Word: californiaisms
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...EVENING early last week Marcos Munoz and four fellow California farmworkers stood in front of DeMoulas's Supermarket in Lawrence, Mass., asking patrons to shop elsewhere. DeMoulas had twice broken a promise to Munoz that he would stop carrying grapes for the duration of the national grape boycott, so the farmworkers decided to picket the store until DeMoulas signed a written agreement...
...farmworkers distributed wordy mimeographed leaflets explaining the connection between grapes on the shelves in Lawrence and exploitation of farm labor in Delano, California. But the shoppers seemed unimpressed. Most of theim ignored the leaflets or grabbed at them perfunctorily to avoid an eye to eye confrontation with the picketers. Those who did stop were generally confused. They weren't going to buy grapes anyway, so why shouldn't they shop there? Wasn't this a secondary boycott, and wasn't that illegal? When the store closed at ten o'clock, the picketers tallied the two, three, or five shoppers they...
SINCE THE first strike, and a wine boycott against the Schenley company, the farmworkers have held and won union elections on seven of the grape ranches in the area, including Schenley and the California giant, DiGiorgio Farms. The remaining holdouts have proven more resistant, and the target of the present boycott, Giumarra Vineyards, has issued statements indicating that it never intends to negotiate with the Farm Workers on any basis. Still, the union has established itself in California as the strongest organization of agricultural workers since the thirties...
...many of the strikers, the union represents the first chance to establish a settled, reasonably stable community. Like a number of California's two million Mexican-Americans, Munoz was born in Mexico, but came to this country when he was thirteen to join the stream of migrant fruit and cotton harvesters. Whether migrating, or working at seasonal labor in the Delano area, he had no job security, no defense against the high risk of injury in the fields. One of the union's first moves was to write a life insurance policy for every member, and each union contract signed...
INEVITABLY Kesey came in conflict with the society he was trying to transform or freak out. He was busted for possession of marijuana and fled to Mexico. There he played at Outlaw for a while. Eventually he came back to the States, freaking out the California cops by appearing at public functions, even being interviewed on T.V., and then evaporating like the Scarlet Pimpernel...