Biography
Danny Roxas was a farm worker activist and IWW officer. Danny Roxas received a two- to twenty-eight-year prison sentence for violating the California Criminal Syndicalism Act and served in San Quentin from June 1930 to August 16, 1932. He was secretaiy of the Agricultural Workers Industrial League and a leader of the Imperial Valley farm workers strike of 1930. (See also the entry for Lawrence Emery.
Western Worker, July 15, 1932, page 2: The Imperial Valley defense report announced parole for July 18, 1932, and discussed deportation conditions for Sklar and Horiuchi. It demanded Sklar’s release on his own recognizance and permission for Horiuchi to choose voluntary departure. This is a prospective announcement; it does not override separately documented later physical release or departure dates. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/westernworker/1932/v1n14-jul-15-1932.pdf
The El Centro trial report lists the Imperial Valley defendants in custody in the criminal-syndicalism prosecution and describes $40,000 bonds. It identifies them by surname or shortened spelling. The June 14 report says the jury was still deliberating June 13; the forty-two-year figure is possible exposure at that point, not a verdict or served duration. Daily Worker, June 11, 1930, page 1. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1930/v07-n140-NY-jun-11-1930-DW-LOC.pdf
The September 8, 1930 Laisve, page 5, reproduces an International Labor Defense political-prisoner directory. Its row prints Danny Roxas, a term of 3–12 years, the year 1930 in the sentencing-year column, and confinement or correspondence location San Quentin, California. This is an attributed historical directory entry; printed years and nominal terms are not exact intake dates or measured time served, and mailing boxes do not independently identify a prison. The directory contains stale or conflicting chronology, so this row does not override independently established conviction, death or release facts. Source: https://www.spauda2.org/laisve/archive/1930/1930-09-08-LAISVE.pdf#page=5
The March 11 Fresno dispatch published March 12, 1931 reports a fifty-person labor delegation attending the Fourth State District Court of Appeals the previous day to demand release of the Imperial Valley prisoners. It describes the eight organizers as in California state prisons and says an appellate decision was expected in twenty days. The account supplies advocacy and pending appeal, not an accomplished release or new sentence. Its collective three-to-forty-two and two-to-twenty-eight-year terms are reported nominal ranges, not time actually served; spelling and chronology discrepancies do not override independently recorded individual facts. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1931/v08-n062-NY-mar-12-1931-DW-LOC.pdf#page=1
Labor Defender, August 1932, printed page 149 (PDF page 10): Martin Bank's Palm-Treed Paradise names Sklar, Oscar Erikson, Lawrence Emory, Tetsuji Horiuchi and Danny Roxas in the Imperial Valley criminal-syndicalism defense and gives a collective three-to-forty-two-year term. It places these five at Folsom and Eduardo Herra and Braulio Orosco at San Quentin under two-to-twenty-eight-year terms. These printed location and spelling variants are preserved as a contemporary collective account; conflicting individual prison evidence is not silently overwritten. The account says parole officials refused to release Erickson and Roxas because the proposed jobs did not satisfy the board; a refusal is not actual release. Nominal ranges do not state actual service, and no precise admission, parole or discharge day is given. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n08-aug-1932-LD.pdf
Printed pages 172-173 (PDF 12-13), Frank Spector's California's Parole Racket, distinguishes the announced July 18, 1932 release from continued custody because of employment-approval and immigration barriers. It describes revised terms of two years in prison plus eighteen months parole for Erickson, Roxas, Sklar and Horiuchi, and thirty months prison plus one year parole for Emery. The editor's later update expressly reports Erickson and Roxas actually released, Horiuchi sailing for the USSR on August 17 after permission for voluntary departure, and Sklar's physical release still awaited despite a regular-parole agreement; Emery's release was still sought. These are separate individual outcomes, not a collective July 18 discharge. The article's June 1931 and aggregate forty-two-year wording conflicts with earlier case chronologies and is not used to overwrite independently documented initial sentencing. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1932/v08n09-sep-1932-LD.pdf
Completed August16,1932 parole report
The September1,1932 Western Worker individually states that Danny Roxas, an Imperial Valley defendant, “was released on parole August16.” This is a completed-event statement, not the separate prospective parole discussion concerning Carl Sklar or Lawrence Emery. It supports August16,1932 as the Roxas release day, replacing the older month-only July1932 entry.
The article does not establish his initial physical admission. The existing June1930 month precision, imposed sentence and stored twelve-month figure are not independently validated by this report; no calendar-day duration is calculated from a month-only admission. Horiuchi’s August17 sailing and Yamaguchi’s proposed August19 rendezvous concern other people and are not assigned to Roxas.
Western Worker, volume1 number17, September1,1932, original pages [2]. Contemporary allegations are attributed to the newspaper.
Esther Lowell’s September 1930 Labor Defender interview with imprisoned Oscar Erickson distinguishes Danny Roxas from the other ImperialValley defendants: two counts ran concurrently and the third consecutively, giving two to twenty-eight years, rather than the three-to-forty-two-year total generally assigned to the others. This specific contemporary explanation corrects the legacy nominal sentence and replaces the unrelated inherited Espionage/SeditionAct charge label with the reported California criminal-syndicalism prosecution. Lowell explicitly lists Roxas at SanQuentin. No total actual duration is inferred from this nominal term or from month-only admission; the inherited twelve-month figure is not validated by this source and is left pending separate reconciliation.
Labor Defender, September 1930, original PDF page 8 (printed180).
The Behind the Bars directory on printed page 4 lists this prisoner under San Quentin State Prison, California, with two to twenty-eight years, 1930. This is an attributed historical directory entry: the year and nominal term do not establish an intake day, uninterrupted imprisonment, completed service or physical release.
Labor Defender, August 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
Labor Defender, September 1932; relevant page stated in the accompanying profile note.
An individually signed letter from Danny A. Roxas, printed under a San Quentin prisoner heading, thanks the ILD for a check and describes the monotony of life inside prison. Its return address is Box 48687, San Quentin; that mailing box is not independently treated as his inmate number. His report that three unnamed Centralia prisoners had been released is not assigned as a release date or identity for any particular person. The letter gives no new admission or discharge day.
Named as a signer of the Imperial Valley prisoners’ greeting, datelined San Francisco November 6, from confinement following agricultural organizing. The accompanying text places the group in San Quentin and Folsom without assigning every individual prison. Its group-wide forty-two-year wording is not substituted for individual sentences or actual served totals.
