Public Broadcast Laboratory; Teatro Campesino

it's been good evening i'm louis friedman talking to you from theatre in santa barbara calif for most people in america banner means the opening nights on broadway of plays by edward l d e r played by neil simon for some people fear is off broadway manama manager for a few people beer is maybe an experimental night down at la mama but there is all over america not just in new york tonight the theater isn't santa barbara l payout frozen santa barbara l k a joke of the scene of the farm workers here will pay out to compensate know it started two years ago by a very brilliant young man named luis valdez was interesting player it was a billion dollars in the whole labor movement of southern california and he put his two when involvements together and invented beer which would

present to the workers themselves their own problems and their own solutions in terms of entertainment simple direct understandable it was not just a theater for entertainment those of there with a purpose because it was part of the whole drive to organize the labor movement in southern california in the vineyards we would like to show it to the whole country tonight because it shows a fear that part of the american tradition it relates to pins and needles in the thirties and it relates to clifford oh that's played waiting let me it's full of vitality it's very very strong it's very very funny so here are scenes and songs from an evening with they'll pay up throw compass you know bye

bye you know thank you now renee montagne host that's right

the pay to play thank you right right dr laurie

right you know well yeah you're right right right you know you don't want anybody to react and he was right not

really usually usually masculine with an agreement any value the rio grande valley oh yeah that's right they were young now

the entire world with no human dignity mcgroarty realize that it's not that the events now you just pay out that even now the implications of that and people stepping up and demanding the right okay it's been giving it a public plan you're

doing great and the reason for it nothing is written down and re performances improvised the actors act out the most complicated labor situations and simple primitive and direct cartoons you know you're right you know we live in a

day i'm doing great you know you yeah

oh my god you know yeah i know right now in a wild combination of passion and heart's okay up for shows the facts of their lives to its audience of farmworkers right right

four years ago the president to use force right right just like in the old way doing is believing because those things ok really

miami you rehearse in

that that word i don't like to move or are you looking to elaborate you know peter that means me it used to be back in this race puerto rican

are you ok ok will mexicans many of the remaining buildings be taken away writers here

okay we go very good oh yeah thank you

that to me yet

taxes yeah yeah yeah yeah you know you know

you know thank you you won do you

remember oh yeah are you mary what happened you're right you know

you that loss continues to manipulate the worker sometimes your flattery sometimes with the jury sometimes with downright terrorism he carried away by his own words he even compares the simple easy life for homework or to that terrible burdens of being boss yeah baby dame maggie yeah la

lawyer we live near you yeah yeah lawyer you know in the

military mm hmm are you i don't even know i mean

oh oh oh thank you the paintings that's because no surprise yeah well you know

we need to be now now you told

because you're mine right right you

know oh yeah oh ok you know you all on that philippe petit palais i moved there are violating thirty years there's a

you know he's been around it last week ok let's do you make your kid i think by thirty years of organized labor has been established for the country that is if you want to do some very strange complexities that has been delayed over the competition international union national reckoning with the european union he came to the farm workers are problems i think we saw in some kind of agreement that part of the farm worker a case what they did for a year of art

history and i thought of art history where union by a bomb attack in here yeah oh yeah man and

in the nineteen hour day hon the pope last week has been like you know traditionally american as being a very efficient

tv and the literature american literature the americans are going to be us it revealed robertson wall because thats probably be harvested and suddenly find out there's a storm coming together of his neighbors in the law ok this is a story the authorities say it's just that he's getting a small car has been pushed out of the picture is being with a picture even today and the crowds and the growers in taxes we have another striking thing going on here in the rio grande valley the rio grande city is going to have to believe that the organization for workers and destroying the small power and they're saying he's going to ruin the best finest traditions of american history that the small farmer this is not against unionization of farmworkers possible because but the thing that is destroying the small farmers

in their small cars have become farmworkers may lose their lands because they're enclosed upon by the growth of the giant american industry agribusiness a multi billion dollar industry as houses knock on the ranch not the property values in the big cities chicago new york and international markets seized the initiative process but the man multimillion dollar business billion dollar business and i think or and out if the bomb were not on a twentieth century populism a big fat from mexico and china depends on the system and some republicans

to mexico know we can do united states and there's a whole array of missions but it always a command of the operation and then of course in the city's voters what do you say you actually hear and says we are an industrial unions in american industry saw back off on that or were amenities most sought after after soil in order to be road through do you really

he does three reactors bring them we know that ok you want to and i'm steve inskeep we do this you know we

couldn't resist story story story i know humiliation and the four seasons we caught the kid sees and why because neither of these images right when you realized that's what wisconsin we don't know whether it was organizing themselves like the riots after the season is and you want to see with this season and what are the different tack the corner and that was a lot of the only

items on that they know that they will go in and you know what it's funny thanks a lot so what do you do you know i mean they were so summer yields its financial rewards but

not to don so taco the money slips through his fingers that finds its way into the hands of the boys as usual it comes and goes and his conditioning grows more desperate by the time when he returned last night everyone has it made except so taco scene he's been monday is back right here

radio yeah yeah how has he done so tiger takes heart from the words of la prima wailed and begins to fight back for the first time in his life you

know it has come to his aid in the form of the church of the labor movement and the pride of his race the mexican people might add new law as well now yeah yeah dating

app i don't know the peak now he says bj

the power reading is boring do you mind when it's a railroad union within the teams that it doesn't matter if you don't have public support behind them and their strike is in trouble labor history of america at the american people are american labor laws are they aren't well ok meanwhile directly to the american people

are our existence in the line of a continued struggle to stop anytime in texas the beginning the american people are not looking in texas but texas republican john mccain and i cannot see it and not see because it was different from what was it they had cracked the eu there that's happening in america it now bazzano says doesn't matter what the san joaquin valley during the last two years and it may be the american economy these private marijuana products in the silicon valley are trying with nothing but sage brush and sure

there was a lot of it and how it was also the federal government to turn that into a very rich valley federal water projects and they lived there what did you hear back right and receive the wire well why not supposed to go to small palmer is it an american ways twenty one a few thousand acres more than a hundred and sixty eight to limit so you buy the land the only one corporation all of the sons and daughters and the operations their sons and daughters and a great grandsons and daughters are other corporate twenty a corporation's right next to romney

ok yeah but then there's also the going down of the great bobby ok protective of the union contract fighting for a union you know my generation he would write this book rapping when a real human vice lords or union busting device called a company union says it brought it to a reunion waiting for the workers you know if we think it's unique responsibilities and

unprofessional words if there's a deal at the negotiating table they say okay and he wrote not the word that brought up a non union and a reunion that is until a deal last year between united was organizing committee's in the past and the future between what we're playing against what we're waiting for many eu i initially got it and

i'm here to tell you a few of the candidates that all the qualities the medical and better wages this is something of altering its seventy you can do without really needs to raise a family is money and to educate children he's been doing that why do we have to have what do you do are you

ready oh i think probably the latter or about it much in the news make a dollar seventy five minimum wage guarantee and maybe it's you violence why is that my

voice right now laughter yeah twenty years ago ed murrow ended another television show about farm workers or a show called harvard or will these were migrants in the lobby they cannot influence legislation baby you know like and the world oh

no no this is big mm hmm the

payments he has been it is thank you

we've been watching scenes from bell pepper come pacino the farm workers here i want to ask louis valdez the man who's responsible for all who writes the material where's it come from a lawyer he writes it it comes together the river then the combination of love the work of a lot of people that come through the capital and are now working with the union the prospect of field organizing and the state's parole and calves worked on and continue to depart i direct but really doesn't amount to much or have the directors who were the

people on the show that people love his honesty need a for instance is twenty three years old farm worker from around the area that leno was working in the fields not within the strike area the time of the strike broke out but were so fascinated by the causative came down and joined him and play the guitar and when we got around to working on the idea that he was for special camera and his work with other persons which was leaked which typically he played on clear out day he played mission the contract the way the us dammed the greats and then we have the equipment too so this is the next number has been the death of the longest point five years those mothers and children of farm worker originally from mexico spends ten to twenty years or so farm worker but well not all four crews that come from mexico or strictly that you have many talents have been teachers there been a businessman because the

language from an enclosed the fields and this is probably the case with an ep than everything from a cop in mexico many voters i need my brother yes he has inherited the family and i use that to get thousands of indian loves the theater majors in love with me i guess as barry well he played you played them well you played though winter in the season that we have by giordano i also farm worker came to doing and stabs and writer and joins right on the first the second david but the lighting that usually was when we have the oil wealth of love she's the daughter of the month

when vice president of union one of its chief organizers and that is that we have the mother and the web and repeat who is from the value that silicon valley is what the fields of well so that was the arctic that's right the grill or all purpose and will and let's see i think that's about the present tense right now are these people going to be professional actors and they are beginning to become actors are they going to be whatever happens whatever i i don't think anybody's thinking goes that far yet we don't we don't think professionally in the wrong direction for instance just as they would to follow everything you know and there's a very definite cause here which doesn't lend itself to professional thought boy if we thought of going in to see how it wouldn't professional you do it can cause so many feet you know they would chain what's going to happen while we're spending we're getting

into new things were again a propaganda theater right now what a great song but one expand to think that there are many facets of the farm workers' life and the mexican americans live in the united states that the london sought deeper treatment you know grandma characterizations would like to work on landrieu and vocal juvenile catherine has revealed some very important to support the farm worker movement is considered and that is that in this particular case and i guess it would be to what cities but in this particular case culture is political so well you get disputed election sing this song it made the alliance on you know many of the citizens ride and it lends to write that it's a man a point where the fences rights citizens is only when you really want to protect her close to the workers it started very definitely very different direction of things there was something that lee said in an interview that this was a

fair where the workers came and recognize themselves and they laughed because of the shock of recognition and they laughed and laughed but there were tears in her eyes when i was finished