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but it's both a national educational television neil
courtney courtney i do yeah yeah i feel guilty
farm workers began a walkout in the legal california which has since become the longest and most important strike in agricultural history the strike called against thirty five grape growers in the san joaquin valley was the first ever organized by the farm workers themselves they demanded recognition in the form of a yin and a minimum wage of a dollar forty cents an hour anyway the strikers transform their local will go into a national league for farm representation within a year the cry all over the spanish word post right had begun to sound throughout the country this is a portrait of that movement its people on their lives you know
at a weekend or do you really think the electorate and more than we can afford the only thing maybe you can for the other leading be available right here in january to me that often about a great or we're going to make a profit in million dollars an hour mcadoo three dollars not one hour not a theme in the paying enough money from the review and in the end in sight
in a minute with that we never know we're likely to get what you that it didn't think that and i don't know the striker is mexican born tony are and i'm the treasurer of the nfl knew a glorious george character whose family has farmed great for thirty five years and elaine on their argument is as old as the idea of unionizing foreign workers growers
contend that harms are not factories that a strike could be used to wipe out harvests of farm laborers argue that agriculture today is in fact a big business in california alone or four billion dollar a year industry wide then they argue should they still be denied minimum wage standards unemployment compensation and the right of collective bargaining has this is his route to spoil doing a rancher and spokesman for the local growers doing everything they live with a weather related deadly
tornadoes are they're getting it well they only give you that nobody can be a bit more thought about that you know because we're going on thirty five and bring an obvious thing the deal when he and the nominee a juvenile even though nineteen thirty nine well if you were you were openly in northwest where the last year we're going to have an artist in you know mario avila long time and the before they get here oh that would be about two guys and let mr shawn well what you do one of mine so they get an idea of what's involved here i work and pay their workers above arsenal won't touch and
i have a tremendous amount of what we call in the rays of loving care the late late twenties and he wrote it workers in a discontent with employment he can do more damage to be a farming operation five minutes and any increase in low wages can encounter over a period of years long live this is the year you're prosecuted ignore the strike and while it's been our eighth in our policy on that we are already there were were accepting the word of our workers that they want representation and that you know a lot of the egos that predictive mexicans to come back every helping out and
done they will detect reece well there's one of the leaders of the nfl you a moment if you live in the commonwealth the freeways university and it was the fact that people are living like this and therefore we're going to do anything and then you work in particular in which you actually undo vote no sense of
values you know being from checks of the end of the show a little credit conditions lived in the barn or on weekends sometimes both so the narco can't get sometimes with two or three days it all time to you kid the batons and they beat how all these neon you need these women will begin lawns and you know what was wrong with me or i'm going
to school they're out of the school you wander around talking about why should people live in kansas city and why should they get one day you know several hundred miles my family spent roughly ten years only one end of the state to the other from one camp to another and if we have a lot of feelings and you and what you're up to the political debate in the country
the us to leave and move on those system that encourages migrant life and i used to have her phone and when they're used to doing all kind of begging you go in you put it were giving that's unfair unfair when you hope to keep the riches the nation is big things they wanted and
you know how important laden has a commodity without ladies they are looking at them you know that there's a charity and effect in a country that's an injustice that you think about it is unbearable eliminate beginning based on money money that we weren't already one of the farm workers and the new things making more money
and you see the roberts director of that was gold farm labor camp of kern county operated camp for migrant laborers this point i dont care we think of the idea think it's because i think this is one thing i will say this farm wages in les mots right in this area has increased from a bargain to about sixty now that you know that nothing will ever do one question was one of the questions that you think that without a union the all of the condition that has been here a lot of it is it can be greatly improved and last year you want to give you one one
you know being very obedient well into question urban areas cesar chavez was born in california and spent his youth moving from one agricultural labor camp to another in his twenties he worked with mexican american community organizations in the cities but still he broke the greatest leap when you finally in nineteen sixty two he returned to them you can read an overview good evening and
the important thing is that many people in the party he noted that one involving the valley at your duty name move it when you can oh what a member of the work between the years twenty four years five movie because he doesn't think the way we do one of the
victims well yeah good morning good morning
i mean i think i don't know well i think legislation that they give the word the island el nino aquino included because agriculture on the media
or when we were at them and you thought were racially loaded primary dr cohen i think i have enough time and within a way that anybody can do anything thank you bye bye and i want to play and
both of them awaiting they were vying for the info and then they're not how much money off of that one of the union we can do it the playing you
did well be alone
oh man lang lang i
don't know i know thank you and so they don't kill me one of them you think a ground thought you've been through think people that are moving north i am really going it really works that way when we get it and we have prevented the
train when you think of it being made for new generations to come back home this week the creek bed
it has been me they add eight a eight may at the crimes of the farmworkers come to to celebrate christmas among the union supporters are church groups and labor unions boyd president of the union
thank you we can the pay to pay the
peaks to people yeah i know do
it's been today politically i think a lot of the briefing
and he had gotten a failing and so to continue cabin he's been and how about a couple hundred people in line is a lot of it today
you're going to do volunteers long way those immense feeling of solidarity you know like what you know you're not alone but a lot of people that know what i don't really know
how much with that and you know i'm going to a fantastic a walking along the freeway it together that will follow a year ago a year ago and i thought you know i think anybody you walk along and it drags on there's something really command execute people walking around the area where a right to be here as a whole lot who got a hand long hamilton
at all day in the new iraq it didn't matter you're going to win all the farm workers marched to sacramento one that increasing national support its weight few local opponents of the union in the legal a group called citizens for that began an intensive publicity campaign against the human brain
now and many of the prayers at many plants he can play thank you he writes we
create it i don't believe it when the group are working or that or maybe they're working on the board of our innovations that human life than it was to get on the line for it it came out very well i know
people that baby about that in one of the radical part of it and needing nine nine and they were that one particular me oh right the
plane you need a lawyer right right set for life david
it's been the point when i think of holiday community during the community center in the soup kitchen on the theater hundred people coming here inequality is going to be one gas station a medical clinic they've seen a fantastic in my community people really didn't cooperate
and the caribbean weekly before the strikers returned to the members of the capital compass you know try out and use that we thought that founded the bilingual theater troupe really in the strike through its entire lives right and articulate the grievances of the workers this get concerns of war and his fans you employ yeah yeah at
eight why not boy it got me those bills would feel with that i am
lawyer you got me you know the strikers learned that they did georgia corporation the biggest
roar in the leno is bringing in two bus loads of new employees and emergency meeting it's called and tony mendez speaks and a lot of women to live right that's right and they did not having the employee and it had been going on they're bringing between seventy five and a little bit of a theory that even break that right we don't want you we want to be you want to let them know we're non violent you're going to win like we have more confident with it legal and they're confident then though they he'd be politically it's been
weeks bonus because the windows of the bus it's b many
many i need you we
are doing things right i'm thinking yeah right ms hughes yeah you know there's no doubt in
that year that women going to move will literally within twenty every day we have a minor victory every kenyan and stand at the newtown stop in the air the land and the work that the new thing that bring warmer youth and i think that allows the cavs were what i might have been an ideal battle led by michael murray county right now right right the strikers
tried to persuade to a big detour to form and to have their crews authorized the union as their bargaining agent they ask unions or did your job illinois your view a lovely when the government here and european regulators allowed to race the mexican people or you're going to be with you renee i'm renee montagne
you are with us you are a mexican don't be with the line oh no at the moment the vehicle known in
iran yeah again is being in the army now will he owns that land daisy the strength of the farm workers continue to increase in august to george you agreed on the ground rules for a precedent shattering he likes his
employees overwhelmingly endorsed the union as their carbon emissions the election was the first major victory for foreign unionization in this country and yet only a minor event and agriculture's traditional resistance to you today as the strike progresses into its third year the union has established contracts with the three largest wine growers and the major table great producers however have yet to recognize the union still the inevitable you at now merged with the nfl cia is already organizing in other states and for the union to leno is only one step in its efforts to improve the lives of the nearly two million foreign workers in this country lanny
davis well the agent the pa pa there is the pain these yeah yeah this has been an eta journal a
weekly look at the events issues and people of the world today when we do it is in an eighteen no national educational television then when
Program
Huelga!
Producing Organization
NET
Contributing Organization
Thirteen WNET (New York, New York)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/504-696zw19w66
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Description
Episode Description
A documentary program about farmworker strikes in California. The documentary details attempts to unionize, calls for better pay, the role of Cesar Chavez, and the effects of the movement on the lives of farmworkers. The title, "Huelga" is also the rallying cry of the farmworkers, meaning "Strike".
Program Description
"Huelga" (a Spanish word meaning "strike") documents the struggle for recognition - and survival - among Mexican and other migrant workers in Delano, Cal., in the San Joaquin Valley. The strike, which began in September 1965 against the area's 35 grape growers, has become "the longest, most important strike in agricultural history," with a few of the growers finally offering some compromises this year. The strike, however, goes on; its original demands basically unchanged - a minimum wage, unemployed compensation, the right of collective bargaining. The film, which has already won awards as three major festivals, has been described by Variety as "a very moving thing." Filmed in color, it follows the strike leaders from the genesis of the strike, depicting their efforts to enlist the workers' support, ranging their makeshift dwellings, and recording the arguments of both workers and farmers. Led by Caesar Chavez and Luis Valdez, the strikers continue their efforts to shut down the farms, exhorting workers through bullhorns and singing "We Shall Overcome." While the grape picking goes on. Then, on Christmas Eve, the strikers gain the support of students, unionist, and other sympathizers with their movement at a special rally during which "Silent Night" and "Solidarity Forever" are both songs of inspiration. One of the program's most poignant scenes involves a 38-year-old women who has just been fired after 24 years in the fields because she wouldn't sign an anti-union petition. Then, in March of 1966, the movement gains impetus with a march to the state capitol at Sacramento. As they walk along the highway wit flags, crosses, and songs, the strikers are unexpectedly joined by bands of other farm workers. "Walk along the 99 - with a flag! They'd have thought you were unbalanced a year ago," says Valdez, realizing: "We have a right to be here!" Meanwhile, a group of Delano citizens called Citizens for Facts is opposing the strikers. Their arguments are familiar. They contend that Chavez is a "communist puppet" who has been "trained back East someplace." One woman, seeing "cars from Illinois," notes that she "wrote down the license numbers." Others are more sympathetic, however. A community center is formed to feed and otherwise aid the strikers. Their spirit is buoyed up by such diversions as the Teatro Campesino, which performs skits under Valdez' direction. These skits satirize the landowner and his instrument the hated "scab." But there is more active opposition to the scab. At one point, the strikers try to stop a bus loaded with these imported workers. And, in the film's concluding scene, the strikers score a major victory as they persuade foreman and workers to leave their work and join the movement, after pleading "Are you going to sell out your race, the Mexican people?" "NET Journal - Huelga!" - is a presentation of National Educational Television, produced and written by Mark J. Harris of King Screen Productions. Director: Skeets McGrew. Narrator: Paul Herlinger. Edited by Dick Gilbert and Skeets McGrew.
Other Description
This program was digitized from faded 16mm film, hence the red hue. The Farmworker Movement Documentation Project, presented by UCSD Libraries, has also made the film available in six parts (from YouTube) on its website at subsection 9 of this page: https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/medias/videos/
Broadcast Date
1968-02-12
Asset type
Program
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:58:07
Embed Code
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Credits
Director: McGrew, Skeets
Editor: McGrew, Skeets
Editor: Gilbert, Dick
Narrator: Herlinger, Paul
Producing Organization: NET
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Thirteen - New York Public Media (WNET)
Identifier: 2332591-3-1 (MAVIS)
Format: Film: 16mm
Color: Color
Duration: 01:00:00

Identifier: cpb-aacip-504-696zw19w66.mp4 (mediainfo)
Format: video/mp4
Generation: Proxy
Duration: 00:58:07
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Citations
Chicago: “Huelga!,” 1968-02-12, Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed October 3, 2023, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-504-696zw19w66.
MLA: “Huelga!.” 1968-02-12. Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. October 3, 2023. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-504-696zw19w66>.
APA: Huelga!. Boston, MA: Thirteen WNET, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-504-696zw19w66