WEBVTT 00:00:03.940 --> 00:00:05.940 yeah, yeah. 00:00:07.540 --> 00:00:13.707 A 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:18.826 great awakening of mexican americans a political awakening Which has led 00:00:18.859 --> 00:00:22.927 Mexican Americans to participate both as citizens casting their votes at 00:00:22.960 --> 00:00:28.877 the polls and as candidates for office. A social awakening in which 00:00:28.910 --> 00:00:33.116 Mexican Americans have begun to demand the civil rights guaranteed them 00:00:33.149 --> 00:00:38.667 since 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The civil rights guaranteed 00:00:38.700 --> 00:00:43.287 them by the constitution of the United States. An awakening which has been 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:47.527 illustrated by the fight of new mexicans in the courts to regain lands 00:00:47.560 --> 00:00:52.326 captured by anglo americans and by the organization of mexican american 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:59.406 farm workers. An awakening featuring men like Reyes, Lopez, tijerina, 00:00:59.439 --> 00:01:07.137 cesar Chavez and Ernesto Galarza. It's given mexican americans a new 00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:12.507 spirit of pride and awareness of their ability to create a better society. 00:01:12.540 --> 00:01:16.497 How did it all begin? What were the events leading up to this great 00:01:16.530 --> 00:01:22.197 awakening? Well, to understand the awakening, we must look first to a 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:27.117 great migration, a northward migration of mexicans to the United States 00:01:27.150 --> 00:01:32.247 which has continued for more than half a century. It began during the 00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:36.126 early years of the Mexican revolution, when thousands of people sought to 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:40.147 escape the chaos of civil war, bringing what few possessions they could 00:01:40.180 --> 00:01:43.867 carry. They fled to the relative safety of the borderlands to the 00:01:43.900 --> 00:01:49.046 Southwestern United States. Later, many mexicans immigrated to the United 00:01:49.079 --> 00:01:53.467 States in search of economic opportunity for they saw the chance to earn 00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:57.516 more money than they ever dreamed possible. For example, in steel 00:01:57.549 --> 00:02:02.977 railroads, meatpacking industries and more and more. They have migrated 00:02:03.010 --> 00:02:07.296 north because of increasing population pressure on Mexico's arable land 00:02:07.329 --> 00:02:10.767 for they were unable to speak from the land of Mexico even bare 00:02:10.800 --> 00:02:15.906 subsistence. They came across a border that really existed only on paper 00:02:15.939 --> 00:02:20.047 for movement between the United States and Mexico was free almost as if a 00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:24.867 border didn't exist even today. Well over 100 million visitors cross the 00:02:24.900 --> 00:02:28.626 border between the two countries each year. And so the early immigrants 00:02:28.659 --> 00:02:32.446 came to a land that was once part of Mexico to a land where they could 00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:37.457 feel at home and whatever the cause mexicans continue to emigrate in 00:02:37.490 --> 00:02:41.506 tremendous numbers. It's been estimated that over a million people moved 00:02:41.539 --> 00:02:47.406 from Mexico to the United States between 1910 and 1930. 00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:52.207 Ever since 1925, los Angeles California has been the largest Mexican 00:02:52.240 --> 00:02:56.397 community in the world outside of Mexico City, but the immigrants have 00:02:56.430 --> 00:03:00.957 concentrated in states other than texas, new Mexico colorado Arizona and 00:03:00.990 --> 00:03:05.416 California. They moved into those areas originally owned and settled by 00:03:05.449 --> 00:03:10.186 their ancestors. In the years following the revolution, the continuing 00:03:10.219 --> 00:03:14.666 arrival of the immigrants touched off another migration, an internal 00:03:14.699 --> 00:03:19.686 migration for they created new population pressures. Families who had 00:03:19.719 --> 00:03:23.846 lived there for generations began to move out of the southwest to seek 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:28.307 homes in other parts of the United States. 00:03:28.340 --> 00:03:32.587 Over the years, the number of Mexicans legally seeking permanent residence 00:03:32.620 --> 00:03:37.286 in the United States continued to increase from 1940 to 1950, an average 00:03:37.319 --> 00:03:44.267 of 6000 people a year immigrated. In 1955 alone, over 61,000 Mexicans 00:03:44.300 --> 00:03:50.726 cross the border and between 1961 and 1966, Nearly 00:03:50.759 --> 00:03:56.267 276,000 immigrated to the United States. A second group doesn't seek 00:03:56.300 --> 00:04:00.936 residents in the United States. They are commuters Mexicans who carry a 00:04:00.969 --> 00:04:05.217 green card which allows them to work in the United States while they live 00:04:05.250 --> 00:04:11.277 in Mexico. Another group, illegal entries have counted for many times the 00:04:11.310 --> 00:04:15.077 number of immigrants during and after the mexican revolution. They were 00:04:15.110 --> 00:04:19.796 called *** because they crossed the rio grande into texas in the dark of 00:04:19.829 --> 00:04:23.656 the night. These immigrants brought only the clothes they wore and they 00:04:23.689 --> 00:04:28.947 sought jobs and anonymity in the southwest. Others were brought illegally 00:04:28.980 --> 00:04:33.887 to the United States by labor smugglers. Unscrupulous men who sold mexican 00:04:33.920 --> 00:04:39.796 labor to borderland employers for 50 cents to a dollar a head. The extent 00:04:39.829 --> 00:04:44.046 of this illegal immigration is evidenced by the number of *** caught by 00:04:44.079 --> 00:04:48.777 the U. S. Border Patrol. For instance, in one year alone, over one million 00:04:48.810 --> 00:04:53.507 *** were deported to Mexico. Surely there are many thousands who weren't 00:04:53.540 --> 00:05:01.540 apprehended 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:07.137 today. These immigrants, their Children and their grandchildren are an 00:05:07.170 --> 00:05:12.267 important part of the Mexican american community. They've revitalized the 00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:16.937 mexican character of the southwest, superimposing over the unique culture 00:05:16.970 --> 00:05:22.536 of the region, 1/20 century mexican culture. They've brought new strength 00:05:22.569 --> 00:05:26.517 to mexican american society and thus initiated the struggle of mexican 00:05:26.550 --> 00:05:32.616 americans for first class status as U. S. Citizens a struggle against the 00:05:32.649 --> 00:05:37.257 anti mexican prejudices which had developed among anglo americans and 00:05:37.290 --> 00:05:42.496 against the resulting discrimination, a struggle to escape from poverty to 00:05:42.529 --> 00:05:47.856 win civil rights. It's been a long hard struggle and it's far from 00:05:47.889 --> 00:05:52.346 finished. Although progress is being made. Let's look first at the 00:05:52.379 --> 00:05:57.327 background of the story which begins with the great migrations. It's a 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:02.606 story which in some ways begins with farm labor. Now only a small 00:06:02.639 --> 00:06:05.676 percentage of the mexicans who immigrate to the United States become 00:06:05.709 --> 00:06:10.207 farmworkers. But without these farm workers, the agricultural industry in 00:06:10.240 --> 00:06:14.817 the United States could not have developed and thrived. These immigrants 00:06:14.850 --> 00:06:19.327 came from an agricultural society from a subsistence farming economy. In 00:06:19.360 --> 00:06:24.007 Mexico. Perhaps their only skill is their knowledge of farming and many of 00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:29.337 them fall into farming jobs. In the United States, the low wages farm 00:06:29.370 --> 00:06:33.426 workers are traditionally offered look enormous to the mexican immigrant 00:06:33.459 --> 00:06:38.546 for in Mexico money had been scarce and thus began a vicious circle from 00:06:38.579 --> 00:06:43.606 which the mexican american farm laborer found it difficult to escape. 00:06:43.639 --> 00:06:48.197 As a farm laborer, his wages were low seldom enough to last throughout the 00:06:48.230 --> 00:06:53.036 year. He worked long, hard hours and had few chances to learn non 00:06:53.069 --> 00:06:57.577 agricultural skills. His job kept him separated from most of the society 00:06:57.610 --> 00:07:01.606 around him and he seldom had the opportunity to learn the language of his 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:06.356 new country, His Children had to work if the family was to earn enough 00:07:06.389 --> 00:07:11.397 money to survive. They too were trapped in a vicious circle following the 00:07:11.430 --> 00:07:15.957 footsteps of their parents. Many of the Children became farm laborers and 00:07:15.990 --> 00:07:23.990 such has been the story for more than half a century. 00:07:27.930 --> 00:07:32.546 It was coincidence that the great migration began just as a tremendous 00:07:32.579 --> 00:07:36.587 demand for labor was created for. In the early years of this century, the 00:07:36.620 --> 00:07:42.856 Southwest emerged as an economic empire, an agricultural empire. This 00:07:42.889 --> 00:07:46.217 economic development had its roots in the urbanization, the 00:07:46.250 --> 00:07:49.556 industrialization which occurred in the United States. After the Civil war 00:07:49.589 --> 00:07:54.596 , people moved to the cities, the kitchen gardens, which had fed each 00:07:54.629 --> 00:07:59.137 household disappeared and a new demand for marketable foodstuffs was 00:07:59.170 --> 00:08:05.007 created. In the early 1900s, technological advances paved the way for the 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:09.567 development of large scale commercial farming enterprises. Refrigerated 00:08:09.600 --> 00:08:14.837 railroad cars enabled growers to transport their produce to distant cities 00:08:14.870 --> 00:08:19.387 and an increased demand for agricultural products was created by new 00:08:19.420 --> 00:08:23.556 canning process is a demand which could only be met by large scale farming 00:08:23.589 --> 00:08:29.426 , but the early growers had spent so much money irrigating and reclaiming 00:08:29.459 --> 00:08:32.817 the desert lands of the Southwest that they couldn't afford to pay the 00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:36.986 wages that workers in the United States were beginning to demand. So they 00:08:37.019 --> 00:08:41.557 hired the willing and jobless people who came north with the flood of 00:08:41.590 --> 00:08:47.136 migration. Later the growers became immensely wealthy, but the wages they 00:08:47.169 --> 00:08:50.307 paid did not increase. 00:08:50.340 --> 00:08:54.717 One of the oldest, large scale commercial farming enterprises is the sugar 00:08:54.750 --> 00:08:59.957 beet industry of colorado and it provides an excellent example of the net 00:08:59.990 --> 00:09:03.947 in which the mexican american farm worker became trapped. Sugar beets 00:09:03.980 --> 00:09:08.126 became important to colorado industry early in this century and are still 00:09:08.159 --> 00:09:13.026 one of that state's primary crops, like commercial farmers elsewhere. 00:09:13.059 --> 00:09:17.577 Colorado growers began to hire mexican immigrants, migratory farm workers 00:09:17.610 --> 00:09:23.457 , but sugar beets require attention much of the year. The growers needed a 00:09:23.490 --> 00:09:29.136 permanent workforce to obtain such a workforce. They had to convince the 00:09:29.169 --> 00:09:33.266 mexican american laborers to remain throughout the year. In some cases, 00:09:33.299 --> 00:09:37.736 the growers used coercion, for instance, some refused to pay the final 00:09:37.769 --> 00:09:43.657 wages of their workers. Thus they acquired a captive labor force, a labor 00:09:43.690 --> 00:09:47.856 force which lacked the funds to leave the area. It was a labor force which 00:09:47.889 --> 00:09:52.986 had no choice but to work the sugar beets year after year at the same low 00:09:53.019 --> 00:09:58.256 wages. Once the immigrant farmers, not only in colorado, but throughout 00:09:58.289 --> 00:10:02.947 the southwest had begun to work for low pay, The growers were not inclined 00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:08.177 to raise the wages. The farm laborer was bound by lack of money to a job 00:10:08.210 --> 00:10:13.516 at the bottom of the socio economic ladder and it's upon this base of 00:10:13.549 --> 00:10:18.526 poorly paid labor that a tremendously wealthy agricultural empire has been 00:10:18.559 --> 00:10:26.559 built. 00:10:27.039 --> 00:10:32.606 Now. The overriding characteristic of farm labor is, it's seasonal nature 00:10:32.639 --> 00:10:36.746 and for many farmworkers, the winter is a time of unemployment of time of 00:10:36.779 --> 00:10:41.547 trying to live on the money made during the summer. During the growing 00:10:41.580 --> 00:10:45.907 season farm laborers may travel from crop to crop finding work where it's 00:10:45.940 --> 00:10:51.337 available, working for several different employers. Some farm workers own 00:10:51.370 --> 00:10:55.207 cars or trucks, their own transportation, and when the growing season 00:10:55.240 --> 00:11:00.976 begins they leave their city homes for the fields. But most join a crew, 00:11:01.009 --> 00:11:05.287 they may pay the crew leader of fee for joining, especially if he has a 00:11:05.320 --> 00:11:10.467 good reputation for finding work and they pay for their transportation. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:15.087 The crew leader is something like the patron of the colonial hacienda. He 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:20.337 is the boss and guardian of those who join his crew. He's also their 00:11:20.370 --> 00:11:25.116 interpreter. For many farmworkers speak little or no english because they 00:11:25.149 --> 00:11:28.317 work together and spend their leisure time together. The members of the 00:11:28.350 --> 00:11:33.226 crew have little opportunity to learn english and little need to use it. 00:11:33.259 --> 00:11:37.677 The crew leader makes the contracts with employers and he usually receives 00:11:37.710 --> 00:11:41.856 the pay for the entire crew, doling it out to individual workers at times 00:11:41.889 --> 00:11:47.616 , even keeping a portion of their wages for himself. Now, agriculture, 00:11:47.649 --> 00:11:52.106 even in this age of mechanization requires the work of many human hands. 00:11:52.139 --> 00:11:56.677 And unlike most other occupations, it provides work for every member of 00:11:56.710 --> 00:11:59.927 the family, even if the head of the family is employed in some other 00:11:59.960 --> 00:12:04.346 occupation, the women and Children may supplement the income by working in 00:12:04.379 --> 00:12:10.067 the fields in some areas and experienced fast worker. If paid by the 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:14.516 amount he picks, can earn a good income during the season's peak, but it's 00:12:14.549 --> 00:12:19.996 hard work with few rewards At the height of the season, a farm worker 00:12:20.029 --> 00:12:25.226 spends 12 to 14 hours in the fields, perhaps with no nearby sanitary 00:12:25.259 --> 00:12:30.889 facilities, with one cup for drinking water shared between all the workers. 00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:33.240 If he's living in housing provided by the grower, he may return in the 00:12:35.519 --> 00:12:40.136 evening to a shack without electricity, plumbing or cooking facilities 00:12:40.169 --> 00:12:46.136 unbearably hot in the summer sun less frequently, farm workers may be 00:12:46.169 --> 00:12:50.866 housed in more modern apartments or barracks. In either case, the grower 00:12:50.899 --> 00:12:56.447 usually deduct a portion of the workers wages for rent. If the farm worker 00:12:56.480 --> 00:13:01.606 lives in his own home, it's often located at some distance from the fields 00:13:01.639 --> 00:13:05.896 and in the evening there are groceries to be bought meals to be prepared 00:13:05.929 --> 00:13:11.157 and eaten after the evening meal. The family may watch television or 00:13:11.190 --> 00:13:15.167 listen to a radio for a while and then at nine or 10 o'clock it's time for 00:13:15.200 --> 00:13:20.447 bed for the workers must rise before dawn in the morning. By contrast, 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:24.616 there's often no work at all during the winter season, this is the time to 00:13:24.649 --> 00:13:28.587 make needed automobile or house repairs to send the Children of the family 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:34.506 to school. It's also a time to visit with friends and relatives, but even 00:13:34.539 --> 00:13:39.106 in the winter there's little time for fun. Instead the necessities of 00:13:39.139 --> 00:13:44.016 survival, food, clothing, housing, medicine, our concerns which take up 00:13:44.049 --> 00:13:48.996 much of a person's time the money earned during the crop season usually 00:13:49.029 --> 00:13:52.736 doesn't last through the winter. When funds run out, the family must turn 00:13:52.769 --> 00:13:57.856 to welfare or rely on credit and a large debt accumulates, which must be 00:13:57.889 --> 00:14:02.776 paid back out of the following summer's wages. Friends and relatives are 00:14:02.809 --> 00:14:06.636 willing to help one another, but often they share the same financial 00:14:06.669 --> 00:14:11.856 problems and so they try to find supplementary work, a job in some field 00:14:11.889 --> 00:14:17.317 other than agriculture. Those who can escape the vicious circle of farm 00:14:17.350 --> 00:14:21.866 labor have drifted into other fields of work, and this escape marks the 00:14:21.899 --> 00:14:29.106 beginning of the awakening of the mexican american. 00:14:29.139 --> 00:14:34.407 Yeah. Mhm 00:14:34.440 --> 00:14:36.440 mm.