Digging sugar beets, cutting lettuce, and picking fruit: all are grueling tasks. Factory work can be equally hard. Relegated to the worst jobs, people of Mexican descent toiled for long hours under terrible working and living conditions.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, Chicanos and others in the western United States demanded basic workers’ rights: dignity, safety, and livable wages. Activists organized boycotts, protested companies that discriminated against workers, created and joined unions, and went on strike.

Digital copy of a film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa circa 1973, depicting an unidentified man, likely one of the grape workers who went on strike in California to protest unfair labor practices by the E. & J. Gallo wine company. Espinosa likely made this image during the summer of 1973 while he was on the staff of "El Malcriado," the newspaper of the United Farm Workers (UFW).

Negative, Grape worker

History Colorado

Coors symbolizes Colorado. And in the 1960s and ’70s, it represented racism and sexism to some. Like many companies, Coors employed few Chicanos, and they only worked low-level jobs. As a University of Colorado regent, Joseph Coors opposed the Educational Opportunity Program for Chicanos and others. The American GI Forum started the Coors boycott. Support from the Brown Berets and the Black Panthers meant that many people stopped buying Coors—in Colorado and across the nation.

Digital copy of an original film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa, depicting a young Chicano boy holding a sign that reads "Chicanos Boycott Coors." The image was taken during a 1973 march in Denver to protest unfair hiring practices against Chicanos by Coors Brewing Company.

Negative, Young boy during the boycott against Coors Brewing Company

Chicano activists organized Hecho y Dicho to fight for rights of lettuce workers near the town of Center in 1970. The union demanded higher wages ($2 per hour instead of $1.40), an end to abusive working conditions, and employer recognition of the organization.

College students around Colorado boycotted lettuce and went on hunger strikes to support striking workers.

Digital copy of a film negative made by photographer Juan Espinosa, depicting a parade on Pearl Street in Boulder, Colo. in the summer of 1972 to protest labor practices used by the lettuce industry with Hispanic migrant workers. The boycott was organized by the United Farmer Workers, and the banner in the parade was carried by children attending a summer school for children of migrant laborers.

Negative, Lettuce boycott march in Boulder

High humidity, damp dirty floors and dangerous equipment caused illness and injury at the Kitayama Rose and Carnation Plant in Brighton. Workers toiled nine- to ten-hour shifts with few breaks and no overtime pay. Employees, mostly women, formed the National Floral Workers Organization in 1968. When the company ignored demands for better working conditions and pay, the workers went on strike for 221 days.


Digital copy of a film negative taken by photographer Juan Espinosa, documenting labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez (1927-1993) speaking at the Constitutional Convention of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in Fresno, California in September 1973. The image was taken while Espinosa was on the staff of the UFW newspaper, "El Malcriado."

Standards for Farm Workers and Labor

College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework