Latest / Tales From Aztlantis / Episode 74: Operation Wetback

Transcript

Episode 74: Operation Wetback · Tales From Aztlantis

0:02
SPEAKER_05: Excuse me.
0:23
SPEAKER_06: I think we've learned a good lesson.
0:25
SPEAKER_05: I've always heard that policy is the best policy.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: Greetings?
0:37
SPEAKER_02: God damn it.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: Salutations.
0:45
SPEAKER_02: Dry throat.
0:47
SPEAKER_02: Greetings, dear listeners, and welcome to Tales from Ostlantis, where we take you on a journey through Chicano, Mexicano, and Mesoamerican history and archaeology, and we help combat the spread of disinformation about these very topics.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: We are your hosts, Curly Tlapoyawa.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: And Ruben Nariano Tlacateka.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: What is up, sir?
1:12
SPEAKER_01: How have you been?
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Um nothing much.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everything's dandy over here.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Nothing reading in this apocalyptic wasteland.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: Nothing to see, everything's fine.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Except for that fire behind me.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about that fire.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Everything's gonna be fine.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, our AI overlords are handling this.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, we're in good hands, I'm sure.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the first episode of season five.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: So that is quite amazing to me that we're already on season five.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: It's very spanol simultaneously.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd be lost.
2:02
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, holy shit, season five, five seasons of this.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: I don't believe we've we've come a long way, sir.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: And thank you to all of the listeners out there who've continued to support us, who've continued to listen and become Patreon members and participate in the Discord and buy our merch.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, we really appreciate it.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: Uh it means a lot to us to know that um you know that we're having an impact.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Some some impact.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean a little bit.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: Little bit, but that you know what?
2:40
SPEAKER_02: Ten bit.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: If if even only a couple of people, you know, listen and and it and it changes their worldview or or it helps them, it makes them feel empowered in some way.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: That's that's worth it too.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: We do we do appreciate the people who have reached out, who've left messages on uh on the uh the what is it, Spotify?
3:01
SPEAKER_01: The Spotify um on not Spotify, what's what is it, Buzz Sprout?
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Buzz Sprout.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: When they leave the message on the Buzz Sprout feed and um on Patreon as well, and the suggestions that we've gotten from the listeners.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: I know that there's a few that have been on our on our list for quite a while, and uh we promise we're gonna get to most of that stuff uh eventually, but you know, it's this is a labor of love, and so we do this when we have time, and we're both available to to hop on and uh discuss these things.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: But um, if you are not dear listeners, we are going to continue.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna stop because you know they can't stop us, man.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: Ain't no stopping us now.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: Ain't no stopping us now, baby.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to start off with a little bit of really cool news.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh this just came out in El Universal uh just a few days ago, and they announced that seventy-eight escuelas secundarias in Mexico City are going to begin teaching classes in Nahuatl.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: Now as a way of of celebrating the linguistic plurality of the nation and just recognizing the importance of indigenous languages.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's that's really cool.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: Escuelas Secundarias, how are those?
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Is that junior high?
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, yeah, junior high, secundaria, primaria, secundaria, yeah, secundaria is junior high because I think uh at least in some places in Mexico, a prepa is what they they call a high school, if I'm not mistaken.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, preparatoria.
4:41
SPEAKER_01: So it's primaria, secundaria, preparatoria, and then uh it's uh the university after that.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: So this is really cool news.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: That's exciting.
4:52
SPEAKER_02: Um I can't I you know I can't wait for the haters to be like, well, why are they teaching Nahuatl?
4:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was just thinking that too.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: Why not the other?
5:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like, I don't know.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: Why are they teaching Nahuatl in Tenochtitlan?
5:04
SPEAKER_02: You fucking losers.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: Settle down.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Wait a minute.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: That's a preemptive strike, sir.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: We don't even know.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: We don't even know if that's the criticism that's gonna be lost.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:16
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: So my apologies to um all the haters.
5:20
SPEAKER_02: To the haters.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh free hate, pre-hate in advance.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, shield shielding from the hate, right?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: Chimali.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: That's what we call the Chimali Institute.
5:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
5:36
SPEAKER_01: And you had some cool news as well, right?
5:39
SPEAKER_01: To share with us.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: Some good barrio news, and you know, barrio news.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's gotta be good news.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, what's the point?
5:46
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: So this is out of the Huntington Um archives, the Huntington Library out in California.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: And it says uh recently that they put out an article that the Huntington Archives uh uh acquired the files of Guzmano Cesaretti.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: Some uh so those of you that are not familiar with him, I was vaguely familiar with his work, I've seen it before, but I wasn't really too knowledgeable about his background.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: But he was an Italian-born uh photographer that made his way to California back in uh the late 50s, early 60s, or something to the or maybe 60s, early 70s.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: In any case, he was um he was hired by the Huntington, and during his tenure at the Huntington Library, uh, he would go out into uh LA, especially East LA, and he would photograph a lot of the Chicano community.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: He was weird like he really became enamored with with the Chicano community, the Chicano culture of East LA, and and there's uh the the collection houses like a significant amount of pictures that he took uh of people in Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights and in the different neighborhoods out there.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: And um, I'm not sure what plans they have with this, but they just made this announcement that they have uh more than 800,000 historical and contemporary photographs um of the Mexican American community in Southern California, Los Angeles urban space.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: So, those of you that are researchers, scholars of Chicago culture, especially of Southern California and LA in particular, like this is a boon for you, for you to go out and start um once they make the materials available to go out there and start going through the files and and um you know see what you can make of it.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: But just based on the um article that was posted, some of the pictures that they posted, they have him taking pictures.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: Um there's one entitled Street Writers, and it's uh showing another uh Chicano artist by the name of Chaz Bohorkes, and it shows him running through a back street near Whittier Boulevard in East Los Angeles, and this is from 1973.
7:58
SPEAKER_01: And in the background, you see this building with a bunch of hit-up, you know, from the the local uh, you know, clica there in in that neighborhood.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: And so uh yeah, just scrolling through the through the pictures, you know, you see like the the breadth and scope of of what he did.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: And and then in some of the description below in this article, they they mentioned that he became really good good friends with the president of Click, uh Lowrider Car Club out there in in LA.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: And through that friendship, uh the president of that that car club allowed him to kind of ride along and to take pictures of a lot of the events and activities that they did.
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And so those of you that are interested in in researching uh and looking into the the low rider uh uh culture of specifically uh in the LA East LA area, like this, if you want pictures from the 70s, 60s, 70s, and all the way up into the 80s.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this collection spans the late 60s, and he was active well into the early 2000s, and so there's there's a lot of material that already to be discovered.
9:02
SPEAKER_02: Man, that's way cool.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:05
SPEAKER_02: And I'm a big fan of Chaz Bo Jorquez.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that that guy does some really cool stuff.
9:10
SPEAKER_02: I wonder if how many photos he has of him and if you could see like because Bo Jorquez has that really distinctive lettering style that he uses.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: If you could sort of see like the evolution of that, like if there are enough photos of of his work buried in there that you could maybe see the evolution of that style, that would be interesting to check out.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: I know, that'd be cool.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, very cool, man.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: See, so we're starting off with some great news before we get into the nitty-gritty of today's episode.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: God damn it.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: So shall we begin, my friend?
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: I guess.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, dear listeners, it happened.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: Like a super shitty reboot of a failed TV show that nobody asked for, Donaldo Octavius Frump is back for season two.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: And like all shitty reboots, this one looks like it's just gonna be more of the same: a rancid clown car of tired, racist bullshit.
10:19
SPEAKER_02: Only this time, he's brought along a friend, a similarly focused little troll who many think is the one actually pulling the strings.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: I'm referring to, of course, the world's richest and dumbest human being, Elon Musk.
10:37
SPEAKER_02: And the combined power of these two pathetic clowns has already had disastrous effects.
10:46
SPEAKER_02: One of Ronald's primary campaign promises was the institution of a mass deportation program inspired by the infamous Operation Wetback of the 1950s.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, that bygone era when America was great, quote unquote.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: This comes as no surprise, really, as Trompito has publicly praised these Eisenhower-era immigration raids since he first ran for president way back in 2016.
11:17
SPEAKER_02: And leading up to the recent election, he only escalated his verbal attacks on immigrants, proclaiming to his sycophants and cultists that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: In fact, at the Republican National Convention this past July, he declared the following: The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: As his crowd of dipshit supporters held up signs bearing the phrase, Mass Deportation Now.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: He even directly referenced Operation Wetback way back.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: Operation Wetback way back.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it is.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: Did it work?
14:28
SPEAKER_02: Historians say the program tore families apart, violated civil rights, and at times turned deadly.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that former president Barack Obama earned the title of Deporter in Chief for overseeing the deportation of three million plus individuals, two-thirds of which had no criminal record.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: But look, he ain't gonna be president again, and we need to prepare ourselves for the shit show on the immediate horizon.
15:02
SPEAKER_02: My it's a shit show, isn't it?
15:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:06
SPEAKER_02: It's barely been a month, like a little over a month.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: God damn.
15:12
SPEAKER_02: So with that, dear listeners, we here at the Tales from Oslantis Podcast thought it would be prudent to take a look at Operation Wetback and its precursor, the Braceto Program.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: Because as they say, everything old is new again.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: Birth of the Braceto Program.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: The Bracero Program, officially known as the Mexican Farm Labor Program, was a series of agreements between the United States and Mexico designed to alleviate an American labor shortage caused by the Second World War.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: The plan was to import temporary workers from Mexico or Braceros, who were hired on renewable six-month contracts to harvest crops and maintain and repair the railroads.
16:03
SPEAKER_02: The agreement stipulated that braceros would receive fair wages, adequate housing, and humane treatment.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: Employers were required to cover transportation costs, ensure workers had access to health care, and respect their labor rights.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: In theory, the program presented a win-win scenario.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Mexican workers would gain employment opportunities while US farmers would benefit from a steady labor supply.
16:33
SPEAKER_02: In practice, however, the promises of the Bracetto program fell short.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Bracetos faced grueling work conditions, long hours, and low wages.
16:45
SPEAKER_02: Housing arrangements were frequently substandard, and many workers endured discrimination and abuse.
16:53
SPEAKER_02: While some braceros benefited from the program, such cases were exceptions rather than the rule.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: As part of the recruitment process, Mexican workers were often subjected to humiliating medical inspections, including pesticide fumigations where they were stripped down and doused with DDT.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: Like we've all seen those famous photos, right?
17:17
SPEAKER_02: That's it's so infuriating every time I look at those.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: Once in the US, their movements were tightly controlled by their employers, who withheld wages and confiscated passports to prevent workers from leaving their assigned jobs.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: Despite these hardships, the program attracted millions of participants.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: By its conclusion in 1964, more than 4.5 million contracts had been signed, making it one of the largest labor exchange programs in history.
17:53
SPEAKER_02: The Braceto program had a major impact on both countries.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: In the United States, it cemented the dependence of agribusiness on migrant labor, a legacy that continues to shape labor dynamics to this day.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: For Mexico, the program provided a critical source of remittances, which bolstered rural economies and supported families in underserved regions.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: However, the program also exacerbated existing inequalities.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: In the US, braceros were seen as little more than disposable labor, valued only for their productivity and stripped of basic human dignity.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: Their presence also suppressed wages and job opportunities for domestic workers, fueling anti-immigrant resentment and xenophobia among segments of the American public.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: By the early 1950s, the Bracetro program faced mounting criticism for its inability to control unauthorized migration.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Many Mexican workers entered the U.S.
19:02
SPEAKER_02: outside of the program's legal framework, seeking to escape poverty and secure employment.
19:09
SPEAKER_02: This influx of undocumented laborers alarmed U.S.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: policymakers who viewed it as a threat to national security and economic stability.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: And we can't overlook the fact that the agricultural industry was actively undermining the program by hiring every mexicano that they could, regardless of whether they were participating in the program or not.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: In response, the U.S.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Immigration and Naturalization Service, or the INS, launched Operation Wetback.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: In June of 1954, a large-scale initiative to apprehend and deport undocumented mexicanos.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: The operation was characterized by aggressive enforcement tactics, including raids, checkpoints, and mass deportations to remove Mexican immigrants from the United States.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Popular media helped to gin up anti-immigrant sentiment by depicting undocumented workers as being responsible for increased disease, higher crime rates, the spread of narcotics, communist infiltration, and increased welfare costs.
20:24
SPEAKER_02: So things have changed a lot, obviously.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, things have gotten way better.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: This combination of xenophobia, red scare propaganda, and anti-immigrant policy marked the beginning of the deportation raids and border militarization that we are all familiar with today.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: Operation Wetback was widely criticized for its harsh methods and utter disregard for human rights.
20:51
SPEAKER_02: Many deportees were sent to remote areas of Mexico with little to no resources, leading to significant suffering and even fatalities.
21:02
SPEAKER_02: Families were often separated, and legal residents, that is, United States citizens of Mexican descent, were frequently swept up and deported.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: It is claimed that more than one million individuals were forcibly removed from the U.S.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: because of Operation Wetback, a number that is highly contested by historians critical of the policy.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: By the 1960s, the Bracetto program faced growing opposition from labor unions, civil rights activists, and policymakers.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: Critics argued that the program exploited workers, suppressed wages, and perpetuated systemic inequalities.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: The rise of the Chicano movement further amplified calls for reform, as Mexican-American activists demanded fair treatment and improved working conditions for all laborers.
21:58
SPEAKER_02: In 1964, the U.S.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: Congress officially terminated the Bracero program, citing concerns over its impact on domestic employment and its failure to uphold labor standards.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: While the program's conclusion marked the end of an era, its legacy continues to influence immigration policy and labor relations for decades.
22:23
SPEAKER_02: In the early days of the operation, immigrants were initially returned to Mexico by air, but this method was quickly abandoned by Congress due to its high cost.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Instead, undocumented workers were typically bussed to detention centers where they were confined in overcrowded conditions before being loaded onto banana boats in Port Isabel, Texas.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: From there, they were transported by boat lift at a cost of a mere eight dollars per person.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: These boat lifts soon became the most controversial aspect of the operation.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: The two-day journeys subjected many workers to overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, forcing them to sleep side by side in the cargo holes.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: In such tight quarters, workers often formed watch groups to guard against theft or assault.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: In an interview with CBS News, author and immigration historian May Nye had this to say about the boat lifts.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: I would describe it as a very cruel operation of deportation, but also it was a kind of political theater.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: It did not solve the issue of undocumented migration.
23:38
SPEAKER_01: There was a big expose that these ships were barely converted freighters that were very old and dirty.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: One person in Congress called them quote.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Fellowships.
23:51
SPEAKER_02: According to Nye, migrants were sometimes left in the scorching Mexican desert, with temperatures soaring over a hundred degrees.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: In one case, 88 people died from mass stroke, and more would have died had the Mexican Red Cross not come to their rescue, Nye said.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: Gonzalo Alvarado Sr., a 16-year-old ranch hand in Fresno, who was caught up in Operation Wetback, described the ordeal as follows.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: When you would sleep in the boat, you were touching people.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: You would wake up and couldn't handle the smell.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: So you would go to the deck.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: It was very dangerous.
24:31
SPEAKER_01: We made groups of ten people to sleep.
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Nine would go to sleep and one would stay sitting up and watch out for everyone else.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: The next person to wake up would then keep watch.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: When Alvarado's boat finally reached Veracruz, three of his fellow passengers were missing.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: No one could explain what had happened to them.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: The boat lift operations ended in September 1956 after a tragedy on the vessel Mercurio, where seven workers drowned during an apparent escape attempt, triggering a riot on board.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: A New York Times article described the boat as resembling an ancient penal ship.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: Approximately five hundred Mexican nationals were crammed onto the vessel, which had just two lifeboats with a capacity for only forty-eight people.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: These conditions did not improve for workers once they reached Mexico.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: Many were given just ten vessels, a paltry sum, far too little for travel expenses, and a sandwich, then left to find their way home, sometimes hundreds of miles away using cargo trains.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: By the end of the summer of 1954, the U.S.
25:52
SPEAKER_02: Border Patrol declared victory, claiming to have resolved the issue of undocumented immigration through a sweeping display of police power that purportedly removed over a million individuals from the country.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: However, according to UCLA historian Kelly Lytle Hernandez, author of Migra, a history of the U.S.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Border Patrol, this claim was far from accurate.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: In her book, Hernandez explains that in reality, the Border Patrol, with just over 1,000 agents in 1954, spent much of their time brokering informal agreements with employers and agricultural growers.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: These backroom deals aimed to pressure growers into replacing undocumented laborers with legal Mexican workers recruited under the Brasero Program.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Hernandez has stated.
27:08
SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Historical records also reveal that many individuals included in the deportation statistics were not formally processed.
27:18
SPEAKER_02: In some cases, agents simply observed people crossing back into Mexico and recorded them as voluntary departures.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: How convenient.
27:29
SPEAKER_02: Without further questioning.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Mexicans aren't going anywhere.
28:16
SPEAKER_02: Anywhere.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: Mega.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just this um Nothing new under the sun.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: Just rehash the same old story, anti-immigrant, xenophobia, racism, colorism.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: And then overstate your your accomplishments and then just declare victory and move on, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_02: Mission accomplished as uh Yeah, what was that?
28:49
SPEAKER_01: W.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: Mission accomplished.
28:53
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's it's incredible.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, and and and the one thing that I I liked, I think it was uh Nye that she said that this was just like political theater.
29:06
SPEAKER_02: Pretty much.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: That's what I wanted to say.
29:08
SPEAKER_01: Um that way today.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: Her book Impossible Subjects when I was in graduate school, and it was one of the best books that I had ever read on the subject of immigration pertaining to not just Mexican Americans, but just the the immigration that occurs along the subway border, right?
29:26
SPEAKER_01: And so because she touches upon you know these different issues, and she brings in other uh ethnicities into the conversation, the you know, the plight of Filipinos, for instance, um uh Chinese uh immigrants also coming through the Mexican border at the time.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: And so there was, I mean, one of the things that prompted, for instance, uh the militarization uh of of the uh of the Border Patrol, because a lot of people think that it's always been that way.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: But when it first started out in in 1924, if I'm not mistaken, that's when it was institutionalized.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: It was basically a form of uh border police to prevent the illegal smuggling of alcohol into the U.S.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: because this was during prohibition.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: And so the Border Patrol was basically trying to catch uh what they call the tequileros, people who would bring um smuggle tequila into the the border or and from Mexico to the U.S.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes people who were not smuggling tequila necessarily, they were just trying to cross the border or maybe just um smuggling other things into the U.S.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: uh uh would get caught up and rounded up in and and even get killed in the process.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: And and so this is also the the same time that a lot of the the border killings are being done by the Texas Rangers in collaboration with uh the U.S.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: uh army, some of which are stationed along the border uh at the time in the late 19 teens and to the early 1920s.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why in 1924 the U.S.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: decides that it's time to finally make make uh uh an actual police force that is in charge of enforcing these things to prevent the the further uh massacres that were occurring uh along the border of Mexicans and Ethnemexicans by the by the hands of Texas Rangers and others.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: So there's a longer history that that is tied into this anti-Mexican hate that that starts basically.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hate to say it, but you know, since 1846, 1848, since the war between the US and Mexico.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: It's it's an ongoing thing.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: That's fascinating.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: So and what was the name of her book again?
31:39
SPEAKER_02: It's called Impossible Subjects.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: Impossible Subjects.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: We'll put a link to that in the show notes because it sounds like that's uh that's something worth reading.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: And then just this whole you know, the theater, the political theater of using human beings, right?
31:57
SPEAKER_02: Just like tokens or pawns to to advance your own uh agenda, just like the um uh the governor of it was Abbott, is that that his name?
32:09
SPEAKER_02: When he was just getting getting people and bussing them off to uh the sanctuary cities, governor wheels, as we like to call him over here.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that guy, I mean he's a total dick, but he is.
32:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and just you know, it's it's a joke to them.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, if they think it's funny when people politics and and if people have to die in the process, if if you have to be cruel in the process of uh attaining your political goals, then so be it, because these are just disposable people, right?
32:41
SPEAKER_01: They're just a bunch of Mexicans, who cares?
32:43
SPEAKER_01: That's the attitude that they have.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: And and and uh sadly, there's a lot of people in the state that that you know behave that way, that that have uh internalized that, including our own raza.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as we've seen lately, right?
32:55
SPEAKER_01: Like people along the border who are now beginning to feel the effects of this uh widespread anti-Mexican sentiment.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: They believe that because they are on the good side or because they're Americans.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm not Mexican, I'm American.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm not like no, you shithead.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: It's because to them, Mexican is anyone who is brown, anyone who has uh a Spanish last name, who has connections to Mexico, it's not about your nationality, it's about your ethnicity.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: And that's what these morons don't understand.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: That there's a difference between someone who is an ethnic uh Mexican, someone who has ancestry connected to Mexico, and someone who is a Mexican national.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who's born in Mexico by definition is a Mexican, just like anyone born in the U.S.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: is an American if you're born on the U.
33:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, now that's being contested too, right?
33:43
SPEAKER_01: For now, anyway.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: But but it's it's like they don't understand that distinction.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Like when they see a brown person with a Spanish last name, you could be you know the most uh assimilated and Americanized Mexican American there is, and you might even not call yourself a Mexican American, you could just say, I'm just American, and you know you've met these people before, right?
34:02
SPEAKER_01: And they still look at you and they they they see quote unquote a wet back.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I hate to say it.
34:08
SPEAKER_01: If this is you listening to this, I hope that this is a root awakening so that so that this doesn't happen again, so that we don't have our our own people shooting themselves up in their own feet, you know, for the sake of wanting to be accepted by by this racist society.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's delusional.
34:25
SPEAKER_02: They're like, well, uh it won't it won't affect me because I'm a U.S.
34:30
SPEAKER_02: citizen.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm not a good idea.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: How's that going for you?
34:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how is that going?
34:35
SPEAKER_02: How's that working?
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Mr.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: American, Mr.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: Brown American or Mrs.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Brown American?
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: How's that working out?
34:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, one thing I I did want to bring up um because I just saw another one of these posts today on social media, is there's a lot of you know, completely well-meaning, well-intentioned individuals reposting these ice sightings, right?
35:01
SPEAKER_02: So they'll be like ice is currently at this place or ice is currently at that place.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: And one thing I'm noticing is that they're not actually verifying whether ICE is actually they're just seeing something and sharing it because they think they're being helpful.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, isn't that the case for anything online nowadays?
35:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's been the case for a while.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what got us to Trump.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: There's people who sharing bullshit.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: So I just want to implore these individuals.
35:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, if you're out there, I get it, you want to be helpful, but you should really restrict you know, posting this stuff until you've you've actually seen it verified, because otherwise you could be just like contributing to this anxiety and this fear where people are are afraid to go out.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: And I've even seen white nationalists posting about it uh on social media, and they're saying, like, hey, we could weaponize this, you know, and they're sharing these hotlines and they're sharing these places, you know, these emails and stuff where you could report seeing ice.
37:23
SPEAKER_02: They're like, hey, we can use this to sow disinformation and to sow anxiety, like let's just flood them with so much false information that they're afraid constantly to go anywhere.
37:37
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I I see how this can just be weaponized against our own people.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm just at, you know, for our listeners out there, you know, I get it.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: We're trying to do a good thing by making people aware of where ice might be.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Just be careful that you're not repeating something that isn't true because I've seen it firsthand like get out of control and freak people out.
38:00
SPEAKER_02: And it's pretty gnarly.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: And I had a question for you because I saw a post the other day that kind of made me think.
38:09
SPEAKER_02: Um this uh this person on social media, I I don't remember their name, but they posted that the the comeback often about the immigration raids and the mass deportation is that, you know, well, who's gonna who's gonna pick your fruit then?
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna pick your vegetables?
38:27
SPEAKER_02: Who's gonna watch your kids?
38:29
SPEAKER_02: And this person was saying, well, it's kind of just reducing our people to it's essentializing us to like all we are is a labor force, right?
38:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but it settles, right?
38:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's all Mexicans are good for.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Manual labor.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: So what's what's the the question?
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, just how you know what's your what's your take on that?
38:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, I hadn't I hadn't seen that, I hadn't encountered that, but I mean now that you mentioned it, yeah, it is I mean, a form of essentializing Mexican immigrants as just perpetually being someone who's in service of the country, um, doing the dirtiest jobs, the most manual and and hard, uh arduous jobs that there is, because that's all that they're allowed to do.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, for the for many years during the Besotto program, that's literally what they were hired to do, to come in, pick the crops.
39:18
SPEAKER_01: In some cases, um uh maybe uh work on the railroads, like was the case uh during the the Chinese uh immigration in the late 1880s, and then they passed the the very first uh xenophobic anti-immigrant legislation that was passed.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I mentioned it before in this in this um podcast, but it's something that we discuss in in my classes when we're talking about this period is in 1882 they passed the uh Chinese Exclusion Act, and and this act was meant to be um one of many to come where they begin to set quotas as to how many people come from where and which countries are allowed to come in, which aren't.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: And so it kind of begins from that point forward.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, when you're looking at immigration, especially at the turn of the century in the late 1900s, early uh um uh 1900s, the people who were favored to come in would have been Nordic Europeans, you know, people from Germany, people from England, people from Scandinavia, those northern European countries, but those from uh southern Europe and Eastern Europe who are seen as a bit more ethnic, as a bit darker skinned, coming from me largely Catholic countries, you know, because this is also white Anglo-Saxon Protestant um, you know, uh kind of mindset that that's that's what the what the country's best stock comes from, people who are from that category, white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, not just and now all that's kind of thrown in the mix uh with a lot of the religious uh arguments, especially against abortion and women's uh you know, right to their own body autonomy.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of been upended in the recent era, but even up until like the 70s and 80s, it was still like a lot of these racist, the KKK, when they made a comeback in in uh back in the late 20th century, they were still very much anti-Catholic.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure this they still are, but a lot of so-called quote-unquote conservatives, people who weren't necessarily on uh part of the KKK were also you know on that bandwagon of being anti-Catholic.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: And you still kind of hear it a little bit, but not so much.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: And so, I mean, back to what you were saying, like what is my my thought on that?
41:31
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, it is a form of essentializing, it is a form of perpetuating this idea that Mexicans are only good for manual labor and that's it, and we should, you know, know our place in society, not don't run.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was the whole point of the Chicano movement, is to say no, we're more than this.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, acknowledge us for for our humanity, for our dignity, for our history, for uh and not just because we've contributed, but because we deserve to to and uh to be heard and to be to be treated as as a human being.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not just as another tool in this system.
42:07
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:08
SPEAKER_02: We're not just hard workers, we're also fucking humans.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: So how about you respect us for that?
42:13
SPEAKER_01: So I yeah, I think I think that is a good good argument to to make.
42:18
SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, I know that it comes from a good place when people make these statements who's gonna pick this and who's gonna do that.
42:25
SPEAKER_01: And and and sure, but maybe find a different way to convey that message of why.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe just say these people are humans, just like me and you.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: Stop being freaking assholes.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean it's that simple.
42:39
SPEAKER_01: It's that simple.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be that simple.
42:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it is that simple if you've got a fucking brain, but or if you have a conscience.
42:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Some kind of uh moral code.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
42:53
SPEAKER_01: That's also frustrating.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: Understanding of ethics of what it means to be a human, right?
42:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so recently Michelle and I rewatched this movie.
43:04
SPEAKER_02: It's an older movie called Sleep Dealer.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever seen Sleep Dealer?
43:09
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: I've seen it multiple.
43:10
SPEAKER_01: It's been a while since I've seen it, but when it first came out, I was like, man, this is it was it was very impressive.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: Like the whole plot.
43:18
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, you want to say a few things about it before I spoil it for the listeners?
43:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, I just it had been so long since I had watched it.
43:28
SPEAKER_02: Um we have a great uh single-screen independent movie theater here in Albuquerque called the Guild Cinema.
43:35
SPEAKER_02: And they showed it there as a midnight movie, and I used to host the midnight movies, and then we had it as a rental in um at Burning Paradise, but it had been years since I had I'd watched it, and I just, you know, in the midst of all this immigration stuff, I find myself going back and watching movies that kind of speak on these topics, right?
43:58
SPEAKER_02: You kind of relate to the topic at hand.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, man, so I I need to watch uh Children of Men, I need to watch uh Punishment Park, and I need to watch Sleep Dealer again.
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Sleep Dealer, yeah.
44:10
SPEAKER_02: So we sat down and we watched it, and you know, it's it's low budget, definitely, but it's I you know, I don't think the budget hurts the story or the impact of of what's being said in that movie.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: I really enjoy that movie, and I think any Chicano out there um owes it to themselves.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: You should watch Sleep Dealer because it's a great freaking movie with a message with a really good you know powerful.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: What's the name of the actor that's in the wasn't he and Selena?
44:36
SPEAKER_01: He plays the brother, right?
44:38
SPEAKER_01: Is that is that who it was?
44:39
SPEAKER_02: Or was the what I don't remember.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: I know his brother in the movie is played by Tenochtwerta, yeah, who was uh Namor.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: Right.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: And but yeah, the main the main character, I don't remember the the actor's name.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: There's a book that that I read in in um when I was in uh in college uh in my undergrad years uh in Mexican American history, in fact, with Professor Chavez, who became my advisor when I went to grad school.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Um so one of the books that he assigned in his class in the Mexican American history class was called Latinos in Film.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: And in that book, you know, they talk about El Mariachi and they talk about all these films, and one of the films that comes up in that book is uh that's the the the sleep dealer.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: It's in there.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: Really?
45:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And so it was it was uh it was great, you know, because I'd seen the uh the movie and it just never I never expected it to be in a book, and I was like, oh wow, look at this.
45:36
SPEAKER_01: And I forget what what the author's saying about it, but he goes deep into the analysis of that, so I'd have to go back and recheck.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even think about it.
45:43
SPEAKER_01: But yeah.
45:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's another good book.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: People are looking for for books to to sort of read about, you know, quote unquote Latinos and film.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: Like that's one, that's a good one that that you should.
45:55
SPEAKER_01: And I'm I'm blanking on the author's name, but it's the I believe the title of the book is Latinos and Film.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, the uh the concept of the movie is was really ahead of its time, too.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: Because it's it's science fiction, but it's science fiction in a way that you could totally see it happening.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Like it it makes sense that that in a dystopian future, you know, the world as it's presented in Sleep Dealer would actually exist.
46:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, do we want to want to not spoil it, but do we want to spoil it at least say why this is uh uh very significant film that we're talking about?
46:32
SPEAKER_01: So like what is what is the main thing that's going on in the film?
46:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
46:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
46:37
SPEAKER_02: So like in in the movie, at the time in the time of the movie, they've shut down the border, right?
46:42
SPEAKER_02: Like the the borders just like closed off.
46:47
SPEAKER_02: And there's people in uh in Mexico, they call them Cybraseros, which I thought was really clever.
46:56
SPEAKER_02: And basically they go to the border towns and they find a um are the aren't they called Coyotex?
47:04
SPEAKER_02: Coyotex, I believe so, yeah.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's like a uh a hacker coyote.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: Hacker who could basically get you into the United States virtually.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: Virtually, yeah.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: And you plug your body into this machine, and you basically, like we were talking about, you just become a tool, right?
47:25
SPEAKER_02: You're just a a thing on in um in the United States that's doing construction or picking vegetables, and you're controlling this robot virtually from Mexico.
47:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:39
SPEAKER_02: And they're called sleep, the people who um run these uh like they're basically like maquiladoras almost, right?
47:47
SPEAKER_02: Because they're they're all packed into these buildings, hooked up to these machines.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: But they call these buildings sleep dealers because the people they work non-stop and it starts to like affect their neurology and and their their uh their sense of time and space and yeah, and uh reality and all that.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's a it's a really cool sci-fi film, absolutely.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I don't know if that filmmaker went on to do anything else.
48:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, not sure.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: Which is unfortunate because that was such a cool concept.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: So the full title of the book is called Latino Images in Film, Stereotypes, Subversion, and Resistance.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's by Charles Berg Ramirez.
48:32
SPEAKER_01: Charles Berg Ramirez.
48:34
SPEAKER_01: So it came out in 2002, so it's uh over 20 years old at this point.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I didn't realize how old I was.
48:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I I read it when in in school, in college, uh it must have been the year 2008.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it was still kind of fresh back then.
48:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: Very cool.
48:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, for those of you who are premium members, you will be getting an entire extra segment to this epitode.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: Epitode?
49:04
SPEAKER_02: Fire.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: It's an epitode.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: That's it, man.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: From now on.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: We are officially doing epitodes.
49:15
SPEAKER_02: Epitodes.
49:16
SPEAKER_02: For those of you who are premium members, you will be getting an entire extra segment to this episode in our premium feed.
49:24
SPEAKER_02: If you were not a premium member, please consider becoming one.
49:28
SPEAKER_02: Just follow the link in the show notes, and for a mere five dollars a month, five bucks a month, you will get ad-free episodes with bonus content, premium episodes, and access to our Discord server where you can interact with us and other fans of the show.
49:48
SPEAKER_02: So go premium and support independent, indigenous Chicano media.
49:54
SPEAKER_02: And until next time, remember the truth is like medicine.
50:00
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't always taste good, but it is always good for you.
50:06
SPEAKER_02: Braseros, rise up.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: And for our premium members, we're now going to continue with some bonus content that the free listeners don't get.
50:17
SPEAKER_02: For this segment, I am drawing from the article entitled The Tragedy That Transformed the Chicano Movement by Livia Gershon, and the paper, A Town Full of Dead Mexicans, the Salinas Valley Bracero Tragedy of 1963, the end of the Bracero Program, and the evolution of California's Chicano movement by Laurie A.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Flores.
50:46
SPEAKER_02: Links to both sources will be provided in the show notes for this episode.
50:54
SPEAKER_02: On September seventeenth, nineteen sixty-three, a tragic accident near Chualar, California, resulted in the deaths of thirty-two Mexican guest workers, known as Praceros.
51:10
SPEAKER_02: This incident not only underscored the harsh conditions faced by these laborers, but also played a significant role in igniting the emerging Chicano movement, which united Mexican American activists in their quest for justice.
51:27
SPEAKER_02: As discussed in the main segment for this episode, the Bracero program was initiated to alleviate labor shortages during World War II by recruiting Mexican workers for jobs in agriculture and railroads.
51:41
SPEAKER_02: While the program theoretically ensured fair wages and sufficient living conditions for the braceros, the reality was starkly different.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: Many braceros worked up to 14 hours a day under strenuous conditions, receiving inadequate pay along with substandard housing and food.
52:01
SPEAKER_02: Many experienced malnutrition and sustained long-term injuries due to the physically demanding nature of their jobs.
52:11
SPEAKER_02: The fatal incident in Chualar occurred as 57 braceros who lived at the Earl Myers Company labor camp in Salinas, California, were being transported from the fields in a flatbed produce truck.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: As the truck crossed an unmarked railroad track, it was struck by a freight train, resulting in immediate and horrific casualties.
52:33
SPEAKER_02: To quote the article by Lori Flores.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: Between 4 20 and 4 25 p.m., Espinosa approached an unmarked railroad crossing eight miles south of Salinas.
52:46
SPEAKER_01: Not seeing or hearing a train, he inched the front wheels over the tracks.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: He suddenly heard a whistle but still did not see anything.
52:55
SPEAKER_01: Espinosa gunned the motor to get across, but it was too late.
52:59
SPEAKER_01: A 71 car Southern Pacific Railroad freight train traveling at 65 miles an hour smashed into the right side of the vehicle with enough force to shear it in half.
53:11
SPEAKER_01: The passenger compartment detached, sending bodies, pieces of wood, and work tools flying.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: Before the engineer could bring the train carrying sugar beets to a stop, fifty-six men lay scattered around the tracks, some thrown 300 feet beyond the point of impact.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: Twenty-three died instantly.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: Tony Vazquez, a Mexican American foreman, whose crew was thinning broccoli in a nearby field, witnessed the collision in horror and called authorities before rushing to the scene.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: Bodies just flew all over the place, he said.
53:47
SPEAKER_01: A truckload of soldiers from nearby Fort Ord saw the wreckage from the highway and stopped to offer aid.
53:55
SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, other drivers slowed their cars to observe the accident, delaying ambulances trying to reach the workers.
54:03
SPEAKER_01: Paramedics and Monterey County coroner Christopher Hill came upon a gruesome scene.
54:12
SPEAKER_01: Shoes, hats, and cutting knives were all around.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Everywhere you could hear the injured moaning and tell.
54:20
SPEAKER_02: This was not an isolated event.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: Similar accidents had previously claimed the lives of farm workers in the Salinas area, underscoring the systemic neglect and exploitation within the Braceto program.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: Once again, quoting Lori Flores.
54:39
SPEAKER_01: Moreover, the accident was not without precedent.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: Since the mid-1940s, California farmers had crowded Brasetos into poorly constructed vehicles manned by untrained drivers to transport them from field to field.
54:54
SPEAKER_01: For example, 14 men from Salinas and Brawley died in two separate bus train crashes in 1953.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Then in 1958, 14 Salinas men burned to death when cans of gasoline in their labor bus caught fire and chains tied on the outside of the bus prevented the workers from escaping, as in the Chualar case.
55:16
SPEAKER_02: Despite these tragic events, urban-focused Mexican-American civil rights groups such as California's Community Service Organization or CSO had largely ignored the struggles of farm workers.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: In 1962, César Chavez, a rising labor leader, urged the CSO to focus on farm workers' issues, but his appeal was rejected.
55:43
SPEAKER_02: Nevertheless, the Chualar tragedy became a turning point, sparking activism and bringing nationwide attention to the exploitation of Braseros and the dangerous conditions that they faced.
55:59
SPEAKER_02: In the aftermath of the accident, employers sought to shape public perception by arranging a solemn funeral for the deceased workers.
56:08
SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, the Bracetos were so marginalized that their identities were unknown to their employers, who had to depend on FBI fingerprint checks to ascertain their names.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: This dehumanization, where workers were identified solely by numbers, illustrated a profound disregard for their basic humanity.
56:43
SPEAKER_02: This movement sought to address a wide variety of issues, including labor rights, educational reform, and cultural recognition grounded in an indigenous self-identity.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: The tragedy emphasized the need for systemic reform and motivated a generation of Chicano activists to advocate for the rights and dignity of their community.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: This was like I I had no idea about this particular story, and damn, man.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: Just the paper by Flores, especially um is like I think everybody should read it, but it's it's really heartbreaking.
57:24
SPEAKER_02: It's it's a really, really tragic story because she gets into the identities of the men that were on the work truck and what they were doing there and where where they were from and in Mexico and stuff.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: So it's really enlightening.
57:40
SPEAKER_01: Is this the same event that um I'm trying to remember who it was that did a song?
57:46
SPEAKER_01: Was it Bob Dylan or someone or Woody Guthrie, one of those folk singers?
57:51
SPEAKER_01: I believe they did a song about this, about a tragic incident that had occurred um involving Mexican migrant labor.
58:01
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
58:01
SPEAKER_02: I there is a corrido uh that I found, but that's the only song that I know of that's about this.
58:09
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that I found.
58:10
SPEAKER_02: I it could be, you could be right, because it does sound like something that like Woody Guthrie or or somebody would would sing about.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah, it's okay.
58:19
SPEAKER_02: It says here Woody Guthrie wrote one of his most moving songs, Deporte, Plane Wreck at Los Gatos.
58:28
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is, yeah.
58:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it's uh the same event, but it's related to this.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: So the Los Gatos is was a 1945 plane crash in Los Gatos Canyon, killing 28 laborers who were being sent back to Mexico in the Salinas Valley town.
58:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
58:47
SPEAKER_02: It was in the same area, Salinas.
58:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it was in the same area.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: So that that area's got a history.
58:54
SPEAKER_01: Like that's been recorded, that's been, you know, artists have talked about it.
59:00
SPEAKER_02: A story came up from the Alley Times saying California has too long ignored its migrant dead, and that's where I found the little reference to uh the Woody Guthrie song.
59:12
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to find my piece where I wrote about this.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: Because I remember being very proud of myself about what I wrote.
59:20
SPEAKER_01: Um, here it is.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: Peter Dreyer 64 Years Later, New York Times, and the new bar.
59:26
SPEAKER_01: Is that it?
59:27
SPEAKER_01: Let me see.
59:28
SPEAKER_01: This is a piece that I wrote back in 2012.
59:31
SPEAKER_01: Dang it.
59:32
SPEAKER_01: Let's see what it says.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: I know, right?
59:37
SPEAKER_02: It says that uh Woody Guthrie wrote the song after he heard a radio broadcast's dismissive descriptions of the Mexicans aboard the flight.
59:47
SPEAKER_01: So you can just imagine what dismissive descriptions that must have been.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's just yeah, nothing, nothing to see here, folks.
59:55
SPEAKER_01: Just a bunch of Mexicans.
59:56
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
59:57
SPEAKER_01: Who cares about them?
59:58
SPEAKER_01: Who cares about Mexican life, right?
1:00:00
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: We're just tools.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: We're just hammers and fucking nails.
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: Just tools.
1:00:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: Just tools of the empire.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
1:00:11
SPEAKER_02: And if you look at so if you read um Lori Flores' paper, she has a photo of what these work trucks looked like.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_02: And damn, man, they're they're not very big.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_02: And they were just cramming people in there, you know, and they had to sit on the floor and on the little benches, and then the the doors would be shut, and then they would be chained shut because they didn't have like a they weren't real doors.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's like pieces of wood that you would close and then chain shut.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_02: So basically, effectively trapping people inside.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: And some of the worst injuries came from the fact that these men were packed in so tight with all of their work equipment.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_02: So all of those knives and blades and you know, all of that stuff that they were using to cut and trim were in there with them when they got hit.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_02: So you could just imagine that becoming like shrapnel and just tearing through people.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_02: It's uh it's infuriating and it's it makes me sad, angry, and disgusted all at the same time, if if you get what I'm saying.
1:01:20
SPEAKER_01: And also, your um your mentioning of President Obama when he was in office and when he was known as in some corners, because not everyone wanted to believe that he was a deporter in chief and that he was running up people left and right.
1:01:34
SPEAKER_01: Because I remember getting into this big debate with someone back in the early days of Twitter about this, and and this uh this person was from San Antonio, um was adamant that Obama was just going after the criminals.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, no, he's not just going after the criminals.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_01: If you believe that story, believe me, I got something to sell you.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: Right?
1:01:54
SPEAKER_01: It's like it's more than that.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: Like these people are being rounded up left and right.
1:01:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and growing up in the 80s in Dallas, like I remember this is back during the migra days, during the INS days.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: And like, you know, you would hear it all the time.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: People just be, you know, hanging out at the apartments in the parking lot, just chilling, having a barbecue, having a drink after work in the parking lot, and the media migra would just show up and just round up everyone.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: No questions asked.
1:02:20
SPEAKER_01: If you didn't have any papers to prove that you were uh I'm an American citizen, whether uh naturalized or native-born, like they would take you in, and then you'd have to you know prove that you were legally uh uh either born or a resident before they could release you.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_01: And it's like this is the same thing as happening back then.
1:02:38
SPEAKER_01: This is what I was telling her.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_01: This is the same thing that's happening now.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking about like nothing's changed, right?
1:02:44
SPEAKER_01: Nothing has changed.
1:02:46
SPEAKER_01: I found this piece that I posted in my in my blog back in the 13th of May 2013, and it's by Patricio Gomez, who was with the Mexican-American Political Association MAPA.
1:02:57
SPEAKER_01: And so let me see what it says.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: It says, Finally, the cat is out of the bag in terms of what type of comprehensive immigration reform constantly referred to by the president by President Obama.
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: For for four long years, it was all speculation, although any sensible person who has been active on the immigration issue could read the tea leaves.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_01: The aggressive enforcement measures on all fronts, secure communities program with local police, e-verify with employers, expedited removals on a massive scale, and a humongous border buildup.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: That tells the story.
1:03:47
SPEAKER_01: So, and and I'll bring this up because oftentimes people say, Well, you know, if we only had the right people in office, you know, this wouldn't happen.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: If we had more Democrats in office, this wouldn't happen.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: But guess what?
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: The Democrats are culpable in all this.
1:03:59
SPEAKER_01: They're they're this is a bipartisan effort that's been going on for a very, very long time.
1:04:04
SPEAKER_01: And Obama, I mean, I believe he still is, you know, in terms of numbers, is he still the one that deported more people while he was in office?
1:04:15
SPEAKER_01: And maybe because he was in office two consecutive terms, that might have something to do with it.
1:04:19
SPEAKER_01: But if Trump has anything to say, it, you know, he's gonna try to beat Obama because you know he hates Obama, you know, yeah.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_01: The black guy who was president, you know, uh is he really American?
1:04:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're not even gonna get into all that nonsense because that was all BS as well.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_01: But the fact that just because he was African American and and he was a Democrat and he passed all these or had aspirations to pass all these laws and legislations that were supposed to make things better for Americans overall, besides you know, Obamacare, like it doesn't mean that he gets a pass on on this issue.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:04:52
SPEAKER_01: We should still be critical of everyone and anyone who is trying to pass this legislation that is you know that rounds people up.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he was the first one to start, not the first one, but at least in the modern era to start splitting families apart.
1:05:08
SPEAKER_01: This goes all the way back to Eisenhower.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: People don't realize it.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_01: Like it begins with Eisenhower.
1:05:13
SPEAKER_01: And and um and in fact, you know, you have Eisenhower, you have uh Operation Wetback, which which is what we just discussed, but even before Operation Wetback, going back to the Great Depression, you had what they call the Mexican repatriation in the 19 uh twenties, 1930s.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_01: And in that operation, that is estimated to have been roughly about two million people, including you know, ethnic Mexicans, you know, including those who were born in the U.S., who were rounded up and deported and sent to Mexico, even people who had never been there, right?
1:05:42
SPEAKER_01: People who were native born to the U.S.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: Uh so even before Operation Wetback, like this has been going on for a very long time.
1:05:49
SPEAKER_01: When I was doing some preliminary um research on the topic before the uh we hopped on to record, um I did uh I looked up some some uh sites and I found one that's called immigrationhistory.org.
1:06:04
SPEAKER_01: And in that one, they give you some they give you a nice little timeline.
1:06:07
SPEAKER_01: Like if you go to their homepage, there's a timeline.
1:06:10
SPEAKER_01: And if you go all the way back to the year 1790, you have the very first act by Congress, the Nationality Act of 1790, which which says this was the first law to define eligibility for citizenship by naturalization and established standards and procedures by which immigrants become U.S.
1:06:29
SPEAKER_01: citizens.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_01: In this early version, Congress limited this important right to free white persons, right?
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: So this is still a time during slavery, so it's only white people who can come immigrate from other parts of the world and become eligible for naturalization for citizenship.
1:06:47
SPEAKER_01: And then shortly after that, in the year 1798, you get the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_01: Congress enacted deportation laws targeting persons deemed politic political threats to the United States in response to conflicts in Europe.
1:07:01
SPEAKER_01: So this one specifically is targeting Europeans, but you can see where this is headed.
1:07:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, it leads to the ban on importation of any quote-unquote Negro mulatto or person of color into the U.S.
1:07:12
SPEAKER_01: after 1803, and it becomes effective in 1808.
1:07:15
SPEAKER_01: This is part of the the whole um termination of um the the slave trade uh from from out from the outside because the slave trade continues inside domestically, just not internationally anymore, right?
1:07:28
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then that leads to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, that leads to the the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848, which is supposed to guarantee the citizenship of Mexicans who reside within the newly acquired territories in the Southwest, which was after a year, like they gave people the ultimatum.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna revisit this in a year.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to go and if if you want to continue to be a Mexican, you have to go to the new boundary uh south of the border and to remain a Mexican.
1:08:00
SPEAKER_01: If you stay north of this boundary, we're gonna consider you American citizens.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_01: And so the majority of the people I like to tell my students in class is that uh the numbers, no one can really say, right, with any accuracy, the numbers of who's how many people stayed versus how many uh actually you know went to Mexico.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_01: But the vast majority of the people who had lived in these places for generations who were part of those early settlements that came up with the Spanish and that Las Caltecas um uh and settled those quote unquote Spanish settlements and then begin to intermix with the local indigenous populations, they've already formed communities and and they have their own cultures and traditions, you know, even before the United States gets gets uh established, right?
1:08:46
SPEAKER_01: So why are they going to want to move?
1:08:48
SPEAKER_01: So, so anyway, long story short, if if anyone's interested in seeing this timeline, it's it's a very nifty time timeline on immigration um acts and and legislation that's been passed, and it goes all the way through time.
1:09:02
SPEAKER_01: And the very last thing that they have listed here is from 2019.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, of course, they list the 2017 Muslim travel ban.
1:09:10
SPEAKER_01: I uh doofus uh Trump here.
1:09:13
SPEAKER_01: Um and then 2019 you have the final rule on quote unquote public charge ground of inadmissibility.
1:09:20
SPEAKER_01: And in this one, the Trump administration's Department of the Homeland Security finalized a rule that expanded the list of received benefits and other factors to be considered in determining whether an applicant for admission is or adjustment of status is likely to become a public charge.
1:09:37
SPEAKER_01: So what they're saying is that, well, you know, if you're not someone who's just gonna come and mooch off of us, well, I guess it's okay.
1:09:45
SPEAKER_01: It's okay for you to come.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_01: And now, I don't know if you've heard, but the latest thing that that uh these morons are are trying to pass is that uh they want to sell American citizenship.
1:09:56
SPEAKER_02: The gold card, right?
1:09:57
SPEAKER_01: The gold card, are are you kidding me?
1:10:00
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
1:10:01
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna I mean, with the way things are going, who the hell wants to come here now?
1:10:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, the only people that would be interested in and it's something ridiculous, like five million dollars you could buy US citizenship.
1:10:13
SPEAKER_02: The only people interested in that would be like Russian oligarchs who are like, this is nothing to me, you know, anyway.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_02: This is like a nickel.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: And now I get to be a citizen of your country and like uh directly influence your politics.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_02: Sure, why not?
1:10:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it's so ridiculous.
1:10:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I'd meant to bring that up.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_02: So dumb.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_02: These these people, I I don't get anybody who looks at Trump and sees strength and leadership, and I don't get anybody that looks at Elon Musk and sees a genius.
1:10:46
SPEAKER_02: And I've heard so many people like, well, he's a genius.
1:10:50
SPEAKER_02: It's like, really?
1:10:51
SPEAKER_02: Because he strikes me as one of the dumbest fucking human beings on this planet.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_01: You know what they say.
1:10:57
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if if this is true because I have no idea.
1:10:59
SPEAKER_01: I've never looked into his past, so and I don't really care, but they're saying that he's had multiple head injuries.
1:11:04
SPEAKER_01: What was he dropped as a kid?
1:11:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know what they mean by this, right?
1:11:08
SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that even mean?
1:11:09
SPEAKER_01: Or kicked in the head by a donkey.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_01: Or the one that he likes to to you know bandy about whenever he says something really stupid and egregious and just very you know cringe worthy, right?
1:11:22
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm autistic.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, really?
1:11:24
SPEAKER_01: Like, are you serious?
1:11:25
SPEAKER_01: Because I know a lot of autistic people and they don't behave like complete assholes.
1:11:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, right?
1:11:30
SPEAKER_01: Like this idea that, oh, excuse what I said, I'm I'm autistic.
1:11:33
SPEAKER_01: Fuck you.
1:11:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and anyone, anyone who's ever met someone who's on the spectrum or who or who has family who's on the spectrum will tell you that people who are on the spectrum do not behave this way.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_01: This is not normal behavior.
1:11:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's just a piece of shit.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_01: He's just a piece of shit.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_01: That's all he is.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's all he is, and that's all he's ever going to be.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing uh redeemable about this guy ever.
1:11:58
SPEAKER_01: Ever.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_02: I agree, sir.
1:12:01
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1:12:05
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1:12:09
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1:12:12
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1:12:25
SPEAKER_02: And until next time, keep it real, folks.
1:13:09
SPEAKER_04: Unacero, de ma tu paster muy llamada Vie se diembre, año de senta liter Lo tendremos muy presente Vivo en la vida El cover de la voz cuando llego hasta el crucero Dibujaro Cincuenta y Nueve Blackero Muy triste pues hermano Les pasaria