Editing Bracero Program (section)

=== 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.