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The KUT Longhorn Radio Network Presents: Mexican American Experience Collection

Audio recordings including interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns in the series "The Mexican American Experience" and "A esta hora conversamos" from the Longhorn Radio Network, 1976-1982.

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PROGRAM INFO

Title:
Labor Organizing In Texas, 1848 To The Present
Program #
1981-15
Theme:
Politics

Series:
Labor
Host:
Alma Díaz
Guests:
Devon Peña, Victor Nelson Cisneros
Date:
Feb 25, 1981

Labor Organizing in Texas, 1848 to the present

Guests Victor Nelson Cisneros and Devon Peña discuss the history of Chicano labor organizing in industrial, manufacturing and agriculture sectors and some of their successes and failures. Cisneros, a researcher with the National Rural Center, explains how in the aftermath of the Mexican American War, Mexicans in the United States lost their land and became proleterianized in a slow process of adaptation and restructuring. Historians have simplified this process and ignored early Chicano organizing efforts. Pena, an instructor at UT-Austin, discusses some of this history in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He mentions several unions and their struggles throughout the Southwest. Cardenas then describes some of the unions’ demands. He also looks at the situation many faced in the early 1900s during the rise of industrial capital, trusts and scientific management.

Pena then looks at women’s participation in Chicano unions. He describes the migrant circuits families traveled and the industries in which women worked and organized. Pena next examines some of the barriers to Chicano organizing, including repression and discrimination. He also explains that many women workers became more radical than the union leaders who often tacitly condoned gender discrimination.

Both Nelson Cisneros and Pena discuss the need for scholars to document present labor struggles in order to create an engaged scholarship.

KEYWORDS

Anti-Union Attitudes
Antonio Orendain
Arizona
Asociacion de Jornaleros
Association of Day Laborers
Bracero Program
Brownsville, Texas
California
Capitalism
Catholic Worker Movement
Cesar Chavez
Chicago
Clifton, Arizona
Colorado
Copper Mining
Corpus Christi Labor Conference
Corpus Christi, Texas
Criminal Syndicalism Laws
Crystal City
Deportations
Devon Peña
Discrimination
Economics
Family Labor
Garment Industry
Historiography
International Longshoremen of Corpus Christi
International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Worker
Knights of Labor
Labor
Labor Militancy
Laredo, Texas
Las Gorras Blancas
Male Nepotism
Mexican American History
Mexican-American War
Migrant Circuit
Militia
Montana
Morenci, Arizona
National Farm Labor Union (NFLU)
National Guard
National Rural Center
New Mexico
Nuevo Laredo
Oil Workers Union
Outsourcing
Partido Liberal Mexicano
Pecan Shellers
Pecan Shellers Union
Police
Repression
Rio Grande Valley
San Antonio Workers Alliance
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Sara Estela Ramirez
Selma James
South Texas
Strikebreaking
Sugar Beets
Texas Agriculture Workers Organizers Committee
Texas Farm Workers
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Unions
United Cannery, Agriculture, Packing and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA)
United Farm Workers
Victor Nelson Cisneros
Wages
Western Federation of Miners
Winter Garden District
Working Conditions
World War II
Wyoming
 

Center for Mexican American Studies | Department of History | The Benson Latin American Collection

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