March 23, 1903: The Oxnard Strike

March 23, 1903: The Oxnard Strike reaches a climax. It is a landmark not just for the labor movement, but for civil rights, especially in the State of California.

Brothers Henry, James, Benjamin and Robert Oxnard ran a sugar refinery in Brooklyn. In 1887, they sold it, and moved west to booming California. In 1897, they founded the American Beet Sugar Company. Many of their workers were Chinese, but Exclusion Acts reduced their availability, and so they had to hire Japanese and Mexican workers. Eventually, the brothers became members of the Western Agricultural Contracting Company (WACC).

On February 11, 1903, the Japanese-Mexican Labor Association (JMLA) was founded by 500 Japanese and 200 Mexican laborers. They accused the WACC of artificially suppressing wages. They opposed the subcontracting system, arguing that it forced workers to pay double commissions. And they called for the freedom to buy goods, rather than be subjected to the inflated prices of the company store.

Limiting employees to shopping only at stores that the company owned meant that, in some cases (not this one), they didn't get paid in money so much as in credit; and that, if they didn't produce enough, they were actually in debt to the store.

In 1947, country singer Merle Travis wrote "Sixteen Tons," imagining a coal miner who had to shovel eighteen tons a day to "break even" at the company store. With Tennessee Ernie Ford singing it in a basso profundo voice that made it a Number 1 hit in 1955, the chorus went:

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.

St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go:
I owe my soul to the company store.

The WACC was never going to meet the demands of this union of nonwhite people, and so, in early March, the strike was on.

On March 23, the strike reached its turning point. During a confrontation between the JMLA and IALU strikebreakers in Oxnard's Chinatown, shots were fired, wounding 2 Japanese and 2 Mexican members of the JMLA. Luis Vasquez, a Mexican member of the JMLA, was killed by the gunfire.

Initial reports by local newspapers, of course, owned by rich men, including WACC members, blamed the JMLA for the violence. A statement released by the JMLA in the following days asserted that union members were not armed at the confrontation, pointing out that no union members had been arrested. The sole arrest from the confrontation was that of Deputy Constable Charles Arnold, for the murder of Luis Vasquez. An all-white male jury found Charles Arnold innocent in the murder of Luis Vasquez, and he was cleared of all charges.

After the deadly skirmish in Chinatown, JMLA representatives met with representatives of local farmers and the WACC to engage in negotiations. During the 1st 2 days of negotiations, the JMLA stated clearly that they would refuse to end the strike until the WACC ended their monopoly over Oxnard Plain sugar beet operations, and allow workers to contract directly with local farmers. The strike reached an official end on March 30, after the WACC agreed to cancel all standing contracts with local sugar beet farmers, and grant farmworkers the right to contract directly with local growers.

The City of Oxnard was incorporated on June 30, 1903. Today, it is a mostly-Hispanic city of about 200,000 people.

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March 23, 1903 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. Basketball barely existed. And hockey was still all-amateur. So there were no scores on this historic day.