Salt of the Earth

“At last, an honest movie about American working people”

At the Empire Zinc mine in New Mexico, Mexican-American miners walk out over unsafe conditions and pay lower than their Anglo coworkers get. Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón) organizes the strike, then comes home and gives his pregnant wife Esperanza (Rosaura Revueltas) the same unfair treatment. Herbert J. Biberman made the film outside the studios, and its argument stays concrete: dignity has to be claimed at the picket line and at the kitchen table alike.