On Thursday, a new exhibit opened on the fourth floor of the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University. “The Stubborn 1,000: The Watsonville Canneries Strike” exhibit highlights one of the longest strikes in U.S. history, where over 1,000 cannery workers in Watsonville, California, went on strike for 18 months in 1985.

“Back in 1985, over a thousand cannery workers in Watsonville went out on strike,” Tanya Hollis, exhibit curator said. “It was one of the longest strikes in U.S. history. 18 months long, 1,000 strong. Nobody crossed their picket line. So it is a remarkable feat that they won this strike.”

In the gallery, there are photos of the Mexican American workers who were striking, canvas photos of flyers saying ‘Se Buscan Esquiroles,’ newspaper articles and a projection of video of clips from the two-year strike. 

Hollis said the event contains four pillars for a successful strike: strength, solidarity, community and victory.

“[The strikers] had conviction,” Hollis said. “They believed in one another. They supported each other.”

A significant factor to the strike’s success was the community, which included college students pitching in to help strikers raise money for necessities. 

“Students from San Francisco State, Cabrillo College, UC Santa Cruz, came to support them,” Hollis said. “There were a number of strike support committees that formed, and they raised money for food, they raised money for rent. So that without those people, it would have been very difficult for them to maintain such a long strike.”

Once the strikers’ demands were met, there was internal debate to decide if they were going to settle or push for more, according to Hollis. 

“People were exhausted,” Hollis said. “That victory is the stubbornness of the 1000, for sure.”

The gallery sparked pride in students through the display, which showed how the workers had to stay resilient throughout the strike.

“When times got really hard, they were able to make a stand and not falter, no matter what,” said Lucian Alvarenga, a first-year student at SFSU. “You see them striking for what? Months at a time? Up to 10 months? They weren’t making money. They weren’t doing their jobs. They were just surviving and they stood tall.”

The gallery also left Alvarenga with an obligation to bear comparison with their culture’s history.

“I almost feel a sense of pressure knowing that this is where I came from and knowing that I have to live up to this,” said Alvarenga. 

Some students had families who were in similar situations to the cannery workers. Business student Michaela Gudino has grandparents who worked in zucchini farms and eventually bought the farm they worked in. 

“My grandparents were farm workers in Michoacán, Mexico,” said Gudino. “So they worked on a zucchini farm for many years. As a sign of resolution, they bought the farmland once they were able to and were able to get their dual citizenship to go back to Mexico.”  

The exhibition captured the attention of Cabrillo Community College students as well, who are locals from Watsonville. 

Isaac Cernas, a nursing major at Cabrillo Community College, said that he learned about “The Stubborn 1,000” in class, but SFSU’s exhibit went into much deeper detail. 

“They did talk a lot about it, but I feel like here, it’s not that they missed out on anything,” Cernas said. “You guys just talked about it in a new perspective that I didn’t want to get.”  

SFSU Latin American studies lecturer Venecia Margarita brought her students to this event because she felt that it would be a powerful message and teaching strategy for her students to see their history. 

“I try and teach the class in so many different ways with guest speakers, with this trip, this tour, so that they can see it live with the beautiful pictures, the beautiful newspaper papers and having this engagement with community organizers,” Margarita said. “It’s very powerful, so they will have this seed deeply planted inside of them so that they can see the power of the people.”

Margarita said the event meant a lot to her as the history is part of her family background. 

“I have family that were farm workers,” Margarita said. “I have family that were here in California and decided to leave because they were mistreated, because they were deported through Operation Wetback.”

In the 1950s, there was an operation called Operation Wetback which was the mass deportation of undocumented workers using military tactics to remove Mexican Immigrants. Throughout the 1850s to the 1890s, Mexican Americans faced discrimination like loss of property, low wages and lynching after the U.S. acquired the California, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and many other Western states.

“This is 40 years ago, and yet, it’s very alive,” said Bill Shields, retired union organizer and labor educator. “I think, in the history of our state, history of our region, the Mexican American community has been so mistreated for so long, and this was one of those moments of real powerful breakthrough that ripples down to today and inspired all of us for whatever our home communities were, especially in the labor movement. It was an inspiring strike.” 

“The Stubborn 1,000: The Watsonville Canneries Strike” exhibition will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Tuesday to Thursday until December.