Picket Line: The Lost Novella

“If a man comes out of the field and goes on the picket line, even for one day, he’ll never be the same...” 

Chino and Paco Rojas seem well-mannered, at least for Chicanos, to the white cops that pull them over for littering on the long drive from California to Trinity, Texas. So well-mannered, in fact, that Captain Frank McKellan lets them off with a warning and recommends them a job at Stanzik Farms, the largest independent melon grower in the area. But Chino and Paco didn’t drive all this way for work. Instead, Chino is looking for a mysterious man, Vincent Mora, whose new Valley Agricultural Workers Association is causing a scene striking against the farm owners. 

Stanzik’s fields and Mora’s union bring together a cast of unlikely characters: Connie Chavez, a former picker and blossoming revolutionary who leads with a bullhorn and a fearless mouth; Bud Davis, a white Xavier University student working for spending money; Harold Ritchie, a local marine-turned-cop; Luis Tamez, a striker whose grandson served with Harold in Vietnam; and many more, including the pragmatic Chino, who finds himself pulled irrevocably into the cause. Some are neighbors, others just passing through. Some know each other well, or at least thought they did…before the picket line.  

This never-before-published gem from master storyteller Elmore Leonard describes the early days of an unprecedented farmers’ movement; the complex cast of Chicanos, Anglos, and migrants that impact the union; and the careful balance of passion, patience, and pure, stupid guts that it takes to hold the line.