Arizona: A History of Racist Attacks and Workers’ Fight-back

The racism spewing forth from Arizona’s bosses and their politicians is not new. In order to drive down all workers’ wages and keep them fighting each other rather than uniting, capitalism has always singled out a section of the working class for greater oppression. With increasing fascism in Arizona and worldwide (see CHALLENGE, 8/4), it is helpful to review past history, during which every governor and president has been committed to enforcing capitalism and using racism to divide the working class. This emphasizes the working class’s one task: to unite and destroy capitalism and the racism on which it depends.

Copper Bosses Feared Miners
Militancy and Unity

In 1903, many strikes and other militant actions occurred in Arizona’s mines. Perhaps the most important was the Morenci strike, organized by three workers, two Mexican and one Italian. Armed workers seized company offices and shut the mine for three days. The three organizers were jailed, but the workers’ unity — as well as further strikes in Arizona and Mexico against U.S. copper companies) — scared the bosses. The latter began a campaign of intimidation and harassment.

One tactic was accusing Mexican union organizers of being “horse thieves,” a very serious crime then. On August 20, 1914, Mexican unionists so charged fought with a posse of anti-unionist and anti-Mexican forces. The LA Times reported that four white men and twelve Mexicans were killed. Infuriated at the death of posse members, white residents from the town of Ray invaded the Mexican section, driving men, women and children from their homes. Reports said that the racists “were searching the hills near Ray…bent upon killing every Mexican they meet.”
Agitation to exclude Mexicans continued throughout that decade.

Racism Follows the Flag

In 1914, the rulers passed the Arizona Anti-Alien Labor Law requiring 80% of a firm’s employees to be native-born. Arizona’s newspapers equated the law to patriotism, editorializing, “The Flag and Eighty Per Cent.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the law unconstitutional, holding it would exclude immigrants from Arizona, saying immigrants had the right to work and that the law discriminated against lawful residents.

Then, as now, a section of the ruling class understood that U.S. capitalists need immigrant labor, both documented and undocumented, to exploit for super-profits. Currently, this Obama-led section wants to marginalize immigrants, to enforce lower wages and terrible living conditions, not deport them.
During that era, union organizing was increasing rapidly, but in the Arizona mines, the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) did little to support it. (Twenty years later this union became communist-led and organized fierce strikes against the copper barons.)

Racism towards miners from Mexico and fear of their militancy kept the UMMSW at bay, but the International Workers of the World (IWW) emerged, organizing 1,000 members into its Local 800.
On June 26, 1917, the local struck for improved working conditions, higher wages and an end to discrimination against union members. The copper bosses responded violently to this threat to their profits.

On July 5, about 2,000 vigilantes rounded up more than 1,000 workers and family members, loaded them into railroad cars (provided by the railroad bosses), and dumped them in the middle of New Mexico’s desert, 200 miles away. Very few ever returned to their Bisbee homes.

The copper bosses not only went after union members, but also immigrants from Mexico, who they feared were becoming more militant as unionization spread. In a campaign to rid the mines of Mexican workers, in April 1921, they shipped up to 1,800 Mexican men, women and children by train from Morenci Southern station to the U.S.-Mexico border. Simultaneously, tens of thousands were deported from the agricultural fields, and literally dumped across the border.

Bosses Still Using Racism
to Divide Workers

There are striking similarities between Arizona’s past and present. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently claimed “discovery” of “bodies in the desert” either “buried or beheaded,” linking the crime to “illegal” immigration. Even some of Arizona’s compliant press disputed her claim. Brewer also claimed that “illegal aliens” were “muling” — transporting drugs into the U.S.

Meanwhile, Jason Ready, a well-known neo-Nazi, has begun organizing armed vigilantes to patrol the border. Ready is a close associate of Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the sponsor of Arizona’s current racist law, and of Maricopa fascist Sheriff Joe Arpaio. All have close ties with the Federation of American Immigration Reform.

Brewer, Arizona’s vile racist governor, and Barack Obama, whose Justice Department sued to nullify certain aspects of Arizona’s law, are more alike than different. They have different tactics and serve different bosses, but both are wholeheartedly committed to maintaining and defending the racist capitalist system.
Brewer’s repulsiveness is evident. But Obama continues to enjoy popular support while further militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. He has ordered use of the same Predator drones that murder innocent Afghans and Pakistanis to monitor the border and recently dispatched 1,000 National Guard troops to stations in California, Arizona and Texas.

As CHALLENGE indicated (8/4), the Obama administration has increased deportations to a level exceeding the Bush years. Obama is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, smiling while slaughtering workers at the border and worldwide.

The working class has nothing to gain from supporting either side in this battle. The fascists openly target our Latino brothers and sisters while the liberal politicians hide their racism behind the DREAM Act and Comprehensive Immigration Reform, both tactics to coerce young immigrants into the U.S. military (see CHALLENGE Supplement, 6/23) Neither group wants workers to understand that our class has no nations. We have a common international enemy, the bosses, and only by uniting across their borders can we defeat them. J

Sources:
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/124-124/2505-race-war-in-arizona
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisbee_Deportation
Francisco Arturo Rosales: “Chicano!: The History of the Mexican-American Civil Rights Movement,” (pages 113-116).