The 1938 San Antonio Pecan Shellers Strike
a lot of people around you burned out by that experience [the strike and
union organizing efforts] or did you see that it did some good?†
Yes it did some good at the time because I think we learned, we learned that through organization we could do something. Maybe we didnít win that much as far as money wise was concerned, O.K. but we learned that being united is power. A single person cannot do anything, alone we cannot do anything. People are power. Yes, I think we learned a whole lot. I think we learned how to even defend ourselves more. I think we forgot a little bit of the fear that we had because before we couldnít say nothing, we couldnít talk, period. Afterwards it was entirely different and this part about Mexican women never being involved, thatís far from the truth, very far from the truth because even from the very beginning, even from the war in Mexico, women were involved in that war. O.K., maybe we have become or maybe we were in a sort of apathy because of our ignorance but we have always been involved in one, some sort of ways, whether itís labor, whether itís defending our families, whichever way--but Mexican women have been involved in many things. Not because our men were afraid but because we were afraid of what our men would do.
-- Excerpts from Interview with Alberta Snid, a Mexican migrant and pecan sheller, 1978
19. According to Alberta Snid, what are the lasting positive effects of the strike?
To Part B
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