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Goldman 13

Mexican miners, many from Sonora which which borders Arizona, brought their skills to the United States from the days of the California gold rush in 1848. They have continued to be employed to this day in coal, mercury, gold, silver, and copper mines in Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas. The same conditions of racism, low pay, rejection by traditional unions (like the American Federation of Labor), and deportation in times of economic crisis plagued the miners as they did Mexican workers employed in other industries. Racism was a tool deliberately used by the mining companies to divide the workers and, unfortunately, some labor unions fell into the trap. At its first strike in 1896, even the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) put forth a demand that Mexicans not be hired.[[superscript]]27[[/superscript]] However this policy changed. By 1906, the WFM urged members to make special effort toward recruiting Mexican miners into the union. The companies, however, persisted in maintaining what was called the "Mexican rate" of pay, lower than that of Anglos, and numerous strikes resulted from this discriminatory practice which exacerbated for Mexicans the generally poor economic conditions in the mines.
The 1906 WFM convention also passed a resolution of solidarity with the Cananea strike in Mexico, recognizing "class struggle throughout the world," and knowing "no race or creed in the battle for industrial freedom". That same year, the WFM became the mining department of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, Wobblies)[[superscript]]28[[/superscript]] which had close ties with Mexico's revolutionary group, the Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) led by Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magon, then in exile in the United States. Members of the PLM assisted the Cananea strike and, though it was broken in a few weeks, it gave major impetus to the Flores Magons, the PLM, and their publication Regeneracion.[[superscript]]29[[/superscript]]
Cananea is an instance of transnational investment encouraged by the dictatorial Porfirio Diaz regime. Between 1880 and 1890, large mining development was initiated in the Mexican states of Coahuila, Chihuahua, Durango, Zacatecas, and Baja California