May and June, 1953, 1953

The main topic during these two months is a series of upcoming legal battles in California and Louisiana. In California, the union was considering court action to stop the displacement of domestic workers by Mexican Nationals and, at the same time, to prevent the deportation of those contract Nationals who had joined the NAWU. On this subject, see the correspondence with Galarza and with San Francisco lawyer James A. Murray. In Louisiana, the NAWU Fruit and Vegetable Producers Union faced possible anti-trust prosecution based on its co-operative arrangement for marketing strawberries; the papers include a letter from Mitchell to La. organizer Hank Hasiwar on legal strategy (May 19), a seven-page letter from Mitchell to Stanley Barnes, Chief of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice, pleading with him not to prosecute (June 11), and two letters from C. Paul Barker, the New Orleans lawyer representing the NAWU in the case (June 19, 26)