Review of "The Salt of the Earth"

 
                                                              "What can you do?"
                                                              "I can weld."
                                                              "I'm sorry, but all we have for Mexicans is labor."

                                                                     (Dialogue between Juan Chacon and personnel man at  
                                                                      Kennecott Copper Mining Co., reproduced in The Revenge of
                                                                      the Saguaro, p. 121)

I’m ashamed to say that I hadn’t seen the film The Salt of the Earth until recently. It is a classic film that details an episode of labor strife in the Southwest in the early 50s, that of the strike by the overwhelmingly Mexican-American members of Local 890 against Empire Zinc. It furthermore expands its scope to treat other struggles for emancipation, including racial and gender equality as well as the labor struggle. It was a film that was produced under difficult circumstances, as described by the writer Tom Miller in a chapter devoted to classic Southwestern films incorporated in his book Revenge of the Saguaro, and it is filled with charismatic performances, by professionals and amateurs alike, and by a poetic reflection of what emancipation means.  

 

After my confession about this film, I would have to add that I was no stranger to labor fights. My father was a union man, and he worked for over three decades for a company that manufactured industrial clay pipes to be used for construction projects. It was a labor-intensive occupation, and almost all the laborers were Mexican immigrants (like my father) or Mexican-Americans, with the supervisory and managerial staff consisting overwhelmingly of people of Anglo descent. As a child I always wondered about this disparity, and why it was that the company seemed not to want to recruit workers of other ethnic groups. Perhaps they thought that it made for a much more subservient labor force, one that as I grew older I came to realize was easier to exploit.

When I was an adolescent, I remember that my father’s union found it necessary to engage in a strike action. It was a calamitous affair, and as a family we were hard put to make ends meet. There was a strike fund, of course, but it wasn’t nearly enough, and we had to rely on donations from the food pantry run by our local church. I was taken to the strike line by my father from time to time, and it was a shock to me to see these middle-aged Mexican men, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke little English and had received little formal education, who were hard pressed to define the term “proletariat” but who knew, deep down inside, that they were the “trabajadores”, the workers who made the company run. It was winter, and they stood awkwardly in a line, holding firm with their picket signs, ones that I would venture to say they couldn’t understand because they were written in English.

The surrounding landscape then as now, as one traverses south on the 15 freeway and leaves the Inland Empire to enter San Diego county, is ringed with bare and rocky hills, features that have a certain majesty to them.  There is little vegetation, and these bare and stark hills that were slowly being gouged out by quarries and other industrial enterprises served as a bleak background to a strike that was similarly facing long odds. Unfortunately the pressure became too much, more so than could be endured even by the clay pipes that these workers molded and fired in immense furnaces, to be subsequently attached and shipped to construction sites, and the workers gave up. Their resolve broke, and they were forced to settle, because quite simply they could not budge the management which proved harder than the surrounding rocky hills. I think my father actually compared the workers to the landscape, that was forced to slough off layers, that was being graded for future development projects and that was little able to resist the earth movers brought to bear by company owners and the apparatus of industrial capitalism. I suspect, also, that the strike failed because they were unable to rally public support to their side. There were numerous fissures in play, here, and one of these involved the fact that this ethnic workforce of Mexican immigrant laborers was little able to garner the attention, much less the sympathy, of the surrounding Anglo-American community, one which felt little affinity for their situation, and was more likely to see them return to being an invisible community.

As indicated before, we struggled during the course of this strike, and it became quickly evident to me when my father lost his resolve. In the beginning it must all have been novel to him, my father, who had moved up from being an agricultural laborer who traveled up and down the length of California in the decade of the 60s, and who bragged about having met César Chávez. I was taken to the picket lines by my father to catch a glimpse of the reality of working class struggle, and perhaps, so that I would learn to appreciate his struggles and overcome our mutual estrangement. He communicated to me his stark vision of Capitalism, and spoke to me of supervisors who treated them contemptuously, of haughty executives who arrived in luxury cars and refused to speak to workers, and of owners who from time to time condescended to visit the plant, descending as if from the stars. They, the workers, labored in unsafe conditions, with gauze masks that little protected them from the fumes and the clay residue that filled the air when they cut into these massive pipes, and in my father’s case, labored in furnace-like temperatures as they clay was tempered, barely earning above minimum wage. They lost this strike, and had to return in all humility to accept a token grant of consideration of their issues, and he never forgot his bitterness, especially at the taunts of management who relayed to him that had the workers maintained union solidarity for just a few more weeks, they would have won.

I was prompted to remember this episode while viewing The Salt of the Earth, an independent film from 1954. It was produced, filmed and directed by a group of blacklisted Hollywood professionals, those who, during the climate of the times, had come under suspicion of harboring Communist sympathies. It detailed the struggle of Mill and Mine Workers Union Local 890, which had engaged in a bitter strike against Empire Zinc. This was a long struggle that lasted approximately 15 months, notable for the intransigence of company management, for the collusion of the local New Mexico authorities who tried to suppress this mine action, and for the ideological awakening of an entire community, the Mexican and Mexican-American working classes of the region.

 

 

The film used a combination of professionals as well as amateurs to write, produce and act in the film.  This arrangement arose not only from practical considerations for a film that was being prepared on location, but also because few professionals could be attracted to participate in the project, it being subject to sanction by the official Hollywood Labor Unions who were still reeling from the scrutiny of the McCarthy era.  It was also a quite conscious decision that revealed the ideological underpinnings of the producers. It was to be a work that was to serve as a social document, one that would chronicle a social struggle in a sensitive as well as authentic way, although it was to be revealed later that the screenplay that was written by Paul Jarrico was altered to delete scenes that members of the working community, almost all Mexican and Mexican-American as state before, felt would have reflected poorly on their (our) culture. This doesn’t change the fact that this was a film that brought attention to issues that had escaped consideration, especially that of gender inequality.

The film initially seems like an exercise in socialist realism. By this I am referring to the approved genre of filmmaking that was common in the Eastern bloc, as well as in the work of western authors and directors who wished to focus on the plight of the working classes (think of the work of the Italian Vittorio De Sica). It was filmed in black and white, and the barren landscape of New Mexican llanos figured prominently as a reflection of an almost metaphysical condition of isolation for this community. The working classes have always faced long odds, and in this case, we have a one-company mining town with all that this implies about their dominance over the local institutional framework. The judicial apparatus, the law enforcement apparatus, the economic infrastructure, and even the cultural values all were subservient to the interests of the company, one that looms like an “octopus”, if we can refer to the title of the famous Frank Norris novel of the 19^th century that detailed the machinations of the railroad barons.

We are introduced to a Mexican-American couple, Ramón and Esperanza Quintero, and we immediately become aware of the bleakness of their situation. Because this situation is presented in such stark fashion, and one suspects, is magnified and exaggerated to accentuate this dramatic aspect, we can well view this approach as one that is thesis-driven. It is meant to illustrate an argument in clear and stark terms, wishing to advance the argument that the strike action was justified because the conditions were quite manifestly exploitative and unjust. We see this exaggerated quality (which is not to say that they were false, but only that they are accentuated by the film) in the intensity of the conflicts presented, in the confrontations both with the mine executives as well as among the mine workers themselves. And this dramatic quality is evident in the quiet but also at times desperate voiceover narration of the character of Esperanza Quintero, who was played by the Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas.

 

This family lives in dire poverty, and the workers are forced to labor in unsafe conditions. They feel discriminated against, for it is claimed over and over that the Anglo mine workers not only receive better pay, but also, have running water in their company housing and better conditions in general. It is a classic strategy used by the executive and managerial classes to foment workers disunity, pitting one group of workers against another, and in this case, resisting the demands of the Anglo workers by asserting that they are better off than the “Mexicans”. We see in this film a process whereby the prototypical worker comes to an class awakening and slowly sees the “larger picture” (a phrase that is repeatedly bandied about in the film by the characters as it is amplified to encompass different struggles). The protagonist was played by an actual miner who participated in the real-life strike, Juan Chacón, who was not the first choice of the director. He proved a revelation in the film, managing as he did to convey the honesty and emotional struggle of a man who had reached the limits of what he could endure, and yet chose to struggle with quiet and uncompromising dignity. He was also pushed, we might add, by the character of his wife, who brings to the front her own issues.

We are fighting a multi-pronged fight, and because of the fact that the screenplay chose to acknowledge these enduring concerns we have a film that has aged gracefully, and continues to engross current audiences. It illustrates the drama of a company town and the fight waged by ethnic working-class miners who wish to assert their right to equal treatment, “No more, No less”, according to the placards they carry. But it also illustrates the struggle wage on the domestic front, bringing to attention the oppression of women within these same households.

We have the situation presented by Esperanza Quintero, who in her demeanor in the beginning of the film seems to be shell-shocked by a barren life that has been stripped of all hope, but who slowly comes awake as she comes to believe in her own dignity. This is portrayed quite convincingly by the actress, whose face slowly comes to life as the struggle progresses, and whose first awakening occurs when she is serenaded by her husband who has to be reminded by his son that it is her saint’s day. Esperanza slowly becomes politicized and finds the language to express the grievances and concerns that characterize her situation. She becomes an “organic intellectual” for her own class of oppressed women, to use Gramscian terminology, and she is able to elaborate her own arguments with an eloquence that becomes one of the hallmarks of this film.

As relayed by the real-life striker Juan Chacón in subsequent interviews concerning the real-life strike, this company housing was very sparse. It consisted of only two rooms, a kitchen and a bedroom, and these families had little in the way of consumer luxuries. In the film the character of Esperanza feels anguish over the threat of impoundment of the radio that was bought on credit, and we come to realize that the radio represents more than just an idle luxury. It symbolizes more, an aspirational goal, the idea that people of their class can aspire to dreams and to recreation, to living a more complete existence, and not settling for one that is circumscribed by the struggle to acquire the bare necessities. The radio is important to her, Esperanza asserts, and in one memorable scene, it serves as the excuse to invade the space that has been carved out by the men who have gathered to play poker. The women barge out of the bedroom, turn on the radio, and force the men to dance, with festive scenes as always representing a space of community engagement.

In the midst of their struggles, we are also witness to moments of drama. The workers hold firm in their picket line, even as they are intimidated and insulted by the town authorities, who do their best to break this line. There are racial slurs, beatings, imprisonment and the grating paternalism of company executives, especially the president and chief executive officer who is almost a caricature of the evil Capitalist owner. Thus the contrasts are set, and we see once again that the film is, perhaps, too ideological and programmatic at times, and perhaps did settle into using common stereotypes (the men seem much too noble at times also). But there is honesty to these portrayals, as well, and while the workers may frequently express themselves with a certain lapidary quality, with diction that is far too eloquent and too poetic to seem spontaneous and authentic, we see that the film nonetheless condenses many of the feelings so that they may be expressed in a memorable way. The script, one must remember, did have input from the workers, an action that was deemed necessary by the producers to accord with the ideological purity of this film. It is certainly not the way that I remember my father and the other striking men of a later age and struggle expressing themselves, with all the bitterness, ethnic slurs, and rough humor of the working classes. (Quite honestly, I don’t think that many of them ever saw the “big” picture as it related to gender equality.)

The dialogue is engaging and poetic, nonetheless, and lingers in our minds. In moments of emotional excitement, the characters speak in Spanish, and there are no subtitles, although the audience can well determine the gist of what is being said because it is usually subsequently elaborated in English. And, we have the narration of the female character of Esperanza who puts things into perspective as she narrates how she herself has changed as a consequence of this struggle. After the men are served with a court order to desist picketing (workers are prohibited to continue forming a picket line), the women’s auxiliary decides to step in, and they take the place of their husbands, forming a picket line that draws the incorporation of other women from the town many of whom had no direct involvement with the company. It is an issue that has expanded, and has become an assertion of a right to gender equality, for the struggle is being undertaken on many fronts.

Esperanza has a hard time convincing her husband, nonetheless. As with many men who come from a working-class background, Ramón has difficulty accepting this struggle that his wife advocates. Their marriage becomes troubled because he refuses to see her as a partner, and in one harrowing scene, we have him attempting to reassert his authority over her in a way which echoes the way in which the mine owners and executives attempt to repress workers’ demands. She exclaims, “Whose neck shall I step on to make me feel superior? I don’t want anyone lower than I am. I am low enough already”, a bitter recrimination and appeal to his better senses, as well as a searing statement of her own condition. It is this dialogue that condenses so many of these concerns in poetic fashion and it proves irresistible to the viewer, forming part of the staying power of this film among contemporary audiences.

The strike was eventually won, after numerous other dramatic episodes. It leads to a lasting change in the protagonists, in Ramón and Esperanza, whose consciousness has been expanded as a result of this struggle. It is an optimistic film, and it harks back to a period when the labor movement was stronger even if it was as ever embattled. There was a certain paternalism even within the unions, and it took some time for them to open up to address the concerns of other groups, for it was the case that many unions of the period were not sympathetic and were, furthermore, hostile to the incorporation of, for example, African Americans. As it was being filmed it was subject to derogatory characterization and hostile press, and was derided as a “racial issue propaganda movie” by The Hollywood Reporter, while labor columnist Victor Reisel asserted that the film constituted a dangerous precedent because it “brought two carloads of Negroes into the mining town” for a scene in which the film was, one gathered, to condemn an incident of mob violence against African-Americans (p. 128). It was a difficult time, and of course, it was filmed in a period during which the Civil Rights movement was gestating, to bloom subsequently in the 60s and 70s.

It is, indeed, an ideological film, and it does have a thesis, which strives to equate the emancipation struggles being waged on several fronts. It is possible to appreciate the movie for what it is, which is a social document of an era (one which rings close to home for me, because the issues were much the same as nowadays, because I witnessed this oppressive family dynamics in my own case, and because we continue to deal with an economic structure that is as divisive as it ever was, and has furthermore become more and more alienating as power has accrued to vast corporations), but it also offers an inspirational view that seeks to counter the deep-seated cynicism that has infected so many of us. It reminds me, of course, of other films, such as Norma Rae and Bread and Roses, among others, but in this case, the honesty of the workers and the earnestness of their characters combine to invest them with a timeless quality.

The issues are much the same, yes, and we can only hope that the epic of these latter day struggles, whether it be the gender, ethnic and labor movements, will soon have a successful conclusion. It may perhaps always be the case that these increased rights are won on a piecemeal basis, but it is necessary nonetheless to draw attention to them, and to have the courage to promote artistic works that highlight these issues, rather than the eternal tsunami of apolitical and anti-ideological films (read, all the action adventure big budget sequels and facile comic adolescent films a la Judd Apatow that seem to have little relation to current issues) that have been all the rage in recent decades.

 

Copyrighted OGRomero (C) 2013

Copyrighted by Oscar G. Romero 2013