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The story of the TFWU is one of epic strikes and marches, but also one that occasionally brushes up against controversy. But what this documentary ultimately aims to do is simply share a story few Texans know from history.
The full transcript of this episode of Texas Standard is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Raul Alonzo [00:00:00] Hey there, Listener Texas Standard digital producer Raul Alonso here with a Texas extra extended and special content for our special listeners. So quick story time. A little over a decade ago, when I was a baby student journalist in Corpus Christi, I found myself covering the local annual Cesar Chavez march when I spotted a woman wearing a jacket covered in dozens of red and black union buttons. I figured she’d be a good person to interview. Little did I realize then that it would spark a yearslong interest in a very particular moment of Texas history. She told me of her father, who had once been a member of an organization called the Texas Farm Workers Union. Having never heard of this union, I was immediately intrigued. After a conversation, she even gifted me one of her buttons. As I began to learn more from the few resources I could find, I kept thinking to myself, This happened here. Of course, I knew Chavez’s story, but I had never heard of this other union in South Texas where so much of my own family had been migrant farmworkers themselves. Flash forward to now, and I’m excited to share a series that’s been a dream project of mine. We ran these stories over the course of three days on the show, but I love a good audio documentary, so I thought I’d put together one long version that contained the whole series. So sit back and enjoy this dive into the history of the Texas Farmworkers Union. Most histories of the United Farm Workers founding will mention, of course, Cesar Chavez and the Lotus sweater. Occasionally you’ll see Hill Birth or Betty as name, and then maybe sometimes you’ll see a quote and others. But then if you look long enough, you might start catching glimpses of the man some have called the Cesar Chavez of Texas.
Speaker 2 [00:02:06] When the union was founded, it was said that Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Alberto Padilla and my dad, Antonio, were in line.
Raul Alonzo [00:02:13] That’s Joseph Orton down an assistant district attorney for Hidalgo County. He’s also the youngest son of Antonio, to name the original secretary treasurer of the National Farm Workers Association, the organization that later became the UFW.
Speaker 2 [00:02:27] And in fact, there’s an old photo. They can’t get rid of it on the traveling exhibit. You see it and they have him as Tonio in line as one of the founding members.
Raul Alonzo [00:02:35] But at some point a fracture form and Antonio Orendain split from Chavez and the UFW, focusing instead on organizing farm workers in Texas, his lower Rio Grande Valley. The San. In 1975 or 9, and those who followed him from the UFW formed the new group Robin.
Speaker 3 [00:02:54] They call themselves the Texas Farm Workers Union. But it’s a union without much portfolio. The Afl-cio is not supporting them. Neither is Cesar Chavez and his California Farm Workers Union.
Raul Alonzo [00:03:06] Joseph Orton. Dean says his father’s early contributions have been largely written out of the official narrative.
Speaker 2 [00:03:12] Anything authorized by the UFW? You could not mention my dad.
Raul Alonzo [00:03:16] His father, in fact, was originally included in the 2014 Cesar Chavez biopic, but the part was ultimately cut. Most still, if you search, you can find recordings of actor Gino Montesinos audition for the role on YouTube. It’s a glimpse into the way or and then was to be portrayed as a foil to Chavez’s famous principles of nonviolence.
Speaker 4 [00:03:42] Margaret Sisson SC in a piece right here, right now, talking to a person who lays a hand on him, It’s out of union. Join your stupid nonviolence as opposed to the landlord. This is about the alignment. This is about being a man.
Raul Alonzo [00:03:58] While the part was cut, a version of the scene still appears in the film, but with a different character named Eli, whose wide brimmed black hat and handlebar mustache. Nonetheless, evoke the iconic physical image on a dime became known.
Speaker 4 [00:04:11] For this man. What are you doing this on this piece of paper here right now? No, no, no.
Speaker 2 [00:04:19] If you watch that movie, you’ll see. And they’re accusing him of being the radical, violent one. And, you know, they portray it that way. But my dad was nonviolent and believed in all of the the same things as Chavez.
Raul Alonzo [00:04:33] So what was it that led to a split between Orendain and Chavez?
Speaker 5 [00:04:38] I think there were always personality differences and always ego clashes that could potentially develop between the two.
Raul Alonzo [00:04:49] That’s Timothy Bowman, a professor of history at West Texas A&M University. He’s also the author of What will soon be the first ever book length historical treatment of the Texas Farm Workers Union. As it stands, his master’s thesis remains one of the only academic overviews of that history. Bowman says the stark differences between Chavez and Gordon Dean had persisted for some time. For 1 or 2, nine had entered the U.S. and settled in California as an undocumented immigrant. When he was younger, he later saw organizing those with similar stories as part of his strategy. On the other hand, Chavez has been criticized by some for policies the UFW engaged in against undocumented workers. Chavez also cultivated a very spiritual persona, embracing Catholic imagery and engaging in fast as part of his strategy of nonviolence. Orenstein was very much a secularist and often voiced his opposition to Chavez’s farce.
Speaker 5 [00:05:51] He very much has this kind of revolutionary sort of esthetic about him that I think resonated with a lot of people in the Valley who were really poor.
Raul Alonzo [00:06:02] But perhaps the main sticking point centered around the lack of progress, or in Dean felt the UFW had made in organizing workers in Texas. In 1966, the UFW became embroiled in a wildcat strike among melon harvesters in Star County. Bowman says it wasn’t a struggle Chavez really wanted to be part of, but was compelled to due to the role his Texas grape boycott director had taken in organizing the strike.
Speaker 5 [00:06:31] Chavez starts to worry that if this movement in the Valley or this sort of branch of the farmworkers movement doesn’t go well, that that then will lead to problems for him.
Raul Alonzo [00:06:43] So Chavez sent his trusted secretary Treasurer Antonio Orendain to oversee the strike. What and then quickly made a name for himself in Texas. He staged sit ins on the international bridge and Roma organized boycotts and even found himself and the farm workers accused of sabotage in an incident that led to tense encounters with the Texas Rangers. It was amid this struggle that wooden nine grew to feel at home among the Texas farm workers.
Speaker 5 [00:07:10] It’s almost like it becomes his own separate kind of dedicated area where he feels a sort of a calling or a sense of purpose to do something.
Raul Alonzo [00:07:19] It’s through this dedication that Wooden then begins to grow frustrated with what he sees as a lack of interest from Chavez to put some of the focus of the UFW onto Texas. After the strike, Chavez recalled attending back to California, but not for long. Instead, orientation moved his family to the Rio Grande Valley and continued organizing workers there under the UFW banner. He oversaw the construction of an office in San Juan and started a popular cross-border radio show called Lobos del Campesinos.
Speaker 3 [00:07:57] I see him with other principal, other Programa de la Rosa Campesinos Rivera, Antonio Andina Proposito de informally cares. Look along in the triangle that is encompassed under your set. And who are you? The takers, Bowman says.
Raul Alonzo [00:08:09] Order nine saw his efforts in Texas as laying the foundation for Chavez to bring the movement there. But while Chavez had said the UFW would eventually turn its focus to Texas, Orendain began growing impatient. By the 1970s, the lettuce strike in California held the focus of the UFW. But over in Texas, farmworkers became embroiled in a new melon strike. It’s in this strike in the spring of 1975 that a breaking point came when a grower opened fire on picketing farm workers near Dolgellau, injuring close to a dozen.
Speaker 5 [00:08:44] Chavez is just incensed with what’s going on in Texas. He calls for indict up and says, you know, how can you do this? This is terrible for us. I can’t have this in the union today to adopt. And then by August of that year or indeed splits off informs the Texas Farm Workers Union, and then the rift becomes official.
Raul Alonzo [00:09:04] Many, but not all of the Texas UFW members followed organized into the new union, while the t f w u operation was small, it launched big campaigns in the Lone Star State. But it’s a history that’s largely been overlooked. And Orendain son feels it’s partly by design.
Speaker 2 [00:09:23] We’ve never really had anything against the UFW other than them leaving my dad out of the history books, out of the fact that he was and deserved acknowledgment for what he did.
Raul Alonzo [00:09:34] There are no feature films about the Texas Farmworkers Union. Even in Texas, there are no murals or historical markers describing the union. But while difficult to find, there are those who keep the history alive. I spoke to a few of them the next time I’ll share some of their stories. Until then, I’m Raul Alonso. Pretty Texas standard.
Speaker 4 [00:09:58] Is commonly seen as the mnemonics next of. Yeah. My God. It is. And.
Speaker 6 [00:10:14] This is when we got to D.C..
Raul Alonzo [00:10:16] I’m standing in the hallway of the far Texas home of Norma Remedies, listening intently as she shows me the many photos that adorn her walls.
Speaker 6 [00:10:24] I like this picture because you can see that the Capitol.
Raul Alonzo [00:10:28] Some are in black and white, some in sepia tinged shades of color that show their age. They all depict people holding signs or carrying flags and banners while on a march or walking the picket line. Did you put all this up.
Speaker 5 [00:10:41] For this or not?
Speaker 6 [00:10:43] I haven’t. This is my little home like I have.
Raul Alonzo [00:10:46] In several of the photos. Is an older, mustached man wearing dark square framed glasses and a straw hat. He holds a large banner with the iconic Virgin de San Juan, a rosary draped over it. The man is Don Claudio Ramirez, Norma’s father, who was something of the standard bearer for the Texas Farm Workers Union.
Speaker 6 [00:11:06] We were migrant workers, so my family, most of them, they’re not educated. When he cross over here, he trusts illegal. Eventually, he became a citizen, a U.S. citizen. But he was always a farmer.
Raul Alonzo [00:11:20] The Texas Farm Workers Union was only around for a few short years. But in that time, members held strikes, pushed legislative campaigns and took on community work in the Rio Grande Valley. And while those who are part of it have won some appreciation for the work, both the name of the Texas Farm Workers Union and those who are part of it remain largely outside the popular consciousness. Their photos, artifacts and stories live on, not in the pages of schoolbooks or in the permanent collections of museums, but here in the homes and memories of people like Normal Ramirez.
Speaker 6 [00:11:57] They mean a lot.
Raul Alonzo [00:11:59] A centerpiece of not photo collection is a poster sized image showing her father with his banner, marching alongside union leader Antonio Orendain. The US Capitol Dome seen behind them. This was the endpoint of one of the monumental moments in the union’s history, one that began in 1977 with a march from the valley to the state capitol in Austin.
Speaker 4 [00:12:23] Then via the Rio Grande Valley. Doyle, as someone said, quote, I don’t confess enough, but if that’s.
Speaker 3 [00:12:37] It was 38 days ago, 9 a.m. February 26th, when they began down here in the tip of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the town of San Juan. They marched northward to Corpus Christi on the Gulf and then to San Antonio and finally to Austin, the state capital.
Raul Alonzo [00:12:51] The union started the march to support a bill they had pushed for. It contained many of the provisions that DFW had sought. Chief among them the creation of a state Agricultural Labor Relations Board, similar to the one won by Chavez and the UFW in California. The Texas Union hoped to gain an audience with Governor Dolph Briscoe and present him with a petition of 500,000 signatures in support of the bill. Aurora Gomez remembers when the marchers passed through Rob Stone, a small community right outside Corpus Christi.
Speaker 6 [00:13:23] They actually stated they came to our house at my mom’s house. We fit in money.
Raul Alonzo [00:13:28] Her family had long been farmworkers. And Aurora says her father, future justice of the peace, Lorenzo Rojas, was eager to.
Speaker 6 [00:13:35] Help. He didn’t want them to stay in the street. And Antonio and I said, No, no, we have to stay in the street. That’s part of the march. It’s like it’s like when you make a promise that you’re going to go see the American and you go in your knees. They that’s what they were doing. They were camping out in the streets.
Raul Alonzo [00:13:55] Aurora, then 13, joined her father on the march the rest of the way to Austin.
Speaker 4 [00:14:01] Kelly when she got this for you? I mean, she said your plan.
Speaker 3 [00:14:08] On Sunday after a mass and then an ecumenical church service, the original marchers were joined by other supporters for a pre march rally. There were nearly 1000 in the group when they headed north up Congress Avenue for the final.
Raul Alonzo [00:14:22] Three miles to the state capitol. Governor Briscoe met with them but would not commit to supporting the bill. The marchers remained in Austin, telling lawmakers why they felt the legislation was necessary.
Speaker 4 [00:14:33] And now we’ve got.
Raul Alonzo [00:14:38] When passage looked unlikely, the marchers began to think bigger. Here’s Joseph Florentine. Antonio Sun, who was with the marchers.
Speaker 2 [00:14:46] They all started kind of joking around, like if he the governor, doesn’t listen to us, well, then let’s take it to the president. You know, let’s just keep the march going.
Raul Alonzo [00:14:53] The union resolved to march again and this time to take their petition to the steps of the White House to try and get an audience with President Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 5 [00:15:02] We had a meeting with the people that were committed to walk. And for three hours, I made arguments about why not to do it.
Raul Alonzo [00:15:09] Here’s Alfredo Avila, who is the organizing director for the Texas Farm Workers Union.
Speaker 5 [00:15:14] It was going to be as long as March and it was going to be extremely difficult. And our members voted that since Carter had come to the rally, which he did, he said the White House was going to be open and be receptive and hear from the voices of all. And they took him for their word.
Raul Alonzo [00:15:28] We will follow their journey from Austin to DC when the Texas standard continues. It’s the Texas standard. I’m Raul Alonso. On June 18th, 1977. About 45 marchers with the Texas Farmworkers Union set out from Austin on a 600 mile route to the nation’s capital.
Speaker 4 [00:16:01] We have that power back.
Raul Alonzo [00:16:05] At the head of the march. Don Gloria took his familiar spot carrying the t f w banner, running ahead of the march and passing out copies of the union’s paper was Julio Gudino. The Mexico born Gudino was known for being an openly gay man in a time and setting when it was still rare. But perhaps what he was most regarded for was the speed at which he moved ahead of the march, wearing just as white arches or even barefoot. It was a trait that inspired artist Luis Guerra, who joined the farm workers on a stretch of the march.
Speaker 7 [00:16:35] When we went through Lake Charles, he was running back and forth and on both sides of the street. And so he was walking 3 or 4 times what everybody else was because he was running back and forth all over the place.
Raul Alonzo [00:16:47] Coronel became one of the farmworkers. Guerra Included in a silkscreen he entitled Hasta la Gloria. But while the print only shows the faces of five people, Guerra says there were many others that inspired him throughout the stretch of the march he took part in.
Speaker 7 [00:17:02] When you look at it, you know there’s somebody coming in from the back and just entering the poster, and there’s people sort of stepping out of it in the front. And that was my way of seeing just a lot more people, you know.
Raul Alonzo [00:17:15] The route brought the marchers far from home. Joseph Orendain celebrated his 14th birthday and route to D.C. He says the 20 miles a day the marchers aimed for was difficult, though. As the union got out of Texas, they encountered more people willing to help them.
Speaker 2 [00:17:30] Once we hit Louisiana, we started the church groups to the Lions Club, the halls. We started staying at halls that actually had showers and places where people would invite us to their homes to go shower.
Speaker 4 [00:17:42] We’ve got people here from all over the state of Mississippi, as far away as Waveland, Mississippi.
Raul Alonzo [00:17:48] All across the south. The marchers met with supporters and civil rights leaders like Coretta Scott King, stopping in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Local organizers highlighted their solidarity with the marchers struggle.
Speaker 4 [00:18:00] Women are not our way to wash them with drugs with you have our complete support.
Raul Alonzo [00:18:06] They also talked about the impact that DFW you had in their own communities.
Speaker 3 [00:18:11] When the farmworkers left Texas on June 18th, we celebrated Juneteenth in Mobile, Alabama, with a festival in support of the Texas farmworkers. And I might say that this was the first. This was the first time a Juneteenth has ever been celebrated in the state of Alabama.
Raul Alonzo [00:18:29] Aurora Gomez and her family didn’t follow the route out of Austin, but they did catch up with the marchers as they neared D.C..
Speaker 6 [00:18:36] It’s like when the people say, I went to Woodstock, you know, and I got over there and I met the Beatles and, well, this is my Beatles, This is mine because I was there. I lived in an.
Raul Alonzo [00:18:50] Almost like Woodstock. Aurora met a musical hero. When Esteban Horton, who composed songs supporting the farm workers, greeted marchers there at the Capitol.
Speaker 4 [00:18:59] And Fisk on Dido bought it head on. I got a gun, but it’s gone. Well, that’s not all.
Speaker 6 [00:19:07] That star. And he was singing the song The Lost Consciousness. And then he made up the other one because he you know, it was campesinos. It was awesome. I mean, something that I’ll never forget.
Unidentified [00:19:19] Never saw Gore. La, la la. That was what they live on now.
Raul Alonzo [00:19:25] After several long months, the marchers entered Washington, D.C., on September 6th, welcomed by supporters and News Campus. But while Orendain had one meeting with Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, a meeting with President Carter eluded him. He and a few other marchers started a water only fast and maintained a 24 hour a day vigil outside the White House. Ten days after they arrived in D.C., the marchers still had not been granted a meeting with Carter. But the administration offered one with the vice president.
Speaker 5 [00:19:57] They kept saying no, so we took the fast. Then afterwards, they decided they wanted to shut us up. So they offered us a meeting with Mondale. And that’s when Mondale said, we’re willing to work on this thing. We’re going to turn around and go deal with this issue the next time around.
Raul Alonzo [00:20:09] But while that assurance from Mondale seemed hopeful, history did not unfold in a favorable way for the marchers. The Iran hostage crisis and Carter’s failed reelection bid ensured that.
Speaker 5 [00:20:21] No one knew they were going to get stuck out there with the hostages and all that and lose the election.
Raul Alonzo [00:20:26] While it isn’t certain why a President Carter declined to meet with the Texas Farmworkers Union marchers. Participants have long speculated that United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez told them not to.
Speaker 5 [00:20:37] It does make a certain amount of sense, though, like if you just kind of piece this together contextually.
Raul Alonzo [00:20:45] Historian Timothy. Bowman says there is no solid evidence that Chavez reached out to Carter. But he does point out that UFW and Afl-cio support was a crucial part of the president’s base.
Speaker 5 [00:20:57] Chavez and the UFW and the Afl-cio supported Carter, right. And a Democratic president in the late 1970s can’t afford to alienate Cesar Chavez.
Raul Alonzo [00:21:11] Whatever the reasons, the Texas farm workers returned home dispirited. But while they did not succeed in gaining an audience with the president, their march raise the profile of the plight of farm workers in the Lone Star State.
Unidentified [00:21:24] For New York and Gandolfini for McCallum. But the bad, bad old sickle needle stalled on Baltimore’s map. And.
Speaker 6 [00:21:40] So this are from when we were under the UFW. This is artists from the Texas Farmworkers. And then this.
Speaker 4 [00:21:46] Was.
Raul Alonzo [00:21:47] Back in Norma Ramirez’s Pharr, Texas home. She shows me memorabilia she’s laid out in her living room for our interview buttons, flags and newspaper clippings among them for that reason.
Speaker 6 [00:21:58] And this was where when we were under the 30 years under Cesar Chavez or the UFW, I kept them all the year. And I had to say this I really don’t care for one because of the history, but I feel like, okay, that had them. I got to keep them, you know?
Raul Alonzo [00:22:12] On a table sits a weathered straw hat that I recognize from earlier.
Speaker 6 [00:22:16] This is my dad’s half the one he would wear. Okay, so how can you say.
Raul Alonzo [00:22:21] Norma has become something of the unofficial keeper of the Texas Farm Workers Union history? She’s spoken about it at the funerals of her father and leader, Antonio Wood and Dean, who died in 2016. I asked her if taking on this impromptu role has been a heavy burden.
Speaker 6 [00:22:36] No, no, no, no, no, no. You know what? What I want is I want this story to be told. I don’t want it to die. That is what I want. And to be honest with you, and like, I guess, like, I went through it and everything. So it’s not so much just to prepare myself. It’s just going back into time. But in my life, this was the best time for me. I mean, this this was my heart.
Speaker 4 [00:23:06] Thank God. Betsy Ambassador on my job. Levi said your last day did your beloved incandescent bulb.
Raul Alonzo [00:23:21] While traces of the Texas Farm Workers Union story can be found in art like that piece by Luis Guerra or in Esteban Haugen songs? What continues to elude its legacy are those more established public fixtures, historical markers, memorials, inclusion in school curriculums. Next time, I’ll take a look at how some who are part of the union’s history feel it’s been intentionally excluded and what it would mean for them to rectify that. Until then, I’m Raul Alonso.
Speaker 4 [00:23:50] Pretty Texas standards down there. See, I thought that any bad blood began on our lives in Austin en masse and got so much more sur la Casa Blanca.
Raul Alonzo [00:24:15] Alejandro Roussel, like the children of many farm workers, grew up with his siblings in the fields. That’s you?
Speaker 7 [00:24:21] Yes, that’s me and my other brother.
Raul Alonzo [00:24:24] Yeah. His father, Hipolito Roselle, worked primarily as a bricklayer in their hometown of Progreso, Texas. But the allure of the money that could be made from farm work in the Midwest brought the family to Lansing, Michigan. One summer when Alejandro was four.
Speaker 7 [00:24:39] At that time, there was no such thing as as care for the children. You know, where where you can leave home in a certain place and they’ll care for you. No, there was no such thing as that. So children were out there in the fields working or playing around.
Raul Alonzo [00:24:58] It was a harmless game until one day.
Speaker 7 [00:25:01] And I always say, Man, that’s the race I should have won. But no, my sister was a little bit older and she kind of got ahead of me and she jumped on the flatbed, but she jumped on the side and the wheel caught her here. And I saw all of that. And I remember just freezing there. I couldn’t move. And so. They we transported her to the hospital. And, you know, I remember clearly how how she kept yelling, Mom, mama, mama. And when they took her inside, they shut the doors and. And I ain’t here anymore. And I knew she was gone. And she died. And. We never went back.
Raul Alonzo [00:26:13] Alejandro says his sister’s death haunted his father for the rest of his life. But when the family returned to Texas, Hipolito met Antonio Brandon, then the head of the Texas UFW, and found an outlet for his grief.
Speaker 7 [00:26:26] That’s what motivated even more for him to to go out there and and advocate for these people.
Raul Alonzo [00:26:36] A master bricklayer, Hipolito, oversaw the construction of the building that became the headquarters for farm workers. And as a memorial to his daughter, Manuela, Hipolito imparted a fixture that still stands at the front of the building, a structure bearing an Aztec eagle, the iconic symbol of the UFW.
Speaker 7 [00:26:55] And it was for in remembrance of my oldest daughter and my sister, Manuela. But there was no label. They never actually put any plaque or anything on it. Bad. I don’t know why my dad would always talk about that. You always say, You know that project right there? Is this from my daughter Manuela.
Raul Alonzo [00:27:17] As a kid, Alejandro participated in the Texas Farm Workers Union after the split and even joined their march to Washington, D.C.. Now he’s a social studies teacher. He often tells his students stories drawn from his memories.
Speaker 7 [00:27:30] I bring my my stuff, my binders, you know, this is all using the community as a learning tool. And what best real experience is stories from perhaps their grandparents, their great, great grandparents.
Raul Alonzo [00:27:45] Alejandro’s classes are an outlier. Covering the t f w u is not listed in the curriculum standards for history or Mexican-American studies courses in Texas public schools, but says that Chavez and the United Farm Workers are.
Speaker 7 [00:27:59] And so kids, when they take a test, this state test at the end of the course exam. They see Cesar Chavez. They don’t see anybody else other than maybe the Ortiz worker.
Raul Alonzo [00:28:11] While Chavez and the UFW loom large over Latino history in the U.S.. Much of their actual work was in California. So how did the UFW make it into the Texas curriculum? But Antonio Walton, Dean and the Texas Farm Workers Union did not.
Speaker 5 [00:28:26] So there are a lot of people at the table who have a lot of subject matter expertise that want to inject a lot of different names.
Raul Alonzo [00:28:33] Marisa Perez Diaz is a Texas State Board of Education member. She says the process for determining who gets included comes down to committee debates.
Speaker 5 [00:28:42] There are a ton of phenomenal individuals who have been incredible in terms of the contributions they’ve made to the US. But if we put all of those names in, we have to think about what that means for instructional time.
Raul Alonzo [00:28:57] But as Diaz says, it also comes down to the makeup of board members. She points out she is one of only two Latinas setting standards for a K through 12 population. That’s at least 50% Latino.
Speaker 5 [00:29:09] I think that what happens oftentimes when we’re looking at specifically ethnic studies courses is, you know, things like the United Farm Workers Union, right? The more national narrative is what’s included, right? It was more on a national stage. And so that’s a little more people understand it. I feel like the Texas the sort of the Texas UFW Texas farmworker story, it highlights a chapter of this state that a lot of people find fascinating because they don’t know it.
Raul Alonzo [00:29:38] Historian Timothy Bowman is currently writing the first book on the DFW view. He says part of the reason the union has been overlooked is that learning about it means getting into some of the more controversial aspects of the history of Chavez and the UFW.
Speaker 5 [00:29:53] They don’t want to remember Cesar Chavez, who was angry or yelled at people or threw people out of the union or whatever.
Raul Alonzo [00:30:00] When the Texas Farm Workers Union and the UFW split the building, Alejandro’s father, Hipolito Rosell, helped build became a main point of contention. The two unions shared the building under tense circumstances until one day when the ITF new members were forcibly evicted. Today, the building houses the nonprofit that started Chavez and Dolores Huerta, founded in San Juan, Texas. The Eagle fixture Ippolito built as a memorial to his daughter. Manuela is still there. New, however, is a plaque dedicated in 2017 with funding from the Delgado County Historical Commission With the seal of the UFW at the top, it talks about the 1966 Starr County strike. The construction of the building and its transfer to the Cesar Chavez Foundation. It doesn’t mention the Texas Farm Workers Union. Alejandro Rosales had seen the plaque from the road but never stopped to take a look. I asked him if he wanted to read it from a photo I’d taken.
Speaker 7 [00:30:55] Wow. It’s. It’s just shocking to see that it’s it’s it’s difficult to absorb.
Raul Alonzo [00:31:07] Despite all this, there has been some recognition of the Texas Farm Workers Union. In 2014, the Museum of South Texas history in Edinburg how they small exhibit of the 1970 7th March. Leader Antonio Audin himself was able to view it. A few years later, Audin Dane’s family and other organizers put together a commemorative march to mark the 50th anniversary of the march to D.C.. But still, Alejandro and others who carry these memories have yet to achieve some of the lasting monuments street names, historical plaques. There were also efforts to get a South Texas school named after Audin, but to no avail. And the years before, the leaders of the Texas Farmworkers Union died, Alejandro says they would get together and reminisce on old times.
Speaker 7 [00:31:54] And they would always tell me, please keep it alive, don’t let it die.
Raul Alonzo [00:31:58] But whether the story of Antonio Warren dying and the Texas Farm Workers Union ever finds a permanent place in the popular consciousness, at least in Texas. In the way, says Art, Chavez and the United Farm Workers has remains to be seen. But in the meantime, those that carried a history with them march on. I’m Raul Alonso. Pretty Texas stand.
Speaker 4 [00:32:28] And I’d say God blessed us and pass on our jobs. Levi said. I said, Did you know he loved you? And that’s down. She got me this health care. My God, Malcolm passed so many meals on the gas and never got.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
