Jarrico's most famous project was as producer of this independent production by blacklisted artists. Salt of the Earth is an astonishing combination of gritty neorealism and impassioned performances, its stark beauty recalling the Mexican cinema of Eisenstein and Figueroa. Using a largely non-professional cast, it recreates a year-long strike by Mexican-American miners in their ancestral home of New Mexico, now the province of Anglo industrialists. The men take a courageous stand but it is their wives who battle to have their issues (sanitation and health) and their own participation recognized in the labor struggle. The film's feminism is sophisticated and profound, centering on Esperanza, whose evolution is movingly portrayed by Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas. Nothing like this film had come out of Hollywood, and Hollywood meant to see that nothing like it ever would: the film was blackballed until 1965.