Transcripts For CSPAN3 Latinos And The Civil Rights Movement

History, Oliver Rosales talks about latinos and the Civil Rights Movement. His class is an hour and a half. Tonight were going to be talking about the delano grape strike within the bigger, larger context of United States history, labor history and civil rights history. In terms of logistics, how the evening will go, im going to talk a little bit about the topic. Im going to say a few words about my own research, how i came to pursue a topic in civil rights history. And then were also going to talk about a document that i had you read before coming to class, the plan of delano. Were also going to talk about oral histories, the way that the next hour or so will progress. And i want to start off by just saying a few general remarks, things that i hope you take away from the course of the evening. And im going to be argumentative and try to be bold in my states. When we study the delano grape strike, it is one of the most significant, important labor and Civil Rights Movements for not only mexicanamerican, latinos, but also filipinos, in the 20th century. The united farm workers conducted the most successful boycott in all of u. S. Labor history, since the beginning of this country, right . So again, its a really landmark, significant event on a national and even an international scale. Another takeaway that i want you to leave with tonight is, you know, this is a United States History Survey course. And if you think about everything that youve learned up until this point, much of it has been focused on the american south, right . We started off talking about the end of slavery, the reconstruction period, about how slaves were integrated as free men and free women into the society, right . We talked about northern industrialism. But we havent talked a lot about the American West. We talked a little bit about the conquest of the west, the incorporation of native americans into reservations. We havent talked a lot about the American West. Thats one way i want you to think about tonights lecture, that were trying to insert the American West into stories about the United States in the 20th century. In terms of civil rights history, weve been talking about civil rights in the last couple of weeks. Last week we talked about two things. We talked about the cold war as this struggle between the United States and the soviet union or between capitalism and communism. But we connected this to the story of civil rights, because the two things occur simultaneously. I made the case, as have many historians, that the cold war created a context for people of color, africanamericans, to progress in terms of their rights under the government, because communist countries were using the conditions of black people as propaganda, right . So you would have both the soviet union and china putting out propaganda, highlighting how poorly people of color were treated domestically within the United States. So one of the response by policymakers was, hey, lets make sure we have civil rights for africanamericans, right . But again, much of that history we talked about last week, as i said, focused on africanamericans, focused on the american south, and not necessarily the American West. Again, as you leave tonight, and again, a lot of you for your oral history assignments talked about mexican immigration, some of you talked about the farm labor movement, know that what youre doing is a part of a larger effort by historians to capture the story of the American West. How does the story of the American West relate to big, broad themes within United States history, okay . And i want to start the evening by telling you a story and trying to, you know, unmask myself a little bit. As a historian, and how i came to do my own research. And ill start by telling you a story of this man. So many of you will go on to transfer to university. You might find yourself taking classes at csu bakersfield, down in bakersfield. Youll be in the walter stern library. Thats who this man is, water ste walter stern. He was a democrat, very progressive, had the support of labor unions here in the Central Valley where he represented for over like two decades. And so he was getting an award like in the late 1970s. Upon receiving the award, he equipp quipped, he said, this award really doesnt matter because a hundred years from now, only two names are going to be remembered from bakersfield, and those two names of course are buck owens and cesar chavez. I found that absolutely hilarious, because, you know, many of you are from kern county, maybe a few of you are from l. A. Or the San Francisco bay area. Bakersfield has a reputation of being kind of a cultural back water, always dwarfed by San Francisco or the state capital. His contributions to history were marginal, dwarfed by buck owe witness and cesar chavez. A few lectures ago we talked about how the Great Depression was solved by new deal policies, right . We talked about the triple a, the agriculture adjustment act and the federal government sending money into farming communities, agriculture communities to stop production and people find themselves out of work. What do they do, do they stay in these Southern States . No, a lot of them join the migrant trail going to work in california, right . So buck owens, as a Country Music singer, if youve heard of him, kind of symbolized the story of the okies, their west ward movement, and their upward mobility, right . So buck owens is an International Renowned Country Music singer, or at least he was until a few years ago, he passed away about a decade ago. His music, along with other Country Music artists, symbolized something called the bakersfield sound, which different did i have differentin bakersfield and nashville. You see him on the cover of Time Magazine in 1969. The way that pundits and journalists referred to chavez is that he symbolized the awakening of latino peoples in the United States or the awakening of mexicanamerican more specifically, not Puerto Ricans or cubans. The way journalist would happen refer to people of mexican descent living in the United States, they called them the Sleeping Giant. What does that really mean, the Sleeping Giant . Well, what it meant at the time, and some would argue that it has application for today, is that latinos arent necessarily politically active, they dont tend to be involved in civic affairs, right . That was a stereotype at the time. Chavez was absolutely blowing this up. The movement of farm workers, the people at the bottom of the society, right, were suddenly becoming engaged in fighting for their rights, wages, working conditions, but also mobilizing for politicians, right . Well talk maybe a little bit about this later. I know some of you mentioned this in your oral history. One of the best friends of the chavez family is the kennedy family, right . Starting with john and then robert and their children. So my point there is, chavez is challenging that stereotype, that latinos are the Sleeping Giant. There is this awakening of latinos in the 1960s. So again, this polemic that stern is talking about, when i was a younger when i was a College Student just like you and i started to read history, this polemic shaped my learning as a student of history, right . And when i went to graduate school, i went to graduate school at uc santa barbara, and they make you read a lot of books in graduate school, and ill talk about what i read in graduate school and how it relates to what were talking about tonight. A lot of you did family histories. I kind of feel its maybe unfair that maybe you dont know a little bit about my family, right, and why im making you do this assignment. My mothers family, this is a picture of my mothers family, her mother is one of the babies thats sitting on the lap. They were displaced from mexico after 1910 during the mexican revolution, as were many mexican families who wanted to avoid the problems of a wartorn country, right . This is an image that was taken across the border. You can see theyre very welldressed. This would be the early 1920s. And this is a photograph later in the 1940s of the descendants of that same family. My grandmother is the woman in the upper left hand corner. And when they came to the United States, they came as farm workers, right . They went to southern california, worked in oranges there for many years. Then eventually my grandmother migrated up to the Central Valley where we are today. And she married my grandfather, and they lived in Button Willow. I dont know if any of you know your Central Valley geography. Button willow is about 20 miles west of bakersfield. And it was a company town. I dont know if you know what a company town is. You have to think back a few lectures, right . Company towns were small towns that were more or less founded by companies and their workers, right . So Button Willow was a product of the miller luxe company. I actually mentioned the miller luxe to you in one of our earlier lectures. This was a Company Based on out of San Francisco. In the 19th century, early 20th century, they owned much of the land and they raised cattle. My grandfather worked as an accountant for that company. Thats the sum of the story of how my mothers family came to settle in the Central Valley. And again, they had a connection to agriculture. And ill come back in a little bit, maybe say a little bit more about my grandfather. My fathers side of the family, they were not displaced by the mexican revolution, but they migrated as railroad workers. So again, if you think back to some of our earlier lectures, when we talked about railroads, right, the growth of railroads during the industrial age, late 19th century, i mentioned that the railroads not only went east to west, but they went north to south. Thats absolutely critical, right . So you have the railroads going from chicago to nebraska and kansas, down to el paso. And then south into mexico, right . And there was no border prior to 1924. It was a porous border. So my family crossed in the 1870s, and then the sons would follow their fathers, right . And then they wound up working at the Southern Pacific Railroad station, which is in southeast bakersfield. Its not operative today, its basically like an historical relic. Theres lots of folks in the Historical Society in bakersfield that wants to make that old depot on sumner and baker into a Historical Monument but there is not a lot of money for that right now. If you go there, again, its a historical relic. This is the men who worked on the railroad. Im not going to try to point out my grandfather, i can see him but theres a lot of men up there. Thats my fathers side. One of the themes that emerged for me is that my mothers side, you have the connections to agriculture, and then through my fathers side you kind of had a more urban, a more industrial history, right . So thats two themes i started to see. But i also asked myself, you know, this doesnt fit within that polemic i was talking about at the start of the lecture, right . This isnt okie history. This isnt necessarily history connected to the united farm workers. I had to inevitably ask myself, does the history matter at all . I came to find out through my research that it absolutely did, thats what i want to unpack for you. Let me explain a little bit about how i came to that process. After i graduated from college at berkeley, i started graduate school, first at cal state bakersfield, then eventually i traveled to uc santa barbara. I was always attracted to colognial history but i couldn imagine myself researching the records of puritans, on even slave ship records. I wanted to do something that was maybe closer to home, that i could connect to. I was always fascinated by the Civil Rights Movement. We talked about that last week. The image you see is 1963. Martin luther king jr. , the march on washington for jobs and justice. Your textbook talks about this. Martin luther king jr. As a Community Organizer got his start, if you will, after the brown versus board of education decision, right . So you remember that the brown decision overturned the plessy decision which had sanctioned racial desegregation. And earl warren ruled that segregation was inherently unequal and created an inferiority complex among children, africanamerican boys and girls. Enter king, and the southern christian leadership conference. And they started to try to integrate society in the south. One of their first targets was bussing, right . They used a boycott, right, this is one of the themes im trying to establish for you, they used a boycott of the southern bussing excuse me, the bussing system in montgomery, alabama, right . You had large numbers of africanamericans who rode the bus every day to go to work. What the acl did and king did is they encouraged those africanamericans not to ride the bus. What did that do . It affected the bottom line of those bussing companies and they couldnt segregate anymore because they were losing money. That was a major victory for king and his organization. And from 1956 they went on to try to integrate other industries and places in the south. It culminated in 1964, 65, when the federal government is going to pass the first civil rights legislation that really had some teeth in 1964, and then the Voting Rights act in 1965. So as interesting and as fascinating as i found that history, as somebody from bakersfield, as somebody from the American West, i kind of view this as another country, right . I had never been to the south. The story is very black and white. I had some trouble connecting to it even if i found it interesting and fascinating to read. Other things that really got me going as a student of history were the stories of malcolm x, right, and the struggle for black people to secure rights and liberties and economic se selfsufficiency in the north. As fascinating as malcolm x is, its a northeastern story. Hes a muslim. Im a lapsed catholic. I had some trouble connecting to the story even if i found it interesting or found it fascinating. For the purposes of our class tonight and your notes, one of the things you might note about the difference between malcolm x and Martin Luther king jr. , and this relates to cesar chavez, of course, martin king was a practitioner of nonviolence, right . So the boycott itself is a strategy of protest through nonviolence, right . King believed in the power of love, right . And almost like moral persuasion, that you can shame your enemy into changing their ways. Malcolm x had a different philosophy of protest. He believed that if you were being attacked violently by the state or by the ku klux klan or by racist neighbors, that you were perfectly within your rights to defend yourself, by violence if necessary, right . So again, there is another dichotomy there that i found interesting but again, i had some trouble relating to. As i progressed in graduate school, i was fortunate enough in the last ten years to read some books that helped to really broaden my perspective and horizons about how the story of the American West fit within the civil rights narrative that weve been talking about the last two weeks. I wanted to lay out the themes for you. They connect in concrete ways to the work you guys are doing in your oral history projects. So randy shaw, in 2007, 2008, published a book called beyond the fields. At this time in 2008, 2009, i had just finished some of my coursework at uc santa barbara. I came back to bakersfield to do some research. I actually got to teach a class at the university. And so i assigned some of the scholars that im going to mention right now. And his book was definitely one of them. He had a great thesis in it. It was basically that some of the most Progressive Social Justice Movements in recent history across the United States have been directly linked to the united farm workers. When you look at the lgbtq movement, justice for janitors, the growth of latino california politics, all these organizers were trained first in the unity farm workers in delano. Thats the brilliance of this book, when youre looking at the legacy of the Farm Worker Movement, you have to connect it to these other social Justice Movement struggles. That was a great, great text. Frank bartike, like shaw, theyre not historians per se, but they were activists. These were people who were Community Organizers who went on to write books about the work that they had done in their career. So bartikes story was super interesting. He was a berkeley student, anglo man, fluent in spanish. And eventually kind of dropped out of school to pursue farm labor organizing and farm worker itself. He was very attracted to the union. And he helped to organize far