Ernesto Galarza was a Mexican-American labor activist, professor, poet and writer, a key figure in the history of immigrant farm worker organization in California.

Early career

Born in Jalcocotan, near Tepic

Tepic

Tepic is the capital and largest city of the Mexican state of Nayarit.It is located in the central part of the state, at.It stands at an altitude above sea level of some 915 meters, on the banks of the Río Mololoa and the Río Tepic, approximately 225 kilometers north-west of Guadalajara, Jalisco....

 in the Mexican state of Nayarit

Nayarit

Nayarit officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Nayarit is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 20 municipalities and its capital city is Tepic.It is located in Western Mexico...

, Galarza immigrated with his mother and two uncles to Sacramento, California

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...

. As recalled in his autobiographical Barrio Boy, the young Galarza successfully navigated the cultural differences in the public school system, attained a scholarship to Occidental College

Occidental College

Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...

 in Los Angeles,then went on to earn a master's degree in history at Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 in 1929.

Galarza worked with the Pan-American Union (now the Organization of American States

Organization of American States

The Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States...

) in Washington D.C. from 1936 through 1947 publishing analyses on educational, labor and infrastructure issues in Latin America. In 1947 he completed his doctoral dissertation on the electricity industry in Mexico, taking a Ph.D. from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

.

Labor organization

The same year he returned to his roots in California and joined the National Farm Labor Union. There he quickly drew the attention of the anti-Communist Tenney Committee of the state legislature, which accused him of affiliations with the Communist Party. In the face of similar repressive political and industry opposition, he worked at organizing immigrant agricultural labor in California, while continuing to research and publish on a variety of related topics.

Galarza organized a 1947 strike against the DiGiorgio Corporation

DiGiorgio Corporation

DiGiorgio corporation was a fruit-growing corporation and eventual conglomerate in the 20th century. Once a vast company, owning much of California's central valley farm land, and multi-billion dollar corporation, a massive restructuring in the 1990s limited its breadth...

 in Arvin, California

Arvin, California

Arvin is a city in Kern County, in the United States. Arvin is located southeast of Bakersfield, at an elevation of 449 feet . As of the 2010 census, the population was 19,304, up from 12,956 at the 2000 census....

 that that lasted 30 months, and entangled the company and the union in suits and counter-suits for the following 15 years. Altogether between 1948 and 1959, Galarza and the union initiated some twenty strikes and labor actions.

A prolific writer, Galarza's best-known work is Merchants of Labor (1964), an exposé of the abuses within the Bracero Program

Bracero Program

The Bracero Program was a series of laws and diplomatic agreements, initiated by an August 1942 exchange of diplomatic notes between the United States and Mexico, for the importation of temporary contract laborers from Mexico to the United States.American president Franklin D...

. The book was instrumental in the ending of the program, which in turn opened the door for Cesar Chavez

César Chávez

César Estrada Chávez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers ....

 to begin unionizing immigrant farmworkers in 1965.

In 1956 Galarza was awarded the Bolivian Order of the Condor of the Andes

Order of the Condor of the Andes

The Order of the Condor of the Andes is a medal of the Bolivian government.Instituted on April 12, 1925, the Order is awarded for exceptional merit, either civil or military, shown by Bolivians or foreign nationals...

. The Ernesto Galarza Applied Research Center at the University of California Riverside

UCR College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences

The College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of California, Riverside can trace its history to the founding undergraduate institution at UCR, the College of Letters and Science, which first opened in 1954...

, and other California elementary and secondary schools, bear his name. His many books include:

• Barrio Boy, 1971
• Merchants of Labor: The Mexican Bracero Story, 1964
• Spiders in the House and Workers in the Field, 1970