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Texas Farmworker: 1966 Strike 'Was Like Heading Into War'

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Fifty years ago, farmworkers in Texas walked off their jobs to protest low pay and terrible working conditions. They marched across the state in the searing summer heat. Many of them were beaten and arrested. It's a historic event rarely mentioned in history books. Now some of those marchers are telling their stories. From KUT's the Texas Standard, Joy Diaz reports.

JOY DIAZ, BYLINE 1: Daria Vera has never forgotten that brutally 2 hot summer back in 1966.

DARIA VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Wait for me here, she says as she goes to the back room of her tiny home. Vera comes back holding a box and shows me some of her pictures.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Pointing to a little girl on the picture, Vera says, this is my daughter. She was so little, probably 2 years old, always with us even during the strike.

In 1966, Vera was only 20. Both she and her husband picked onions and cantaloupes for a living with their child by their side.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Renters used to pay us 40 cents an hour for picking cantaloupes, she says. Wages were so low that kids as young as 5 would join in the picking to add to a family's income. Just to put things in perspective, sanitation 3 workers at the time made about 1.27 an hour - three times more than a farmworker.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Out of the box comes another photo.

(Speaking Spanish).

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Who are these people, I ask.

They're some of the farmworkers who went on strike, she says.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Do you want to hear from them? Come. Let's visit Valdemar Diaz. He lives nearby.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: It's a hot day in Rio Grande City, Texas, about 15 minutes from the U.S.-Mexico border. Trees surround the Diaz mobile home. We wait in the shade.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: When Diaz joins us under a tree, he says, before the strike, working conditions for south Texas farmworkers were the stuff of nightmares. Bathrooms were nonexistent, medical services - a fantasy and even drinking water was a luxury.

VALDEMAR DIAZ: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: I remember we would drink from puddles 4 left by the irrigation system, he says, full of frogs and crickets. We would push the critters out of the way and drink from the puddles.

In the spring of '66, the workers decided 5 to walk off the job. Union leaders from California, including Cesar Chavez, came to Texas and helped organize the strike. Their demands were simple. They wanted work contracts, wages of 1.25 an hour, water breaks and access to bathrooms.

DIAZ: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: It was like heading into war, Diaz says, because ranchers were not budging 6. Indeed, ranchers dissed the farmworkers' demands and called in the Texas Rangers 7.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: They used to beat us up, Vera says, and would arrest us.

But the Rangers - their beatings, even the arrests failed to break the strike, so ranchers opted 8 for a different route. They started bussing in workers from Mexico. Strikers knew their only hope for success was to damage the ranchers financially, so they blocked the U.S.-Mexico bridge in Roma, Texas.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: They handcuffed me behind my back, Vera says, they dragged me across the bridge and arrested me.

By summer, it was clear the strike alone was failing, but unrest was palpable all over the country. Inspired by the famous Selma to Montgomery march led by Martin Luther King in '65, farmworkers in Texas decided to march, too.

ERMINIA RAMIREZ TREVINO: We started right about right here.

DIAZ: Erminia Ramirez Trevino was only 13 the day the march kicked off.

TREVINO: From Rio Grande City all the way to Austin, Texas. It took us two months.

DIAZ: Change took much longer - years. So I ask Daria Vera was it all worth it?

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Oh, yes, she says, workers should be proud of what we did.

VERA: (Speaking Spanish).

DIAZ: Today fields in Texas have port-a-potties and water stations for workers. Workers are entitled to earn the federal minimum wage. One thing hasn't changed, though. Farm work in Texas is still plagued with abuse, and those who dare to speak up on this side of the border continue to be easily replaced by those from the other side. For NPR News, I'm Joy Diaz in Rio Grande City, Texas.