Social Death & Slave Treatment of Farm Workers

Delano’s 1965 Grape Strike and Boycott: Then and Now

It has been over 50 years since the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott. In 1965, Filipino farm workers walked out on California table and wine grape growers and were joined 2 weeks later by Mexican farm workers. After going on strike, people across the state and world boycotted grapes. It was not until 1970 that the growers signed a union contract and agreed to higher pay and better working conditions.

In Orlando Patterson’s, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study, he defines social death as a concept in which people are alienated, hidden and nullified from their own community. When one experiences social death they are no longer regarded as a person, but rather become property and their voice is no longer heard.

Patterson also talked about how slaves experienced social death in America. Social death was manifested physically and psychologically. Slaves were stripped of their identity by having their names changed, given a specific dress code that deemed them slaves, castration and shaving their heads. Psychologically they were rejected as a member of society, manipulated into believing they had no self-worth, and even had the right to pass on their ancestry to the children taken away. This was all able to happen because of the power that their masters had. This sounds a bit harsh to hear now because after all slavery has ended, right? Wrong! Sort of…

In 1865 the 13th amendment was ratified, but there are still labor groups that experience social death in similar ways that the slaves did. Let’s go back to the Delano Grape Strike. 100 years after slavery ended grape pickers had to walk out from their bosses because of how poorly they were being treated. For starters, grape pickers and other farm workers were isolated from society. They were placed in fields and small towns that didn’t have much going for them other than their field work. The towns were populated by migrant or immigrant families in search of a job to be able to provide for their family. But what really lead to the strike was the working conditions they were experiencing. They were expected to work in inhumane working conditions. They worked while it was over 100 degrees, they had no toilets, they had no plumbing and electricity in the sheds they lived. Along with poor working conditions, they were only paid 90 cents per hour with an additional 10 cents for each basket they filled. Their uniform that pointed them out as farm workers were their swollen dirt filled hands, their tanned face and their swollen feet from standing all day. Farm workers were no longer viewed as humans but rather property that growers had their hands on. Growers knew that the workers needed to work and would continue doing so no matter the circumstances…or so they thought. The strike came as a joke to growers, they would laugh saying workers could easily be replaced as they were not anyone or anything special. But workers stood their ground and demanded the rights they deserved as humans. Even as they were trying to use their voice to speak, they were silenced. Silenced by having pesticides thrown in their face, verbal abuse and physical abuse. When the growers and other political members saw the workers were not going to back down, their names were taken down and tracked, their right to assemble was taken from them and the word huelga (Spanish word for “strike”), was even banned. Those in power were doing everything to try and tear down the workers and get them to obey them as if they were their slaves.

However, it was not until the grape industry was suffering that growers were willing to sit down to talk about a better working contract. People all around started to boycott grapes and the growers were obviously not happy about that. Patterson talked about the master being dependent on the slave to be their slave. Without the salve the master would not have been able to have all that they had. The labor that the slaves put in is what gave the master his power and money. During the Delano Grape Strike, growers realized that they really did need their workers to come back, but not only come back as their property, but to come back as human workers. They signed a 3 year contract where they pay was increased and they were promised better working conditions. YAY! Farm workers rose from social death and they were once again seen as humans! Once again, WRONG! Yes, a lot was done to help farm workers. They were given the right to form unions, better pay and better working conditions. Yet, to this day, they are still experiencing social death.

Farm workers still live in towns that are isolated from big cities. Most if not all the families there are pickers. Even the new generations end up being pickers at one point in their life in order to be able to make money. They still wear the same uniform that pin points them as farm workers. They still work in hot conditions under the sun for hours. They still barely make minimum wage and live in poverty. Between 2005 and 2013, there were 14 estimated deaths among farm workers related to heat, while the United Farm Workers union states it was double that. In 2015, a labor union and family members settled a law suit which would ensure that farm workers would be better protected in rising temperatures. However, as someone who has family in Delano as pickers, I have been told that yes working conditions are better than before, but they are still expected to pick a certain amount and if they don’t they are punished. They are punished by working extra hours, receiving less breaks. They comply because they need the money and this is the only job they can get, so they have no where else to turn to.

To this day, it is forgotten that workers, no matter if they work a 9–5 office job or pick our food, are still human. Humans that have feelings and that have rights in this country. Yet farm workers are still isolated in small towns and fields are in areas where no one will stop so that one would not see the working conditions.