In 1977, a farmworkers’ march to DC sought to turn the eyes of the nation onto Texas

This is part 2 in a series looking at the history of the Texas Farm Workers Union. Check out part 1 here and stay tuned for part 3 on Wednesday.

Sitting at the dining room table of the Pharr, Texas, home of Norma Ramirez, I’m reminded of visits to my own tía’s. 

There’s the family photos, the prominent artwork of the Virgen de Guadalupe, and somewhere, locked away in a room – undoubtedly because of this visiting stranger – I hear a cat meowing every once in a while, followed by the squawk of a bird likely annoyed with its sudden new roommate. 

But what’s different from those visits I’m familiar with is what greeted me when I first stepped through the door.

“You can take a picture of anything you want,” Norma said then, gesturing around the room.

Arranged on tables and draped over couches all around the living room are artifacts of the United Farm Workers, but mainly of the Texas Farm Workers Union. Buttons, flags, banners and stacks of newspapers and clippings detail the exploits of the TFWU – weathered by age and from the campaigns they were carried or worn in.

After sitting for some time at the table for our interview, Norma beckons me to see more of her museum.

I follow her into a hall in which numerous photos adorn the walls. Some are in black and white, some in sepia-tinged shades of color that show their age. They all depict people holding signs or carrying flags and banners while on a march or walking a picket line.

“Did you put all these up for this, or-?,” I begin to ask.

“No, this is my little hall of fame,” she replies. “They mean a lot to me.”

In several of the photos is an older mustached man wearing dark, square-framed glasses and a straw hat. In all of the photos he holds a large banner with the iconic Virgen de San Juan, a rosary draped over it – his stern countenance and pose mirrored across the photos suggesting a man dutifully dedicated to his task.

The man is Don Claudio Ramirez, Norma’s father, who was something of a standard-bearer for the Texas Farm Workers Union.

Norma shares with me her family’s story as migrant workers, of her father’s initial life in the U.S. as an undocumented worker before becoming a citizen. Always ready to stand up for himself when he felt he was being treated with prejudice, Don Claudio was soon invigorated by the voice he heard on Antonio Orendain’s radio program, “La Voz del Campesino.”

Thus began a lifelong friendship, one that saw Don Claudio join the Texas UFW and later follow Orendain when the TFWU split off.

Among the most prominent of Norma’s collection is a framed, poster-sized image showing her father with his banner marching alongside Orendain and two others, the U.S. Capitol dome seen behind them.

This was the end point of one of the monumental moments in the union’s history – one that began in 1977 with a march from the Rio Grande Valley to the state Capitol in Austin.

‘La Marcha del Campesino’

A little over a year into the existence of the new union following its split from the UFW, the TFWU was reassessing strategy. Tensions with the UFW persisted, but the new union had not let up on organizing demonstrations or preparing for and participating in strikes.

But as a new legislative session loomed in January of 1977, Orendain and the TFWU began mulling what could be accomplished for the farmworker on the floors of the state House and Senate.

A meeting with state Rep. Gonzalo Barrientos proved fruitful, as the Austin politician agreed to sponsor a farm labor bill. Among the provisions in the ultimately 35-page bill was the establishment of an Agricultural Labor Relations Board modeled after the one won by the UFW in California.

The TFWU had lobbied extensively for the bill, garnering 500,000 petition signatures and drawing in support across organizations ranging from the Catholic Church to the League of United Latin American Citizens. What was seen as crucial support from the UFW, however, was still missing.

So to ramp up support, Orendain turned to an age-old tactic: a march. 

On Feb. 26, TFWU marchers departed from the Our Lady of San Juan Shrine for Austin – a journey of some 440 miles.

Aurora Gomez remembers when the marchers passed through Robstown, a small community right outside of Corpus Christi.

“They actually stayed,” Gomez said. “They came to my house, my mom’s house. We fed everybody.”

Then a teen, Gomez was often brought into the fold to help the organizing efforts of her father, Lorenzo Rojas, who later became a justice of the peace. And in Robstown in the 1970s, there was no shortage of organizing. 

The rural town, which had long boasted a migrant worker community, was a hotbed for political activism in that era of the rising Chicano Movement. Organizations like the Raza Unida Party, the locally founded Familias Unidas, the UFW and TFWU all had a presence.

Gomez said her family had long been farmworkers, working the fields from Robstown to as far as Idaho and picking crops including cotton, sugar beets, cucumbers and more. She described working sunup to sundown in unsanitary conditions for as little as $1.25 an hour – work she says eventually led to her and many others struggling with physical disabilities today. 

“We all wanted to say something. We were just waiting for somebody to speak up,” Gomez said.
“And when we found out, of course, what César Chávez was doing and then Mr. Tony Orendain from the Valley… I mean, we jumped at the chance to say what we had to say at that time.”

Disappointment, then resolve, in Austin

Gomez and her father joined the march the rest of the way to Austin.

The marchers met with hundreds of supporters upon entering the capital city. But a meeting with Gov. Dolph Briscoe did not prove as fruitful as the TFWU had hoped.

After hosting a small delegation of the marchers for a lunch at which the bill was discussed, Briscoe told reporters that he had no intention of supporting the bill at that time. 

Dismayed, the marchers resolved to remain, offering testimony during hearings to voice their support. But as June rolled around and the bill appeared essentially dead, an idea that had started as a joke among the marchers started to be talked about as a real possibility.

“They all started kind of joking around, like, ‘if the governor doesn’t listen to us, well, then let’s take it to the president. Let’s just keep the march going,’” said Joseph Orendian, Antonio’s youngest son, who had joined the marchers up to Austin. 

“It was kind of bantered around as a joke. And then I guess a few months after it kind of started to set in – ‘why not?’”

The union resolved to march again, this time to take their petition to the steps of the White House to try to get an audience with President Jimmy Carter. But not everyone was on board with the plan.

Alfredo de Avila, then the union’s organizing director, said he had made arguments for three hours against the march – citing the difficulty and the lack of clear support along the route.

“And our members voted that since Carter had come to the Valley – which he did…,” de Avila said. “He said the White House was going to be open and be receptive and hear from the voices of all.

And they took him for his fucking word.”

‘Hasta la Gloria’

On June 18, 1977, about 45 marchers with the Texas Farm Workers Union set out to the nation’s capital from Austin on a 1,600-mile route that took them through the states of the Deep South – a decision, historian Timothy Bowman says, that had particular reasoning behind it.

“They wanted to go through all of these states that had these similar conservative right-to-work laws, because [Orendain] felt like that would engender a certain kind of response amongst organized labor – civil rights groups – that was important for his goal with the union,” Bowman said.

The TFWU saw right-to-work laws enacted across the South as a hurdle to unionization and made the specific repeal of Section 14B of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which allows the passage of such laws, a cornerstone of the demands they were bringing to the steps of the White House.

As the marchers hit the road with the goal of covering 20 miles a day, Don Claudio took his familiar spot at the front, carrying the TFWU banner.

Running ahead of the march and passing out copies of the union’s paper – El Cuhamil, which shared the name of the union’s former headquarters – was Julio Coreño. 

The Mexico-born Coreño was known for being openly gay in a time and setting when it was still rare. But perhaps what he was most regarded for was the speed at which he moved ahead of the march wearing just his huaraches, or even barefoot.

It was a trait that inspired artist Luis Guerra, who joined the farmworkers on a stretch of the march.

“That guy… When we went through Lake Charles, he was running back and forth and on both sides of the street,” Guerra said. “And so he was walking three or four times what everybody else was because he was running back and forth all over the place.”

Coreño became one of the farmworkers Guerra included in the piece he had set out on the march to draw inspiration for – a silkscreen he titled “Hasta la Gloria.”

The piece depicted several of the marchers Guerra saw as the core: Antonio Orendain, his wife, Raquel, Claudio Ramirez, Coreño, Rita Martinez, and Doña Maria Salas – whom Guerra says was an enchanting presence on the march.

“She was like a curandera,” Guerra said. “She would always have some little potion or some collection of things that she would use depending on what vibe she was picking up along the way.” 

While “Hasta la Gloria” only shows a handful of people, Guerra says there were many others who inspired him during his time on the march.

“When you look at it, you know, there’s somebody coming in from the back and just entering the poster and there’s people sort of stepping out of it in the front,” Guerra said. “That was my way of saying there’s a lot more people.” 

Memories of the march

Scroll through the carousel and click on the player below each photo to listen to memories shared by three participants of the march to Washington, D.C.

To the steps of the White House

As the marchers wound their way through the South, they encountered numerous supporters on their stops. 

Some went ahead of the march and were able to secure lodging or food from friendly individuals, organizations or churches. Other times, the support was spontaneous. 

Guerra said one such instance came when the marchers took a day off to swim at a beach near Lake Charles – one they hadn’t realized was still segregated for Black residents. Some swimmers came up to them, asking what they were doing, to which Guerra shared the story of the march.

“And then he just said, ‘Oh, wow, great,’ and they left,” Guerra recalled. “Well, about 20 minutes later, they showed up with a little barbecue pit, with food cooking on it and ice chests with beer for everybody. And I thought ‘wow,’ that was really, really beautiful… You know, that we were supported by them.”

A stop in Hattiesburg, Miss., drew representatives from social justice organizations in many parts of the South. One representative from Alabama said they had organized a celebration of Juneteenth in his community in Mobile when hearing the news of the Texas farmworkers – the first time, he said, that the Texas-born holiday had been celebrated in his state.

A stop in Atlanta saw a rally that drew several civil rights leaders, including Coretta Scott King and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

And then, at long last, the marchers entered Washington, D.C., on Sept. 6, 1977, welcomed by supporters and news cameras.

Aurora Gomez’s family hadn’t followed the march the entire way, but they did catch up with them as they entered the nation’s capital. She described a festive scene.

”It’s like when people say, ‘Oh, I went to Woodstock’ and ‘I got over there and I met the Beatles.’ Well, this is my Beatles,” Gomez said. “I was there. I lived it.”

Perhaps adding to the Woodstock atmosphere was the presence of Esteban “Steve” Jordan, the “Jimi Hendrix of the Accordion” who had grown up as a migrant worker in South Texas and composed two songs detailing the TFWU’s exploits – “La Marcha del Campesino” and “Siguieron Los Campesinos.”

“It was awesome,” Gomez said. “I mean, something that I’ll never forget.”

The celebratory atmosphere, however, soon gave way to more hardship. The ultimate aim of the union’s ambitious undertaking was to gain an audience with Carter – yet that was a far from guaranteed prospect.

A meeting with Labor Secretary Ray Marshall didn’t assuage Orendain, and the union opted to begin a water-only fast and maintain a 24-hour-a-day vigil outside the White House. After 10 days of this, the marchers were offered a meeting with Vice President Walter Mondale.

Alfredo de Avila said the vice president assured the marchers that the administration would be more poised to address the union’s goals in a second Carter term.

“That’s when Mondale said ‘we’re willing to work on this thing. We’re going to turn around and go with this issue the next time around,’” de Avila said.

History, however, did not unfold in a favorable way for the marchers – the Iran hostage crisis and Carter’s failed reelection bid ensured that.

Carter, himself, did not meet with the TFWU marchers, but the reasoning why has long been subject to speculation – including that UFW leader César Chávez, who had opposed the breakaway Texas union, had pressured Carter not to. 

It’s a theory that historian Timothy Bowman stresses does not have solid evidence to back it up, but contextually does fit when considering that UFW and AFL-CIO support was a crucial part of Carter’s base of support. 

“A Democratic president in the late 1970s can’t afford to alienate a César Chávez, right? Like a figure who has that much pull,” Bowman said.

Whatever the reasons for Carter’s decision, the Texas farmworkers returned home dispirited. But while they did not succeed in gaining an audience with the president, their march raised the profile of the plight of farmworkers in the Lone Star State.

‘This holds my heart’

The 1977 march to Washington, D.C., remains one of, if not the, defining moment in the short-lived life of the Texas Farm Workers Union.

And yet, surprisingly, finding records like photos or especially newsreels about it can be difficult to come by, despite the written narratives that talk about reporters often being in attendance.

Artifacts of the union’s existence are largely locked away in the archives of universities, though there’s been the occasional public exhibit. But outside the memories and the oral retelling of the union’s participants, perhaps the greatest archive of its existence is found in the homes of people like Norma Ramirez – who has become something of the unofficial keeper of the TFWU’s history.

As we’re talking in her living room-turned-museum, she holds up a weathered straw hat that I recognize from earlier photos – UFW and TFWU buttons attached all around it.

“This is my dad’s hat, the one he would wear,” she tells me. “I still have it.”

She holds it up for me to take a photo, and I notice her eyes fall upon the buttons – this hat that sat upon her father’s head as he marched at the vanguard of history. 

And yet, it’s a history she says she feels hasn’t gotten its due. 

Norma Ramirez holds up a version of the Texas Farm Workers Union banner with Antonio Orendain at an event many years after the union had ceased to exist. Norma has since taken on the role of unofficial union historian – giving speeches at events or funerals, like for Orendain, who died in 2016. Raul Alonzo / Texas Standard

She tells me of efforts she’s made to have a school named after Orendain, to no avail. She says even there in the Rio Grande Valley, where the union was based and did much of its work, she often encounters people who are shocked when she tells them the story of the TFWU. But ultimately, it’s the story itself she wants to be told.

“To get the story out, like as far as history – having it in the schools… That, to me, would be the equivalent of the UFW, which we can never match, but at least to have it already,” she said. “It’s Latino history here in the Valley – here in Texas.”

Norma is occasionally called upon to speak about the union. She’s given speeches at the funerals of her father, Claudio, and Antonio Orendain, who died in 2016.

She tells me public speaking isn’t something she was ever used to, and I ask her if it’s proven to be a heavy burden being the keeper of this history.

“No,” she is quick to reply. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Norma explains that she often received compliments on her speeches, but that’s because, for her, her words are composed from memories she holds dear.

“What I want is this story to be told. I don’t want it to die,” she tells me. “And to be honest with you, like I guess like I went through it and everything, so it’s not so much to prepare me. It’s just going back into time.

But in my life, this was the best time for me. I mean, this holds my heart.”

Coming Wednesday: How one teacher hopes the TFWU history can be taught in Texas public schools, and what it would take to get there.

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