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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974
1973-04-14 Keynote Speech Page 4
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4 didn't put up the fences. If you didn't record your deed the land was owned by the community, inperpetuate, forever. So, the land in the city or in a county belonged to all those people who had that sense of community and who contibuted to their community. Not so with Sam Maverik. He came and bought tha land for whatever prices and he fenced it and prohibited anyone else from getting salt. So the Mejicanos there fought against Sam Maverik and the other politicos who attempted to sell the salt across the United States. It got so bad that finally rangers were brought in and the Mejicanos captured those rangers and kidnaped them and held them for ransom along with some politicos and district judges. In the end we were defeated but nevertheless this was another effort of resistence. A similar efforty of resistance combining outright resistance and trying to work with the system was Confederacion Regional Obreron mejicanos, C.R.O.M.. This was the largest union ever among Mejicanos. It spread from California into the Midwest. Because it is a myth that the Mejicanos have not contributed to this community. This country, like this state, perhaps like this institution refuses to recognize and make us pay double of what we already contributed. Sixty-percent of all the railroads west of the Mississippi were layed by Chicanos. Eighty-percent of all agricultural enterprise were first developed by Chicanos. Seventy-five thousand workers for the American Sugar Crystal Co. made possible development of the beet fields in the Midwest, particularly by the Red River Valley and made possible these sugar things you’re eating now. Ninety-percent of all the mines, Phelps Corp. better known as Dodge, was made powerful and rich off the backs of Chicanos who worked the mines en Nuevo Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. We taught these people how to do these basic things so they could survive and our reward was exploitation and misery. And now we are asked to be payed double. Because not only we must prove once again we are rightfully owners of what we are asking for as American citizens but that we are already entitled to it for our past labors. So Patron conducted strikes throughout the country fighting for better wages fighting for the right to unionize. Brothers, when you hear El Teatro De Compesino or you heard of Chavez, look at our endurance, look at our perseverance. Since the 1800’s we have been trying to strike for the right for better wages and better housing and just simply for the right to strike. Still today we are being denied this. Chavez carries a legacy of all these strikes. Strikes were not limited only to people working in the beet fields in the railroads and the mines but to vaqueros. It is not Matt Dillon who is the original American cowboy. The first cowboys the first vaqueros were Mejicanos then black and then finally whites. The vaqueros in the pan handle of Texas and Mexico sat down and struck. They refused
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4 didn't put up the fences. If you didn't record your deed the land was owned by the community, inperpetuate, forever. So, the land in the city or in a county belonged to all those people who had that sense of community and who contibuted to their community. Not so with Sam Maverik. He came and bought tha land for whatever prices and he fenced it and prohibited anyone else from getting salt. So the Mejicanos there fought against Sam Maverik and the other politicos who attempted to sell the salt across the United States. It got so bad that finally rangers were brought in and the Mejicanos captured those rangers and kidnaped them and held them for ransom along with some politicos and district judges. In the end we were defeated but nevertheless this was another effort of resistence. A similar efforty of resistance combining outright resistance and trying to work with the system was Confederacion Regional Obreron mejicanos, C.R.O.M.. This was the largest union ever among Mejicanos. It spread from California into the Midwest. Because it is a myth that the Mejicanos have not contributed to this community. This country, like this state, perhaps like this institution refuses to recognize and make us pay double of what we already contributed. Sixty-percent of all the railroads west of the Mississippi were layed by Chicanos. Eighty-percent of all agricultural enterprise were first developed by Chicanos. Seventy-five thousand workers for the American Sugar Crystal Co. made possible development of the beet fields in the Midwest, particularly by the Red River Valley and made possible these sugar things you’re eating now. Ninety-percent of all the mines, Phelps Corp. better known as Dodge, was made powerful and rich off the backs of Chicanos who worked the mines en Nuevo Mexico, Arizona, California and Nevada. We taught these people how to do these basic things so they could survive and our reward was exploitation and misery. And now we are asked to be payed double. Because not only we must prove once again we are rightfully owners of what we are asking for as American citizens but that we are already entitled to it for our past labors. So Patron conducted strikes throughout the country fighting for better wages fighting for the right to unionize. Brothers, when you hear El Teatro De Compesino or you heard of Chavez, look at our endurance, look at our perseverance. Since the 1800’s we have been trying to strike for the right for better wages and better housing and just simply for the right to strike. Still today we are being denied this. Chavez carries a legacy of all these strikes. Strikes were not limited only to people working in the beet fields in the railroads and the mines but to vaqueros. It is not Matt Dillon who is the original American cowboy. The first cowboys the first vaqueros were Mejicanos then black and then finally whites. The vaqueros in the pan handle of Texas and Mexico sat down and struck. They refused
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