Why did the chicano movement focus on the rights of farm workers

With the coming of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, many Mexicans fled north to the United States in order to escape the bloodshed in search of new lives. As the influx of migration continued, the American demand for agricultural laborers was so high that a work-visa program for Mexicans was established in 1920. While the Bracero Program offered Mexican farm workers a legally binding work contract, the majority suffered gross abuses of their labor rights and racial discrimination. Farm workers were often unpaid and were denied the right to unionize, a right that all other American workers enjoyed. They labored in inhumane conditions, as growers ignored state laws on working conditions. The workers had no toilets to use in the fields, and were forced to pay two dollars or more per day to live in metal shacks with no plumbing or electricity. On top of that, grape pickers were paid an average of 90 cents per hour, plus ten cents per basket picked, placing their families well below the poverty line.