The Mexican American Experience, a radio program produced by the Longhorn Radio Network, includes interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns. Program summary: Host Gloria Contreras interviews Antonio Orendain on the Texas Farm Workers Union's strategies for organizing undocumented workers, migrant farm-workers and specific growers in a right-to-work border state like Texas. In 1977, Antonio Orendain led the Texas Farmworkers Human Rights March from San Juan, Texas to Washington D.C. to draw attention to the plight of Texas farm workers and the right to work laws that hindered their organizing. Orendain touches on the regional needs that led to a split from the United Farm Workers, as well as the labor audience in Latin America for La voz del campesino. Antonio Orendain, a leader of the Texas Farm Workers Union, discusses their efforts to repeal the Right to Work laws protected in the Taft Hartley Act and organize farm workers. Orendain explains that these laws encourage people from other countries to undersell their labor, but he does not think illegal immigration is the problem. He places the source of the trouble among employers and free enterprise system that exploits the situation of the poor, the under-educated, and the immigrants. As part of their protest, the Texas Farm Workers collected over 85,000 signatures on a petition calling for the Right to work laws to be repealed. Orendain discusses how pleased he was to enjoy the solidarity of African Americans and other veterans of civil rights struggles, and in particular the assistance throughout the march. He discusses his meeting with Vice President Walter Mondale and Ray Marshall, the University of Texas Government Professor and then Secretary of Labor, and their agreement that Section 14 B of the Taft Hartley Act is unjust, bad law, and difficult for farm-workers. Orendain hopes that their march helped people realize the ways laws and policies shield growers and factory owners from workers in the United States. Orendain also discusses his break with Cesar Chavez and explains that after 15 years of cooperation, they decided to try and focus their energies on organizing in Texas and not just in California. He then reflects on the successful organizing strategies that worked in South Texas and offered ways for listeners to support the union in South Texas. Key examples included donating food, clothing and money to help during strikes, printing their newspaper and buying radio time for their program, La Voz el Campesino, which is. Broadcast on both sides of the border. He discusses responses to La Voz del Campesino in Guatemala and along the Guatemalan border, and even reflects on Mexico's labor policies towards Guatemaltecos on the southern border. Keywords: African Americans, Agricultural Workers, Austin, Texas, Bilingualism, Black Workers, California, Cesar Chavez, Chicano Black Relations, Civil Rights, Collective Bargaining, Concientizacion, Congress, Derechos Humanos, El Cuhamil, Ethnic Press, Ethnic Solidarity, Farm Workers, First Amendment, Free Enterprise, Guatemala, Guatemala, Harvest, Honduras, Huelgas, Human Rights, Illegal Alien, Jimmy Carter, La Voz Del Campesino, Labor Strategy, Libel laws, March on Washington, Nonviolence, Peanut Grower, Peticiones, Petitions, Pisca, Political Exclusion, Pontius Pilate, Protest, Radio, Ray Marshall, Regionalism, Right to Work, Right to Work Laws, Rio Grande, Rio Grande Valley, Role of the State, San Juan, Texas, Secretary of Labor, Section 14-B Taft-Hartley Act, Senate, Simpatia, Solidarity, Strike, Strike Fund, Strike Strategy, Taft-Hartley Act, Texas Farm Workers Union, Texas Farmworkers Human Rights March to D.C, Transnational Labor Organizing, United Farm Workers, Walter Mondale, Washington, D.C., Winter Garden Area. Broadcast date: 1977-10-24.
Creator/Contributor:
Longhorn Radio Network (creator), Contreras, Gloria (host), and Orendain, Antonio (interviewee)
Date Created/Date Issued:
10/12/1977
Owning Repository:
Benson Latin American Collection, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, The University of Texas at Austin
sound recordings, grabaciones sonoras, radio programs, programas de radio, and Audio
Extent:
14 minutes, 7 seconds
Rights - Use and Reproduction:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Language:
English and Spanish
Place of Publication:
Austin (Tex.)
Topic:
Open and closed shop, Mexican American migrant agricultural laborers, Migrant agricultural laborers--Law and legislation, Migrant agricultural laborers--Labor unions, Civil rights demonstrations, and Demonstraciones públicas de derechos civiles
Time Period Covered:
1970-1979
Place Name:
Washington (D.C.), San Juan (Tex.), and Rio Grande Valley
Geographic Coverage:
United States (country), Texas (state), United States (country), and Texas (state)