Reinscribing the Voices of La Gente in the Narrative of the Chicano Movement 1

This chapter investigates the overarching effects of the Chicano Movement on la gente (everyday people) by focusing on cannery workers—specifically at the Libby, McNeill & Libby plant—and their struggle for labor rights in Sacramento, California. As will be made clear, some of the ideals of the Chicano Movement had permeated many aspects of Chicano life and work. As a case in point, when ethnic Mexican cannery workers in Sacramento organized the Cannery Workers Committee (CWC) in 1969—at the height of the Chicano Movement—they single-handedly transformed local labor practices and did so by positioning themselves in the larger rubric of civil rights. ² Their organizing tactics and rhetoric, articulated in both print media and meetings, demonstrate how the Chicano Movement moved beyond what some have argued were largely symbolic cultural issues centering on personal and collective identity to bread-and-butter economic issues central to all segments of the Chicano community.