Baker explores the 1951 minersa strike in Hanover, New Mexico, in which the Mexican American miners were prohibited from picketing. When their wives picketed for them, leading to a victory for the miners in 1952, the minersa union was forced to consider gender equality in their struggle for justice. Baker also explores the collaboration between mining families and blacklisted Hollywood filmmakers that resulted in the controversial 1954 film Salt of the Earth. She shows how this worker-artist alliance gave the mining families a unique chance to clarify the meanings of the strike in their own lives and allowed the filmmakers to create a progressive alternative to Hollywood productions.