It was the 100th day of school mid-week, so we went back over 100 years ago and learned about the Oxnard Beet Strike of 1903. In the classroom, the second graders looked at a couple of issues of the San Francisco Call newspaper that described the strike and its violent aftermath. We noticed that the paper was in black and white, with no photographs, only drawings, and that the text was super small!
Japanese and Mexican farmworkers in Oxnard came together to form the Japanese Mexican Labor Association, one of the first multiracial labor unions in the United States. They went on strike for fairer working conditions and eventually won, though the story also has a darker conclusion. When the JMLA sought recognition under the American Federation of Labor after its victory in Oxnard, the AFL refused to accept Asian members.
In the kitchen, we made a roasted beet salad with blanched beet greens, orange, miso from Japanese food culture, and pepitas from Mexican food culture in honor of the beet farmworkers who united across cultural differences to make the world more just. 120 years later, the work they started continues.
