Eighty-four years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Saturday, November 23, 1974
News Phone: 764-0552
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420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mi. 48104
'U' reveals its priorities
ONE OF THE MOST Orwellian quali-
ties of the University's adminis-
tration is its ability to switch from
paternalistic warmth to hard-line
business realism Without breaking
stride.
In quotes that read like former
Treasury Secretary Maurice Stans' "I
can't recall" Watergate testimony,
Opportunity Program dir;' tor George
Goodman last week told the Board
of Regents that by some quirk of the
national economy, the University had
been forced to let black enrollment
slip this year.
Meanwhile, at Rackham Aud., the
same idealistic University that says
it makes every effort to recruit and
accommodate black students told ne-
gotiators for the Graduate Employes
Organization (GEO) their economic
demands were unfeasible-even de-
mands relating to class size and cur-
riculum quality.
Under the Stans mask, with those
watery old eyes, that lovely flannel
suit, and that warm concern for stu-
dents' welfare, lurks a collective ad-
ministratorinterested mostly in cost-
effectiveness.
NATURALLY the University wants
to increase black enrollment -
without lowering admission stand-
ards, of course. It's just that things
haven't turned out that way. Or may-
be it's that when the Regents agreed
to the Black Action Movement de-
mands, thousands of students had
actively indicated that they thought
it would be a good idea for the Re-
gents to come to terms.
The BAM strike made it expensive
to continue a racist admissions sys-
tem which arbitrarily excluded 10
per cent of the state's, population
from one of its universities. The di-
rect cost of the strike was augmented
by public relations setbacks, which
Business Staff
MARC SANCRAINTE
Business Manager
Sue DeSmet ....................Finance Manager
Ay arnise.. .....Advertin Maae
Jack Mazzara ...................ales manager
Linda Ross .... ......Operations Manager
DEPT. MGRS. Laurie Gross, Ellen Jones, Lisa
Kannengiser, Steve Leire, Debby Novess,
Cassie St. Clair
ASSOC. MGRS. Rob Cerra, Kathy Keller
ASST. 'MGRS. Dave Schwartz
STAFF John Ataman, Dan Brinza, Peter Caplan,
Nina Edwards, Debbie Gerridh Amy Hart-
man, Jayne Higo, Karl Jennings, Carolyn
Kathstein, Jackie Krammer, Sue Lessino,
Becky Meyers, Dave Piontkowsky, Amy Quirk,
Ann Rizzo, Susan Shultz, Judith Ungar, Au-
drey Well, Ruth Wolmn.
SALES PEOPLE Mike Bingen, Cher Bledsoe, Syl-
via Calhoun, Rich Flaherty, Beth Friedman,
Linda Jefferson, Ellen Meichinger, Amy
Piper, Steve Wright, Dalva Yarrington
TODAY'S STAFF:
News: Gordon Atcheson, Mary Harris,
Cindy Hill, Judy Ruskin, Tim
Schick, Curt Smith
Editorial Page: Peter Blaisdell, Tony
Duenas, Sue Wilhelm
Arts Page: David Blomquist, David
Weinberg,
Photo Technician: Pauline Lubens
threatened the University's funding
through gifts and grants.
Presently, GEO poses a similar, if
less dramatic, threat to business as
usual at the University. Sufficient-
ly mobilized teaching fellows would
certainly have the power to shut
down the teaching and grading pro-
cess.
RUT IF THE TFs win their demands,
labor groups not previously re-
cognized by the University will have a
foot in the door. TFs, like clerical
workers, have traditionally been
among the unlucky thousands whose
low wages, lack of overtime pay, and
unrewarded devotion to duty have
formed a cheap-labor base for cor-
porations masquerading as service
organizations.
The University dragged out its
heavy artillery to oppose both GEO
and the unionizing clericals. Last
year President Robben Fleming
warned in a University Record state-
ment that if GEO succeeded in or-
ganizing graduate employes, there
would be fewer but better TFs. Simi-
lar persuasive techniques were used
to no avail before the clericals' un-
ionizing vote.
So when the administration bar-
gaining team goes to the table with
a flat refusal to negotiate on econom-
ic points, the administration is at a
moment of truth. If the University is
to continue concerning itself purely
with drawing in revenue, rather than
with providing education, administra-
tors must take a hard line on any
educational or labor demands that
cost money. Neither increased minor-
ity enrollment nor improved wages
and working conditions for employes
can come without pressure from a
powerful bloc of students or work-
ers.
THE UNIVERSITY argues that it is
an under-funded public Institu-
tion, struggling to make ends meet
even without the added burden of
fair pay for essential work or full ex-
tension of educational privileges to
minorities.
But an institution with a general
fund budget of well over $100 mil-
lion is hardly poverty-stricken, what-
ever its cost requirements. Financial
priorities set by the University's top
officials preclude new educational
spending but continue to fund fat
research programs and provide aux-
iliary services for government and
military agencies.
Most observers agree that the
chance of a new BAM strike is ex-
tremely slim, but perhaps the Uni-
versity of the '70s has moved into a
new phase, one of labor confronta-
tions. Dealings with organized em-
ployes have forced the administra-
tion to show its hand on a number
of educational issues.
Once more, conflict reveals the
business-oriented bias of the Big
'U'. People's rights are not the spe-
cialty of the Research Center of the
Midwest.
-REBECCA WARNER
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-VI ,
Ethnicity among farmworkers
By LINDA SISKIND
N 1932, Harry Kubo lived on his
father's farm in north central Cali-
fornia.
In 1942, Harry, his father - and over
110,000 people of Japanese descent--
were taken from the West Coast homes
to War Relocation Authority "intern-
ment camps."
In 1952, the seven members of the
Kubo family had saved enough money
working on other people's farms to buy
40 acres of land in Fresno county.
In 1972, Harry Kubo, joint owner
of 230 acres, was installed president of
the Nisei (second generation) Farmer's
League in Fresno.
Today, the League is actively work-
*ing to keep organizers of the largely
Chicano United Farmworkers (UFW)
AFL-CIO, out of California fields.
Overcoming almost a century of rac-
ial and economic discrimination to help
make California the richest agricultural
region in the world, Japanese farmers
now find themselves taking the same po-
sition towards the industry's major new
minority group - Chicano farmworkers
- as any other grower.
THE JAPANESE started arriving on
the West Coast some 90 years ago. Many
came from Hawaii, where sugar cane
planters had imported them as contract
labor. In California, they quickly filled
a void left by the Chinese, who had been
doing farm work until Congress suspend-
ed Chinese immigration in 1882.
By sheer numbers and by underbidding
their competitors for contract work, the
Japanese very quickly monopolized the
labor force. Like the Chinese, they work-
ed under bosses or labor contractors of
their own nationality, who made arrange-
ments with the farmer employers. But
unlike the Chinese (or the Filipinos or
Mexican-Americans after them) t h e
Japanese contractors increased their
bargaining power by cooperating among
themselves - formally agreeing on
wage rates and territory.
Because of their success as organized
farmworkers, the Japanese were able to
begin buying property - cheap proper-
ty. They reclaimed wilderness, desert
and delta - much of it "marginal" or
"waste" land - and developed profit-
able fields of rice, potatoes, onions and
cantaloupes where nothing had grown
before.
Soon the Japanese, like the Chinese
before them, became the subject of rac-
ial attacks from politicians, newspapers
and labor unions in the cities, and in the
countryside from farmers who resented
their success (or wanted them back as
laborers).
The state legislature responded to this
se:atimdnt, starting in 1913, by passing
Land Acts making it illegal for
aliens ineligible for citizenship (like the
Japanese) to own or lease land. Later,
the U.S. Congress changed the immigra-
tion laws to bar Japanese from enter-
ing the country.
THE LAWS had some effect. The
percentage of California farmland oper-
ated by Japanese fell by two-thirds -
from a peak of 1.5 per cent in 1920
to .4 per cent in 1940. Yet on this limit-
ed acreage the Japanese grew more than
ceived $98,000. Nash DeCamp set up
Northern Farms, Inc., which negotiated
'dual Japanese fruit farm-
q to pay the evacuees 50
per cent of the net profits from the sale
of their crops.
The following year, Northern Farms"
Nash DeCamp reported income of $70,-
250 from the sale of the Japanese fruit.
Only $2,000 of this was allotted to the
farmers - a figure the company claim-
ed represented 50 per cent of the profits
of the five farms which had earned
money.
'When the Japanese were let out of the camps, there
were no special loan programs for them. Instead, they
were referred to existing programs which required ap-
proval by local farmers. Perhaps a quarter of those who
had farmed before internment returned to the land.
The California legislature welcomed the Japanese by
appropriating $200,000 to investigate violations of the
Alien Land Laws. Some of the defendants were allowed
to "plea bargain" - in effect, pay blackmail for their
land - by buying off prosecution. In one case, an Amer-
ican citizen of Japanese descent agreed to pay the state
$75,000 for 71 acres she had paid $89,000 for in 1938.'
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necessary for this." So the farmers in
the Fresno area rely on grower-shippers
who can afford new "hydrocoolers"
which prolong shelf-life by reducing
fruit temperature from 80 .degrees to
40 degrees within minutes. One of the
companies the farmers rely on is Nash
DeCamp.
NASH DeCAMP is also one of the "big
eight" companies in the area being pick-
eted by members of the UFW. Last
year, 49 local companies let their union
contracts expire. The union called a
strike and sends its members to picket
various locations six days a week,
Every day the farmworkers are out
picketing, the members of the Nisei
Farmers League (NFL) are out "to
observe", though few are involved di-
rectly in the union dispute.
According to Kubo, the League is com-
posed of about 600 Japanese-American
- equal number of others.
It was formed, he says, to protect the
rights of those farmworkers who wanted
to work when the UF'W struck. The NFL
members go out in the mornings before
dawn to stand between workers and
picketers to insure what Kubo calls
"freedom of choice."
THE UFW says the farmer's league
does just the opposite and has sued that
organization and one other for more
than $5 million for violating workers'
rights.
The question of the relationship of the
Japanese farmer to the Farmworkers'
Union may be moot soon, however. Kubo
says that more than 95 per cent of the
children of the Nisei farmers are train-
ing for urban professional careers, leav-
ing the farms behind to be sold.
Who will buy the land as the Japanese
leave it? Perhaps the larger grower-
shippers. Statistics show that California
farms are growing bigger and bigger
and fewer and fewer. While in 1950, there
were about 144,000 farms averaging
260 acres, in 1971, there were 56,000
farms averaging 654 acres. The average
Japanese-American farmer holds 50
acres.
Indeed, the disappearance of the Jap-
anese farmer may well signal the end
of an era of small farm owners in
California agriculture.
Linda Siskind is feature editor of Pa-
cific News Service. She spent the sum-
mer in California's farmlands investigat-
ing the role played by ethnic groups in
California agribusiness. Copyright Pa-
cific News Service.
90 per cent of California's celery, straw-
berries, snap beans and peppers, more
than half the state's artichokes, cauli-
flower, cucumbers, spinach and tomat-
oes.
The bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941
brought new life to anti-Oriental feeling
in California. Public officials, convinced
the Japanese formed a sabotaging "fifth
column," moved to exacuate them from
all over the west coast.
Evacuation to the internment camps
began in the spring of 1942. Some Japan-
ese had only a few days to settle their
affairs. Many who owned land sold it at
low prices, others made verbal or writ-
ten agreements to have their interests
cared for until they returned.
The government, interested in harvest-
ing the food then in the ground, set up
machinery through the Farm Security
Administration to find substitute oper-
ators for the abandoned farms. The
FSA was hard-pressed to find suitable
candidates - despite aggressive recruit-
ing - and offered loans to farmers
wiling to take over the Japanese-owned
land but unable to get credit through
the usual channels.
ONE MAJOR beneficiary of the loan
program was the Nash DeCamp Com-
pany, a marketing concern, which re-
When the Japanese were let out of the
camps, there were no special loan pro-
grams for them. Instead, they were
referred to existing programs which re-
quired approval by local farmers. Per-
haps a quarter of those who had farmed
before internment returned to the land.
The California legislature welcomed
the Japanese by appropriating $200,000
to investigate violations of the Alien
Land laws. Some of the defendants were
allowed to "plea bargain" - in effect,
pay blackmail for their land - by buy-
ing off prosecution. In one case, an
American citizen of Japanese descent
agreed to pay the state $75,000 for 71
acres she had paid $89,000 for in 1938.
TODAY, THERE ARE around 2,400
Japanese farmers in California. Many
of them returned to the land with sav-
ings from the $12 to $19 a month they
earned in the camps, and the 75 cents
an hour they earned as farmworkers af-
ter the camps.
But while the Japanese may have
returned to successful farming, t h e y
have never regained their footing in
shipping and marketing.
Kubo explains: "There's been an in-
dustrial revolution type thing in market-
ing and agriculture, and . . . every
farmer doesn't have all the equipment
. * WA1 4H
FogZ
Letters
to
The
PLO been held to excuse the meth-
eDaily:ods by which it has been ex-
To The Dal:pressed.
WE HAVE very recently wit- BT A LGsede
nessed a real spectacle at the BOTH ANALOGIES aresfalse.
U.N. It started with the illegal There have been resistance
decision of the U.N. General movements which liberated Al-
Assembly to invite to its forum geria from France, Kenya irom
a delegation not representing a Britain, Indonesia from t h emebrsa.Thsdlgto Ntelns.Bthyw;'dnt
mebrsatTi delegation ntrpeetn Netherlands. But they did not
notgtoios seek the elimination of France,
represented the notorious Britain and the Netherlands
P.L.O., headed by Arafat. from the map of history or a de-
edOnlytwo years ago, theUnit- nial of their national personal-
to combat the international ter- ity.
rorism that it has now decided The PLO, on the other hand,
to reward. The debate in 1972 frankly aims to liberate Israel
was provoked by the Munich from Israel. It commits h e
outrage. When eleven athletes heresy of denying that Israel lies
who came defenseless to a fes- at the origin, the heart and cen-
tival of human solidarity were ter of Middle Eastern history.
bound hand and foot and shot Its aim is "politicide", the
in the head one by one by or- murder of a state.
der of the Palestine Liberation We did not perceive Arafv's
Organization, world opinion was speech to be a "moderate ' one.
still capable of shock. It is true Why moderate? Becadse he
that nothing substantive c a m e no longer wants to throw all Is-
Palestinians (East bank Pales-
tinians and West bank Palestin-
ians), save for the Royal fam-
ily and the few 13eduin tribes
which the British transplaned
there from Mecca in 191'. The
P.L.O. too has stated m a n y
times that Jordan is part of
Palestine. The P.L.O. has,
therefore, a legiti hate place
where to establish, pe Acefvl.ly or
by force, a "secular, democrat-
ic state of Palestine". However,
what the PLO wants and says
it wants now is to replace Is-
rael by forming a second Pales-
tinian state (the two states to
be probably united later into a
Greater Palestine).
This second State of Pales-
tine obviously has today a large
Jewish majority, a fact that
would still be true even if all
Palestinian refugees living out-
side Palestine today, would go
there. This apparently does not
o bDaily
to be the Jewish national libera-
tion movement. There is no
other. Israel is the only Jewih
State.
STUDYING THE hebrew
language in Russia today, as in
several Arab countries, is re-
garded as a "zionist crime" pun-
ishable by severe prison terms.
So the prospect of Jews living
the prospect of the Jews living
in their ancient Hebrew home-
land is to be tolerated in one of
two Palestinian states, as 'ong
as they have no rights of ethnic
or cultural self-expression. This,
incidentally has been the situa-
tion of Jews in many Arah coun-
tries, before they found them-
selves forced to 1:ave those
countries and emigrate to Is-
The fact is that over twenty
Arab states totally endorsed the
PLO and Arafat in their Rabbat
summit meeting, a few weeks
Soon the Arabs exp ;t to have
hundreds of billions of oil 4o1-
lars. They already have the
most modern Soviet planes, mis-
siles and tanks. They also have
now the automatic U.L'1. "yes"
votes of the hungry and poor
Third World. They have vast
area's and 125 million people
compared with tiny Israel with
3 million people. Why should
they not expect to crush it?
All they need is to force Amer-
ica into an "even-handed", neu-
tral position.
IN 1940 Britain 0to)d in
"splendid isolation", outnun-
bered and outgunned by Nazi
Germany. Hitler had already
conquered all of Europe, except
for Russia with which he had
a "Friendship Pact". Britain
and its people were kept alive
by American material and mor-
al support. On the "Day of In-
famy" it became obvious that