo que realizamos diariamente y socializar nuestros conocimientos entre colegas y el público en general.
Lo invitamos cordialmente a que participe en este evento que se llevará a cabo del 8 al 12 de abril de 2024 en nuestro muy querido Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales de la UNAM, el cual nos ha arropado por muchos años desde nuestra fundación en 1977. Como en pasadas ediciones, el evento contará con invitados de primer nivel, conferencias y mesas magistrales, así como con una feria del libro como ninguna otra que hemos organizado. Para este fin hemos ampliado el plazo para enviar propuestas de ponencias o carteles al 8 de septiembre de 2023. Puede iniciar el proceso para participar en el congreso al consultar la convocatoria en https://www.comecso.com/ congreso-ix/convocatoria-ix- congreso-nacional-de-ciencias-sociales.
Mucho agradeceremos también, si ya definió su participación en nuestro congreso, el que pueda compartir este mensaje entre sus contactos. Nos ponemos a su disposición en el correo congresoix@comecso.com por si tuviera alguna cuestión o duda en particular.
¡Lo esperamos! Atentamente, Comité Organizador IX Congreso Nacional de Ciencias Sociales
El objetivo del boletín interno es compartir información académica, cultural e institucional con la comunidad de El Colef.
El contenido se integra a partir de las solicitudes de apoyo y difusión que se reciben vía correo electrónico o por escrito en las sedes regionales y en la Dirección de Difusión de El Colef Tijuana. Asimismo se incluye información de las sedes y material de divulgación interna.
Los avisos y comunicados son responsabilidad de sus autores y los textos se publican en su idioma original.
Si desea enviar material para difusión en el boletín interno escriba a:
