June 25, 2026

Guadalupe Briseño and the Unionization of Chicana Carnation Workers

Guadalupe Briseño and the Unionization of Chicana Carnation Workers

Guadalupe "Lupe" Villalobos Briseño was a civil rights activist who led the Kitayama Carnation Strike in 1968-1969, at the height of the Chicano movement.

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Sources:

https://www.historycolorado.org/es/node/8155
https://www.historycolorado.org/story/2025/03/07/strike-national-florist-workers-vs-kitayama
https://www.westword.com/news/the-chicano-movement-powered-up-nationally-in-1969-with-two-denver-protests-11255549/
https://youtu.be/2ozBYkeuYzo?si=PyZs04fjpuKATghU
https://history.denverlibrary.org/colorado-biographies/guadalupe-villalobos-brise%C3%B1o-1933-2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guadalupe_Brise%C3%B1o

Lupe talking about the strike:
https://vimeo.com/315250649

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WEBVTT

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Hey, everyone, this is Carmen and Christina and this is

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there on a podcast where we talk about Latin American

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history sometimes it's horrible and deals with type topics like racism,

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corruption and genocide, resistance, power and community. And today today

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we're talking about a shiro, a true ro Yes, a Mexican.

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She can, she can't do everything, she can do anything

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she can and she did and she did. No but

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really a truly amazing no for real women and a

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fight for justice. Yes, and one of our favorite type

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of episodes. Truly, truly, I love when we talk about

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like workers organizing and unions because without our predecessors in

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world worker's rights, we would have nothing, We would be

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worse off than we are now. And people are trying

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to go back to that. Please and yeah, our worker's

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rights have been deteriorizing ever since that one Supreme Court

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decision or they basically made it so workers they had

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the option to not pay to a union, but they

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still get the fucking rights from the union. Which that's

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why pisses me off more because I'm like, bitch, pay

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your fucking dues. You literally the only reason you have

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the same fucking benefits, the only reason you have the

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benefits that you do is because of the union, and

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yet you despise the union, your anti union, and you

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want you don't want to support the union, but you

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want to benefit from the work of everybody else. Pisces

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me off. Yeah. But on that note, who are we

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talking about today. Let's get into the episode. Let's get

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into it. Yeah. And in nineteen thirty three, a woman

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who would go on to become one of the kickstarters

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of the Chicano movement in Colorado was born in the

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Migraine Camp in San Antonio, Texas. Her name was Guale

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Lupe Bia Loobos Bisgos, but she went by Lupe. Her

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early life was challenging. Her parents, Frederico and Marie Villalobos,

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traveled following the harvest all over the Southwest, and they

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packed Lupe and her six siblings along with them until

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they eventually settled in Brighton, Colorado in the early fifties.

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She met her future husband there when she was ten.

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Jose and Nandez Bisgno proposed to her when she was twelve.

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They got married and started a family in nineteen fifty one,

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after she turned eighteen. Just like her own family, they

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moved around the Southwest for work. Her three year old

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died from pneumonia during all this moving, and this hit

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her really hard. A little over five years later, once

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slupez kids were school age, she started looking for work

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and in nineteen sixty eight, she began working for the

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Kidayama Brothers greenhouses, and she did not like what she saw.

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Lupe and her mostly Mexican American coworkers worked long hours

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with no over time pay. Their break and eating areas

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were unsanitary, and the workplace in general was unsafe, leading

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to many accidents and health problems. I watched an interview

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where she's talking about this condition is in the workplace,

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they're eating lunch and in the trash next to them,

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there's like rats everywhere. Oh my fucking god. Wow, so

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like unsanitary to the mad least. Yeah, yeah, oh my god,

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that's they were unsanitary. Maxine, Yes, Yeah, unsafe Maxine. Yeah.

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Many women hurt themselves by falling and slipping because of

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the uncovered floors and not humidity. They developed coals, pneumonia, allergies,

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and are dirty pain. Yeah. The dirt from the plants

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that they were like picking would get on the floor

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and then because of the humidity, it would turn to

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mud and then they would slip and fall. I get sick.

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Like Lupe would not stand for this, so she organized

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her peers. It's always intimidate for workers to challenge their

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employers and fight for the rights, and this is no

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different for Lupe. The Kia Yama brothers and their company

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were well respected in the community and seen as a

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success story. The brothers were in turn in the manzana

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In tournament camp during World War Two, and in nineteen

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forty eight, the brothers formed the Kidi Yama Brothers Company,

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which became the largest flower growing operation in the country,

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which some people would respect. But at the end of

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the day, people don't build these kind of businesses without

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exploiting others, right, And at the end of the day,

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they were capitalists. This is why respectability politics and representation politics,

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representation anything like, Yeah, but at what cost? Right, at

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the cost of the workers, Yeah, and their working class.

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In nineteen fifty six, they opened a sixty unit greenhouse

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operation near Brighton, where Lupe would begin working. In the

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late nineteen sixties, Raykida Yama oversaw Brighton, and activist leaders

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said that Ray specifically chose Brien to taken advantage of

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cheap Mexican American labor. So this is what Lupe and

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her peers were up against. A well respected capitalist. Yeah,

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and people love their capitalists capitalist success stories. Yes, yeah,

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pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Listen, they were interned

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in a camp and they still built a successful business,

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So why can't you? And if they can do it,

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you could do it were you intern in a camp.

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I don't think so exactly. In the spring of nineteen

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sixty eight, when she was still a new employee, Lupe

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organized several meetings to try it form a union. Her

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meetings kept getting instrumped at by management, no matter her

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efforts to keep them meetings a secret. Even Ray Kinayama

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attended the meetings to intimidate the workers and dissuade them

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from organizing. Lupet described feeling offended, saying, quote myself, the

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women and men were offended. We concluded we were not toddlers.

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We can meet whenever we want. It was a police state.

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We were scared end quote. Ray and management employed other

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means of intimidation. Management did things like calling the cops

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into the plant and yelling at the workers that they

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were lucky to even have a job, and that's like

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the most common line they used to Yeah, Ray and

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his assistant even fired lupin May, and they drove to

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her house to do this. After she was told you're fired,

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she replied, this is not the end of it. If

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we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. But

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we'll give you a good fight, and that she did.

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Mm hmmmm hmm. Finally, Loupe her coworkers managed to form

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their union at a meeting that Ray did not attend.

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He did not infiltrate, I should say not attend, but

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infiltrate because he was uninvited. Yeah. They called it the

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National Florest Workers Organization or NFWO for short. The other

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women who helped create the NFWO were Rachel Sandobal, Marta Delreal,

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married Padiyah, and Mary Silas. They were inspired by the

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UfW and even took the same ego for their own logo.

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Their organizing principle was that women and workers deserve fundamental

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human rights and to be treated with respect and dignity.

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And yeah, they were right, they were absolutely right about that.

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Lupa was elected president of the new union and the

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workers sought a minimum wage of one sixty per hour.

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I saw that they were like only asking for like

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a few more cents, sixty more cents. Maybe the workers

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saw a minimum wage of one sixty per hour, better

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working conditions, healthcare, and recognition of their bargaining rights. And

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like you have a right to unionize, you do, Yeah,

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like this is a right. By June, the NFWO had

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almost seventy members, and later that month all members unanimously

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voted to strike. The strike began on July first, sixty eight,

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and from the beginning it was rough the families that

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the striking workers faced harassment at school and in the community.

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The strikers showed up day after day to pick it

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at the entrance of the farm while they fought for

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higher wages. Ray Kinnayama hired white teenagers from Brighton, and

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he paid them wages much higher than those of the

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the striking workers. So the money was there, like he

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could pay them more than he just didn't want to

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be as their Mexican. Yeah, and even with a much

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higher pay, most of these white teen scabbers left out.

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They were realizing how hard and physically demanding the job was.

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They couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. Brighton was

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split by the strike. Half the community supported them and

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the other half was against them. The striking workers were

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living off donations while other businesses refused to hire them

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Because of the strike, they had been black bald. By

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the time winter arrived, their number had dwindled and their

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financial troubles worsened. In January of nineteen sixty nine, things

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became violent. Chuck Boomer. First of all, what a fucking name.

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What a fucking name. If I ever meet a Chuck Boomer,

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I'm sorry to say it's on the site. Yeah, because

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that name can mean nothing else. It triggering. Yeah, just

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to have that name Chuck so Boomer, Okay boom Yeah,

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So Chuck Boomer. One of the greenhouse supervisors went up

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to Lupe, pushed her and yelled, I'm fed up with

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seeing you here. So he pushed her Chuck Boomer. And

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this was at the first time that Lupe was assaulted

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at the picket line. Ray Kidayama himself had been charged

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with the misdemeanor assault for bumping Lupe. He claimed it

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was an accident, but she felt that it was on purpose,

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and he would later be found innocent in court. But

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he did he did do it. It was just like

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the intent behind it. Yeah, which I believe her if

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she says he did it on purpose, he did. I

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don't know purpose. Please, but back to Chuck Boomer. Chuck Boomer,

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when he did this, Lupe sent another striker to call

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the crusade for justice. I'm assuming you know who the

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crusade for justice is. They've come up before. I think

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they came up when we talked about the high school

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walkouts around the same time. Yes, because the this this

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happened like weeks or months before. I think that it

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has actually if you put together the five time line, yeah,

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it was like five weeks. I think of incidents like this. Mm,

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this is exactly what I was gonna say before the

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West High walk outs. Yeah. No, the West High walkouts

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was a part of this. And then at the end

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there was like a Chicano youth symposium, which yes, is

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all seen now as like the birth of the Chicano

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woman in Chicago. I see what you're saying this. Yeah,

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this preceded the West High walkou which we're all part

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of those five five weeks time period, which preceded the yeah,

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which was monumental. So yeah, the Crusafer Justice is a

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civil rights and Chricano education organization founded by Roales aka

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Quirki Gonzales. And there may be some issues similar to

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I mean, okay, in the light of the ASA Chavis

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allegations that have come forward, Yes, I can't. I'm just

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going to say that, Yeah, a lot of similar just

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in comments, comment sections. There's been similar allegations towards Quirky.

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Nothing I could find, Like, I think it's like street

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like talk, like people that are involved in the movement

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or grew up in the movement, like know about it. Yes, yes,

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and so they know about it. They're saying this. I

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believe them. But there's no public made allegations towards Quirky.

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But just be aware that there is talk and be

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aware that he's a man and yeah, and during this

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time period. But we're not going to go into that.

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We're just talking about the Crusafer Justice and their role

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in this. So yeah, founded by Quirky. He was a

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former boxer turned leader in the Chicano movement, and so

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the Crusader for Justice and the UfW were huge supporters

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of the nf WO. So Corky gets called by the

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other striker. He answers uphot himself and he's like, we're

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going to be there a sap And yeah, they got

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there super fast, and so he and a few other

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Crusade members arrived in Brighton. When they arrived, Chuck Boomer

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was still yelling and taunting the strikers and Lupe herself

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is unsure who threw the first punch, but Boomer ended

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up knocked the fuck out well deserved. Most people think

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it was quirky since he was a former boxer, but

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Ricardo Romero, another Crusade for Justice member, was arrested for

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the assault. By this point, other strikers were also facing

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charges for blocking roads to the farm, and so after

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the well deserved knocking out of Chuck Boomer, Ray Kirayama

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petitioned county court judge to issue a temporary injunction against

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the strike on the grounds that it was endangering his employees,

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never mind that Chuck pushed Lupe a woman, and allegedly

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so Hadray. The injunction was granted on February seventh, nineteen

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sixty nine. And this has this word injunction has come

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up a few times since we've talked about like several

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different strikes at this point. But in case someone doesn't know,

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a temporary injunction is a legal order by a court

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that prevents a party from taking specific actions until a

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trier or further core proceedings. Oh sad, they had to stop. Yeah,

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they need to stop. In this case, they were ordered

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to stop blocking the property. And so at this point

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Lupe and the NFWO realized that this was only going

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to get more dangerous. The farms guards were armed and

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at some point this could be used against them. It

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gets happened in others striking like organizing protests. So they

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decided to do one last dramatic act of demonstration. On

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February fifteenth, Lupe, Mary Padilla, Rachel Sandoval, Marta del Real,

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and Mary Siles chained themselves to the gate of the Greenhouse.

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Within minutes, Wild County police officers arrived and on the

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orders of Ray Kira Yama, they tear gassed the women

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and like the officers arrived. This is how Lupa described it.

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They were chained up to the gate and they could

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see the police coming with their flashing lights in like

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such a hurry. And as soon as the police officers

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got out of their cars. They already had gas masks

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on ready to go, so they walked towards the women

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with these gas masks on. Their husbands, who were across

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the street, ran to the women. They were like, forget it,

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the cops are here. They're going to try and kill you. Guys.

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We have to go. You have to go. You can't

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stay here, But the five women refused to move even

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after rake Yayama told the sheriffs deputies to cut the chain.

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So the officers only cut near the fence posts, and

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so the women were still chained together. And so they

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cut the chains, but the women remained chained together, and

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then they walked up to them and sprayed them like

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again and again with this giant cannister like of tear gas.

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And Rachel's on the Wild was six months pregnant when

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they were tear gased. Of course that didn't stop her.

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The husbands were the ones who cut the chains as

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the women were still being sprayed like, they ran up

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to them. They had their own handkerchiefs that they were

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using to wipe off the gas as they like tried

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to free their wives from this, Like that's fucked up. Yeah,

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I don't know, there's no other word other than like,

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that's super fucked up. Yeah, because the police could have

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they couldn't just stopped. No, Yeah, they didn't have to

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do any of this. They could just not use tear

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gags on women who were exercising their right to protests. Exactly. Sure,

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they were ordered to stop, but that was unjust so dismatter. Yeah,

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and about this very moment, Lupe would say, through our

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veil of tears, you could not see our broken hearts.

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This was the two hundred and twenty first and last

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day of striking. That's how long they were doing. A

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long time. Yes, by the end, it was these two,

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these five women and another forty who were still going strong.

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But it was after this moment that Lupan the others

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called it off. And although they never successfully got the

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union recognized, conditions didn't prove slightly, so did wages. That

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didn't last long though, because the plant would end up

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going under a few years after this. It reminds me

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of the gs the genes the pharaohste Yeah, but conditions

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improved slightly, so did wages. Then the plant went out

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of business. But Lupe and the other striking women they

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never benefited from these changes. They were never rehired and

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for years they struggled to find any work at all

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in Brighton. I'm sure Ray, with his capitalist powers went

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and told other companies, all, don't hire these women. They're

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00:17:25.519 --> 00:17:28.680
just troublemakers, because that's what they did. Yes, they had

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been blackballed. Yeah, Lupe said, quote, we were women of integrity,

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pride and conviction. We went on strike because we wanted

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to be treated with dignity and to improve the working

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conditions and obtained better wages. You know, maybe we who

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went on strength didn't get the benefits of what we

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were fighting for, but other people did, and that's good.

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We completed what we started. But most important was that

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it woke up the community, especially young people, and that

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it did because we said the strike preceded the West

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High walkouts and both were in the same five week

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time period. That would then lead to that Chicano Youth conference.

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It wouldn't lead to it, just it all happened like

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one thing after another, right right, I would say, at

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least like two things happening. Yeah, influence are inspired, Yeah,

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00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:27.160
and they would become it would become part of the

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larger narrative of Chicano activism not only in the state

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of Colorado, but like in the US, Right, those are

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already like up and coming Chicano movements elsewhere that were

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actually not influenced by each other. Right, they were just

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all happening at the same time. Yeah, which is why

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00:18:44.759 --> 00:18:48.279
this would become part of the larger narrative. Yeah, And

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00:18:48.359 --> 00:18:51.839
an interview I saw she also said that she was

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doing this because, like, even if she didn't benefit from

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it herself, she didn't want her own children to have

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to have these same working conditions. Even if her kids

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went and worked in a similar place, they would have

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00:19:03.839 --> 00:19:06.720
better pay and better wages because of what she was

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fighting for. Right, Yeah, I mean, like your job doesn't

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00:19:11.480 --> 00:19:15.559
define who you are, right, Like a fast food worker

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is not better than I don't know, a doctor in

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00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:21.519
my eyes, you know what I mean? And everyone who

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00:19:21.519 --> 00:19:23.759
works is part of the working class, and everyone who

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00:19:23.799 --> 00:19:30.119
works deserves rights exactly, just some things that are part

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00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:33.079
of like her legacy. Now. In two doy nineteen, the

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Center for Colorado Women's History honored various leaders in the

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women's rights movement, including Loupevreno. Also in two Doesen nineteen,

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00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:45.759
playwright Anthony j. Garcia wrote and directed a play for

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00:19:45.920 --> 00:19:51.160
Soudatrol soo iconic in the Chikana movement. Yes, and it

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was based on the Kirayama Carnation Strike. And the play

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00:19:54.799 --> 00:19:58.920
is called War of the Flowers. Wait, that's beautiful, is

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00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:02.839
it not? Like? Just I love that name. Obviously, they

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came up with the name for a reason. And it's beautiful, captivating,

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00:20:07.160 --> 00:20:12.440
very very it just yeah, captures everything like you said, captivating, unnecessary.

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Go on, I'll cut that. That same year, History Colorado

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hosts her an exhibit on the Chicano movement, featuring Lupe

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every Signo and other prominent Chicanas. In twenty twenty, Lupe

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00:20:26.960 --> 00:20:30.000
every Signo was inducted into the Colado Women's Hall of

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Fame for her work in the labor movement and civil

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rights movement. She was given a stone and a plaque

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along with Brighton's Legacy Pathway in twenty twenty four and

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died that same year at the age of ninety one.

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She has a long life, a long long life, and

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at the temper of her death, she had four remaining children,

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eight grandchildren and twenty one great grandchildren. Damn yeah, and

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she's remembered fondly by her family and will be forever

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00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:03.440
remembered for her contributions to a movement that is still ongoing.

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The struggle is still ongoing. We are still fighting. Yeah,

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00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:15.319
people keep fighting mm hmmm, especially because this strike itself

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is tied to like the United farm Workers. Yeah and yeah,

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like we said, they are still fighting for rights that

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they deserve. And in light of I don't know everything

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happening right now, twenty twenty six, you know, with everything everything.

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So yeah, that was LUPEO and the Unionization of Chicano

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Carnagian Workers. And you know what, we have a listener

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00:21:44.759 --> 00:21:49.720
to think for this topic suggestion we do from JC

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shout out, JC, thank you so much for this. Again.

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We love a labor strike topic, we really do, and

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00:22:01.920 --> 00:22:08.039
especially when it's women, especially like Emma. Literally what I

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was about to say, Yeah, Okay, I guess this was

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a short episode. Yeah, but if you want to hear

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weekly episodes where we talk about current topics, whether they

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are news related and depressing or something that happened like

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I don't know, TikTok drama, we do those things over

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on Patreon, and we also choose an organization to send

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00:22:34.559 --> 00:22:38.039
money to monthly, and that information is all in the

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00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:41.640
show notes. So thank you everyone for listening and we'll

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catch you next next week, and we hope that this

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was one less estudia I know. Bye Bye. Estorias are known.

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00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:56.119
Is produced by Carmen and Christina, researched by Carmen and Christina,

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00:22:56.400 --> 00:22:59.319
edited by Christina. You can find sources for every episode

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at dot com and in our show notes. Creating the

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podcast has a lot of work, so if you want

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to help us out financially, you can do so by

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a own podcast