Chapter 10 : 
I Go to Puerto Rico
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19451945

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Author : Rose Pesotta

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Rose Pesotta

Bread upon the Waters 

CHAPTER 10 

I Go to Puerto Rico

BACK IN NEW YORK
after the Chicago convention, I explained to President Dubinsky that I
had done everything in Los Angeles that I had promised, and now intended
to go back to work in a dressmaking shop.

"Anything to prevent it?"

"No," he said, "I wish some of our other vise-presidents
would do that. It would be good for them. But I think you'd be wasting
your time. I can give you something better to do."

"What ?"

"You heard William Lopez's speech about Puerto Rico?"

"Yes."

"Would you like to go there?"

Would I? . . . For me the Lopez speech had been one of the high lights
of the convention. Here was a chance for vital missionary work.

"Lopez is in town," D.D. said when I agreed. "See him
and he'll give you a line on what needs to be done."

Next day I lunched with Lopez and Jacob Potofsky of the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers, who had visited Puerto Rico in the spring for the NRA
and helped frame a Needle Trades Code which now awaited President Roosevelt's
signature. Both were pleased at the prospect of action in Puerto Rico by
the International.

It was pleasant to contemplate going to this tropical mountain paradise
which Christopher Columbus had discovered in 1493 and which Ponce de Leon,
seeker of the Fountain of Eternal Youth, had colonized. This was the only
land now under the Stars and Stripes on which Columbus had actually set
foot.

Three and a half days from New York by steamship, and 1,400 miles southeast,
Puerto Rico lay 400 miles east of Cuba, with the Atlantic Ocean on the
north, the Caribbean Sea on the south. A hundred miles long, one third
as wide, and thus about the size of Maryland, it had a population of about
1,500,000, mountains as high as 4,000 feet, produced sugar cane and tobacco,
grew luscious fruit, and raised "the finest coffee in the world."

A festive bon voyage dinner was given me by the women members of our
union. Arranged by Fannia M. Cohn, executive secretary of the educational
department, there were flowers, pleasant speeches, good wishes.

Time sped by. Reminded about medical precautions before entering a tropical
country, I consulted Dr. George M. Price, director of our Union Health
Center, who has since died. I needed to be immunized against malaria, typhoid,
and several other diseases. This would require several weeks.

"Then I'll have to forget it. I've got to leave in two days."

Dr. Price said I was taking a big chance. He gave me some advice, warning
me especially against drinking unboiled water.

The S. S. Borinquen was sailing on Thursday, July 12, and Lopez and
I had booked passage on her. I felt it was important to arrive in San Juan
with him. His report on the convention and my presence would be evidence
that our union meant business in Puerto Rico.

My mother and several friends saw me off. Flowers and fruit had been
sent from the ILGWU office. Once more I was departing for a strange land,
and again my thoughts took me back to my last day in Russia before coming
to the United States. The distance seemed so great that it was like looking
at some loved scene through the wrong end of a telescope.

The ship left her East River pier late in the afternoon. I stood at
the starboard rail until we had passed the Statue of Liberty. Remembering
my feelings the first time I saw that symbol of hope and promise so many
years before, I felt a lump in my throat. I led Lopez sternward, to watch
the sunset, as it tinted the buildings and towers of Manhattan with pink
and red and gold. The pink and red faded out, leaving only the gold, and
some lines by Alfred Noyes came to my mind:

There's a barrel-organ caroling along a golden street, In the city when
the sun sinks low.

Slowly shadows crept over the scene, the gold was gone, and dusk fell.
We moved past old cargo ships anchored and riding high in the roadstead,
ships gray and black and with iron rust showing in great blotches where
the paint had peeled from their sides. The bare masts of a sailing ship
were outlined against the sky. And a couple of hulks were anchored on the
Jersey side of the channel. Ferries crossed our path, and motor boats chugged
past. Staten Island's lights evoked memories of pleasant Sundays there
with Russian friends years before.

Through the Narrows and into the open sea.

Lazily, relaxing completely in slacks, Southern California style, I
spent much of my time in a deck chair. Books from the ship's library told
me more about the wonderland in the West Indies to which I was journeying.

Borinquen was its name when the white men came, so called by its peaceful
Indian inhabitants. Columbus gave it a different name --San Juan de Beutista.
But Ponce de Leon, coming along a few years later with instructions from
the Court of Spain to colonize the island, christened it anew. Sailing
into its finest harbor, he exclaimed: "Aye, que puerto rico!"
What a rich port! Subsequently this designation was applied to the whole
island, while the capital built on the harbor shores took on the San Juan
name. That city was settled nearly half a century before the first house
was erected in St. Augustine, Florida, oldest settlement on our mainland.

But the arrival of the colonizers marked the beginning of the end for
the Borinquen Indians. Within a hundred years they were wiped out by a
combination of forces--enslavement by the Spaniards, hurricanes, attacks
by hostile Caribs, and epidemics of smallpox brought in by Negro slaves
from Africa.

Loafing on the deck as the ship sped on and the air grew balmy, I amused
myself by speculating on the lives the passengers led on shore. Some, I
knew, were school teachers, and some might have been nurses, sales girls,
students. Others were not readily identifiable. Most of the women looked
bored and seemed to be changing clothes constantly. I wondered why. Slacks
were so comfortable.

Lopez had a considerable acquaintance among those on board, and he introduced
me to two manufacturers who were returning from a business trip. Our talk
was casual, and I avoided touching on the industrial situation, for I wanted
this sea-journey to serve as a vacation. But I did ask them:

"What are the women of Puerto Rico like ?" And one of the
men said:

"Many of them are very intelligent, and have the makings of good
business women."

I was up on deck early on Monday, for we were docking before eight.
A perfect sub-tropical morning as the ship plowed through the deep blue
Atlantic--a fresh breeze, clear blue sky, seagulls soaring above.

Massive stone fortresses stand high and bold upon headlands at the entrance
to San Juan's broad landlocked harbor. They were built by the Spaniards
long ago as a protection against attack by pirates or enemy vessels. Morro
Castle, oldest of these, was erected in 1539. As late as 1898 it withstood
bombardment--by Admiral Sampson's fleet.

As the Borinquen steamed into San Juan Bay, the sight before me took
my breath away. Here was a part of the old Spanish town, flanked by an
ancient sea wall. High above the wall were two palaces, and beside and
beyond these, other houses of graceful Spanish line, with white or pastel
sides, roofs of colored tile, and verandas with Moorish arches.

One felt as well as saw the great age of this city. Tall modern buildings
in a newer section to the right could not take away from the charm of the
ancient ones. To the south, a blue mountain, El Yunque, shimmered in the
sun, like a gigantic precious stone.

Native boys, black and brown-skinned, dived from small boats for coins
thrown into the bay by people on the ship. Through the beautifully clear
water one could see their sleek brown bodies bobbing up and down. The pier
was crowded with people--white, bronze, brown, and black, in white clothes,
some dingy, some immaculately clean. Twice a week they gathered, as for
a social event, to meet the boat from New York.

Out of that crowd I heard my name called: "Welcome to Miss Pesotta!
" And then: "Welcome to Mr. Lopez! " Above their heads were
waving hands and fluttering handkerchiefs and a big banner of the Puerto
Rico Free Federation of Labor. In the forefront of a delegation of about
30 was a little dark-skinned young woman holding a huge bouquet of red
roses. She was Teresa Anglero, who had made the first move to organize
the island's needle workers three years earlier, and who now headed their
union.

"How long have you been away from Puerto Rico?" one of the
school teachers asked.

"It's my first trip here. I've come down to work among these people."

"Oh!" and her exclamation seemed to denote a special kind
of loneliness. "It must be wonderful to receive such a welcome! "

As we stepped off the gang-plank we were greeted by representatives
of the Department of Labor, coworkers of Lopez. Teresa Anglero handed
me the roses with a gracious bow. Some of the delegation had traveled all
night to meet the ship.

Teresa gave me telegrams from officials of locals throughout the island,
inviting me to visit their cities. I was to live, the girls told me, at
the boarding house where Rose Schneiderman, president of the Women's Trade
Union League, had stayed when she visited Puerto Rico for the NRA several
months earlier. This proved to be a large colonial house on the Condado,
a historic shore highway. Facing the ocean, the house was set against a
background of dense tropical vegetation.

After I had changed clothes, we went over to the Free Federation Hall,
where some 50 members of the union were waiting. I explained the purpose
of my coming.

My speech was translated into Spanish by Lopez, a sentence at a time.
The ILGWU's decision to organize the Puerto Rico needle workers under its
protective wing made a deep impression. Here, as in our union in the States,
I found women taking the lead. Their hearts were deep in the labor struggle.

After the meeting we mapped out a plan of action. We would make a tour
of the cities where there were needle trades factories, set up local unions
in important sections of the island, and start organizational and educational
activities. Where several small unions existed in a city, each shop comprising
an independent local, we would endeavor to combine these under a single
ILGWU charter. Visiting the NRA offices, we talked with those in charge,
got copies of the new Code, which was to go into effect on July 19, asked
what plans they had for enforcing it. They had none; they would get to
that later.... The Code signed by President Roosevelt on June 28 provided
for a wage scale of $2 a week for home workers, instead of the customary
$1 paid for 60 to 70 hours of home work, with as many as three persons
in a family toiling. The Code also raised the pay of factory workers to
$3 and $5 a week, the latter rate being for machine operators. Instead
of 48.hours, the factory employes were to work only 40 hours.

I spent the next three days preparing for our campaign, conferring with
the leaders of the Free Federation of Labor in San Juan and lining up all
possible support. We put out feelers to see what the employers thought
of a collective agreement. Before any such action could be taken, however,
a strong organization must be built up. For I had arrived at a time dreaded
by all experienced organizers--in the wake of a lost strike. Recently the
telephone workers, striking to gain better conditions, had met with crushing
defeat.

From Teresa, Sara Alers, chair lady in the Morris Storyk factory, and
others I learned something of the history of our industry in this island.

For generations needlepoint work, embroidery, and other forms of fine
hand sewing had been taught by the nuns in the Puerto Rican convents. Girls
in middle and upper class families took pride in acquiring skill with the
needle, making exquisite table linens, lingerie, dresses, blouses, handkerchiefs,
and dress accessories. Before World War I, however, they used their skill
only for themselves or their own families.

Until then the great sources of such articles for the commercial markets
of the United States and other countries were France, Belgium, and the
Madeira Islands. Costs were low and profits large. Then the war cut off
that supply.

Some of the more enterprising needle-point teachers in Puerto Rico got
a bright idea that would mean profit for themselves and trade and additional
income for the island. One of them was designated to go to New York with
samples and establish business contacts.

Thus Puerto Rico got its start as one of the world's principal cheap
labor markets in this field, with China and the Philippines looming as
important competitors. Factories came in later. Steadily the needle work
industry expanded, and in 20 years became the island's third largest, subordinate
only to sugar and tobacco. Out of an estimated 100,000 needle workers,
17,000 were employed in the factories, while the other 83,000 toiled by
hand in their homes. Some cutters were employed in the shops; but most
of the raw material was cut to pattern in New York garment shops and sent
down in bundles to the Puerto Rican contractors.

Mayaguez, center of the island's handkerchief industry, afforded an
example of operating methods. Cloth for handkerchiefs was cut in the New
York factories and shipped to Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands of pieces
at a time. From the sorting department in the Puerto Rican contractors'
shops, work would be farmed out to the homes of individual needle workers
in bundles of several dozens. The needlepoint and embroidery would be done
in those homes in the hills and, by the time the handkerchiefs were returned
to the contractor, they would look like a door-mat for a mud-turtle.

Then came the washing process in the factories; from morning to night
women washed and sterilized the handkerchiefs. Special chemical processes
were used to bleach the material without causing damage to the colored
embroidery. I have seen these women standing at the steam wash tubs, their
hands and feet terribly swollen at the joints. Most of them suffered from
arthritis or rheumatism. One owner of a factory told me this was the result
of the chemicals in the water.

Hundreds of dozens of these handkerchiefs were hung on lines for ten
or fifteen minutes and then went to the pressing and the shipping department,
where young girls folded them in squares and packed them in fancy individual
boxes. New York and other city customers would get them at the department
stores, paying as high as $1 each for handkerchiefs that cost the manufacturer
only a few cents. Lingerie, blouses, table linen, children's wear, and
other articles went through the same process.

A needle workers' union was established in San Juan in 1931. Other locals
followed and a strike was staged against a wage cut in one San Juan factory,
400 girls walking out. After a month they won their fight and got a union
shop. In 1933 there was a general strike, under the auspices of the Federacion
Lilbre Del Trabajo (Free Federation of Labor), affiliated with the American
Federation of Labor. Thus a collective agreement was won from the Needle
Trades Employers' Association, recognizing the right of the needle workers
to bargain collectively. Following this, the Federation set up the Union
De Trabajadores De Aguja De Puerto Rico (the Needle Trades Workers' Union),
each organized shop being designated as a local. San Juan had five locals.

When a girl applied for a job in one of the larger garment factories,
she had to fill out an application blank tantamount to an intelligence
test, much like a civil service examination. The back of the application
bore a personal rating report and instructions to the manager of the establishment
to judge each employee on the following points: Quality in production;
quantity of work; industrial intelligence; ability to learn new duties;
initiative and creativeness; cooperation; physical quality; leadership.

The manager had to check to make sure each employee was of exceptional
leadership, could cooperate, was in good health, industrious, conscientious,
and a rapid worker--all for the munificent sum of $5 a week for 48 hours'
work!

The Commissioner of Labor, Prudencio Rivera Martinez, a short dark former
cigar maker and now acting president of the Federacion Libre, assured us
of all possible cooperation from the Labor Department. One commendable
thing Theodore Roosevelt Jr. had done during his Governorship was to establish
this department, which (in contrast to some other governmental agencies
in Puerto Rico) was composed of men and women with practical experience
in the labor movement. Most of them were active and earnest trade unionists.

At that time the Labor Department was working on an ambitious rehabilitation
plan for homesteads on which to resettle those who lost everything they
possessed during the 1932 cyclone.

Walking in the narrow streets of the capital, one drank in romance at
every turn. The mark of ancient Spain lingered in the fortresses, the Governor's
palace, the cathedral, the mansion built by Ponce de Leon's son, the plaza,
the memorial tablets, the statues of warriors and other heroes, the vestiges
of the stout walls of masonry that had surrounded San Juan in pirate days,
and in a thousand other nooks and corners. On the whole island, only about
20,000 persons among a population of 1,500,000 were from the States. Thus
Spanish remained the principal language spoken.

Having seen the showplaces of the capital on the first evening with
Lopez and his wife, I wanted to view the other side of the picture, particularly
the conditions under which the workers lived. A committee of union girls
planned to visit a sick member, late next afternoon, and I gladly accepted
an invitation to accompany them.

The sick girl and her people lived near the water-front on the bay side
of San Juan, on the edge of a slum section called El Fanguito. Their house
was small, and obviously neglected by the landlord. But inside, the place
was tidy and presentable, a tribute to the ingenuity and grit of the tenants.
My companions brought gifts to the invalid, delicacies purchased with hard
earned dimes.

When we came away they took me a little farther into El Panguito, "The
Little Mud," which ought to be called "The Big Mud." What
I saw now appalled me more than any sight in my past life.

Here were many single-room shacks built on stilts to lift them above
the mud, shacks thrown together of old boards and pieces of rusty tin.
There was of course no plumbing in these "homes," nothing that
even remotely resembled sanitation. Garbage, slops, rubbish of all kinds,
and human ordure went into the mud beneath.

Narrow plank walks led to some of the shacks. But to get to others the
occupants had to take off their shoes--if they had shoes-- and wade through
the muck. Thus they became the prey of hookworm, which thrives in polluted
soil. Piercing their bare feet, that scourge made its way to the intestines,
multiplied, drained their vitality; the result was called tropical anemia.
Children, dogs, and pigs also waded in the mud of El Fanguito.

I thought of my home in Ukrainia and the peasants, who used to carry
their shoes slung over a shoulder, as they walked across the fields on
their way to town. That was for reasons of economy. "Feet we don't
have to buy," they said. But the soil in which the peasants trod was
comparatively clean. No one in Ukrainia ever heard of hookworm.

My friends led me along a shaky plank to look in on acquaintances who
lived in one of the shacks, and to peer through other open doors in the
row. The couple we called upon were apologetic for the condition of their
"house," as if somehow it was their fault instead of their misfortune.
The man had long been jobless and was plainly ill; the woman did needle
work, but earned little. For furniture, they had a table and two chairs
improvised from packing boxes. In a corner of the floor were ragged blankets
and a sack of straw, which sufficed for a bed.

Cooking was done on a small open hearth made of stones. Empty coconut
shells, from which the tops had been removed, served as cooking vessels,
dishes, and cups. Smoke from the hearth ascended through a hole in the
roof. Flakes of soot hung from the rafters, and the shack reeked with odors.

The men, women, and children I saw in this slum moved about as if half-dead,
the light in their eyes dull. Most of the men were sugar-cane cutters,
now unemployed, and their families lived from hand to mouth. I wondered
what would be the fate of the children if they grew up.

Odd surprises were in store for me, and a few hours later a strange
fright. The windows of my boarding house were without glass and unscreened.
My bed was enclosed by a canopy of netting, which buzzing mosquitoes tried
to penetrate. Lying in the dark and unable to sleep, I realized that I
was hungry. On a shelf close by stood candy that had been given me when
I sailed. That would take care of my hunger of the moment.

I reached out carefully under the netting's edge, removed the cover
from one of the boxes, and picked up a couple of chocolates. Almost instantly
I felt something clutch my wrist, something that moved and writhed. In
another second the arm was being gripped higher up, and then the pressure
was at the elbow. The sensation was one of horror, but I didn't scream;
I couldn't.

My voice was frozen in my throat.

Somehow I kept my head. Whatever this might be, snake or monster, I
must save myself. Reaching up with my other hand, I turned on the electric
light overhead and saw--red and black ants, thousands of them, swarming
over my whole forearm, like some fantastic long glove.

I leaped out of bed and raced to the veranda, brushing off the swarm
of ants in frenzy. That took a long time, for some of them clung tenaciously
to my skin, and bit me, leaving my arm dotted with red marks. After throwing
the candy out, it was a full hour before I got rid of the insects on the
shelf and floor.

In the morning, half awake as I lingered in bed, I looked out of one
of the long window openings. It framed three tall coconut palms, set against
a shimmering blue sky. Down the center palm a tiny human figure clad in
white was moving, as if in a movie set or in a dream. I had to rub my eyes
to make sure that I was not asleep. Afterwards I often saw native boys "walk"
up and down the trees, feet and hands moving in rhythmic motion.

"The real joy of living in its greatest realization...."

I turned from that line in a brochure, issued for tourists by the insular
Department of Agriculture and Commerce, to another pamphlet from the same
source, but designed to attract industry. In this I found some revealing
statements.

Among seventeen good reasons listed for establishing industries on that
island I read that "Puerto Rico's wage scales are reasonable."
On other pages the language was more exact:

"Due to the over-population of Puerto Rico, there is always a large
supply of labor available.... Wages in Puerto Rico when compared to those
on the mainland are very low, in many cases insufficient to adequately
support the workers and their families, even if steady employment were
available.... Labor agitation, so common in the industrial centers of the
North, is not found in Puerto Rico." *

That of course was a spur to me. It made me keen to get to Mayaguez,
the island's big open shop handkerchief center, where the needle trades
factory owners had banded together in an association to fight both unionization
and the NRA Code.

I went there on Friday, the day the Code became effective, with Lopez,
Teresa Anglero, Sara Alers, and three other active union girls. We sped
westward along a road paralleling the north shore. The country was gorgeous,
the roads lined with the red of the flamboyant trees, and the hills and
valleys stretching off into the hinterland lusciously green. But in this
garden of the gods there was evidence of utter poverty everywhere. On the
doorstep of every hut, women and girls, many of them small children, were
busily sewing linen. The children were spindly-legged, the adults looked
half-starved.

Overpopulation . . . 428 persons to the square mile . . . To match the
human spawning in Puerto Rico, a constant repetition of the miracle of
the loaves and fishes was needed. But there were no miracles in these modern
days.

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*Puerto Rico: Commercial and Industrial San Juan, 1934 pp. 8, D, 16.
The italics are mine.--R.P. 114 .


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     Chapter 10 -- Publication : November 30, 1944

     Chapter 10 -- Added : February 09, 2017

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