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The following program is from NET, the National Educational Television Network. NET, the National Educational Television Network. NET, the National Educational Television Network. NET, the National Educational Television Network.

NET, the National Educational Television Network. NET, the National Educational Television Network. NET, the National Educational Television Network.

In September 1965, farm workers began a walk out in Delano, California, which has since become the longest and most important strike in agricultural history. The strike, called against 35 great growers in the San Joaquin Valley, was the first ever organized by the farm workers themselves. They demanded recognition in the form of a union and a minimum wage of $1.40 an hour, led by Cesar Chavez and his newly formed National Farm Workers Association, or NFWA. The strikers transformed their local walk out into a national plea for farm representation. Within a year, the cry of well-gun, the Spanish word for strike, had begun to sound throughout the country.

This is a portrait of that movement, its people and its effect on their lives. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. Come on! Come on now! We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year.

We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year.

We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year.

We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year.

We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year.

We are your brothers and sisters of the year. We are your brothers and sisters of the year. Louis Valdez, one of the leaders of the NFWA. I don't think any of these places really speak of prosperity or security of any sort. None of those guys have lived in conditions of days like Mexicans or farm workers to live in. This town is way off the freeway so you never see it and people are wise to the fact that thousands and thousands of people are living like this and they are farm workers. I can remember this when I was a kid used to do this, just settle for anything.

And then you try to find work, you try to stay alive, try to find something you support your family with. You actually begin to develop your own sense of values. I mean, some shags are better than other shags, but they're all shags. You live in all kinds of conditions. We lived in barns or army tents sometimes by the side of the road in our car when we hadn't located a camp yet. Sometimes for two or three days. You know, all this time too, you'd pass towns and they'd have all these neat homes. These neat decent homes are well painted and with lawns. And you'd wonder, why can't I have that? No, what's wrong with me?

I'm a kid, I went to school very much like this. You're in one school. And you're out in another school. You wander around from a camp to camp. How about camp life? Why should people have to live in camps? Who says they have to live in camps? And why should they have to wander, you know, several hundred miles to earn their living? My family spent approximately ten years just moving around like this, you know,

from one end of the state to the other from one camp to another. And they get so you get a very lost feeling and you wonder what you're up to. You're just fighting for your own survival. And you stay in these little places and you find that hot terrible there. There's the offer no protection at all. It's just a place to hide the people really. There's a fairly people should have to live in these camps, particularly when they work. All summer long, keep the richest agricultural state in the country afloat. And then after summers gone there, they're asked to leave these camps and to move on. The old system kind of encourages migrant life of the farm worker. And then the winter time is reduced to welfare.

And you get grown men and women that are used to doing all kinds of hard work reduced to. Or begging to go and you accept whatever they give you. It's unfair. It's unfair when you help to keep the richest state agriculturally speaking, you know, in the nation moving through the summer, you're reduced to a helpless position where you have to accept things from the state. Do you want me to bring the car over there? And why should the taxpayer who pays for welfare have to take the pressure they should rightly belong to the grower? If you'd like to bring it in front of the next time you come, please now. All right, accepting commodities, products handed out without labels. You never know how important a label is sometimes. It shows that you've bought something. These commodities are without labels. They, they just by looking at them, you know, that they're, they're charity.

Well, it's not good enough. It's unfair. It's an injustice when you think about it. It's unbearable when you have to live through it. That's what the union responded. This is what we want to eliminate. We want to establish some security and, and, uh, some dignity for ourselves, a dignity based on dollars and cents, I guess. Yeah, we need money. Money that we've earned already. We want our share. What do the farm workers need in your opinion to, uh, better their condition to get out of camp like this? They need more money. How did they get more money? You remember I said I didn't want to. CV Roberts, director of the Wasco Farm Labor Camp of Kern County Operated Camp for migrant laborers.

You're asking me to answer off the cuff now. I don't care to do this. Let me ask you this. What do you think of the idea of a union for farm workers? Well, I think it's ridiculous. Why do you say that? Well, I said, I won't go into that with you. You asked me what I think. This is what I think. Uh, I will say this farm wages in the last 12 months right in this area has increased from a dollar ten to a dollar sixteen hour. Isn't that because of the strike? No. That's nothing whatever to do with it. What is that because of? I'm not going on in these questions with you. One other question. Do you think that without a union, the farm workers can improve their condition and it has been done right here? Quite a bit. Is this camp evidence of that? This camp has greatly improved in the last year since I have been here. Did you want to live in this camp? I wouldn't live here. You know, you're being very impudent. What I want to live here. This is I call an impudent question.

Will you run the camp? I won't ask you answer any more your questions. I've been here a year and a half and it's improved greatly since I came here. Caesar Chava as was born in California and spent his youth moving from one agricultural labor camp to another. In his 20s he worked with Mexican American community organizations in the cities, but still he felt the greatest need was in the fields. Finally in 1962 he returned to them to found the NFWA. That's where she gets her fear. I was telling her that she prayed and that it was people like this who made the other unions and that the unfortunate thing is that many people or some people in unions complained about those and meaning. But these people don't know what the founders of the unions have to go through to be able to build what they have.

And all they know is that they have a good ways and they have beautiful French benefits and everything. And all they can see now is because they weren't involved in the building that they do need just do's you know and they can still be critical. Hello. How are you? Oh, this coming Wednesday? I'll be in Los Angeles. We're going to one of our members in the ranch who's been working there 23 years. There was a woman, a lady was fired this morning, 24 years rather. She was fired this morning. Because she doesn't think the way we do that's coming from one of the one of the superintendents in the camp. You said I wasn't being fired. How much that wasn't?

You want to talk to her? I wasn't doing it this morning. Hello. This is Mrs. D. As you can ask here. I am 38. I've been working as a Georgia for 24 years. I was 14 when I graduated from very school. It was during the war. I went to work there and I've been working there almost every year except for a year or two that I didn't work there. And so just because I didn't think the way they wanted me to and let you put in petitions and telling the people if they better sign or they're going to be laid off. And I said I wouldn't sign. So petitions that they didn't want, that people were not interested in the union. And so they ran that petition through there and intimidating and making them sign. A lot of women don't even know how to read or write. They don't understand. Some of them can hardly write their names. And they were told and they were ready to turn. If they didn't sign, they were going to be fired. Then I'm fired. And so it's my husband fired. My husband was also fired.

My husband was fired on Friday the 13th, lucky day. Yeah, and it would probably be other firings too. Okay, thanks for calling. Bye-bye. Well, I think, as I think they can be said, but I think basically they were excluded in 1935 from the National Labor Relations Act. This is where, as far as you know, the piece of legislation that in fact made, gave the workers the legal right to organize. But during all this time, you know, we were excluded. And the argument side, they were excluded. And it's very interesting. The argument has always been that we were excluded because agriculture is somehow different. The high peaks of employment, the personality, the crops and so forth. But if we really examine it, you know, we're very sure that we were excluded primarily because the majority of the farm worker in America is a minority group. And so we didn't touch the hearts, you know, as fast and as soon as we had all been English and it would have been a different story.

It would have been a different story. We should be organized because if we don't think like this had happened today, it can happen all the time. There's no way that anybody can do anything because it's not organized. You don't have a boy. Like a child, a long child, he goes to school and everybody will pick on him because they know he doesn't have no way to fight for him. And he's got a lot of little brothers. They won't be elected to pick on him so much because they know that he's somebody fighting for him, helping him out. Well, it's their fight. And it's not anybody else's fight. And they recognize this and realize it. And they did very early. In fact, we hadn't been for them. We wouldn't be on strike. We hadn't been for the people wanting this strike. And so it's quite as commonly known as a bread and butter strike. We're not fighting for a nickel more to add to the pension fund at this point. We're not fighting for a wage increase. We're fighting for recognition, which is the real guts of it.

And so it doesn't matter now how much money they're offered. They wouldn't go back because what they wanted is a union before they go back. We shall not be more than like a tree that's standing by the water. We are not being more. Come on up, brothers. We are waiting for you. You are earning more money today because the workers here are not on strike on September 9th. And they are still on strike. Does this make you feel that you know that you are taking your brothers' jobs? Don't be afraid of this, your brothers.

The people are growing my inner eyes on the people that are working to take care of you. How do you think they feel? The money that you're earning now, you're earning only because all the people are on strike. Does that make you feel that you're not on strike? Come on, how to take us because all the insolidality is the best thing. Do we have Sabata and Armin to celebrate? You better take him with you. What about the waitress? What about the waitress? They need to work this way. In the early days of the strike, we began to caution people. It was going to be a long thing. And we're going to get into it. We jump for the last call, we jump for the most part. We jump, we jump,they jump. We jump for the last 3 seconds to carry the money back.

We jump! We jump! We jump for the last 2-to-1 hours. I am just a working man. A lot of equipment. Engage, in the canvЯse building. That's the most difficult thing in the strike is to be bunun.

The most important thing you can think of during the winter you get up at five o'clock, you have breakfast and be out in the field by 6.30. They're out there all day until maybe five o'clock, standing on the same piece of ground, talking in some cases to the same people, battling the same growers, it's very difficult. I can't really tell what has kept them going. It's difficult to put in words, but we have seen people minimum saying, we're not going to get off this picket line until we get until we get the benefits for everyone. This sacrifice is being made for new generations to come. The most important thing ever is making myself better.

That's all part of the encourages. Get in! Get in! Let's go! Give it to me! Oh... Put in the dynasty Holy Hyder All is God. All is God. Land young, earth is my angel. All we are, that the tender angel. Land, earth is my angel.

Land, earth is my angel. Friends of the farm workers come to Delano to celebrate Christmas with the strikers. Among the union supporters are students, church groups and labor unions. Dear friends, we wish you welcome to Delano. You know, and I don't have to tell you this, how thankful we are for the gifts that you have brought us. You also know that the gifts of food and clothing that you have brought us are the things that will keep us alive for the next few months. Dolores Huerta, vice president of the union. We hope that our union will not disappoint you. We hope that our union will in the future prove that it will be more than just economic gains

that we have gained from the farm workers. But that we will be able to spread the feeling of love and community that you have brought here today in other phases of social life, other than economic and social betterment. So, I thank you again. The first time I'm going to introduce you is our beloved director, Jason Chavez. Before I mention anything to all those of you who came here, contributed, money and brought food we thank you, especially, yes.

The first is Delano from Monterey, Peninsula, California. You're very happy to be here today. And we feel that what we have brought Mr. Chavez, is a little less compared to what we will take back, the spirit of your people. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You make this day a very memorable day for us and we will remember it for many years to come. We know that those of you who came from the outside, from this place, is to be with us. You have come here in sacrifices to yourself and your family. Believe me, we appreciate your efforts and we are very happy that you are here with us and we invite you to come with us and come and visit us again and again are here in Delano where you have many, many friends now. Thank you very much. I don't know how we got through the winter last year.

Moment of my guess. I think that one of the really significant changes occurred with March. Something had to be done. We got into a stalemate. And so Caesar came up with the idea of the pilgrimage. Forever for the union make us strong. Forever for the union make us strong. Forever for the union make us strong. I think fantastic. We organized here at the office and there were a couple of hundred people in line. Too much to Sacramento.

From Delano I want to go to Sacramento to go to Sacramento. And then we got out of Delano. And we got to Ducor which was a 17 mile walk and that started it I guess. We were received by a separate family of farm workers. And then from there was the next town and the next town and the line kept growing.

And little bands of farm workers who joined us long way. And those immense feeling of solidarity you know like we're not alone you know. What do you know we're not alone. There are a lot of people that know it's going on in Delano farm workers. They pick up the little flags and on the way them and march with us. And to see that line grow it was fantastic. They go walking along a freeway if you suggested that to a farm worker you know a year ago, a year and a half ago. Who would have thought you were a little unbalanced. I think anybody would have thought you were a little unbalanced walk along the 99 you know with a flag. It does something really tremendous to keep the people walking along. There was this feeling of solidarity you know.

We have a right to be here. And so we walked to Sacramento and of course there were 10,000 people there. The governor wasn't there. It didn't matter. It didn't matter who we were all there. And there was an added something. There was a knowledge you were going to win. You probably have heard of the so-called strike in Delano and the surrounding area.

Although the farm workers march to Sacramento one them increasing national support. It swayed few local opponents of the union. In Delano a group called Citizens for Facts began an intensive publicity campaign against the union. And it bring to life facts and a truth concerning this movement. I really think I mean we should all clap our hands. That's what it matters. These people were shaking some personality. Delano Police Captain Al Espinoza. And a symbol or an image to the Mexican poor. This was the man right here, Cedar Chavez. The press has brought it out many, many times. The pilots looking type of fellow. You know, he plays the part well. But this is misleading because the man is well trained. If he's trained, back he's someplace. There have been some people here in Delano that are card-carrying communists. I think that Chavez. Sometimes I feel that he is sincere in his efforts, but he's been.

He's the tool of these people. He's a puppet. Then other times I think he's out for what he can get for himself. I'm not sure. The thing that I'm against is the outside element. This is brought into our community. It has brought in reportedly people from Mississippi, Alabama, who've been on civil rights demonstration march. We have members in Delano of the WEB Du Boi Club, which has been stated to be a communist group by J.A. Grover. My husband is a farm worker. And yes, I believe that all this trouble is caused by outside agitators. I don't believe that Chavez and his group are working for the poor people. I believe they're working on the poor people. And as a mother and as a housewife, I resent all the harassment and intimidation that we've had to go through these past few months. Well, I'm a growers wife, and I've seen the pickets, and I've watched the pickets on the picket line. And you see, SNCC and CORE and Student for Democratic Society

are these farm workers. I'm a housewife. My husband owns a furniture store in Delano. And there was one particular movie that was shown to one of our citizens for facts meeting. And at this meeting, which was a movie concerning the University of Berkeley, several of the growers or the people who had seen pickets here in Delano could watch the picture as it was being shown. And pick out people that they had seen here in Delano on some of the picket line and some of the demonstrations. My husband now worked on the farm on how far? I know that there is outside influence here because I live right across in front of the weather. But Chavez has this meeting there on Tuesday night. And I've seen cars there all the way from Illinois. And they were there just for this one particular meeting. And I wrote down the license number. So I know that they were out of state cars. So I can only tell outside. The

in this cold summer day away. Wait for me, please get me out of breath! Hold me now, oh, oh, oh, Oh, oh... Do no one fear me, but should I? That's kind of a long report, but I'm going to just give you the highlight. The meeting today, we met with the Georgia, and basically the opposition, our position is pretty much the same as it was three weeks ago. The union has only one weapon, and that weapon is a strike, and the Georgia wants us to sign a contract saying that we will never conduct a strike against the Georgia from here

on out. That's for life, and we feel that we cannot do that. They are very worried about the boycott. They claim at one point that the boycott is illegal, that it's immoral, and that we shouldn't be in it. Boycotting, and I said, well, what is your feeling about being on strike with you for eight months, and you haven't talked to us until recently? I didn't think we feel. If that isn't immoral, then I don't know what is, but they just, I think they need some more boycottage. I think the real full expression of the solidarity, of this community feeling, is going to be a community center, the soup kitchen, all of us eating together, hundreds of people coming

together and eating together. Can you imagine a cooperative story, a cooperative gas station, and a medical clinic? These things are fantastic. I don't know if there's anything like it in the United States. I have another card without any, because we need both of them. We talked to, we only talked to Caesar, not this time, but the other time, yeah, about having a little meeting with the strike captains and us and the organizers. I think it does things to people when they begin to cooperate this way. Now here in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the Salah King Valley, this fantastic thing is happening. Before the strikers return to the picket line, the members of the Teatro Campasino try out

a new skit. Luis Valdez founded the bilingual theater troupe early in the strike. Through its satire, it both clarifies strike aims and articulates the grievances of the workers. This skit concerns a grower and his scabs. That's right, I've built it myself, you see that car side-house of bear, huh? That's right, 350,000 dollars, boy, for that house. Oh, a lot of people in here, aren't they? You see that blonde coming out of there? Oh, I love baby.

Hey, hey, baby. Don't do that, boy. It's in Texas. No, it's alright. It's alright, honey. Look, that house, that car, that woman boy. It cost me. You don't know about these things, boy, because you've got a good, you've got a simple life for it. You come out here and you know, you eat beans and tortillas, you know, you catch a little bottle of wine. You don't have to worry about eating the car, boys. I've got to worry about it, boy. Sometimes I sit up in that office and I say to myself, I wish I was a Mexican. Oh, really? Yeah. Really? You want a Mexican? One of my own boys. A Mexican looking out here. ��림아내. Hey, please, goodbye. Boy, how would you like me to avoid you for a day? Oh, no you know, I have no words. Oh, you are not, I have no gr in this. But落 Zachariano, I mean a boss, he has older guys. He's certainly better off with the Drug Mr. Put this over there.

There are down here. I'm armed with double provider. Then we're tidy. You get all of this. The old Hut, yeah. Oh, yes, get on. Boy, what a work over there. You see that hill? Yeah, in the house? Yeah, yeah. They're mine. See? You see that blondie over there? Yeah, she's a mine, too. Come on, come on. No, I see it. I see my wife starting to kick her. Oh, no. Look, look. Move your... Stay away, wait. Take her away. Hello, you trying to make me out of work in the cut? No, no. That's the no, no. Come on, get it. Get him away. No, no, no. Take it. Take it. Wait. No. Take it. Come on, move. No, no. No, no, no. The strikers learn that the DeGeorgio Corporation, the biggest grower in Delano, is bringing

in two busloads of new employees. An emergency meeting is called, and Tony Mendez speaks. Okay, now, first of all, DeGeorgio is using a lot of women this year to try and break our strike, and they do not have enough employees in this camp in Delano, so they are bringing between 75 to 100, which will be a first of the series of events that DeGeorgio will try to do to break this strike. We don't want to harass these women when they get here. We want to treat them like human beings. We want to let them know that we are not violent, that we are going to win this strike, and we have to look confident for this.

When we go in there, confident, then they will say, these people know what they are doing. These people are going to win this strike, and we will have to convince them, then and there. Here comes my mother, let's go. The picket station themselves in front of a stop street so they can pass leaflets through the windows of the bus.

Here they come. There they go. Move up. Move up. Watch out for cars. Move in. Oh my right-hand left. Okay, go ahead and go. Move, move, move, move. Hi!

This Srim we are going to live in Ickton Why? Ickton Srim we are going to live We are going to live We are going to live We are going to live The TBS is on mark This here is The TBS is on mark What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? The firework is doing things now that they've never done. It's pretty fantastic transition. It's an education. And they can stand and shout at a cop. You scab. When would firework has ever... You shout the cops like that.

You know, they've never done that. You scab. You didn't stop that bus at the stop sign. You're a scab. What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? Firework. There's no doubt in our minds that we say something here that is given all of us here, you know, new hope. There's one thing we can point to, every day we have

a minor victory. Every time you get a man to sign a card or leave a job, or get a truck driver to turn around, or stop a railroad car, or, you know, there's all minor victories in any works after an election. You see in the suffering all over, you see in the sickness that lousy camps were families have to live. Have you been over there by, by Tenericani, La Nell, or your bed in Salinas in those lousy camps over there? That's what we're trying to change right there. The strikers try to persuade two of the Diorgio foreman to have their crews authorize the union as their bargaining agents. They

ask, are you in favor of the unions or Diorgio, the landlord? They're struggling for me, they're struggling for my kids, and they're struggling for your kids. You're going to sell out your race, La Raza, the Mexican people, or are you going to be with your race? In English, in Spanish, in English. They're trying to get to freedom, but it's out of control.

You can't help but brooch their men. Sign and you prove you are with us. You are a Mexican. Don't be with the landlord. with the landlord. please For each of us. It was a home to work on if they would desires to present Shit on the lily…

Taither! Yummy! Okay, go on. Give it a shot. Give it a shot. Yes, give it a shot. murder murder murder why The strength of the farm workers continue to increase. In August, DeGeorgio agreed on ground rules for a precedent-shattering election. These employees overwhelmingly endorsed the union as their bargaining agents.

The election was the first major victory for farm unionization in this country, yet only a minor dent in agriculture's traditional resistance to unions. Today as the strike progresses into its third year, the union has established contracts with the three largest wine growers in Delano. The major table-grade producers, however, have yet to recognize the union. Still, the NFWA, now merged with the AFL-CIO, is already organizing in other states. For the union, Delano is only one step in its efforts to improve the lives of the nearly two million farm workers in this country. For the union, Delano is only one step in its efforts to improve the lives of the nearly

two million farm workers in this country. For the union, Delano is only one step in its efforts to improve the lives of the nearly two million farm workers in Delano. This has been NET Journal. A weekly look at the events, issues, and people of the world today. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.

This is NET, the National Educational Television Network, and the National Educational Television Network. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.