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Chicano conference programs and speeches, April 1973-May 1974

1973-04-14 Keynote Speech Page 4

didn't put up fences. The land was owned by the community, in perpetuity, forever. So, the land in the city or in a county belonged to all those people who had that sense of community and who contributed to their community. Not so with Sam Maverick. He claimed the land and fenced it, prohibiting anyone else from getting salt. So the Mejicanos there fought against Sam Maverick and the other politicos who attempted to sell salt throughout the United States.  It got so bad that finally Rangers and were brought in and the Mejicanos captured those Rangers and kidnaped them and held them for ransom along with some politicos and a district judge. In the end we were defeated but nevertheless this was another effort of resistance. 

A similar effort of resistance combining outright resistance and trying to work with the system was the Confederacion Regional de Obreros 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, this state and perhaps, this institution. Sixty-percent of all railroads west of the Mississippi were laid by Chicanos. Eighty-percent of all agricultural enetrprises 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 in the Red River Valley and made possible these sugar cubes 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, Sonora, 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 pay double. We must prove once again we are rightfully the owners of what we are asking for and that we are already entitled to for our past labors. So we conducted strikes throughout the country fighting for better wages fighting for the right to unionize. Brothers, when you hear El Teatro Campesino or you hear of Chavez, look at our endurance, look at our perseverance. Since the 1860'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 Blacks and then finally whites. The vaqueros in the pan handle of Texas and New Mexico sat down and struck. They refused

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didn't put up fences. The land was owned by the community, in perpetuity, forever. So, the land in the city or in a county belonged to all those people who had that sense of community and who contributed to their community. Not so with Sam Maverick. He claimed the land and fenced it, prohibiting anyone else from getting salt. So the Mejicanos there fought against Sam Maverick and the other politicos who attempted to sell salt throughout the United States. It got so bad that finally Rangers and were brought in and the Mejicanos captured those Rangers and kidnaped them and held them for ransom along with some politicos and a district judge. In the end we were defeated but nevertheless this was another effort of resistance. A similar effort of resistance combining outright resistance and trying to work with the system was the Confederacion Regional de Obreros 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, this state and perhaps, this institution. Sixty-percent of all railroads west of the Mississippi were laid by Chicanos. Eighty-percent of all agricultural enetrprises 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 in the Red River Valley and made possible these sugar cubes 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, Sonora, 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 pay double. We must prove once again we are rightfully the owners of what we are asking for and that we are already entitled to for our past labors. So we conducted strikes throughout the country fighting for better wages fighting for the right to unionize. Brothers, when you hear El Teatro Campesino or you hear of Chavez, look at our endurance, look at our perseverance. Since the 1860'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 Blacks and then finally whites. The vaqueros in the pan handle of Texas and New Mexico sat down and struck. They refused