October 9, 1970
SEATTLE - The strike of migrant hop workers in the Yakima
Valley continues and is scoring victories. The strike began
Sept. 4, when 30 migrant families spontaneously walked off
work on one of the Yakima Chief ranches at the height of the
hop season. The strike spread quickly, until 250 field
workers and their families joined the strike.
The role of the Chicana women has been very significant in this strike. Traditionally, the Chicana has not taken part in political activity, but this is changing. Señora Treviño, for instance, who has played an important role in the strike, described to us the special problems of women in the valley, which involved more than equal pay: "A woman, if she has children, can't take them to the day-care centers because the people in the city take all the places. We don't have babysitters. We don't have bathrooms. Our stoves burn wood, but we can't find any wood or else the wood is green. The children get soot in their eyes and noses. We don't have any refrigerators, so the milk spoils and you can't keep meat."
María Elena Villanueva is another Chicana activist. No one will rent to her because of her political activity, so she lives in a three-room cabin with no heat. She is typical of the new Chicana in her outlook, moving cautiously but steadily toward a more active role in La Causa.
The activity of these women, and the stamina and insight of such woman as Graciella Cisneros, who ran the office in Granger almost single-handedly, has begun to change the traditional concept of Chicanas.
October 6, 1945
Thirty thousand Australian dock workers have struck in
support of Indonesian Nationalists. The stoppage was called
in sympathy with Indonesian crews who refused to sail ships
for the Netherlands East Indies loaded with military
supplies for use against the independence movement.
The dock workers' strike quickly spread from Sidney to Brisbane and Melbourne. The New South Wales trades labor council officially supported the strike, placing "a total ban on Dutch ships loading for the East Indies."
Sidney dock workers demonstrated on September 28 in support of the Indonesia Nationalist "struggle for independence." Thirty banners were carried among a crowd of 3,000 bearing such inscriptions as `Hands Off Our Allies, the Indonesians,' and `Down With Dutch Imperialism.'
Representatives of the longshoremen also protested the use of Japanese troops by British authorities against the Nationalist Government in Java. Police broke up the demonstration.