WEBVTT
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Hi everyone, This is Carmen. I was forgetting that part
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to say my name. Yeah, I was like, are you
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going to keep going? Now again? I'm Christina and this
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is Estodia's Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin
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American history. Sometimes it's horrible and deals with heavy topics
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like racism, corruption, and genocide. But more than that, it's
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about resistance, power and community. I do have a memorized Wow,
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I still have to look at it. And this is
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a continuation of Sessar Chavis. This is part two and
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there will be at least to part three because I
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am not done. I really wanted to get to the
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Worre's parts of him, like the like the downfall of
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the Union that you know you can say he caused
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and Synanon, the ties to Synony on the cult. So
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we're not sitting on yet. We're not there yet because
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I have so much more to share. So this part
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we're starting off at the march and we're ending at
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the Fast. Starting at the march and ending with the fast. Okay,
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whenever we learn about Sessa Chevis, these are the things
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we learn. Yeah, that there was that march from the
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Leno to Sacramento and then that he fasted. So's that's
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what's we're doing in between. And you know, there's a
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little bit of good and a little bit of bad
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in here, but there's just you know, there's some parts
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that we just can't skip over. I feel wrong skipping over. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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So are we ready? We sure are all right. So,
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like I said, we left off at the beginning of
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the de Leno at the march. Basically the beginning of
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the march is where we were in Part one. So
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by now winter is nearing and everything was against the union.
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Their numbers were dwindling. Less and less people were attending
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meetings paying their dues. Even though the strike itself had
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received so much attention and there were all sorts of
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people volunteering, they needed to do something else because the
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movement was dying down. And if there's anything we know
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just from part one is that Sasa Chavis bringing back movements,
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bringing back things that are dying down. Specialty is going
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to happen. Yeah, his specialty. So the strikers had moved
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from picket lines at the farms to where grapes were
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being transported now, but still that was not enough. So
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this is when Sasa Chavis began thinking, what about a march.
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He had read about a march in China known as
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Mao's Long March, and then of course the famous famous
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Martin Luther King March on Washington. But the idea of
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a moving march was more appealing to Sisa Chavis than
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a march to one location where then there would be
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like a meeting at this location. He was like, no,
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a moving march sounds more grand, more, I don't know,
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heroic or something. So he decided that they would do
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a three hundred mile march from Delano to Sacramento, and
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on the way they would pass by as many farming
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farm worker communities that they could to you know, have
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more people join the march as they're moving. And they
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started with fifty farm workers in Delano and they set
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out to march. This was March nineteen sixty six, and
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their plan was a twenty five day march, fifteen to
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twenty miles each day, making sure to pass through as
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many small towns as possible, and at each stop they
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would read out this thing they called e Plan de
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de Lano, which was written by Louis Valdez. I apologized
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last episode, I called them Steve the whole time. Oh wow,
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the Theatro Campesino creator. Basically, his name is Louise Louis Valdez.
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This is Louise Erasia. Yeah. I don't know where I
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got Steve from, so my bad. I just learned that
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today as I was writing, Like, I was reading my
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book and I said Louis Valdez, and I was like,
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Who's Louis Valdez. And then I googled Louise Valdez and
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I was like, oh, you were like, oh, this is Steve.
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And then I said Steve Valdez, Yes, yeah, And then
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I searched Steve Valdez just to see what would come up,
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and it was some sort of random musician. I was like, Okay,
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someone else, Louise Sleeley, Louis Valdez, Steve. Yes. So the
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Plan de de Lano was written by Louis Valdez, not Steve,
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and the plan or a Plan de Delano, what they
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read out was inspired or took an inspiration from a
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Plan da Yala, which was read by Emilia during the
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Mexican Revolution. So this is what they read. This is
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the beginning of a social movement in fact, not in pronouncements.
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We are tired of words of betrayals of indifference. We
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shall be heard. We are not afraid to suffer in
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order to win our cause. We draw our strength from
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the very despair in which we have been forced to live.
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Our revolution will not be armed, but we want the
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existing social order to dissolve. Our pilgrimage is the match
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that will light our cause, for all farm workers to
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see what is happening here, so that they may do
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as we have done. Inspirational words and it was read
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in Spanish and English at every stop they made, and
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every stop more and more farm workers joined. One thing
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I forgot to mention. As they were leaving Delano, they
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police did like gather to stop them. But with all
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the negative images that were released from Selma that police
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were setting dogs on black activists, hoses, they didn't want
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that attention. So they let them pass, oh, because they're like,
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we can't have more negative publicity, and so they just
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let them go at every stop. Because of this, they
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didn't want the negative attention. A repeat, a repeat, yeah,
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which is surprising because you know they could have just
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repeated yeah. And during the march, Sessa Chavis insisted on
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doing this like the most painful way possible, and I'm like,
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of course, he did very Catholic coded. Yeah. After the
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first day of marching, Luis Valdez like his feet were blistered.
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He's like, all right, I am switching to sneakers, and
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he told Sasa Chavis, like you should too, like you know,
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both our feet are messed up right now. But Sasa
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Chevis refused. The pain was important to him. And of
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course it was look at the books that he took
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its piration from that we mentioned last episode and the
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whole like Catholicism angle and you know everything his mom
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taught him. So yeah, of course. So he went on
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to say, the penance part of it is to me
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the most important thing of the pilgrimage, and he took
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that to His ankles were swollen, he had blisters, He
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even had fevers for two days, and he continued to march.
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At one point he had a cane, oh wow, and
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he described every step like a needle, Oh my god.
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But he kept doing it well, everything for the cause.
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And when the marchers got to Stockton, a man named
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Sidney Korshak, a well known mobster lawyer, reached down to
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Cesar Chaves representing the Shenley Liquor Company. They were ready
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to negotiate. This was a small vineyard in Delino and
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they were losing money as this march went on, and
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the longer went on, their whole operation was going to
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be brought down because this, again it was a small vineyard,
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and so they wanted to sell. But this lawyer was like, no,
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you guys should sign a contract with the union. It's
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going to be good publicity and in the end you're
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going to be able to keep company. And they agreed, surprisingly,
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and so this was signed. Well, they signed this recognition
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agreement which said that they would reach a contract within
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sixty days. And so this was a success. When it
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says such I was returned to the marchers. He stood
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on top of a car and he announced the news.
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But then he said that now we need to move
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on to another target, a bigger company, the did Georgio Corporation.
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This was no small This was not the Shenley Liquor Company.
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This was a huge corporation. These are the big dogs, yes, big, biggest, Yeah,
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I want to say, the biggest growers in California, at
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least at the time. And so yeah, that was their
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new target, but they kept moving and as they were
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nearing the capitol they were now nine hundred marchers deep damn.
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And when they finally made it, they were met with
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the crowd of over eight thousand people. Want they're appointing crowd,
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says I spoke to them very briefly where he said,
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I want to introduce you to someone when we started
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organizing four years ago. In fact, one of the very
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few people that thought this could be done, my wife Helen.
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They all met Helen, who liked to be in the back,
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in the background a little bit, but also was forced
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to be in the background anyway. Yeah, so it's a
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was she silent or was she silenced question? Right, or
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a little bit of both. Maybe. When they got to Sacramento,
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the governor declined the union's request to meet. He was
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at Frank Sinatra's mansion at a party instead. Not surprised. Yeah,
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and then he said, well what about next Sunday And
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then Sasachava said no, it's now or never, which what
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a power move. And yeah, they didn't meet with him.
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They're like, we don't need you actually, Yeah, and this
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only made them look even stronger. All the support they
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had at when they arrived at Sacremento and then Sasad
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Travis declining a different meeting, was like, what if hower
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move because like we're not gonna wait for you, it's
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a long time or not at all. Yes, exactly, and
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so by now, so such I was making national news,
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front page on the New York Times, countless interview after interviews.
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This is when he started to embellish, lie a little
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bit about parts of his life. Oh okay, yeah, so,
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like we already know, he lied a little bit about
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when he joined the Navy to make it look like
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he spent some time in World War Two, which didn't happen.
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He also especially started changing the way he joined the
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CSO and his departure from the CSO. So that's what
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he started lying about. Now he told people he was
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a humble farm worker picking apricots when he joined the CSO.
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We know that's not true. Yes, if you remember from
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part one, he was a lumber handler. When I was
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typing this, I accidentally wrote lumbler and I was like,
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that's not a word. What is the word? And lumber
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handler lumbler lumbler, Yeah, that's what he was working in,
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which was by I mean all accounts a better job
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than farm worker, he made more money, like a higher
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pain yeah, and even a higher role in like society,
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Like it's less dirty work than a farm worker, So
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that's already live number one. He also made it seem
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like fred Ross was begging him to join the CSO,
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like he was tracking him down, like join join, and
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he was avoiding him, which is not how it worked.
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They became friends and then he became involved, right. And
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for some reason fred Ross went along with such a
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version of events, I guess to make him sound more
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important or something. And it is true that he and
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he became a member. He quickly rose through the ranks,
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and he proved to be like an exceptional organizer, and
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he improved it and actually saved it. Yeah yeah, But
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to say he was being begged to join the truth. No. No.
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He also said that he had left the CSO because
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they were not doing enough for farm workers, that they
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were only doing work for middle class Mexicans. And I
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mean this, it's like a half truth because we said
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in the last episode he was becoming disillusioned with the CSO, right,
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and he did have an issue with them appealing more
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to middle class people, right, yeah, but it wasn't a
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complete true truth because on the date that he announced
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his resignation that he was leaving the CSO, the CSO
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had just approved the program to help farm workers. He
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also began telling reporters that he quits on his birthday,
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when really it was like two weeks before. But it's
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way cooler to do something on your birthday, So I
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could I can understand that lie. It is not to
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mention his birthday would become an official holiday within the
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Union first and then naturally like and you know, the
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whole US. It says that to have his day, right, So,
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I think all this just shows what a the way
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he wanted to be viewed like he he had a
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vision and he had no issue manipulating the truth to
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make that vision a reality, right right, And there's no
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denying what an important figure he is. Yeah, to say
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he's like, I don't know, Godlike, I think that's what
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he was aiming for. To b H, he was a yeah,
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he was like myth making Yeah. Yeah. With this newfound
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fame and you know, the march coming to an end,
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the three hundred Mile March, it was now time to
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focus on did Georgio and so, like I said a
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little bit of good, I'm sorry every time you say
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to Georgio, I think it's a Giorna pizza. Yeah, yeah,
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didorn That's why I kept typing Digorno and I'm like,
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that looks wrong. Now I want pizza. So they were
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the largest grower in California, and they also had deep
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ties to Bank of America and they had a history
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of putting down labor stranks with violence, which we already
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talked a little bit about in part one. You know,
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they would hit picking lines with their trucks. M yeah. Yeah.
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Also Bank of America always on the wrong side of history,
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always always right. And so there was a meeting between
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SISA Chevis, higher members of the union and did Georgio
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officials because there's like this whole election process where they
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elect like the union that's going to represent the workers
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or something like that, and so did georgio goal was
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to undermine the United farm Workers during these elections and
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get the Teamsters to win. And we talked a little
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bit more about the Teamsters in our episode about Jesse
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Lopez de la Cruz. Yes, thank you. The Teamsters. The
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Teamsters historically fucking thorough racist. Oh yeah, there are, Yeah, okay.