ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the events that transpired during the 1970s in Southern California, when a sympathetic priest chose to celebrate a Roman Catholic mass with a corn tortilla to bring attention to the plight of striking farm workers seeking social justice. During the eighteenth century, Spanish colonists, with justifications from the Roman Catholic Church, established a conversion and mission labor system as a prelude to so called self reliance and eventual freedom for indigenous people. Action Department of the National Catholic Welfare Conference organized a conference to address the socioeconomic problems of the Mexican workers. The relationship between the role of religion and farm labor history represents a critical area in need of serious scholarly consideration. In addition to the historic actions by the tortilla priest discussed here, Father Victor Salandini would become both the spiritual leader and research director for the United Farmworkers.
