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1. 2025 Palisades Fire.
2. Seatricum is located in Topanga Canyon, just off the 101 freeway, in the shade of the California live oaks.
3. Explore and picnic in the gardens before the show.
4. Further information available at www.seatricum.com and at kpfg.org.
5. 90.7 KPFK, Los Angeles.
6. Yes.
7. Today the country marks its 250th birthday.
8. In our nation's capital, they are celebrating with the largest fireworks display in history.
9. We're going deep into the Pacifica archives instead.
10. From the vault, Dolores Huerta.
11. I remember when we first started the union,
12. Pete Farmer would say to me, let's do this for our children.
13. And I think to myself, well, why are they saying for our children?
14. Dolores no teme porque es muy valiente
15. Because even they knew better than I did, you know, what a long struggle it was going to be.
16. And now I see their children, you know, that are now involved in the struggle,
17. like Luciano Crespo today who organized transportation while his mother was a striker.
18. You know, he was just a little kid then.
19. Now Luciano is, you know, being able to be a leader in the union and some of the young people.
20. and it's true, you know, here we are
21. basically we're, here in Delano
22. we're at the same place that we were in 1965
23. you know, we have a different way
24. to do it, we're doing it through elections and through
25. the ALRB, instead of the strike
26. saying the boycott, but still we have to
27. use part of the boycott, and they were
28. right when they said let's do it for our children
29. let's make these sacrifices for our children
30. they knew what they were talking about
31. Dolores no teme
32. porque es muy valiente
33. Que bien te queda tu nombre, Dolores.
34. Porque yo sabía que tú sufrirías mucho sin sabores.
35. I wonder if in striking against companies like Shenley and DeGeorgia you don have an advantage in the fact that they are well known They always finding some way to get around it or to try to beat the boycott
36. but I think in terms of effectiveness, we know very definitely that they have been hurt this time around.
37. Just more recently, we were advertising that the DeGeorgia grape, the high-color label,
38. was a perfectly safe grape that people could buy.
39. Well, the Georgia decided at the last minute that they wouldn't pack any table grape.
40. So lo and behold, what they did is they marketed other people's grape under their label.
41. So as a result of this, we now have a $25 million lawsuit against four of the Delano growers
42. who had their grape shipped under the Georgia labels.
43. I wonder if in all of this you've been at a disadvantage in terms of government attention
44. or if the growers have always had more power in affecting government.
45. Very much so.
46. Of course, that's one of the things that we try to get with the movement of the farm workers
47. and with organizations is that this is why you organize.
48. You organize to try to get political and economic power.
49. Right now, of course, we don't have it.
50. And we keep crying to the government to help us,
51. and they refuse to help us, just like bringing in people from Mexico to break the strike.
52. we appeal to them and we get a lot of promises.
53. The Department of Labor says this is illegal and we're going to put a stop to it.
54. And we'd love to help you, but the Department of Justice won't move.
55. And so we get caught in this box all the time where you're getting all of this,
56. it sounds good and you're getting all of this so-called support from the government,
57. but when it comes right down to it, they say the nitty-gritty, they don't do anything.
58. They don't take anybody out of the field. They continue to break our strike.
59. She is the Vice President of the United Farm Workers Union.
60. Dolores Huerta, welcome to WBAI.
61. Thank you.
62. Perhaps we should just start by giving our listeners a sense of how you got involved in the United Farm Workers Union
63. and perhaps some of the past victories and some of the present struggles.
64. Well, I started, I'm one of the founding members of our union
65. and started way back in the 50s and the 60s
66. when we saw that there was a need for farm workers to be organized.
67. We've, you know, come a long way from the time when we had no kind of legislation.
68. The grape strike in Coachella.
69. In the early morning hours of April 16th, 1973, the United Farm Workers Union struck
70. all but two grape growers in the Coachella Valley.
71. The strike came as a result of an announcement the day before by the Teamsters Union of a
72. four-year contract with growers covering 85% of the Valley's farmworkers.
73. William Kirscher, National Director of Organizations for the AFL-CIO, and President George Meany's
74. personal representative to the grape strike, offers a different explanation for the presence
75. of the Teamsters.
76. William Kirscher, National Director of Organizations for the AFL-CIO, and President George Meany's
77. personal representative to the grape strike, offers a different explanation for the presence
78. of the Teamsters.
79. George Meany, AFL-CIO, Teamsters Union of Farmworkers
80. Growers are more comfortable with a union like the Teamsters.
81. If a grower has a contract with a farm workers union, then those workers are represented
82. by their own leadership.
83. And if there's a grievance or a complaint, the grower has to sit down across the table
84. from a farm worker.
85. And that not pleasant for him It a little uncomfortable for that grower He likes it a lot better if there a problem to pick up the phone and have the Teamster business agent drive over to the country club in his T
86. and the grower drives up to the country club in his Cadillac, and they sit there over martinis and decide how to deal with his particular grievance.
87. You know, the Teamsters Union is a comfortable union for the employer.
88. The indigenously led Farm Workers Union is not a comfortable union
89. because the collective bargaining process is an adversary process,
90. and when both parties come at it with full honor and honesty,
91. there's a certain amount of discomfort and strife involved for both parties.
92. Well, it's something like the economics of racism, you know?
93. You know, it's basically that there's a lot of that in that.
94. I mean, they were willing to, say, sign contracts with the Teamsters,
95. pay money into a Teamster pension plan that they knew was totally corrupt, right?
96. It didn't hurt them a bit, you know?
97. Pay a lot of money, say, to labor contractors,
98. as long as the workers can be kept, you know, oppressed, see?
99. So it's not the money of it, I think, that really...
100. It's just the fact that they will not accept workers as their equals.
101. You see, the farm workers had these contracts.
102. They represent the workers.
103. The farm workers were the incumbent union.
104. Those contracts expired.
105. the Teamsters
106. consorted
107. with the growers
108. prior to the expiration
109. of those contracts
110. and worked out a backdoor
111. arrangement to sign
112. contracts
113. and take the bargaining rights
114. away from
115. Farm Workers Union
116. now the matter of fact is that they stole
117. them, that's precisely what
118. happened, they stole them
119. and what they do now with respect to those contracts that what the teamsters do is sort
120. of beside the point it's sort of like you know if you stole an automobile
121. but after you stole it you obeyed all of the traffic laws that wouldn't change the fact that
122. you had no right to that automobile you could be the safest driver you could obey all the laws you
123. could stay within the speed limits, you are still driving an automobile that doesn't belong to you
124. and you stole. And that's precisely the situation here. Whatever the Teamsters do with these
125. contracts from this point will not change the fact that they stole them. Well, the farmworkers
126. won a good victory today because all the farmworkers that were arrested for violating
127. in that court order are released, the charges against them were dismissed, and they are
128. purged of any contempt of court because that order was unconstitutional. And we also got
129. a modification of an order. Starting on Monday, we have an unlimited number of pickets 60
130. feet from the fields, and the Teamsters, no person can threaten anybody with lead pipes,
131. baseball bats, guns, knives, grape steaks, or other dangerous weapons. And so that gives
132. the sheriffs a chance to control the Teamster goons who are here in the valley. And we're
133. very happy with the order.
134. have got to understand what the labor movement is, what it's done, and look at the history
135. and what it doing now because it is only labor that is out there daily you know fighting for wages fighting for benefits redistributing the wealth It the only redistribution program that we have in the whole country
136. And it's, you know, men and women that are working day and night in the labor movement to make it happen.
137. And people forget that.
138. We seem to take labor for granted, not realizing that we are here in the heart of the lion, you might say,
139. the mouth of the lion, you know, the bed of capitalism, the corporate wealth and power.
140. and to think that our labor movement has survived,
141. like the farm worker story, is kind of a miracle in itself.
142. Compañeros, entonces, con mucho gusto,
143. al compañero director Jerry Whipple.
144. ¡Quince a cuatro! ¡Quince a cuatro! ¡Quince a cuatro!
145. ¡Quince a cuatro! ¡Quince a cuatro! ¡Quince a cuatro!
146. It is a great pleasure to be with our friends, the farm workers, today.
147. and I want to say to you that the UAW,
148. on behalf of the officers and the members of the UAW,
149. are with you, and we're going to be with you,
150. not in words, but in money and help in every way possible.
151. Thank you very much.
152. Thank you.
153. Vino a California y salio, profesora
154. Enseñaba niños de los campesinos
155. Venían a la clase
156. Con hambre y con frío
157. Le partían el alma
158. Y Dolores dijo
159. Si ayudo a los padres
160. Ayudo a los hijos
161. Y esta señora de gran corazón
162. Así comenzó la primera unión
163. I think that we have to remember
164. the struggle will be constant, okay?
165. We're now asking people to boycott Andy Boy Broccoli
166. and maybe next week we'll be asking you to boycott Del Monte...
167. I mean, not Del Monte, excuse me, Del Pineapples, right?
168. Because we're having trouble with them on a contract on the West Coast.
169. and it's a constant thing.
170. That's the only thing I can say.
171. It's a constant struggle.
172. It's a constant vigil.
173. It's a constant activism.
174. I think there's a saying in Spanish that says,
175. the devil never sleeps.
176. El diablo nunca duerme.
177. He's always awake.
178. And this is something like the corporations, right?
179. They're always working.
180. They're always working.
181. And so we also have to do the same thing.
182. We're going to be coming back asking people for help all the time.
183. I'm sure of it now.
184. This is my fourth time back in New York saying,
185. help us boycott something.
186. And it's just part of our living.
187. And we just have to remember that.
188. I think the 80s hopefully will be like the 60s
189. where people will realize it.
190. But then we can't rest.
191. When it's over, we have to keep on working.
192. Since the early 1960s,
193. the United Farm Workers Union
194. has been a fast-growing force in American agriculture,
195. especially in California.
196. But today, after more than 10 years of successful work across the country,
197. the union is still struggling in its hometown, Delano.
198. A handful of large growers there
199. have consistently refused to sign contracts with the UFW,
200. and so the union is now redirecting its boycott campaign against these ranches.
201. During the meetings at 40 Acres,
202. it was made clear that the Delano growers will go to great lengths
203. to avoid signing a contract with the UFW.
204. And workers gave example after example of how their union involvement
205. brought on company discrimination, harassment, and intimidation.
206. The Delano growers, incredible as it may sound,
207. after ten years of struggle, have not made peace yet.
208. I mean, they have not accepted unionization yet.
209. Dolores Huerta, first vice president of the UFW.
210. They also make life very miserable for the union workers,
211. like the people who were elected to the negotiating committees
212. by harassing them and just putting a lot of pressure on them,
213. as in the case with Adelano Rivera, who was a worker for Texcal.
214. And he had no problems at all with the company
215. until he was elected to the negotiating committee.
216. Immediately after that, they took him off of his tractor job.
217. They put him on a hoe, you know, hoeing.
218. And then they put him out there in a very isolated place
219. where he couldn't communicate with any other workers
220. and all this big, tall Johnson grass.
221. It's just a very bad situation.
222. And then they further went on to harass him.
223. He lives on company housing.
224. So somehow one morning he got up and his garden was destroyed.
225. He had his little plants planted, and everything was torn down and destroyed.
226. Then a couple of weeks ago they came out and they shot up all of his pigeons.
227. He had about 100 pigeons, and they killed 80 of his pigeons just to shot them.
228. you know and here he has his kids at home and his wife and they wake up and they hear gunshots about
229. seven o'clock in the morning and some of these are killing all his pigeons it turned out it was one
230. of the company's supervisors and one of his friends but just all this incredible harassment oh just
231. yesterday he got the notice that he's got to move out of his house
232. and they put a notice on it the company says it has to leave
233. Hear the rooster as he wakes everyone with his hee-hee-hee-hee in the morning.
234. And the chickens scratch around on the ground, but there isn't a worm to be found.
235. Baby chickies, baby chickies
236. All sing P-O-P-O, P-O-P-O-P
237. And the sounds of the fields and the farms
238. Lovely colors abound as the sunshine peeks through
239. So, you know, this harassment just goes on and on and on.
240. How do you fight back against it?
241. Well, the way we're fighting back now is through the ALRB.
242. We can file unfair labor practice charges against the company.
243. And just like Thilo's case is right now before the Agricultural Labor Relations Board,
244. they've been in hearings now for weeks.
245. And this is another thing that we're asking for is for the company to give Mr. Aquilano Rivera back his tractor job.
246. Take him off the hoe, give him back his job driving tractor.
247. He's worked at the company since 1967, you know.
248. and they don't want to give him back his job on the tractor.
249. But they're willing to spend $1,000 a day for an ALRB hearing
250. because that's about what they have to pay their attorneys,
251. say between $500 and $1,000 a day,
252. and go on on these lengthy hearings rather than give the workers the money
253. and give him his back wages that they should give him.
254. Do they know you've got Spanish-speaking farm workers,
255. you've got Yemenese farm workers who speak Arabic,
256. you have black farm workers, you have Anglo farm workers,
257. so you have a real mixture, Filipino farm workers.
258. You go to Florida and most of the workers there that are in the union are black But here you have the biggest mixture of all It a whole different thing
259. The whole union is made up with those movements.
260. It's such a tremendous struggle because you not only involve people from the farm workers themselves,
261. but you involve workers and supporters all over the country.
262. And it's different people.
263. The people that make up Delano, say on the Delano staff,
264. they're people that have wanted to volunteer and to come in and do something.
265. Myself, I was born and raised here in the San Joaquin Valley.
266. My parents were farm workers.
267. Other people come in for different reasons, but the main reason is to help workers.
268. The supporters here today are people that are really interested in doing something for farm workers.
269. and the boycott is a very intricate part of it because it's just an economic pressure that you can put on growers.
270. And the growers, there was no grower, you know, no one wants a union because they feel that it's a threat.
271. It's a threat on them.
272. For so many years that they've been able to run their ranches, you know, do anything they want,
273. be abusive, be discriminative against workers,
274. that when a union comes in, they can't do those things anymore.
275. In Delano, there's been so many things going on over the years
276. that we've helped eliminate,
277. even though we don't have that many contracts.
278. We've eliminated a lot of racism.
279. We've eliminated a lot of sexism.
280. And I say, like, one time in Delano, only men did the pruning,
281. and women were told that they were too weak, they couldn't prune, it's too cold.
282. But yet the same women, they wanted to go out and lift 30, 40-pound ladders
283. and run on trees.
284. So during the union, we have gotten where women can prune, women can drive tractors, women irrigate,
285. and we've broken down a lot of those prejudices that the growers have always had.
286. Growers at one time said the only people who can pick table grapes were Filipinos,
287. is that the Mexicans couldn't do it, and the blacks' hands were too big,
288. and the Anglos were so intelligent they should be doing other jobs.
289. And so the union has knocked those things down.
290. I mean, it's really, when I say it today, people really laugh.
291. But I can remember the time here in Delano when they would have a cruise.
292. like at one time
293. the Filipinos were told so much
294. that they were the only ones to pick table grapes
295. that if someone other than a Filipino
296. walked in the field, they'd all sit down
297. they wouldn't work, they'd always strike
298. over the years they said
299. the blacks could only do
300. hoeing and pick cotton
301. Mexicans were only good for
302. sleeping
303. having their siestas
304. and they could only do dirt work like gondola work,
305. or no one else's donkey type work, what they called.
306. They were saying that the Anglos were the only ones
307. that could aerogate and drive trucks
308. because they were very intelligent.
309. Well those things we have finally got rid of They will not accept workers as their equals That a big part of it That why you have to look at their mentality which is a feudalistic mentality
310. where they look down on their bigoted mentality, and they won't accept workers as equals.
311. And when you hear people like Nagi and Atilana Rivera and all the workers,
312. they're such humble people and such good people.
313. and you wonder how can the growers hate them, you know?
314. How can they be so blind as to hate their own workers?
315. The workers that have literally made them rich
316. because Louis Caritan is a millionaire.
317. And the Filipino workers made the growers and Delano millionaires.
318. And yet they have to live in hovels now that they're retired, you know?
319. It's incredible, but they can't relate to their workers at all.
320. They just see them as tools of production, as instruments.
321. I mean, they have more feelings for their caterpillars
322. than they do for their workers.
323. I like the union. If we don't have the union, we don't have this kind of wages now.
324. We asked only $1.40 an hour. We were receiving $1.20. We only asked $1.40.
325. They said, sorry, we cannot afford it. It took us five years before they signed.
326. They started $1.40, but they won't sign. And then $1.60, they won't sign.
327. They give us $1.80 and then very soon they sign.
328. Yeah, because of the boycott.
329. Or else the picket line don't work.
330. Because you know how poor people like us, especially those that have family,
331. so they have to go to work.
332. For two days or three days, then they get no food if they don't go to work.
333. That's why the picket line don't work.
334. So it's the boycott that really saved the union.
335. Fred said you were supposed to be a company man.
336. Oh, yeah.
337. Because I was a foreman for more than 20 years.
338. A foreman for 20 years?
339. Yes, sir.
340. And you left that for the union?
341. Yeah.
342. I was receiving that much, 7,000 to 8,000.
343. Yet my men, they are only good for 2,000, 3,000.
344. So I want to help them.
345. That's why I woke up.
346. I woke up twice.
347. See, when they signed 1917, they took me back.
348. In fact, every year they want me back.
349. But I won't go unless they sign.
350. so when they signed in 1970 I went back 1973 when their contract expired I
351. strike until now I'm not still staying here I have a house in early March but
352. many of my men are here and I got nothing to do anyway so I come here and
353. play cards with them just to pass the time.
354. Is the food good?
355. Well, oh yeah. Filipino and American food.
356. Like that we have what you call Italian spaghetti.
357. Any visitors that come here, welcome to eat.
358. And if you want to pay only 50 cents a meal for the visitors,
359. whether you like to drop in the kitty or not You are welcome It makes us you know feel you know different if we have some visitors like you
360. We want you to be just like with us, brothers and sisters.
361. We feel good.
362. You get many visitors here?
363. Oh, yeah.
364. Yeah.
365. One time we have 20 visitors from South America.
366. We get more from Canada. In fact, they came to our convention twice.
367. Two buses full of, from Canada.
368. We have been working for this village for two years.
369. I'm very, very proud to all people, volunteers that came and helped us to build this retirement village.
370. Not only Filipinos, but all PAM retirees, PAM workers. Mostly Filipinos in there now because I believe that we the Filipinos, the oldest workers in this area.
371. So we see mostly Filipinos that is now going to be retired and they cannot do very much in this movement anymore, but they are with us.
372. I'm too one of them. My age, I'm retired in my age, but I'm not going to be retired in this movement. I got to go on.
373. We thank you people to come and see us here and give us more courage even though we are old already.
374. But we will build up our courage to go on and do something even though we cannot get out in the boycott area anymore.
375. I love you.
376. Chant
377. Following the meetings and visits at 40 Acres, the boycott supporters split up into groups
378. and took buses and vans to go see some of the labor camps and fields in Delano.
379. The first stop for the group I was with was a rose ranch owned by the Mount Arbor Company.
380. Dolores Huerta told us about a recent strike there.
381. The company here refused to negotiate.
382. We had an overwhelming victory here at Mount Arbor,
383. and the company just, well, they negotiated for it.
384. We had about six or seven meetings with them,
385. and then they walked out and never came back again.
386. And since they thought,
387. Remember before Proposition 14 all the growers thought the law was going to go away, right?
388. So they figured, well, the law's going to go away so we don't have to negotiate.
389. They never knew that we were going to make them put the money out because of Proposition 14.
390. So after Proposition 14 passed, then we contacted them again.
391. I mean, it didn't pass, but we got the money because of 14.
392. Then we got in touch with the growers to try to get them to negotiate again,
393. and they absolutely refused to come to the bargaining table.
394. Just a total outright refusal.
395. Then the board ordered them to negotiate, and they still refused.
396. so then the workers after the first week of work in the grafting season
397. which is very delicate work, the workers just all came out on strike 100%
398. and the company tried and tried to get strike breakers, they brought them in from Arizona
399. everywhere, but none of the people, the grafters
400. there's several hundred grafters in the area, but most of them are from the same town
401. that Jose is from, from Tangansikwa to Michoacan, and so a lot of them
402. are interrelated and nobody broke the strike, nobody
403. And they brought some guys from Arizona to break the strike.
404. And they worked for about, I guess about a week,
405. and we picketed them with about several hundred farm workers.
406. And finally we got the Mexican labor movement to send them a very strong telegram
407. that if they didn't leave the fields that they would tell their native towns in Mexico
408. that they were breaking the strike.
409. So that scared them because we found out that they own land in Mexico.
410. They've gotten some of the land that's been divided up by the government over there.
411. And if they have that kind of property in Mexico, they have to live on it, and they can't work in the United States.
412. So we got them out with a telegram.
413. We're going to show you another field, but we're not going to have time.
414. There's a field where the company brought in about 200 people to cut the weeds.
415. And they never were able to control the weeds because the people that they brought in didn't know how to hoe.
416. And so the more that they cut, the faster the grass grew.
417. Really!
418. And so that field is so, I mean, we wanted to show you because you'll see a field of roses like this
419. that is so overcome with weeds that you can't see the roses.
420. But we're not going to have time to show it to you now because we have to try to show you a labor camp, huh?
421. You're listening to KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles,
422. an hour on the life's work of Dolores Huerta from the Pacifica Radio Archives.
423. When we come back, Dolores walks us through the labor camps of Delano,
424. including one that started as a Japanese internment camp.
425. Stay with us.
426. This beautiful nation calls me the music.
427. I already have my...
428. Dolores, don't be afraid, because she's very brave.
429. And so, whether mentally or physically,
430. this is what Cesar said about this great woman.
431. Nunca se ha rajado
432. No sabe perder
433. There's some that are a lot worse
434. But it not good You know I mean we can see the rooms inside You know you could see them and see how miserable they really are So this is the dining room right Yeah this is the dining room You see there no TV set there nothing
435. It's just like, you know, I imagine there's some jails that have better recreation facilities,
436. and a lot of the people, they haven't got no way to get to town.
437. There's no phone here, as you can see.
438. The only phone is in the foreman's house, so if he's not here, nobody can phone.
439. So they have this in the bedroom?
440. Just a little room.
441. There's no recreation room or anything else besides this?
442. Pretty barren.
443. That's their...
444. Among the Filipino workers,
445. what they do with their food
446. is that they all chip in together to buy the food.
447. That way they're not so easily exploited.
448. And then they all...
449. The Bazonics are supposed to pay the cook,
450. and then they all divide and pay the food.
451. But like here in Bazonics, they have the cook.
452. He doesn't have a helper.
453. you know so it's just one man who's an older man trying to cook for all the rest of them
454. and it's very and one of the things that they want to do in the contract is try to get a helping for
455. the cook do you know how many people he has i don't know how many people are in the camp right
456. now but they had up to 100 people in this camp you know uh right now it's probably mostly filipinos
457. during the the picking season they had a lot of people without undocumented workers that were here
458. too. And a lot of the Filipino men like that man that was here just a minute, they're very old
459. and they really don't have any place to live except here. It's just real sad. A lot of them
460. shouldn't be working anymore, but they don't have any family. I mean, it's just like the grapevines
461. is all that they've known since they were 15, 16 years old. I mean, that's been their entire life,
462. you know. And so they just continue working until they literally drop dead in the field.
463. or they drop dead playing cards
464. well we try to get them as much as possible
465. to use the clinic
466. a lot of the older Filipino workers
467. you have to understand their history
468. they were strong unionists from the very beginning
469. they fought in all of the early struggles
470. of unionization and they were beaten every single time
471. you know what I mean
472. and so now a lot of them haven't got very much fight left
473. and they just don't want to be bothered anymore.
474. So sometimes we tell them, we make them come to the clinic,
475. but a lot of them don't feel good about being in the clinic
476. because they feel that they shouldn't go to the clinic
477. unless they're already under a union contract or union members.
478. So we've done a lot of converting.
479. Ernie, who you saw at the meeting, this is his camp here, Ernie and Felix.
480. This is the Captain Felix's.
481. This is what their homes have been like for 40 years.
482. I mean, you can imagine that. You know what I mean?
483. Or maybe long for 50 years, or 60 years.
484. Because a lot of them are already in their 70s and their 80s.
485. I don't know how old you are, so I'll ask him right now if you can get an idea.
486. And they've all been here since they were teenagers.
487. They were brought to this country.
488. They were 15, 16, 17 years old when they were brought here.
489. And they were never allowed to marry, never allowed to take wives.
490. They had, as you know, a law passed against them
491. so that they couldn't marry Caucasians in California.
492. And so most of them never married, and they're all old and isolated.
493. I mean, it's just the coolest thing that we can imagine.
494. I mean, the Filipinos have probably suffered a grosser and more horrible discrimination
495. than any other racial group in this country.
496. I mean, even worse than the American Indian.
497. And now they're dying, and they don't have any children.
498. Like Felix the other day, after negotiations, he wanted to take us to dinner
499. because he said he was a grandfather.
500. I said, oh, Felix, did you know you had any children?
501. He said, no, my dog had two puppies.
502. So we might as well have made this down here for two coffees I mean you can imagine just not many people have any children And that basically what the growers did Okay if we want to maybe we can go and show you a camp where there some family housing
503. Okay? This is mostly all single people here. There's no families here.
504. Except maybe for a couple of the foremen, you know.
505. Okay?
506. This is the site of the old Georgia Corporation
507. and the houses that you see here
508. were originally used to house the Japanese
509. This was the concentration camp for the Japanese
510. and after they removed the Japanese and they just turned it into a labor camp
511. This was in World War II
512. and they're still using it for farm labor housing
513. and it's been condemned numerous times
514. In terms of the union history, it's a very historic place
515. because this is where we had our first big fight with the Teamsters back in 1967.
516. After we had gotten our first contract with Shanley,
517. then we did this boycott against the Georgia Food Corporation,
518. and the Teamsters moved in on us, and we had a big fight with them.
519. They beat up our organizers, like I was saying, Medina, who was a member of the board.
520. He was just a young kid then, about 19 years old,
521. and they beat him up and they beat up a lot of our organizers right here on this property.
522. And then they brought in people from Juarez, Mexico.
523. Oh, this is the place where we had our very first election,
524. the very first farm worker election.
525. And they brought in people from Juarez, Mexico to get them to vote against the union
526. and we couldn't get into the camps to talk to them.
527. Like we couldn't come in now like we're doing now, right,
528. because a lot of us would get arrested.
529. So we set up a little altar outside with tamales and chocolate.
530. And then, you know, we'd have a rosary every night
531. and then the people would go out there to talk to us and have their tamales and their chocolate,
532. and that's how we organized these workers.
533. And so when we had the election, we won overwhelmingly,
534. and that was the first time that the Teamsters got rooted out.
535. So then they were out again until they came back in in 1973.
536. But this is like a really historic place, and this place has been condemned numerous times,
537. but they're still continuing to house the farm workers.
538. How close to the camp do they spray the fields?
539. Very close.
540. Well, you can see that the vineyards are all around,
541. and there's no precautions at all in spraying.
542. In fact, I basically feel that a lot of the growers themselves are all poisoned.
543. What's this defoliant that's used on the...
544. Cotton. It's one of the dangerous ones.
545. They do it mostly by playing the cotton, yeah.
546. They do a lot of the grape spraying by hand, though.
547. It seems pretty unusual for them to park all the tractors and all the equipment
548. right near the housing.
549. Yeah, that's so that the workers will watch it, right?
550. And then, like at this other company, they want to charge them in addition to that.
551. They deduct 20 cents an hour from their paychecks.
552. For what?
553. For living in the housing.
554. All they do is end up washing the tractors?
555. Yeah.
556. Perhaps for our listeners who may not know,
557. you can talk a little bit more about the Bracero program.
558. It started in the 40s during World War II.
559. When we had a lot of people away at war,
560. They brought in people from Mexico to pick the crops in the United States.
561. And, you know, the war ended, and that program didn't end.
562. So into the 50s and the 60s, you know, there were many thousands of,
563. tens of thousands of workers that were brought into the United States
564. and exploited very cruelly by the agricultural employers here.
565. They were Mexican workers, and many times, well, they lived just like animals,
566. and they didn't make any money.
567. And now that program has finally ended with the labor movements fighting against it and us as part of the labor movement Now Reagan is trying to bring that program back again
568. And the express purpose of that program is to keep farm workers from having a union
569. because if you have such a tremendous oversupply of labor,
570. then it's very hard for workers to organize.
571. Many of us in New York remember, with perhaps a little bit of irony,
572. since it didn't affect us, the Medfly situation that took place in California.
573. Perhaps you can elaborate on some of the contradictions that were raised
574. in terms of spraying or not spraying, how it affected the economy.
575. Was it a political maneuver on the part of Reagan
576. to attempt to limit the produce from going to other states and so on?
577. Oh, it's even more sinister than that.
578. It was a political maneuver to keep Jerry Brown from winning the election to the U.S. Senate and his political career.
579. I mean, that's basically what it boils down to.
580. Because the program that the governor had, that Governor Brown instituted, would have worked.
581. But he was sabotaged.
582. He was sabotaged by the Department of Agriculture because they let out some food flies that had not been sterilized.
583. You know, and so the ineptness and the mistakes that were made were not made by the governor, but by the Department of Agriculture people.
584. And the whole thing has been used politically.
585. I mean, let me give you an example of this, okay, just to show you how blatant it is.
586. They sprayed Santa Clara County, San Jose.
587. You have, you know, a large ethnic population.
588. It's a large urban population.
589. There's a lot of votes in San Jose.
590. They sprayed San Jose with malafi.
591. They also did it, by the way, the weekend the Democratic Party was having their state convention there.
592. Salinas, California, which is, of course, an all-grower population,
593. which is just, you know, 45 miles from San Jose, was never sprayed.
594. It has never been sprayed.
595. You know, but Oakland, right, was sprayed,
596. and all of your large population centers were sprayed.
597. Now they're spraying down, I think, in West Covina.
598. Well, you can imagine how much agriculture there is down in West Covina near Los Angeles,
599. but they have managed to spray that.
600. And I guess that they're hoping that everybody that gets sprayed will vote against Jerry Brown.
601. But that, again, shows you the tremendous power, you know.
602. The oil companies are the ones that produce the pesticides.
603. And they're just going to stop at no end.
604. Malathion, to this day, nobody knows what malathion does.
605. It's related to the parathion that was used in Germany, you know, in the nerve gases.
606. I mean, it's a very dangerous poison.
607. But here they sprayed it all over everything.
608. I mean, it's crazy.
609. but it shows the dangers of government
610. and again, why we have to participate
611. we just cannot afford to not get involved politically
612. it's just too big of a risk
613. we have to make people understand
614. that politics is very important
615. it's like water
616. if you don't drink enough of it
617. you die of thirst
618. if you have too much you drown
619. I think we that are all here today
620. know that although slavery was officially
621. ended after the Civil War, we still have it with us in many other forms.
622. And, of course, the farm workers, I think, are a good example of that slavery that we
623. see where the people who do the most sacred work, which is that they are out there every
624. single day in the heat, in the cold, you know, preparing the food that we eat, you know,
625. planting the food, harvesting the food at very, very low wages when they can't even
626. feed themselves.
627. yet we know that this is really a form of slavery
628. that the farm workers live under this very day.
629. I must ask one other question.
630. Unfortunately, there are not nearly enough women labor leaders.
631. There are women labor activists,
632. but they haven't graduated to positions of leadership within their unions.
633. Some of that is a result of tremendous chauvinism.
634. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how you feel.
635. You did mention that the president of the National Organization of Women
636. is addressing the AFL-CIO convention today.
637. Do you think there will be more women?
638. And how do you view that struggle?
639. I think that we have to do it.
640. I mean, women have to do it.
641. We cannot expect somebody to open the door for us.
642. We really have to organize ourselves and make it happen.
643. And men, you know, it's hard for them to give up power.
644. I think it's hard for anybody to give up power.
645. And I think women, we don't like to think in those terms.
646. It seems kind of distasteful and nasty for us to think in terms of power games.
647. I find it for myself very distasteful
648. but I also realize that women are the majority in many unions
649. but somehow we think there's something wrong with us trying to be the leader
650. and we have so much to give and so much to offer
651. and God knows it would be a better place if there were more women in leadership positions
652. and I think we have to look at it as an obligation
653. even if it means giving the time up that you could spend with the kids
654. and your husband or in your home or whatever
655. it's an obligation for us if we're going to make this a better world
656. women have got to take a much greater role, and it's painful.
657. And I can say that myself.
658. It's been very painful for me,
659. and I've had to give up a lot of things that I like
660. or would like to do with my time.
661. But it's a social responsibility that we have.
662. But we can't wait for anybody to give it to us.
663. We've got to get in there and organize it and make it happen ourselves.
664. The National Organization for Women Convention,
665. they had it in San Antonio, Texas last year.
666. They passed a resolution to boycott orange juice
667. because the Florida Citizens Commission had placed Rush Limbaugh as their spokesperson.
668. So we called Coca-Cola.
669. I came back and I called Coca-Cola the next day and told them,
670. I want to be the first to let you know that the National Organization for Women
671. is going to boycott Florida orange juice.
672. That was the end of Rush Limbaugh.
673. They took him out.
674. They took him out.
675. I have the honor of introducing our very special guest this evening.
676. My name is Miguel Contreras.
677. I'm the Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.
678. I head the labor movement here in Los Angeles County.
679. But my career in the labor movement actually started 24 years ago in April 1973.
680. I'm born and raised in a small San Joaquin town called Dinuba, California.
681. And I was proud to be here as sons of farm workers and
682. a former farm worker myself, a former member of United Farm Workers Union.
683. In 1973, our grape contracts expired.
684. My father, my five brothers and myself worked for one grower, one particular grower, Hamilton in the Valley.
685. Our contracts were expiring 24 years ago and the growers up and
686. down the state of California had no intentions of renegotiating the contracts that gave farm workers dignity and respect.
687. The contracts negotiated on our behalf that called for such basics as toilets in the fields,
688. water for the workers, the first ever medical plan for the farm workers.
689. But more importantly making sure that the farm workers had a voice on the job but I remember very well on April 14th 1973 at 5 o in the morning that pickups drove up to our house in Dinuba and I remember well the glare from the pickup
690. lights coming into our porch. 5 o'clock in the morning, I remember the supervisors and
691. the crew bosses coming to see my father, who was the head of the United Farm Workers Ranch
692. committee. And my father and my five brothers all were out in front of the porch. And I remember the
693. supervisor telling my father that, he said, Julio, you're the best worker we ever had working for us,
694. that you worked for us for 24 years, but we have to let you go, you and your entire family.
695. He says, we cannot afford to have any more Chavistas working for us.
696. and with that
697. that's all my father had after 24 years of work
698. for the same grower
699. that we got fired and put on a blacklist
700. but they didn't have to fire us
701. because the next day our contracts expired
702. and we would have walked out on strike anyway
703. when we did
704. the means are greater
705. than the end in our case
706. building the movement and organizing
707. is even greater than the contracts that we get
708. and then getting the contracts
709. just to make those farm workers stronger
710. to help them get other farm workers, to help other farm workers.
711. So I think it's a very fantastic, big, giant movement that we have.
712. I think it's even bigger than we could comprehend.
713. When you bring in not only supporters in California,
714. but people in all other states that support us, it's really a big movement.
715. If we could computerize all of the people that support the Farm Workers Union,
716. we'd probably come out with a fantastic number of people.
717. Dolores, you heard the song, has a great history.
718. And everybody would be proud to be associated with her.
719. Used to run into people who, from East LA to Stockton to Fresno,
720. who were registered to vote by Dolores Huerta back in the late 50s and early 60s in the CSO days.
721. And of course, her commitment to the Farm Workers Union.
722. And more recently, her national leadership in the women's movement of the United States.
723. But I remember her best for starting me in my union career.
724. and I remember going to Selma, California
725. and to the field office
726. and telling Dolores that
727. you know I don't know too much about
728. working full time for a union
729. but you know clearly I'm committed to the cause
730. and she convinced me to join up
731. she convinced me to go to Toronto, Canada
732. to work on the
733. grape boycott
734. but she also told me that don't worry Miguel
735. you'll be home in three months
736. two and a half years later I was still in Toronto, Canada
737. boycotting grapes
738. I remember when we first started the union
739. Cesar talked to me that he was going to start a union
740. he said I only have one worry
741. well he said two worries
742. and I asked him what they were
743. he said one is that we won't have enough money
744. the other one is that I won't have enough time
745. that I'll die before it's completed
746. and I thought to myself
747. wow, because at that time
748. that was back in 19
749. when he made the official decision to start the union
750. was in 62
751. you know, because Cesar was how old?
752. 32 years old
753. and sure enough, I guess he was about 34 years old,
754. you know, we're running out of time
755. because we're probably going into our 50s now
756. and we haven't completed the job yet.
757. But the farm workers had said,
758. we're going to do it for our children.
759. They knew what they were talking about.
760. Que viva la causa, hombres y mujeres.
761. Here we have come to honor him How well your name remains Dolores For coitadines Leonor is Give you a ticket at the number Dolores for
762. coincidentia
763. Rima con
764. Colors
765. But I've never publicly thanked her for recruiting me into this cause that I call my life and please welcome
766. The co-founder of United Farm Workers once again that mana Dolores Huerta
767. Thank you. This is really history tonight, you know. The first Latino president of the
768. Central Labor Council of Los Angeles, Miguel Contreras. All right. How about that?
769. Thank you, Miguel. This is really, really a wonderful evening tonight. And Raza,
770. we're making history tonight. We are making history tonight, let me tell you. We have with
771. This is Lalo Guerrero, this wonderful great man who, that song that he wrote was like the first song that anyone had written about the strike.
772. And this was in the days when, as you'll see in the film, where people were saying we were a bunch of crazy communists, right?
773. Too many organizations did not support us.
774. And to have Lalo here tonight and then to give me this precious gift of a song is really great.
775. You know, the New York Times had an article yesterday that the farm workers today are getting 20% less in wages than they were 10, 15 years ago.
776. because we lost our contracts at that time.
777. We're getting them back now.
778. Arturo Rodriguez, our president, is doing an incredible job of leading this union forward.
779. We have added 5,600 new members to our union in addition to the 25,000 that we had before.
780. So can we, all of us, working together, marching in Watsonville on April the 13th,
781. visiting the Lucky Stores, all of us working together,
782. can we bring justice to farm workers?
783. What do we say?
784. Everybody together, organize your hands like Si Se Puede.
785. Si Se Puede.
786. Si Se Puede.
787. Si Se Puede.
788. Si Se Puede.
789. Si Se Puede.
790. Thank you very much.
791. De colores, de colores son los pajarillos que vienen de afuera.
792. De colores, de colores es el arco iris que vemos lucir
793. Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mí
794. Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores me gustan a mí
795. De colores, de colores brillantes y finos
796. Se viste la aurora
797. De colores
798. That was Dolores Huerta,
799. an hour from the Pacifica Radio Archives,
800. produced by Juanani Singer for From the Vault,
801. Earlier this year, at 95 years old,
802. Dolores spoke a truth she had carried for 60 years
803. and said the accomplishments of the movement stand on their own.
804. That's what this hour was.
805. She is still organizing.
806. 250 years in, the question is the one she's been asking her whole life.
807. Who is us?
808. This is listener-supported KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles
809. and streaming online at kpfk.org.
810. I from this beautiful nation My name is the music La Naci me llama a la danza
811. Música
812. La Paz
813. La Iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Últimos Días
814. ¡Gracias!
815. para una perspectiva pan-africana sobre los asuntos mundiales y un mix de música volante.
816. Y como siempre, estamos listos para la revolución.
817. Gracias.
818. and click make a pledge to join the sustainer's