Blacklisted New Mexico film gets atonement

By Russell Contreras, Associated Press/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A 1954 movie about a real-life miners’ strike that was blacklisted during the Red Scare is being celebrated in New Mexico as the 60th anniversary of the film approaches.

“Salt of the Earth” was blacklisted in the U.S. during Cold War retribution against communist filmmakers and gained an underground following more than a decade later when it was finally shown. The story was told through the eyes of a female character named Esperanza as Mexican-American miners barred by federal law from striking against a zinc company were replaced on the picket lines by their wives.

It became a feminist and Chicano Studies classic, and it was the subject of conferences over race, miner safety and the role of women.

The film was a retelling of actual events involving Mexican-American miners and their wives in Grant County three years before the film. Director Herbert J. Biberman was one of the “Hollywood Ten” who refused to answer questions from the House Committee on Un-American Activities about being members of the Communist Party.

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[Photo courtesy Wikipedia]

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