Editing Bracero Program (section)

==Organized labor==
===Notable strikes===
* January–February (exact dates aren't noted) 1943: In Burlington, Washington, braceros strike because farmers were paying higher wages to whites than to the braceros doing similar work<ref>Northwest Farm News, February 3, 1944. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 80.</ref>
* 1943: In Medford, Oregon, one of the first notable strikes was by a group of braceros that<ref>{{cite book |last1 = Gonzales-Berry |first1 = Erlinda |author-link = Erlinda Gonzáles-Berry |title = Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their Lives. |date = 2012 |publisher = Oregon State University Press |location = Corvallis |page = 46 }}</ref> staged a work stoppage to protest their pay based on per box versus per hour. The growers agreed to pay them 75 cents an hour versus the 8 or 10 cents per box.
* May 1944: Braceros in Preston, Idaho, struck over wages<ref>Narrative, June 1944, Preston, Idaho, Box 52, File: Idaho, GCRG224, NA. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 81.</ref>
* July and September 1944: Braceros near Rupert and Wilder, Idaho, strike over wages<ref>Narrative, July 1944, Rupert, Idaho, Box 52, File: Idaho; Narrative, October 1944, Lincoln, Idaho; all in GCRG224, NA. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", pp. 81–82.</ref>
* October 1944: Braceros in Sugar City and Lincoln, Idaho refused to harvest beets after earning higher wages picking potatoes<ref>Narrative, October 1944, Sugar City, Idaho, Box 52, File: Idaho; Narrative, October 1944, Lincoln, Idaho; all in GCRG224, NA. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 82.</ref>
* May–June 1945: Bracero asparagus cutters in Walla Walla, Washington, struck for twelve days complaining they grossed only between $4.16 and $8.33 in that time period<ref>Visitation Reports, Walter E. Zuger, Walla Walla County, June 12, 1945, EFLR, WSUA. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 84.</ref>
* June 1945: Braceros from Caldwell-Boise sugar beet farms struck when hourly wages were 20 cents less than the established rate set by the County Extension Service. They won a wage increase.<ref>Idaho Daily Statesman, June 8, 1945. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 84.</ref>
* June 1945: In Twin Falls, Idaho, 285 braceros went on strike against the [[Amalgamated Sugar Company]] for two days which resulted in them effectively receiving a 50 cent raise which put them 20 cents over the prevailing wage of the contracted labor<ref>{{cite book |last1 = Jimenez Sifuentez |first1 = Mario |title = Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest. |date = 2016 |publisher = Rutgers University Press |location = New Brunswick |page = 26 }}</ref>
* June 1945: Three weeks later braceros at Emmett struck for higher wages<ref>Idaho Daily Statesman, June 29, 1945. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p.  84.</ref>
* July 1945: In Idaho Falls, 170 braceros organized a sit-down strike that lasted nine days after fifty cherry pickers refused to work at the prevailing rate.<ref>Idaho Daily Statesman, July 11, 14, 1945. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 84.</ref>
* October 1945: In Klamath Falls, Oregon, braceros and transient workers from California refuse to pick potatoes due to insufficient wages<ref>Daily Statesman, October 5, 1945. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 82.</ref>
* A majority of Oregon's Mexican labor camps were affected by labor unrest and stoppages in 1945<ref>Annual Report of State Supervisor of Emergency Farm Labor Program 1945, Extension Service, p. 56, OSU. Cited in Gamboa, "Mexican Labor and World War II", p. 82.</ref>
* November 1946: In Wenatchee, Washington, 100 braceros refused to be transported to Idaho to harvest beets and demanded a train back to Mexico.<ref>Marshall, Maureen E. ''Wenatchee's Dark Past''. Wenatchee, Wash: The Wenatchee World, 2008.</ref>

The number of strikes in the Pacific Northwest is much longer than this list. Two strikes, in particular, should be highlighted for their character and scope: the Japanese-Mexican strike of 1943 in Dayton, Washington<ref>{{cite book |author1=Jerry Garcia |author2=Gilberto Garcia |title=Memory, Community, and Activism: Mexican Migration and Labor in the Pacific Northwest |chapter=Chapter 3: Japanese and Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest, 1900–1945 |pages=85–128}}</ref> and the June 1946 strike of 1000 plus braceros that refused to harvest lettuce and peas in Idaho.

=== 1943 strike ===

The 1943 strike in [[Dayton, Washington]], is unique in the unity it showed between Mexican braceros and [[Japanese-American]] workers. The wartime labor shortage not only led to tens of thousands of Mexican braceros being used on Northwest farms, it also saw the U.S. government allow some ten thousand Japanese Americans, who were placed against their will in [[Internment of Japanese Americans|internment camps]] during World War II, to leave the camps in order to work on farms in the Northwest.<ref>{{cite book |author=Roger Daniels |title=Prisoners Without Trials: Japanese Americans in World War II |location=New York |publisher=Hill and Wang |date=1993 |page=74}} Cited in Garcia and Garcia, Memory, Community, and Activism: Mexican Migration and Labor in the Pacific Northwest, p. 104.</ref> The strike at Blue Mountain Cannery erupted in late July. After "a white female came forward stating that she had been assaulted and described her assailant as 'looking Mexican' ... the prosecutor's and sheriff's office imposed a mandatory 'restriction order' on both the Mexican and Japanese camps."<ref>College of Washington and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating, Specialist Record of County Visit, Columbia County, Walter E. Zuger, Assistant State Farm Labor Supervisor, July 21–22, 1943. Cited in Garcia and Garcia, Memory, Community, and Activism: Mexican Migration and Labor in the Pacific Northwest, p. 112.</ref> No investigation took place nor were any Japanese or Mexican workers asked their opinions on what happened.

The [[Walla Walla Union-Bulletin]] reported the restriction order read:

{{blockquote|quote=Males of Japanese and or Mexican extraction or parentage are restricted to that area of Main Street of Dayton, lying between Front Street and the easterly end of Main Street. The aforesaid males of Japanese and or Mexican extraction are expressly forbidden to enter at any time any portion of the residential district of said city under penalty of law.<ref>"Cannery Shut Down By Work Halt." Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, July 22, 1943. Cited in Garcia and Garcia, Memory, Community, and Activism: Mexican Migration and Labor in the Pacific Northwest, p. 113.</ref>}}

The workers' response came in the form of a strike against this perceived injustice. Some 170 Mexicans and 230 Japanese struck. After multiple meetings including some combination of government officials, Cannery officials, the county sheriff, the Mayor of Dayton and representatives of the workers, the restriction order was voided. Those in power actually showed little concern over the alleged assault. Their real concern was ensuring the workers got back into the fields. Authorities threatened to send soldiers to force them back to work.<ref>College of Washington and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperating, Specialist Record of County Visit, Columbia County, Walter E. Zuger, Assistant State Farm Labor Supervisor, July 21–22, 1943. Cited in Garcia and Garcia, Memory, Community, and Activism: Mexican Migration and Labor in the Pacific Northwest, p. 113.</ref> Two days later the strike ended. Many of the Japanese and Mexican workers had threatened to return to their original homes, but most stayed there to help harvest the pea crop.

==== Wage discrepancies ====
The U.S. and Mexico made an agreement to garnish bracero wages, save them for the contracted worker (agriculture or railroad), and put them into bank accounts in Mexico for when the bracero returned to their home. Like many, braceros who returned home did not receive those wages. Many never had access to a bank account at all. It is estimated that the money the U.S. "transferred" was about $32 million.<ref name="OSORIO 2005 95–103">{{Cite journal |last=Osorio |first=Jennifer |date=2005 |title=Proof of a Life Lived: The Plight of the Braceros and What It Says About How We Treat Records |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41102104 |journal=Archival Issues |volume=29 |issue=2 |pages=95–103 |issn=1067-4993 |jstor=41102104}}</ref> Often braceros would have to take legal action in attempts to recover their garnished wages. According to bank records money transferred often came up missing or never went into a Mexican banking system. In addition to the money transfers being missing or inaccessible by many braceros, missing wage payments existed up and down the railroads, as well as in all the country's farms.

=== 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.