Venice celery strike of 1936

{{Short description|1936 U.S. labor action}}

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| image = Illustrated Daily News - Japanese American workers return to harvest celery fields in Venice after going on strike, Los Angeles, 1936.jpg

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The Venice celery strike of 1936 was a labor action in Venice, California (in Los Angeles County) that lasted from April 20, 1936 to May 27, 1936.{{Cite book |chapter=4. Ethnic Solidarity or Interethnic Accommodation: The 1936 Venice Celery Strike |year=2022 |title=Transborder Los Angeles |pages=105–136 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520976931-007/html |access-date=2024-06-16 |publisher=University of California Press |doi=10.1525/9780520976931-007 |isbn=978-0-520-97693-1}}{{Cite web |year=1938 |editor-last=Barry |editor-first=Raymond P. |others=Federal Writers Project, Oakland, California |title=Oriental and Mexican Labor Unions and Strikes in California Agriculture |url=https://oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb88700929;NAAN=13030&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00092&toc.depth=1&toc.id=div00092&brand=calisphere |access-date=2024-06-16 |work=Monographs Prepared for A Documentary History of Migratory Farm Labor in California, 1938 |publisher=Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley (oac.cdlib.org) |page=27}} A 1938 history of Asian-American and Latino/Hispanic labor action prepared by the Federal Writers' Project stated that the strike was called by CUCOM ({{lang|es|Confederación de Unión Campesinos y Obreros Mexicanos}}) in order to negotiate "higher wages and better hours." The strike was reportedly "attended by considerable violence."

The strikers were Mexican American, Filipino American, and Japanese American farmworkers, organized as the Filipino Federated Workers Union, the American Agricultural Industrial Workers, and the Japanese Farm Workers Union of California. They were employed by Japanese American farmers who had no legal right to own their own land, which was held in the name of various banks (especially Bank of America) and leased to the resident alien farmers to get around the exclusion laws that prohibited Japanese American land ownership.{{Cite book |last=Escobar |first=Edward J. |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520920781/html |title=Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity: Mexican Americans and the Los Angeles Police Department, 1900–1945 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-520-92078-1 |series=Latinos in American Society and Culture, Latin American Studies Center, UCLA |location=Berkeley, California |language=en-us |chapter=Chapter 5: The LAPD and Mexican American Workers, 1920–1940 |doi=10.1525/9780520920781 |lccn=98023322 |oclc=44965755}}

The "considerable violence" was mostly the work of the LAPD Red Squad, which "used brutal and violent tactics to punish strikers and their supporters". There was, however, an incident in Torrance on May 25, in which one young strikebreaker reported that he "was one of 25 men who had been brought to section from Chula Vista to replace striking celery workers" and had been "set upon by Mexicans and Filipinos".{{Cite news |date=1936-05-25 |title=Man Lays Beating to Celery Strike |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/news-pilot-man-lays-beating-to-celery-st/149461497/ |access-date=2024-06-17 |work=News-Pilot |pages=7}}

In his 1939 book Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California, journalist Carey McWilliams dubbed it "the backyard strike", because until this strike Angelenos had only heard about strike-related violence in distant parts of the vast state, whereas this strike took place in "vacant lots" in the southwestern section of Los Angeles County.{{Cite book |last=McWilliams |first=Carey |author-link=Carey McWilliams (journalist) |url=https://california.degruyter.com/view/title/555833 |title=Factories in the Field: The Story of Migratory Farm Labor in California |publisher=University of California Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-520-92518-2 |location=Berkeley, California |language=en-us |chapter=XIV. The Rise of Farm Fascism |pages=230–263 |doi=10.1525/9780520925182-016 |lccn=99045099 |oclc=881510062 |orig-date=1939}} Much of that violence occurred in the San Joaquin Valley during a series of agricultural strikes that took place in 1933.

The celery strike concluded with workers winning a modest wage increase and other concessions, in an agreement that was later renewed twice.