Labor History Commons^™

Plowing For Pennies, Protesting For Pride: An Examination Of The United Farm Worker Union’S Impact In Washington State, 1965-1972, Israel Cuevas

History Undergraduate Theses

People of Hispanic descent have been central to the agricultural production of the United States since the eighteenth century. This paper highlights how the signing of the Mexican Farm Labor Agreement by the United States and Mexico in 1942 enabled the spread of Mexican labor workers to the agricultural fields and railroads of the US due to the labor shortage produced by World War II. This migration of labor delivered two decades of poor wages and atrocious working and living conditions for braceros by the hands of white farm growers. By the 1960s, the efforts of Cesar Chavez and the …

Contextualizing Filipina/O Experiences Through The Life And Lens Of Virgil Duyungan, Benjamin Huff

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper serves a dual purpose: to examine the world of Filipina/o immigrants and Filipina/o Americans during the 1930s in the Puget Sound region, as well as look at the life and death of Filipina/o labor leader Virgil S. Duyungan. Incorporating these two different aspects into one paper reveals how Duyungan’s experiences contextualize and highlight key issues of the greater Filipina/o community in the region at the time, such as racial identity and tensions, labor rights, corruption and exploitation, and socio-economic conditions. By utilizing a body of primary and secondary sources, such as books, journal articles, government documents, images and …

A Legacy Of Racial Capital: How The U.S. Education System Produces A School-To-Farm Pipeline, Diana Sheila Algomeda Villada

Global Honors Theses

The U.S. public education system focuses on providing student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness and to ensure equal access for all students. Despite this emphasis on equal education, Mexican migrant youth continue to have low graduation rates. The legal status of farmworkers makes them vulnerable to hard labor and poor working conditions resulting in frequent mobility (within the U.S.) for their survival. Along with frequent mobility, the criminalization and negative stereotypes of Mexicans and Mexican Americans influence the way in which migrant children are perceived by their educators and peers in educational institutions causing them to drop out and …

Think Of The Children: Child Labor Through The Progressive Era In Early Twentieth-Century America, Thomas Clark

History Undergraduate Theses

Child labor in America was a pivotal component of the Progressive reform movement throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning my research, I looked into the role of child labor in the creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA was the first federal law to abolish child labor successfully. Throughout my research, I noticed a trend of law passage and Supreme Court denial.

The most referenced events involving child labor as an evil to society came in the early part of the twentieth-century. The two most famous events were Mary “Mother Jones” Harris and …

Finding Manilatown: The Search For Seattle’S Filipino American Community, 1898 – 2016, John D. Nonato

History Undergraduate Theses

Filipino presence in the United States has a long history from the time of the Spanish Empire. Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War (1898) resulted in American acquisition of the Philippine islands. By granting Filipinos ‘national’ status, a new wave of post-Spanish Colonial immigration began to the United States. As Filipinos immigrated for education and work to the U.S., they began settling within urban areas and created Manilatowns. These Manilatowns were almost always settled in conjunction with other ethnic enclaves, most of these being Chinatowns. In this paper, I examine the rise and fall of Seattle’s Manilatown and its role …

Wobblies In Washington: The Radicalism And Downfall Of The Iww In The Northwest, Zachary A. Smith

History Undergraduate Theses

This paper is an examination of the radical philosophy and propaganda of the Industrial Workers of The World (IWW), also known as the Wobblies, during the period of 1909-1919. in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on the State of Washington. In order to accomplish this, the paper examines several key Wobbly political cartoons, and explains the impact that their propaganda had on union organizing and labor movements in the Northwest. Additionally, The political atmosphere of the time period and the many clashes between the radical IWW and the mainstream American society of the time. Furthermore, this paper analyzes the way in …