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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.