[2] The fact that twice as many workers as there were jobs in the San Gabriel Valley caused the walkout as well as bad conditions and low wages.
Tensions between Mexican berry pickers, Japanese growers, white landowners, and local officials were poised to bring unwanted attention to the profitable illegal agricultural arrangements that were in place in El Monte.
[5] The El Monte Chamber of Commerce had a vested interest in keeping Mexican workers non-unionized and used tactics such as red-baiting to turn public opinion against the strikers.
[5] The month-long strike ended on July 6, 1933, with field workers winning a pyrrhic victory: the workers won an increased daily wage of $1.50 a day, but on July 10th the Bureau of Industrial Relations declared that the agreement was only binding on the vegetable farms on the coast, and did not apply to the berry farms in the valley.
[2] The Japanese Chamber of Commerce, with the support of the white community, recommended that further participants in Mexican labor strikes be deported, and an entire growing season had been lost with families earning no wages.
[2] Japanese American farmers in El Monte essentially "won" the strike, but only because their interests overlapped with those of white landowners.