Women at Farah revisited: Political mobilization and its aftermath among chicana workers in El Paso, Texas, 1972-1992

Feminist Studies

Volumn 22, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 425-452

  Honig, Emily ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0030170911     PISSN: 00463663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3178422     Document Type: Article

References (32)

1. This is not meant to imply that all historical accounts subscribe to a model of pre-strike passivity and isolation that turns into assertiveness and solidarity through labor protest. A number of scholars have stressed the continuities between women's community and workplace culture, on the one hand, and patterns of protest, on the other. See, for example, Ardis Cameron, "Bread and Roses Revisited: Women's Culture and Working-Class Activism in the Lawrence Strike of 1912," in Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History, ed. Ruth Milkman (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 42-61. Also see Rosalyn TerborgPenn, "Survival Strategies among African-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process," in ibid., 139-55. Patricia A. Cooper's Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); and Dorothy Sue Cobble's Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) provide particularly detailed analyses of connections between women's work culture, daily acts of resistance, and more formal labor protest.
2. This is not meant to imply that all historical accounts subscribe to a model of pre-strike passivity and isolation that turns into assertiveness and solidarity through labor protest. A number of scholars have stressed the continuities between women's community and workplace culture, on the one hand, and patterns of protest, on the other. See, for example, Ardis Cameron, "Bread and Roses Revisited: Women's Culture and Working-Class Activism in the Lawrence Strike of 1912," in Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History, ed. Ruth Milkman (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 42-61. Also see Rosalyn TerborgPenn, "Survival Strategies among African-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process," in ibid., 139-55. Patricia A. Cooper's Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); and Dorothy Sue Cobble's Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) provide particularly detailed analyses of connections between women's work culture, daily acts of resistance, and more formal labor protest.
3. This is not meant to imply that all historical accounts subscribe to a model of pre-strike passivity and isolation that turns into assertiveness and solidarity through labor protest. A number of scholars have stressed the continuities between women's community and workplace culture, on the one hand, and patterns of protest, on the other. See, for example, Ardis Cameron, "Bread and Roses Revisited: Women's Culture and Working-Class Activism in the Lawrence Strike of 1912," in Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History, ed. Ruth Milkman (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 42-61. Also see Rosalyn TerborgPenn, "Survival Strategies among African-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process," in ibid., 139-55. Patricia A. Cooper's Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); and Dorothy Sue Cobble's Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) provide particularly detailed analyses of connections between women's work culture, daily acts of resistance, and more formal labor protest.
4. This is not meant to imply that all historical accounts subscribe to a model of pre-strike passivity and isolation that turns into assertiveness and solidarity through labor protest. A number of scholars have stressed the continuities between women's community and workplace culture, on the one hand, and patterns of protest, on the other. See, for example, Ardis Cameron, "Bread and Roses Revisited: Women's Culture and Working-Class Activism in the Lawrence Strike of 1912," in Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of U.S. Women's Labor History, ed. Ruth Milkman (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), 42-61. Also see Rosalyn TerborgPenn, "Survival Strategies among African-American Women Workers: A Continuing Process," in ibid., 139-55. Patricia A. Cooper's Once a Cigar Maker: Men, Women, and Work Culture in American Cigar Factories, 1900-1919 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987); and Dorothy Sue Cobble's Dishing It Out: Waitresses and Their Unions in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991) provide particularly detailed analyses of connections between women's work culture, daily acts of resistance, and more formal labor protest.
5. When the strike began in 1972, Farah operated five plants in El Paso; two in San Antonio; one in Victoria, Texas; and one in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was one of the largest non-union garment plants in the United States.
6. The strike's victory made Farah the largest enterprise with union representation in El Paso. Before the Farah strike, only about 1,500 of El Paso's approximately 20,000 garment workers were covered by union contracts. Billy the Kid was the only plant that was completely represented by the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers' Union; one of the four Levi-Strauss factories in El Paso was also represented by Amalgamated. See Deborah De Witt Mally, "How the Union Beat Willie Farah," Fortune, August 1974, 167.
7. The oral histories were conducted by Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and myself. We returned in 1978 to interview the same women again, this time focusing on their family histories. For our account of the strike, based largely on these interviews, see Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig, "Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story," in Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Present, ed. Magdalena More and Adelaide R. Del Castillo (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, University of California, 1980), reprinted in A Needle, a Bobbin, a Strike: Women Needleworkers in America, ed. Joan Jensen and Sue Davidson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).
8. The oral histories were conducted by Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and myself. We returned in 1978 to interview the same women again, this time focusing on their family histories. For our account of the strike, based largely on these interviews, see Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig, "Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story," in Mexican Women in the United States: Struggles Past and Present, ed. Magdalena More and Adelaide R. Del Castillo (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center Publications, University of California, 1980), reprinted in A Needle, a Bobbin, a Strike: Women Needleworkers in America, ed. Joan Jensen and Sue Davidson (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984).
9. For example, the excellent study by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), documents periods of activism and retrenchment in the labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century, but it does not trace continuities or discontinuities in individuals' lives. The same is true of Karen Brodkin Sacks's model study of an organizing drive, Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, and Organizing at Duke Medical Center (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Although Sacks traces continuities and discontinuities in women's labor activism, she confined her analysis to the workplace. Studies that do examine the long-term impact of political mobilization tend not to focus on working-class communities or on women. See, for example, Margaret M. Braungart and Richard G. Braungart, "The Effects of the 1960s' Political Generation on Former Left-and Right-Wing Youth Activist Leaders," Social Problems 38 (August 1991): 316-32.
10. For example, the excellent study by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), documents periods of activism and retrenchment in the labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century, but it does not trace continuities or discontinuities in individuals' lives. The same is true of Karen Brodkin Sacks's model study of an organizing drive, Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, and Organizing at Duke Medical Center (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Although Sacks traces continuities and discontinuities in women's labor activism, she confined her analysis to the workplace. Studies that do examine the long-term impact of political mobilization tend not to focus on working-class communities or on women. See, for example, Margaret M. Braungart and Richard G. Braungart, "The Effects of the 1960s' Political Generation on Former Left-and Right-Wing Youth Activist Leaders," Social Problems 38 (August 1991): 316-32.
11. For example, the excellent study by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall et al., Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), documents periods of activism and retrenchment in the labor movement during the first half of the twentieth century, but it does not trace continuities or discontinuities in individuals' lives. The same is true of Karen Brodkin Sacks's model study of an organizing drive, Caring by the Hour: Women, Work, and Organizing at Duke Medical Center (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988). Although Sacks traces continuities and discontinuities in women's labor activism, she confined her analysis to the workplace. Studies that do examine the long-term impact of political mobilization tend not to focus on working-class communities or on women. See, for example, Margaret M. Braungart and Richard G. Braungart, "The Effects of the 1960s' Political Generation on Former Left-and Right-Wing Youth Activist Leaders," Social Problems 38 (August 1991): 316-32.
12. Vicki Ruiz, Cannery Women, Cannery Lives: Mexican Women, Unionization, and the California Food Processing Industry, 1930-1950 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987), 121.
13. The factories involved in this strike were the DCB Apparel Group, Inc., Apparel Conditioners Corporation (an industrial laundry), H & R, and Sonia's Apparel. For accounts of the strike, see El Paso Times, 2 July 1990; 27 June 1991; 30 June 1991; 29 Sept. 1991; 19 Jan. 1992.
14. According to one account, these plants "typically employ fewer than 70 workers in old warehouses with stacks of fabric piled on filthy floors. Windows, if any, are small and may be sealed shut. Fire exits often are locked. There is neither air conditioning in summer nor heat in winter. Paint peels of the walls. And owners don't provide water, although the summer heat usually breaks 100 degrees and workers regularly faint at their machines." El Paso Times, 29 Sept. 1991.
15. In fact, one of the hunger-strike activists of 1991 had actually worked at Farah during the strike but had not participated in the strike. "I had just come from Mexico and didn't understand the situation, so I didn't go out on strike," she recalled (interview with Julietta Parra, October 1992).
16. Farah shut down the Third Street plant in 1985; in 1986 it laid off the remaining 1,000 workers at the Paisano plant and shut it down, leaving only Gateway. See El Paso Times, 12 Apr. 1986. The last sewing line in El Paso was terminated in May 1990 (El Paso Times, 21 Mar. 1990). For a more detailed account of Farah's poststrike history, see Allen Pusey, "Clothes Made the Man," Texas Monthly, June 1977, 134-38.
17. Farah shut down the Third Street plant in 1985; in 1986 it laid off the remaining 1,000 workers at the Paisano plant and shut it down, leaving only Gateway. See El Paso Times, 12 Apr. 1986. The last sewing line in El Paso was terminated in May 1990 (El Paso Times, 21 Mar. 1990). For a more detailed account of Farah's poststrike history, see Allen Pusey, "Clothes Made the Man," Texas Monthly, June 1977, 134-38.
18. Farah shut down the Third Street plant in 1985; in 1986 it laid off the remaining 1,000 workers at the Paisano plant and shut it down, leaving only Gateway. See El Paso Times, 12 Apr. 1986. The last sewing line in El Paso was terminated in May 1990 (El Paso Times, 21 Mar. 1990). For a more detailed account of Farah's poststrike history, see Allen Pusey, "Clothes Made the Man," Texas Monthly, June 1977, 134-38.
19. Interview with Antonio Sanchez, El Paso, 28 Sept. 1992.
20. The Complete Twin Plant Guide (El Paso: Solunet: Solutions Network, 1989), 163.
21. Maquiladoras are Mexican assembly or manufacturing plants that can be completely foreign-owned and managed. Mexican law permits the importation of capital equipment and machinery from abroad; U.S. customs law provides that only the value of processing in Mexico (as opposed to the value of the product) be subject to import duty. For more specific details of maquiladora operations along the U.S.-Mexican border, see Borderline Magazine, August-September 1992, 27. For a broader discussion of the history and operation of the maquilas, see Augusta Dwyer, On the Line: Life on the U.S.-Mexican Border (London: Latin American Bureau, 1994); Susan Tiano, Patriarchy on the Line: Labor, Gender, and Ideology in the Mexican Maquila Industry (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994).
22. Maquiladoras are Mexican assembly or manufacturing plants that can be completely foreign-owned and managed. Mexican law permits the importation of capital equipment and machinery from abroad; U.S. customs law provides that only the value of processing in Mexico (as opposed to the value of the product) be subject to import duty. For more specific details of maquiladora operations along the U.S.-Mexican border, see Borderline Magazine, August-September 1992, 27. For a broader discussion of the history and operation of the maquilas, see Augusta Dwyer, On the Line: Life on the U.S.-Mexican Border (London: Latin American Bureau, 1994); Susan Tiano, Patriarchy on the Line: Labor, Gender, and Ideology in the Mexican Maquila Industry (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994).
23. Maquiladoras are Mexican assembly or manufacturing plants that can be completely foreign-owned and managed. Mexican law permits the importation of capital equipment and machinery from abroad; U.S. customs law provides that only the value of processing in Mexico (as opposed to the value of the product) be subject to import duty. For more specific details of maquiladora operations along the U.S.-Mexican border, see Borderline Magazine, August-September 1992, 27. For a broader discussion of the history and operation of the maquilas, see Augusta Dwyer, On the Line: Life on the U.S.-Mexican Border (London: Latin American Bureau, 1994); Susan Tiano, Patriarchy on the Line: Labor, Gender, and Ideology in the Mexican Maquila Industry (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994).
24. Dwyer, 17. For a discussion of women workers in the maquilas in Juárez, see Gay Young, "Gender Identification and Working-Class Solidarity among Maquila Workers in Ciudad Juárez: Stereotypes and Realities," in Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change, ed. Vicki L. Ruiz and Susan Tiano (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 105-28; Devon Peña, "Tortuosidad: Shop Floor Struggles of Female Maquiladora Workers," in ibid., 129-54.
25. Dwyer, 17. For a discussion of women workers in the maquilas in Juárez, see Gay Young, "Gender Identification and Working-Class Solidarity among Maquila Workers in Ciudad Juárez: Stereotypes and Realities," in Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change, ed. Vicki L. Ruiz and Susan Tiano (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 105-28; Devon Peña, "Tortuosidad: Shop Floor Struggles of Female Maquiladora Workers," in ibid., 129-54.
26. Dwyer, 17. For a discussion of women workers in the maquilas in Juárez, see Gay Young, "Gender Identification and Working-Class Solidarity among Maquila Workers in Ciudad Juárez: Stereotypes and Realities," in Women on the U.S.-Mexico Border: Responses to Change, ed. Vicki L. Ruiz and Susan Tiano (London: Allen & Unwin, 1987), 105-28; Devon Peña, "Tortuosidad: Shop Floor Struggles of Female Maquiladora Workers," in ibid., 129-54.
27. Mary Pardo, "Creating Community: Mexican American Women in Eastside Los Angeles," Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Special Issue on "Las Obreras: The Politics of Work and Family (spring-fall 1991): 39-72.
28. See, for example, Dana Frank, Purchasing Power: Consumer Organizing, Gender, and the Seattle Labor Movement, 1919-1929 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
29. Patricia Zavella, Women's Work and Chicano Families: Cannery Workers of the Santa Clara Valley (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987).
30. See, for example, Pardo; Sally A. Marston and George Towers, "Private Spaces and the Politics of Places: Spatioeconomic Restructuring and Community Organizing in Tucson and El Paso," in Local Politics in a Global Era, ed. Robert Rishin and Joseph Kling (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993), 75-102; George Towers, "Alinsky Organizing in El Paso and San Antonio: EPISO, COPS, and Mexican American Politics" (Paper presented at the Meeting of the Association of Borderlands Scholars, Reno, April 1991).
31. See, for example, Pardo; Sally A. Marston and George Towers, "Private Spaces and the Politics of Places: Spatioeconomic Restructuring and Community Organizing in Tucson and El Paso," in Local Politics in a Global Era, ed. Robert Rishin and Joseph Kling (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1993), 75-102; George Towers, "Alinsky Organizing in El Paso and San Antonio: EPISO, COPS, and Mexican American Politics" (Paper presented at the Meeting of the Association of Borderlands Scholars, Reno, April 1991).
32. For a far more detailed account of the move from politics to religion by women activists, see Judith Stacey, Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late-Twentieth-Century America (New York: Basic Books, 1990).