Students at the WNMU Silver City campus are likely to be well familiar with the Juan Chacón Building. Housing the Offices of the Registrar, Student Success, Admissions and Recruitment, and Academic Advising, among other offices, the building is well used by students and staff alike. While the building itself does not have the long history of many other buildings on campus, it does have its own tie to an important chapter in American history, a tie that is relevant to the university’s status as an Hispanic-Serving Institution.
Dedicated on September 14, 1985, on the eve of what was then known as Hispanic Heritage Week (now Month), the newly constructed building at WNMU was named for Juan Chacón, a Chicano labor leader and social activist. Chacón is best known for his role in the 1950-1952 strike against the Empire Zinc Company in Grant County, NM, and for starring in “Salt of the Earth,” an iconic film based on the strike. The 1954 film was blacklisted at the height of McCarthyism during the Cold War.
Chacón’s activism was centered on the struggle for Mexican American workers to achieve wages and working conditions on par with their Anglo coworkers. “The companies around here,” Chacón said of the mining companies that operated in Grant County, NM, “have always been afraid of Anglo-Mexican unity . . . [and] for a hundred years our employers have played up the big lie that Mexicans are ‘naturally inferior’ and ‘different,’ in order to justify paying us less and separating us from our brothers.” When the Empire Zinc Company that Chacón worked for refused to negotiate with the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, the Local 890 went on strike, leading to a series of events that won national attention and eventually led to the making of “Salt of the Earth,” which depicted a fictionalized account of the strike.
While the striking workers were at first successful in keeping Empire Zinc’s operations shut down with their picketing, in June 1951, a Federal District Judge issued a restraining order that prohibited the miners from the picket lines. It was the union’s response to this restraining order that surprised many people of the time and led to national media attention, including coverage by magazines like “Time” and “Newsweek.” First the union authorized women to participate in determining strike policy, an unusual move for any labor union of the time. Then, the women of the community resumed the picket line, which was legal despite the restraining order because the women were not employees of the mine. The women’s picket line prevented Empire Zinc from using nonunion strikebreakers to continue its mining operation. Dozens of women and children were arrested during the picket, and a number were injured. The picketers were shot at, teargassed, and in one case, a woman was run over by a car, revealing the heightened tensions within the community.
It was not until early in 1952 that the union and the mine reached agreement on a contract and the strike ended. While the union did not gain everything it had hoped to, the mine made some concessions that made the new contract acceptable to the miners.
Juan Chacón was not only one of the leaders of the union during the strike, but afterward was cast to play one of the leads in “Salt of the Earth,” even though he had no professional acting experience. He later served as president of the Local 890 and remained involved in activism for Mexican American workers throughout his career. The union hall in Bayard, NM was eventually named after him.
When the Juan Chacón Building on the WNMU campus was dedicated in 1985, the event marked the first time a public building in New Mexico was named after a Chicano labor activist. Chacón’s widow, Virginia Chacón, who was also very active in the Local 890, and their children were in attendance. At the dedication, Professor Miguel Encinias, who was a decorated fighter pilot, former POW, and professor of Spanish and French, noted how appropriate it was that an academic building be named for Chacón. Said Encinias, “It is by means of education today and tomorrow that differences are able to be diminished and that problems common to us all can be addressed and worked on together.”
WNMU is home to the Juan Chacón Collection, which is located in the J. Cloyd Miller Library. The collection contains correspondence, newspaper clippings, pamphlets, essays and other archival documents about Chacón, the strike, Local 890 of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, and “Salt of the Earth.”
This story is part of a series in honor of Hispanic Serving Institution Week and Hispanic Heritage Month.