Editing Bracero Program (section)

=== Reasons for strikes in the Northwest ===

One key difference between the Northwest and braceros in the Southwest or other parts of the United States involved the lack of Mexican government labor inspectors. According to Galarza, "In 1943, ten Mexican labor inspectors were assigned to ensure contract compliance throughout the United States; most were assigned to the Southwest and two were responsible for the northwestern area."<ref>Ernesto Galarza, "Personal and Confidential Memorandum". pp. 8–9. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 75.</ref> The lack of inspectors made the policing of pay and working conditions in the Northwest extremely difficult. The farmers set up powerful collective bodies like the Associated Farmers Incorporated of Washington with a united goal of keeping pay down and any union agitators or communists out of the fields.<ref>Northwest Farm News, January 13, 1938. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 76.</ref> The Associated Farmers used various types of law enforcement officials to keep "order" including privatized law enforcement officers, the state highway patrol, and even the National Guard.<ref>Idaho Falls Post Register, September 12, 1938; Yakima Daily Republic, August 25, 1933. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 76.</ref>

Another difference is the proximity, or not, to the Mexican border. In the Southwest, employers could easily threaten braceros with deportation knowing the ease with which new braceros could replace them. However, in the Northwest due to the much farther distance and cost associated with travel made threats of deportation harder to follow through with. Braceros in the Northwest could not easily skip out on their contracts due to the lack of a prominent Mexican-American community which would allow for them to blend in and not have to return to Mexico as so many of their counterparts in the Southwest chose to do and also the lack of proximity to the border.<ref>{{cite book |author=Mario Jimenez Sifuentez |title=Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest |location=New Brunswick |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2016 |page=28}}</ref>

Knowing this difficulty, the Mexican consulate in Salt Lake City, and later the one in Portland, Oregon, encouraged workers to protest their conditions and advocated on their behalf much more than the Mexican consulates did for braceros in the Southwest.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ernesto Galarza |title=Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story |date=1964}} Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 77.</ref> Combine all these reasons together and it created a climate where braceros in the Northwest felt they had no other choice, but to strike in order for their voices to be heard.

Braceros met the challenges of discrimination and exploitation by finding various ways in which they could resist and attempt to improve their living conditions and wages in the Pacific Northwest work camps. Over two dozen strikes were held in the first two years of the program. One common method used to increase their wages was by "loading sacks" which consisted of braceros loading their harvest bags with rock in order to make their harvest heavier and therefore be paid more for the sack.<ref>{{cite book |author=Mario Jimenez Sifuentez |title=Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest |location=New Brunswick |publisher=Rutgers University Press |date=2016 |page=25}}</ref>  Also, braceros learned that timing was everything. Strikes were more successful when combined with work stoppages, cold weather, and a pressing harvest period.<ref>{{cite book |author=Erasmo Gamboa |title=Mexican Labor & World War II: Braceros in the Pacific Northwest, 1942–1947 |location=Seattle |publisher=University of Washington |date=1990 |page=85}}</ref>  The notable strikes throughout the Northwest proved that employers would rather negotiate with braceros than to deport them, employers had little time to waste as their crops needed to be harvested and the difficulty and expense associated with the bracero program forced them to negotiate with braceros for fair wages and better living conditions.<ref>Mario Jimenez Sifuentez. Of Forests and Fields. pp. 28–29</ref>

Braceros were also discriminated and segregated in the labor camps. Some growers went to the extent of building three labor camps, one for whites, one for blacks, and the one for Mexicans.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Robert Bauman |title=Jim Crow in the Tri-Cities, 1943–1950 |journal=The Pacific Northwest Quarterly |volume=96 |issue=3 |date=2005 |page=126}}</ref> For example, in 1943 in Grants Pass, Oregon, 500 braceros suffered food poisoning, one of the most severe cases reported in the Northwest. This detrition of the quality and quantity of food persisted into 1945 until the Mexican government intervened.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Erasmo Gamboa |title=Mexican Migration into Washington State: A History, 1940–1950 |journal=The Pacific Northwest Quarterly |volume=72 |issue=3 |date=1981 |page=125}}</ref>  Lack of food, poor living conditions, discrimination, and exploitation led braceros to become active in strikes and to successfully negotiate their terms.