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Castro, Anita (audio interview #2 of 6)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - During this second interview with Anita Castro, recorded in her home, it was evident that she was not feeling well. She might have suffered some minor strokes since the previous interview, and had considerable more difficulty with her memory than on the previous occasion. Although she had relatively little difficulty recounting an event or story, her chronology of events was often confused. TOPICS - move to Los Angeles; work as a finisher in a garment shop; her initial exposure to the union; general strike 1933, including violence on picket line; her union activities and arrest;her union activities and organizing; role as a business agent; her third marriage ; gender discrimination in the union; wage discrepancies; the discussion by activists in the women's liberation movement of forming a Women's Local; 1/16/1976
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- 2020-03-26
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- File: lhgwacastro3.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-1:31)... Tape introduction. (1:31-4:44)... After leaving her husband in California, she went back to Montana for a brief period of time. When she returned to California, she returned to her husband and they moved to Los Angeles, where she worked for a shop finishing dresses. There were approximately seventy-four people working in the shop at the time, most of whom were active in the union. However, the women did not tell Castro about their involvement with the union because they feared she would tell the floorlady. After the general strike in New York, Castro began talking to the women in the shop about unions, at which time they told her about their union activities. (4:44-9:03)... When she first attended a union meeting, she was told what types of benefits she could receive as a union member. She was very outspoken and informed the union organizer of the labor conditions at the shop where she was working. Unfortunately, there was a spy in the group and when Castro returned to work the next day, her employer offered to increase her pay if she disassociated herself with the union. When she refused, she was fired. The union organizer was able to get her rehired and when she was fired a second time, seventy women walked out of the shop with her and went on strike. (9:03-14:43)... During the strike, the workers physically attempted to prevent scabs from working in the shop, and they experienced problems with the police. Before the general strike was called, she received a telegram from the union office, requesting her to be at the union hall at 5:00 a.m. She was very scared and thought that the union was going to ask her to throw bombs. Instead, she was asked to distribute leaflets. When the general strike was called, strikers went out in groups to picket. Although the general strike ended early, the women in the shop where she worked did not settle until five months later. She discusses the physical confrontations that occurred between the strikers and the scabs. (14:43-16:31)... The police were very brutal during the general strike. They would often beat the strikers with clubs or throw tear gas at them. At this time, there were several strikers on the street along Broadway in Los Angeles, which was where the shops were predominately located. Strategically, the strikers picketed for two hours at a time. During breaks, the picketers returned to the labor union hall and voted on the next shift of picketers. (16:31-18:24)... There were also men involved in the general strike who worked in other shop positions, such as cutters or shipping clerks. After their two-hour shifts, picketers returned to the union hall, where they relaxed, played cards, and ate meals. One of her union activities included soliciting food from the local merchants so that the kitchen in the union hall was always stocked. In the evenings, she recruited people to the picket lines. (18:24-21:57)... The women in each shop held general meetings every day and she was on the committee for her shop. During the strike, there was a lot of violence between the strike breakers and the picketers. In addition, the police often physically beat the picketers with clubs. In total, by the time of her retiremend, she was arrested 37 times because of her union activities. Her first arrest came as a result of distributing union leaflets. At the time, women were placed in one cell and she was required to wear jail attire. Other women in the cell with her included prostitutes and thieves, and she recalls being very scared. She was allowed one telephone call, which she used to call the union. (21:57-26:15)... Castro recalls a prostitute in the jail cell who indicated she was arrested for soliciting. She did not know what this meant at the time and recalls telling this prostitute that she was arrested for distributing. She also tried to convince the prostitute to come to work for the factories after the strike was over because it was a better way of life. At her first arrest, she was charged for distributing leaflets or obstructing traffic. She stayed in jail all day until union officials bailed the picketers out in the evening. She recalls wanting to leave the union at that time, but when she returned to the union hall, she and the other picketers were placed on the stage and heralded as heroes for their efforts. The next day she continued distributing leaflets for the union and was arrested almost every day for her union activities. (26:15-28:48)... In general, picketers were arrested if the police saw them push or physically interfere with the strike breakers. Most of the time, the picketers called the strike breakers scabs and stood in their way of getting into the shops. She recalls an incident when the floor woman of her shop was beaten, for which Castro was blamed. However, Castro was later exonerated from the accusation after the floor woman admitted that it was not Castro. When her shop settled at the end of five months, the employer agreed to sign the contract on the condition that Castro did not return to the shop because he viewed her as an instigator. (28:48-32:48)... Five months after the general strike ended, her shop settled on a contract. However, she did not return to the shop and when she tried to seek employment elsewhere she learned that she was blacklisted. She was usually fired the second day working at a shop for some reason. When she was ultimately hired at at a non-union shop, she organized 56-60 workers in the finishing department and then the entire shop became unionized. When she organized this shop, she noted that the most difficult people to talk to were White Americans. The Jewish and Spanish (sic) women were pro-union. She did most of her organizing during the shop's half-hour lunch break. (32:48-36:08)... As an organizer, she tried to organize waitresses on her own because she believed that every industry should benefit from the union. At this time, she did not hold any political beliefs outside of her union ideals. During the general strike, a dual union was being formed for the needle industry in competition with the dressmakers union. She recalls that Virginia Flores attempted to get women to join this union, but Castro went with Bill Busic and the ILGWU. (36:08-40:09)... During the general strike, union members were getting $2 a week, a bag of groceries, and lunch at the union hall. People received benefits according to the size of their families. When the local was formed, she was a member of the board. She did go to local meetings, but did not know what they were talking about because she understood very little English. (40:09-44:37)... When she worked at shops, she organized the workers there. At the time, she was paid the minimum wage, which was $13-14 a week. This was a lot of money compared to the $5 a week she received prior to the general strike. Her union activities caused problems in her marriage because her husband was very possessive and jealous. He accused her of being with other men when she was working for the union and often beat her. end of tape File: lhgwacastro4.mp3 (0:00-4:21)... When her husband publicly beat her at a union fiesta, she refused to see him again. She finally obtained a divorce in 1934. Although she organized several shops, at this time, she was not paid as a union organizer. The Spanish-speaking organizer at the time had a radio hour and allowed union members to speak on the air if they sold coffee to pay for the air time. He also set up a bank account for the Spanish-speaking community so that they could build a social club. However, this man fell out of favor with Castro when he decided to use the money to start a newspaper. (4:21-6:14)... The Spanish-speaking organizer was fired by the union when they found out he was using union members to raise money for radio time for which the union had already paid. After he left, Castro was offered a job as the Spanish-speaking organizer making $20 a week. (6:14-8:24)... As an organizer, her responsibilities included translating leaflets from English to Spanish, assigning activities to members, and organizing people to join the union. In this capacity she worked long hours and visited people in their homes at various hours. When she organized enough people, an election was held at the shop. (8:24-12:15)... It was very difficult for her to organize Anglo workers because her English was bad; and because of the language barrier, she couldn't organize Chinese workers. Her best results were with "Negroes," who mainly worked as pressers, and with the Mexican workers. Most of the shops had predominantly Latina/o workers. At the time, Mexicans were not afraid of being deported if they joined the union. When shops were not unionized there were poor working conditions and labor abuses, such as double shifts and employers failing to record the accurate number of hours employees worked. (12:15-15:48)... As an organizer, she reported all of her activities to the business agent of the union. If an employer found out there was going to be an election in the shop, a meeting was held with the workers, at which he discouraged them by making false accusations about the union. Several elections as a result of this tactic. She went to work at the 20th Century shop to try to organize it from within. Although the employer accused her of being a union organizer, she remained on the job and the majority of the shop signed up and went on strike, even though only a few of the workers actually joined the union. Prior to her marriage to her third husband in 1938, she stopped her union activities for a short time at her fiancee's request. (15:48-17:53)... Each time she was arrested, she stayed in jail for a couple of hours. She was convicted of the charge on which she was arrested on only two occasions and the union paid the fine. (17:53-20:39)... A short time after she met her third husband she stopped working as an organizer for the union. Her husband worked in the sheet metal industry, which was not organized at that time. He did not believe in the union until several years after they married. Mainly, he feared that she would get hurt as a result of her union activities and he did not want his family to find out about her involvement with the union. During the 20th Century shop strike, she was beat up by a scab and refused to fight back because her husband told her not to fight. However, when she returned home with a black eye, he told her that she should not let anyone beat her without a fight. The next day, she went back to the picket lines and beat up this woman. (20:39-22:36)... When she was organizing Chick Lingerie, the employer came to the picket line and began elbowing the picketers. Castro kicked him in the groin and he fell to the ground. She was very scared because she thought she killed him. During this strike, she was beaten with a club by the police while she was picketing. She was also arrested during this strike after she kicked one of the scabs. The woman Castro kicked did not press charges because she was Mexican and did not want to punish her ethnicity. (22:36-25:15)... The Mexicans wanted to form a separate local similar to the local formed by the Italians in New York. Castro was the chair of this group. The union refused to form a separate Mexican local because they did not want to create a division in the union. Many Mexicans resented this, but it did not really bother Castro because the majority of the union membership was Mexican. (25:15-26:36)... At her husband's request, she left the union because her activities there were interfering with her married life. She went to work for a blouse factory and was often required to take her work home. Ironically, as a union member she fought against these conditions and decided to return to the union. (26:36-28:33)... When she returned to the union, she worked as a switchboard operator, among other things. Most of her friends were union members and all of her social activities centered around union gatherings. She did not socialize with her husband as much because he was a heavy drinker and she did not want to expose her friends to his behavior. Although her husband was not a jealous man, he resented the time she spent at the union. (28:33-31:35)... During 1933-40, she was busy with union activities all of the time. She did not characterize this period as relaxed or unproductive as reported by Rose Pesotta. Until 1938-39, she continued to be the Spanish-speaking organizer for the union. A Jewish man was hired as an additional Spanish-speaking organizer, but he did not last for very long and although there were several other organizers working for the union, Castro was the only Spanish-speaking organizer and business agent at the union. The union was divided into three different locals, Local 96 (dressmakers), Local 266 (sportswear), and Local 65 (cloak makers). Some time in the 1940s, she switched from Local 96 to Local 266. (31:35-33:55)... Initially, Castro did not like Rose Pesotta (an organizer for the international). During her conversations with Pesotta, Castro could not understand why Pesotta smiled and often ignored her. Castro did not find out until years later that Pesotta was deaf. She first met Pesotta during the 1933 strike. She recalls that Pesotta was an excellent organizer and involved with the people during their struggles and strikes. In contrast, many of the male organizers became distant from the workers once they became business agents. (33:55-35:35)... The majority of members in the needle trade union were women, while the organizers and union officers were men. She believes that the women in this industry resented this. Within her local, she resented the fact that men dominated the top union positions and were better paid than women. As a business agent, she was making $20 a week. When she found out that her male counterpart was making $35, she tendered her letter of resignation, indicating that women should receive the same rate of pay as men. As a result, the union agreed to increase her salary to $35 per week and gave her back pay. (35:35-37:15)... Within her local, there were never any discussions on women creating a separate local while she was working as an organizer and business agent. However, these discussions were initiated later during the women's liberation movement. She recalls attending two of these meetings, but became very ill and did not participate in any efforts to form a separate women's local. End of tape.
- SUBJECT BIO - Anita Muretta Andrade Castro became one of the first Spanish speaking women organizers in the ILGWU in Los Angeles. She became active in the union during the drive leading up to the industry-wide general strike of 1934, and was named to the Executive Board (under the name Anita Andrade). She remained active in the union as an organizer and a business agent, working particularly closely with the Spanish-speaking workers, until her retirement in 1972. Although she was actually born in Yugoslavia (the Austro-Hungarian empire), Castro was raised in Argentina and spent most of her life in the US in the Mexican community. She married Mexican men following a teen-age marriage to a Croatian, and was viewed and accepted as a Latina by the workers in the industry. At the time of the interview, Castro had suffered several strokes and her health and memory deteriorated over the course of the interview series. She was interviewed as part of the Feminist History Research Project labor series. INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - During this second interview with Anita Castro, recorded in her home, it was evident that she was not feeling well. She might have suffered some minor strokes since the previous interview, and had considerable more difficulty with her memory than on the previous occasion. Although she had relatively little difficulty recounting an event or story, her chronology of events was often confused. TOPICS - move to Los Angeles; work as a finisher in a garment shop; her initial exposure to the union; general strike 1933, including violence on picket line; her union activities and arrest;her union activities and organizing; role as a business agent; her third marriage ; gender discrimination in the union; wage discrepancies; the discussion by activists in the women's liberation movement of forming a Women's Local;
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