The men’s pants company, Farah Incorporated, was founded in El Paso, Texas in the 1920s by Mansour and Hana Farah. It opened its first location on San Francisco Street with 15 Mexican women employees. During the 1970s, Farah had changed its president from Mansour to William Farah and employed around 9,000 workers, 85% of whom were Mexican-American women. Within five decades of its conception, the Farah Company had expanded its business to eight locations around Texas and New Mexico. From 1972 to 1974 the ACWA, with aid from The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, represented the workers against Farah Incorporated. The ACWA was a U.S. labor union founded in Chicago in 1919 dedicated to representing and protecting workers in the clothing and textile industries. By the 1960s and 70s, low wage labor in the Southwest was primarily accomplished by immigrant workers lured into working in the U.S. through post-WWII programs such as the bracero and maquiladora programs that provided jobs for immigrants in agriculture, factories, construction, packing, and custodial areas. The ACWA bolstered support for the rights of Mexican-American workers against Farah Incorporated. This poster was used as a form of media coverage to galvanize American public support for the cause. It utilized the poster medium for mass distribution, capitalizing on visual strategies from advertising to attract attention and inform viewers of Farah Incorporated’s mistreatment of its workers. As a result, the poster became the method in which the boycott of the purchase and distribution of Farah pants was popularized by the ACWA.

The Chicano Civil Rights Movement, or El Movimiento, coincided with other civil rights movements of the 1960s. It advocated for Mexican-American labor rights and unionization, promoting social and political empowerment through a national identity. At a time of protest and social reform, posters became a cost-effective and easy-to-produce medium to distribute information, which made them popular with political groups. The earliest Chicano posters were made for the United Farm Workers, an agricultural labor movement led by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.