Guadalupe Briseño and the Unionization of Chicana Carnation Workers

0:10 Hey, everyone, this is Carmen and Christina and this is there on a podcast where we talk about Latin American history sometimes it's horrible and deals with type topics like racism, corruption and genocide, resistance, power and community. And today today we're talking about a shiro, a true ro Yes, a Mexican. She can, she can't do everything, she can do anything she can and she did and she did. No but really a truly amazing no for real women and a fight for justice. Yes, and one of our favorite type of episodes. Truly, truly, I love when we talk about like workers organizing and unions because without our predecessors in world worker's rights, we would have nothing, We would be worse off than we are now. And people are trying to go back to that. Please and yeah, our worker's rights have been deteriorizing ever since that one Supreme Court decision or they basically made it so workers they had the option to not pay to a union, but they still get the fucking rights from the union. Which that's why pisses me off more because I'm like, bitch, pay your fucking dues. You literally the only reason you have the same fucking benefits, the only reason you have the benefits that you do is because of the union, and yet you despise the union, your anti union, and you want you don't want to support the union, but you

1:41 want to benefit from the work of everybody else. Pisces me off. Yeah. But on that note, who are we talking about today. Let's get into the episode. Let's get into it. Yeah. And in nineteen thirty three, a woman who would go on to become one of the kickstarters of the Chicano movement in Colorado was born in the Migraine Camp in San Antonio, Texas. Her name was Guale Lupe Bia Loobos Bisgos, but she went by Lupe. Her early life was challenging. Her parents, Frederico and Marie Villalobos, traveled following the harvest all over the Southwest, and they packed Lupe and her six siblings along with them until they eventually settled in Brighton, Colorado in the early fifties.

2:25 She met her future husband there when she was ten. Jose and Nandez Bisgno proposed to her when she was twelve. They got married and started a family in nineteen fifty one, after she turned eighteen. Just like her own family, they moved around the Southwest for work. Her three year old died from pneumonia during all this moving, and this hit her really hard. A little over five years later, once slupez kids were school age, she started looking for work and in nineteen sixty eight, she began working for the Kidayama Brothers greenhouses, and she did not like what she saw. Lupe and her mostly Mexican American coworkers worked long hours with no over time pay. Their break and eating areas were unsanitary, and the workplace in general was unsafe, leading to many accidents and health problems. I watched an interview where she's talking about this condition is in the workplace, they're eating lunch and in the trash next to them, there's like rats everywhere. Oh my fucking god. Wow, so like unsanitary to the mad least. Yeah, yeah, oh my god, that's they were unsanitary. Maxine, Yes, Yeah, unsafe Maxine. Yeah.

3:32 Many women hurt themselves by falling and slipping because of the uncovered floors and not humidity. They developed coals, pneumonia, allergies, and are dirty pain. Yeah. The dirt from the plants that they were like picking would get on the floor and then because of the humidity, it would turn to mud and then they would slip and fall. I get sick. Like Lupe would not stand for this, so she organized her peers. It's always intimidate for workers to challenge their employers and fight for the rights, and this is no different for Lupe. The Kia Yama brothers and their company were well respected in the community and seen as a success story. The brothers were in turn in the manzana In tournament camp during World War Two, and in nineteen forty eight, the brothers formed the Kidi Yama Brothers Company, which became the largest flower growing operation in the country, which some people would respect. But at the end of the day, people don't build these kind of businesses without exploiting others, right, And at the end of the day, they were capitalists. This is why respectability politics and representation politics, representation anything like, Yeah, but at what cost? Right, at the cost of the workers, Yeah, and their working class.

4:47 In nineteen fifty six, they opened a sixty unit greenhouse operation near Brighton, where Lupe would begin working. In the late nineteen sixties, Raykida Yama oversaw Brighton, and activist leaders said that Ray specifically chose Brien to taken advantage of cheap Mexican American labor. So this is what Lupe and her peers were up against. A well respected capitalist. Yeah, and people love their capitalists capitalist success stories. Yes, yeah, pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. Listen, they were interned in a camp and they still built a successful business, So why can't you? And if they can do it, you could do it were you intern in a camp.

5:27 I don't think so exactly. In the spring of nineteen sixty eight, when she was still a new employee, Lupe organized several meetings to try it form a union. Her meetings kept getting instrumped at by management, no matter her efforts to keep them meetings a secret. Even Ray Kinayama attended the meetings to intimidate the workers and dissuade them from organizing. Lupet described feeling offended, saying, quote myself, the women and men were offended. We concluded we were not toddlers. We can meet whenever we want. It was a police state. We were scared end quote. Ray and management employed other means of intimidation. Management did things like calling the cops into the plant and yelling at the workers that they were lucky to even have a job, and that's like the most common line they used to Yeah, Ray and his assistant even fired lupin May, and they drove to her house to do this. After she was told you're fired, she replied, this is not the end of it. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose. But we'll give you a good fight, and that she did.

6:29 Mm hmmmm hmm. Finally, Loupe her coworkers managed to form their union at a meeting that Ray did not attend. He did not infiltrate, I should say not attend, but infiltrate because he was uninvited. Yeah. They called it the National Florest Workers Organization or NFWO for short. The other women who helped create the NFWO were Rachel Sandobal, Marta Delreal, married Padiyah, and Mary Silas. They were inspired by the UfW and even took the same ego for their own logo. Their organizing principle was that women and workers deserve fundamental human rights and to be treated with respect and dignity.

7:17 And yeah, they were right, they were absolutely right about that. Lupa was elected president of the new union and the workers sought a minimum wage of one sixty per hour. I saw that they were like only asking for like a few more cents, sixty more cents. Maybe the workers saw a minimum wage of one sixty per hour, better working conditions, healthcare, and recognition of their bargaining rights. And like you have a right to unionize, you do, Yeah, like this is a right. By June, the NFWO had almost seventy members, and later that month all members unanimously voted to strike. The strike began on July first, sixty eight, and from the beginning it was rough the families that the striking workers faced harassment at school and in the community.

8:09 The strikers showed up day after day to pick it at the entrance of the farm while they fought for higher wages. Ray Kinnayama hired white teenagers from Brighton, and he paid them wages much higher than those of the the striking workers. So the money was there, like he could pay them more than he just didn't want to be as their Mexican. Yeah, and even with a much higher pay, most of these white teen scabbers left out. They were realizing how hard and physically demanding the job was. They couldn't do it. They couldn't do it. Brighton was split by the strike. Half the community supported them and the other half was against them. The striking workers were living off donations while other businesses refused to hire them Because of the strike, they had been black bald. By the time winter arrived, their number had dwindled and their financial troubles worsened. In January of nineteen sixty nine, things became violent. Chuck Boomer. First of all, what a fucking name.

9:11 What a fucking name. If I ever meet a Chuck Boomer, I'm sorry to say it's on the site. Yeah, because that name can mean nothing else. It triggering. Yeah, just to have that name Chuck so Boomer, Okay boom Yeah, So Chuck Boomer. One of the greenhouse supervisors went up to Lupe, pushed her and yelled, I'm fed up with seeing you here. So he pushed her Chuck Boomer. And this was at the first time that Lupe was assaulted at the picket line. Ray Kidayama himself had been charged with the misdemeanor assault for bumping Lupe. He claimed it was an accident, but she felt that it was on purpose, and he would later be found innocent in court. But he did he did do it. It was just like the intent behind it. Yeah, which I believe her if she says he did it on purpose, he did. I don't know purpose. Please, but back to Chuck Boomer. Chuck Boomer, when he did this, Lupe sent another striker to call the crusade for justice. I'm assuming you know who the crusade for justice is. They've come up before. I think they came up when we talked about the high school walkouts around the same time. Yes, because the this this happened like weeks or months before. I think that it has actually if you put together the five time line, yeah, it was like five weeks. I think of incidents like this. Mm, this is exactly what I was gonna say before the West High walk outs. Yeah. No, the West High walkouts was a part of this. And then at the end

10:41 there was like a Chicano youth symposium, which yes, is all seen now as like the birth of the Chicano woman in Chicago. I see what you're saying this. Yeah, this preceded the West High walkou which we're all part of those five five weeks time period, which preceded the yeah, which was monumental. So yeah, the Crusafer Justice is a civil rights and Chricano education organization founded by Roales aka Quirki Gonzales. And there may be some issues similar to I mean, okay, in the light of the ASA Chavis allegations that have come forward, Yes, I can't. I'm just going to say that, Yeah, a lot of similar just in comments, comment sections. There's been similar allegations towards Quirky.

11:29 Nothing I could find, Like, I think it's like street like talk, like people that are involved in the movement or grew up in the movement, like know about it. Yes, yes, and so they know about it. They're saying this. I believe them. But there's no public made allegations towards Quirky. But just be aware that there is talk and be aware that he's a man and yeah, and during this time period. But we're not going to go into that. We're just talking about the Crusafer Justice and their role in this. So yeah, founded by Quirky. He was a former boxer turned leader in the Chicano movement, and so the Crusader for Justice and the UfW were huge supporters of the nf WO. So Corky gets called by the other striker. He answers uphot himself and he's like, we're going to be there a sap And yeah, they got there super fast, and so he and a few other Crusade members arrived in Brighton. When they arrived, Chuck Boomer was still yelling and taunting the strikers and Lupe herself is unsure who threw the first punch, but Boomer ended up knocked the fuck out well deserved. Most people think it was quirky since he was a former boxer, but Ricardo Romero, another Crusade for Justice member, was arrested for the assault. By this point, other strikers were also facing charges for blocking roads to the farm, and so after the well deserved knocking out of Chuck Boomer, Ray Kirayama petitioned county court judge to issue a temporary injunction against

13:03 the strike on the grounds that it was endangering his employees, never mind that Chuck pushed Lupe a woman, and allegedly so Hadray. The injunction was granted on February seventh, nineteen sixty nine. And this has this word injunction has come up a few times since we've talked about like several different strikes at this point. But in case someone doesn't know, a temporary injunction is a legal order by a court that prevents a party from taking specific actions until a trier or further core proceedings. Oh sad, they had to stop. Yeah, they need to stop. In this case, they were ordered to stop blocking the property. And so at this point Lupe and the NFWO realized that this was only going to get more dangerous. The farms guards were armed and at some point this could be used against them. It gets happened in others striking like organizing protests. So they decided to do one last dramatic act of demonstration. On February fifteenth, Lupe, Mary Padilla, Rachel Sandoval, Marta del Real, and Mary Siles chained themselves to the gate of the Greenhouse.

14:18 Within minutes, Wild County police officers arrived and on the orders of Ray Kira Yama, they tear gassed the women and like the officers arrived. This is how Lupa described it. They were chained up to the gate and they could see the police coming with their flashing lights in like such a hurry. And as soon as the police officers got out of their cars. They already had gas masks on ready to go, so they walked towards the women with these gas masks on. Their husbands, who were across the street, ran to the women. They were like, forget it, the cops are here. They're going to try and kill you. Guys. We have to go. You have to go. You can't stay here, But the five women refused to move even after rake Yayama told the sheriffs deputies to cut the chain.

15:09 So the officers only cut near the fence posts, and so the women were still chained together. And so they cut the chains, but the women remained chained together, and then they walked up to them and sprayed them like again and again with this giant cannister like of tear gas. And Rachel's on the Wild was six months pregnant when they were tear gased. Of course that didn't stop her. The husbands were the ones who cut the chains as the women were still being sprayed like, they ran up to them. They had their own handkerchiefs that they were using to wipe off the gas as they like tried to free their wives from this, Like that's fucked up. Yeah, I don't know, there's no other word other than like, that's super fucked up. Yeah, because the police could have they couldn't just stopped. No, Yeah, they didn't have to do any of this. They could just not use tear gags on women who were exercising their right to protests. Exactly. Sure, they were ordered to stop, but that was unjust so dismatter. Yeah, and about this very moment, Lupe would say, through our veil of tears, you could not see our broken hearts.

16:23 This was the two hundred and twenty first and last day of striking. That's how long they were doing. A long time. Yes, by the end, it was these two, these five women and another forty who were still going strong. But it was after this moment that Lupan the others called it off. And although they never successfully got the union recognized, conditions didn't prove slightly, so did wages. That didn't last long though, because the plant would end up going under a few years after this. It reminds me of the gs the genes the pharaohste Yeah, but conditions improved slightly, so did wages. Then the plant went out of business. But Lupe and the other striking women they never benefited from these changes. They were never rehired and for years they struggled to find any work at all in Brighton. I'm sure Ray, with his capitalist powers went and told other companies, all, don't hire these women. They're just troublemakers, because that's what they did. Yes, they had been blackballed. Yeah, Lupe said, quote, we were women of integrity, pride and conviction. We went on strike because we wanted to be treated with dignity and to improve the working conditions and obtained better wages. You know, maybe we who went on strength didn't get the benefits of what we were fighting for, but other people did, and that's good.

17:51 We completed what we started. But most important was that it woke up the community, especially young people, and that it did because we said the strike preceded the West High walkouts and both were in the same five week time period. That would then lead to that Chicano Youth conference. It wouldn't lead to it, just it all happened like one thing after another, right right, I would say, at least like two things happening. Yeah, influence are inspired, Yeah, and they would become it would become part of the larger narrative of Chicano activism not only in the state of Colorado, but like in the US, Right, those are already like up and coming Chicano movements elsewhere that were actually not influenced by each other. Right, they were just all happening at the same time. Yeah, which is why this would become part of the larger narrative. Yeah, And an interview I saw she also said that she was doing this because, like, even if she didn't benefit from it herself, she didn't want her own children to have to have these same working conditions. Even if her kids went and worked in a similar place, they would have better pay and better wages because of what she was fighting for. Right, Yeah, I mean, like your job doesn't define who you are, right, Like a fast food worker is not better than I don't know, a doctor in my eyes, you know what I mean? And everyone who works is part of the working class, and everyone who

19:23 works deserves rights exactly, just some things that are part of like her legacy. Now. In two doy nineteen, the Center for Colorado Women's History honored various leaders in the women's rights movement, including Loupevreno. Also in two Doesen nineteen, playwright Anthony j. Garcia wrote and directed a play for Soudatrol soo iconic in the Chikana movement. Yes, and it was based on the Kirayama Carnation Strike. And the play is called War of the Flowers. Wait, that's beautiful, is it not? Like? Just I love that name. Obviously, they came up with the name for a reason. And it's beautiful, captivating, very very it just yeah, captures everything like you said, captivating, unnecessary.

20:12 Go on, I'll cut that. That same year, History Colorado hosts her an exhibit on the Chicano movement, featuring Lupe every Signo and other prominent Chicanas. In twenty twenty, Lupe every Signo was inducted into the Colado Women's Hall of Fame for her work in the labor movement and civil rights movement. She was given a stone and a plaque along with Brighton's Legacy Pathway in twenty twenty four and died that same year at the age of ninety one. She has a long life, a long long life, and at the temper of her death, she had four remaining children, eight grandchildren and twenty one great grandchildren. Damn yeah, and she's remembered fondly by her family and will be forever remembered for her contributions to a movement that is still ongoing.

21:03 The struggle is still ongoing. We are still fighting. Yeah, people keep fighting mm hmmm, especially because this strike itself is tied to like the United farm Workers. Yeah and yeah, like we said, they are still fighting for rights that they deserve. And in light of I don't know everything happening right now, twenty twenty six, you know, with everything everything. So yeah, that was LUPEO and the Unionization of Chicano Carnagian Workers. And you know what, we have a listener to think for this topic suggestion we do from JC shout out, JC, thank you so much for this. Again.

21:54 We love a labor strike topic, we really do, and especially when it's women, especially like Emma. Literally what I was about to say, Yeah, Okay, I guess this was a short episode. Yeah, but if you want to hear weekly episodes where we talk about current topics, whether they are news related and depressing or something that happened like I don't know, TikTok drama, we do those things over on Patreon, and we also choose an organization to send money to monthly, and that information is all in the show notes. So thank you everyone for listening and we'll catch you next next week, and we hope that this was one less estudia I know. Bye Bye. Estorias are known.

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