The Industrial Workers of the World was considered one of the more radical labor organizations in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. The IWW, whose members were commonly known as the Wobblies, promoted what were seen as very radical and socialist ideas about the unfair distribution of wealth and income. Other labor unions, such as the railroad brotherhoods, had traditionally excluded Mexican immigrants, but the Wobblies embraced them. In 1908, the IWW began to focus on Mexican immigrants as a group, trying to organize them into one big union.

In 1910, the Wobblies supported Mexican railroad and construction workers striking in Fresno, California and also Mexicans striking against the Los Angeles Gas Works. In 1913, they helped organize hops pickers at the Durst Ranch near Wheatland, California. The workers there faced absolutely awful conditions. In addition to receiving very low pay, the Durst Ranch workers had to camp in tattered tents and shanties alongside polluted drainage ditches. In one confrontation between strikers and agents of the ranch owners, several people were killed. In response, the California National Guard crushed the strike. However, the conditions at the Durst Ranch led to the formation of the California Commission on Immigration and Housing, which made some largely ineffective recommendations for improving the conditions at farm labor camps in the state.

IWW recruitment poster, 1910	Memorial of the Durst Ranch Riots