Mexicano Miners, Dual Wage, and the Pursuit of Wage Equality in Miami, Arizona.”…

By Christine Marin --

Since the early 1900s, the copper mining town of Miami, Arizona forged a long and bitter history of racism and socio-economic discrimination of Mexicanos and Mexican Americans----from school segregation in the 1920s to the deportation and repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican Americans from Miami to Mexico in the era of the Great Depression, to the post World War II era and the current practice of the discriminatory dual wage system in the mines: paying them less than whites for the same type of work. This was particularly the case of the Mexican American women who worked with white women in the copper mines during the era of World War II. Mining officials ignored attempts by their union representatives to end wage differentials. Today, and in these times, Mexican American women/Latinas still battle the gender wage gap, still demand equal pay for equal work, and continue to work with their unions to achieve a fair wage. The racialized dual wage persists. And why it does is a matter that needs constant vigilance. --