Get inspired by courageous activism! Learn from lifelong activists like 95-year-old Dolores Huerta on using narrative to break through fear and build movements. Description: Need courage? Watch "The People, United" — a gripping short film about everyday Americans standing up to ICE and winning through nonviolent resistance. Created by Ellen Gavin and presented in collaboration with the Dolores Huerta Foundation and People for the American Way, the video is a powerful example of storytelling as an organizing tool. Hear how narratives shatter fear and build movements. “. . . In the farm, we didn't respond with violence . . . César [Chávez] fasted for 25 days and then 36 days . . . The other side, they want us to respond with violence, and we can respond with non-violence because they would like to have martial law for the whole country. So we've really got to have a lot of discipline now.” - Dolores Huerta Guests: • Ellen Gavin: Writer, Director, Producer: The People, United; Founder, Gavin Creative Collab • Dolores Huerta: Co-founder of the United Farm Workers; Founder & President, The Dolores Huerta Foundation Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters. Become a member today, go to https://Patreon.com/LauraFlandersandFriends Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel October 19th, and on over 300 public stations across the country. Listen: Episode airing on community radio October 22nd & available as a podcast.
Synopsis: In a conversation that spans decades of activism, Ellen Gavin and Dolores Huerta join Laura Flanders to discuss the role of narratives in breaking down silos and fears, highlighting the impact of storytelling on building movements and inspiring courage in the face of adversity.
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Description: People are taking to the streets and calling out fascism in bold, unique ways, but we’re not all there yet. If you need some encouragement, watch "The People, United" — a gripping short film about everyday Americans standing up to ICE and winning through nonviolent resistance. Created by Ellen Gavin and presented in collaboration with the Dolores Huerta Foundation and People for the American Way, the video is a powerful example of storytelling as an organizing tool. In this episode, lifelong activists and old friends Ellen Gavin and Dolores Huerta join Laura Flanders to explore how narratives help break through our silos and fears under this second Trump administration. Gavin's works as a writer, director, producer have brought millions of views to social justice storytelling; she is also founder of Gavin Creative Collab and founding artistic director of Brava! for Women in the Arts. Huerta is co-founder of the United Farm Workers alongside César Chávez and founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Still organizing at 95 years old, she is recognized as one of the most influential labor organizers of the twentieth century and coined the iconic rallying cry “Si Se Puede.” She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. Find out how narratives shatter fear and build movements, plus a commentary from Laura.
“. . . We want people to be on our team. We want people to be touched in a way that says, ‘I want to be that neighbor. I want to be that helper. I want to be that person who sees something and does something instead of reacts with fear.’ When they say that fear is contagious, and then they say, courage is contagious.” - Ellen Gavin
“. . . In the farm, we didn't respond with violence . . . César [Chávez] fasted for 25 days and then 36 days . . . The other side, they want us to respond with violence, and we can respond with non-violence because they would like to have martial law for the whole country. So we've really got to have a lot of discipline now.” - Dolores Huerta
Guests:
• Ellen Gavin: Writer, Director, Producer: The People, United; Founder, Gavin Creative Collab
• Dolores Huerta: Co-founder of the United Farm Workers; Founder & President, The Dolores Huerta Foundation
Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
Watch the special report on YouTube; PBS World Channel October 19th, and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio October 22nd (check here to see if your station is airing the show) & available as a podcast.
RESOURCES:
Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:
• Farm Workers to Farm Owners- Watch / Listen: Episode
• These Films Keep People Out of Prison- Watch / Listen: Episode
• Jacqueline Woodson & Catherine Gund: Breathing Through Chaos & the “Meanwhile”- Watch / Listen: Episode and Full Uncut Conversation
• Mamdani, Black Farmers, USDA & ICE: The Stories BIPOC Journalists Uncover- Watch / Listen: Episode and Full Uncut Conversation
Related Articles and Resources:
• California City Residents Denounce Plan to Build State’s Largest Immigrant Detention Center, by ACoM, August 4, 2025, American Community Media
• Dolores Huerta Leads Protest Against California’s Largest Planned ICE Detention Center, by Steve Virgen, CA Neighborhood Reporter, July 30, 2025, 23ABC News KERO
• Forbes Power Women’s Summit 2025: Building What’s Next, September 25, 2025, Forbes
• About el Teatro Campesino’s Luis Valdez, Founding Artistic Director
Full Episode Notes are located HERE.
Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper
Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
CHAPTERS:
00:00:00
Introducing 'The People, United' and Guests' Initial Reflections
00:00:00
Why Narrative and Civil Disobedience Inspire Action
00:03:09
Dolores Huerta on Current Fascism and Community Impact
00:06:18
How the Grape Boycott United People for Justice
00:10:04
Overcoming Fear Through Non-Violent Action and Values
00:13:30
Lessons on Courage and Non-Violent Protection
00:20:16
Non-Violent Discipline and the Role of Culture
00:25:49
Practical Advice for Engaging in Activism and Elections
00:31:07
Reimagining Society Beyond Prisons and Towards Justice
00:36:40
0:00
123 While our weekly shows are edited at a time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full, uncut conversation.
These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
0:24
If you haven't seen it yet, you may soon.
The theatre artist behind a series of election year shorts, imagining Life under Project 2025 is out with a new short video, this time imagining community resistance to an ice raid.
It's being released this month by People for the American Way and will be all over social media.
0:44
A few weeks ago I had a chance to talk with the writer and director behind the film, Ellen Gavin, as well as one of the women who appears in it, the now 95 year old extraordinaire, Dolores Huerta, Co founder of the United Farm Workers and founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
1:03
I had a chance to sit down with the writer and director behind the film, producer Ellen Gavin, as well as one of the participants, Dolores Huerta, a few weeks ago in Ellen's New York home.
Huerta is Co founder of the United Farm Workers and founder and president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
1:20
This is not their first collaboration, but it may be the most most urgent.
It is such a pleasure to be with the two of you.
Really.
Ellen Gammon, Dolores Huerta.
It is my honor.
I sometimes find it helpful for myself as much as my guests to just begin by settling ourselves into the conversation, by thinking of who who we bringing in with us to this conversation right now?
1:44
Who's uppermost in your mind or or on your heart as we begin to speak, Dolores?
Well, I'm thinking of all of the women out there that are trying to make the world a better place and all of the efforts that there's doing.
And I'm talking about all levels from the service levels of supporting women, making lives better for them, to the political level.
2:09
And I have recently been saying that we will never have peace in the world until feminists take power.
And the reason I say feminists because although we say truly all women, we know that not all women are feminists.
2:26
Got it.
What about you, Ellen?
Who you thinking about as we?
Begin oh, you know, given the topic of today, I'm thinking about all those families and children and hard working immigrants that are living in fear, that don't understand what's happening in this country, don't understand how we went from this to this overnight.
2:47
I'm also thinking of the crew that that we made this this film with multicultural, young dedicated people and also many of them affected as well by what's happening.
So they're the team, which is pretty big.
3:05
And yeah, so we're hoping to make a little difference in the world.
How did you 2 connect?
Who wants to start Ella?
Oh my goodness.
We've been knowing each other for a couple of decades.
We've worked on campaigns together.
We didn't.
We went to Texas together at one point for Beto O'Rourke and did a tour of the Rio Grande Valley.
3:23
We've had events in my home in Los Angeles.
I'm a big supporter of what Dolores is doing with her foundation, and she's building a new center, so she's family.
And also when Ellen was in Berkeley, I mean, it's in San Francisco, yes, I brought a theater, yes, was able to go to some of the great events that they had there, some of the great plays that they had with Sri Moraga and other people.
3:48
Well, that's the common theme that we're going to talk about today, which is the role of narrative and theater and performance and this extraordinary, powerful video that the two of you have made together.
There's so much shouting out there right now and fist waving and argument.
4:08
That's one way that people think is effective to communicate.
You 2 are not competing in that particular arena.
Why?
Why did you not choose to just make a, you know, data-driven fight?
Fight is on kind of video.
4:24
Well, you know, I've been doing theater for 2530 years and I'm a writer and I also was having events in my life that were formulating what I wanted to do.
A friend of mine was had a construction project in her house and the the foreman actually they were moving a glass shower curtain, a shower door and they were rested by ice and that shatter and that glass shattered to the ground and they heard that on the phone.
4:51
That was their warning that this is what was going on.
I recently, you know, have been thinking a lot about Japanese internment and how that, how that was happening now is reflective of that.
And my own father was a World War 2 veteran.
And so I kind of put him in the story as well because we're asking these young women and men from across the country to do something that we've never had done before, which is to turn on the American people.
5:16
And so I thought it was important that we try to say something to them.
And the notion of speaking from the heart instead of I.
I have such a difficult time looking at one more violent video of ICE agents throwing someone to the ground and, and trying to resist.
5:31
But how, how, how when they're armed and they have masks on and they're but we've seen across the country these ways that communities are resisting.
And so the whole notion that we could actually come up with some resistance that is in the form of civil disobedience and protecting each other just move me to think about, OK, can we put something together that will touch people?
5:53
And, you know, I called Dolores and she is so amazing and committed.
I'm coming.
So it's a, it's a group effort and and, and you know, the extras were some of the community organizers and some of the members of the of the crew are in the extra pool.
6:09
And so it feels to me like touching people's heart, as you have said, can get them to move their feet.
What about you, Dolores?
Why?
Why this narrative style and why this beautiful video?
Video of the people together.
6:25
Well, we're in a very critical moment in our country, in the United States of America, but we see the fascism has moved in to our country and that is taking place.
And that has been carried out in Bakersfield, CA, which was the 1st place where I live that these ICE raids happen.
6:44
They arrested 90 people.
Only one person had any kind of a criminal record, and we don't know what that is.
It could have been that they call the border without documents, a petty theft, a high, a traffic jacket, who knows?
But this whole criminalization of the Latino community is, is horrific.
7:05
It's horrific.
And, and the brutality with which they are treating the immigrants right now, creating it's chaos and fear and the devastation of the economy, the economy in the Latino community.
And when we think of not only the loss of income that all of these businesses are not receiving right now, the fact that people that are not being able to work or not paying into social, it's just Social Security, taxation, et cetera.
7:32
And down in Los Angeles right now, over St. which was the heart of the Latino community is now empty.
Businesses are closing.
I mean, so the economic devastation and, and also the impact on people's lives because people are terrified.
7:49
They're afraid to go out.
And you know, these are decent people.
They talk about criminal, but the people they're arrested are farm workers, their nannies, people that take care of our children, you know, people that work in construction and hotels, you know, doing the service work that that keeps our country safe and clean, you know, and fed.
8:09
So this whole lie that people that were attacking people because they're criminals, it's just, it's just a lie.
And it's just straight outright racism, straight outright fascism.
How does it differ from what you came up under?
8:26
Because this is not the first time you've been involved in a struggle like this.
For human rights, for humanity, for rules and civil rights and justice, you name it.
What's different about this moment that causes you to apply that word fascist, which I don't remember you using 30 years ago, 40 years ago?
8:43
Well, I'm because this is what is happening right now when people have no, their rights have been taken away from them completely.
The people are being put into detention centers.
Way back in the 50s when they had an operation, went back as they called it, you know, people were being repatriated to the countries that they came from.
9:01
They were not being put in prisons.
And you have all of these prisons that are being opened up now where they have what, $41 billion or 47 billion that has been actually appropriated.
I just took to arrest people and to detain them and to open up more prisons.
9:20
This is absolutely crazy one.
At the same time, we know that we have people that are homeless and people that need housing, people that need food.
And you see, again, all of these benefits that we have fought so hard to to gain, like Medicaid there, that's being cut, cut, you know, education for disabled people that is being cut, food stamps that are being cut.
9:42
The the elderly are also being attacked in so many ways.
So, so we have all of this attack on the working people and poor people in our country.
And yes, so we could have more money for the billionaires.
That is totally wrong.
And if that isn't fascism, I don't know what that looks like.
10:04
You talked about you talked about things that had been won, gains that had been made.
And I want to just go into that for a second.
I think we were talking before when we were considering this interview about, you know, how so many of us of our generation, I'm in my 60s, remember the great boycott.
10:24
We remember the campaigns of our youth because they had a certain kind of resonance that was different from just an argument.
How would you put your finger on that that difference if you do you remember the the grape boy Count Ellen?
Of course I do.
I remember looking going and I, I looking at grapes in a, in a store was like looking at illicit drugs or something.
10:45
I don't think I had a grape for decades, so decades.
But here's the thing, and I'm hoping this is what we can do and contribute a little bit is we want people to be on our team.
We want people to be touched in a way that says, I want to be that neighbor.
11:01
I want to be that helper.
I want to be that person who sees something and does something instead of reacts with fear when they say that fear is contagious and then they say courage is contagious.
I want to be on that team.
And I think that's what we had with with Dolores and the and the great boycott, which was I want to be on that team.
11:17
I don't want to be on the team that is supporting this inequity and this and this ugliness and this hatred.
So this is what we're we're we're trying to do in our small way, People for the American Way and United We Dream with a little assist from the ACLU are going to be launching this video.
11:33
And what was so delightful was to show these different stories through different characters and all of us as Americans and say what are American values?
Norman Lear founded it, People for the American Way by saying the American way is justice, due process, neighborliness, kindness.
11:54
So again, we're asking people, what kind of an American are you?
I want to be that kind of American.
Will you put your finger on it?
Because we talk about the boycott, the great boycott, your idea, Dolores.
But at the time, it was a departure from the standard strike strategies and it really did give consumers and everybody an opportunity to participate.
12:16
How did you come up with that idea?
Where did it emerge from and and how do you think about its effectiveness now?
Well, we had been on strike for some time and actually it was, this is turning from San Francisco's to Weinberg, who said to us, have you ever thought of doing a boycott?
12:33
And so we said, well, could you, could you explain that a little bit more?
Although we do know that the boycott came.
I think it's an Irish word and that it's always existed about, you know, people was starting with a Boston Tea Party, you know, and, and, and the word for independence of the United States of America.
12:50
And he told us that they had they were doing a boycott of San Francisco with a car dealerships organization called Cor Yeah, was, was doing that.
And so he said, OK, well, we'll try that for, we'll try that for, for the boycott for, for the farm workers.
And so the first boycott was against this liquor company called Schenley.
13:09
And then we put in these other liquor companies, Almaden, you know, Franzia.
And so we were able to get these contracts right away because they were the the grape goers.
They were growing the grapes for those wine companies.
They said, OK, we'll, we'll sign the contracts, you know, after we organize the workers.
13:27
And so that was kind of the beginning of the great boycott.
Yeah.
There have been so many efforts in, in the last decades about, you know, fighting for women's rights, you know, fighting for civil rights, fighting for Latino rights.
And we have seen that that it took so long to get some of these advances that we have, like giving, you know, women's reproductive rights of women's right, right to abortion.
13:51
And then we see that all of these are being rolled back and how how to trying to get letting put this way, doing a wave with the legacy of slavery, because this is where all this comes down to, you know, workers rights.
14:07
And now we see that the National Liberal Relations Board is pretty but but been wiped out that they have reversed Roe versus Wade.
You know that they that's been taken away from us.
So we see so many things that the people Marsh empowerment to jail for and people were killed for civil rights, the right to vote.
14:28
They're being I'd be taken away from us.
So I think we're a very, very critical time in our country right now.
And the but the visible, what we see now, the visible assault is on the Latino community basically.
And the Supreme Court decision that says that they can stop and then interrogate, investigate somebody just because of the color of the skin or the language that they speak or the jobs that they work in, then we can see that this is definitely fascism at work.
15:00
So how do we communicate?
And this gets to your video, The People United.
How do we get beyond what many people's reaction to all of this is, is if they have any privilege at all to say, well, I'm going to stay over here so that I don't get swept up and all of that that's happening over there.
15:18
How do we get people to drop out of their their silos, if you will?
Because we've all heard the saying, first they came for XXX and I did nothing.
And then when they came for me, there was no one.
But we don't act on it.
Well, I, I believe that people are reacting right now.
15:37
I think we saw when they had the, the big March on No Kings day with five million Americans came out there to protest.
And we see many people in the angle community that are now saying, no, I, I don't want to see my, my babysitter taken away and put it into a detention center because she happens to be an immigrant.
15:57
So I, I see signs of hope there.
But we know a lot of people are still saying what can I do, what can I do?
Of course, one of the things that we say to people, well, the one thing major thing we have to do is we have to get out there and register to vote and vote to California.
We're doing this Proposition 50.
16:14
We're going to try to change the redistricting line so that we can get more liberal people, more Democrats elected to the US Congress and then be ready for the 2026 elections.
So that's one thing that people can do is support Proposition 50, California, and I think it may be happening in other states also.
16:31
But the other thing too is not to be afraid to go out there and protest and March and stand by, you know, stand by and do pretty much what the video tells us to do.
Don't be afraid.
Get out there and protect people that are being arrested and detained.
16:48
Alan, what would you add?
Yes, I think that what what we tried to do with the video is show that history, our own history of interning Japanese Americans during World War 2, which was unconscionable.
There's a Holocaust survivor in this video who, you know, the video is first they, you know, like people disappeared in the middle of the night.
17:14
First they came for these folks and then they came for me.
Well, this is the time we all have to understand that they're coming for all of us.
So taking action to find you can find a demonstration at any weekend you can find you can go to the big ones, which really matters.
17:35
The 5 million that's coming up in October.
Go in the streets with your children, with your friends, with your family, interrupt something that you see.
I mean, I'm I'm just thrilled to see that there are people that are chasing down in the streets of Washington DC.
People were being chased, chasing down ice agents in groups just though chanting at them.
17:55
And also what's so beautiful, I think about our video is that and we have the blessing of the Woody Guthrie family to use this land of your land.
And in the end, music, civil disobedience is a silence as they're being escorted out.
18:12
It doesn't have to be a violent response.
It shouldn't be a violent response.
It should be a non violent response.
But we've got the culture, the songs, the heart, the empathy, a good word, empathy on our side.
And what I love about it too is that you have a in, in the video, World War 2 that come in with the tickets for the soccer game with a guy that you just saw was being profiled for his tattoos as a gangster, when actually he had done 3 tours of Afghanistan.
18:42
And their friends, their family, multicultural, multigenerational world that we all want to live in is there.
We have it.
We just have to embrace it and embrace the American values that support it.
We're all connected.
And the thing that really, I mean, bothers me so much is that I felt like we came out of the pandemic, we were having a, we were having an economic surge, we were having an economic surge and we were finally maybe able to address some really innovative stuff happening with unhoused people.
19:15
We have, you know, expanding healthcare.
All those things were on the move and then this retrenchment, we just have to say absolutely no.
We say no and we're going to get in the street until we overcome this.
Hi, it's Laura.
19:33
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20:00
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Now back to our full Unka conversation.
The other thing that we had coming out of the pandemic was a sense of appreciation of people that we hadn't appreciated as a culture elite America had not appreciated so-called emergency workers, essential workers, the farm workers, the grocery store workers, the medical workers.
20:35
And there was that instinct that we saw in this city and so many to support them to bank pots at 7:00 to express a caring.
And more than anything, that's what pains me is that we would expressing a caring that could have been built on.
20:51
And instead we've moved in such a different direction and a direction that feels so frightening to so many people.
So one question for you, Dolores, and both of you, I'd love to hear.
It's like speak to people who really do feel afraid because in my experience, and I think we've all been in this, none of us as long as you, Dolores, if you can join with others, there is a strength that comes.
21:15
But getting into that connection is the challenge.
And I think that's what the People United video is getting at.
But in your experience as a long time organizer, how do you get someone from being scared in their room to being outside smiling behind you in a demonstration or at a lobbying day on Capitol?
21:35
Hill Well, I think the pandemic taught us one thing, that we have to protect each other, that that we have to cooperate.
We have to take actions to protect each other.
And so that is the lesson that we have to that is in front of us right now.
And I like to say, imagine had we been in Nazi Germany in the 30s or the 40s, OK, what would we have done to protect Anne Frank?
22:01
We would have gone out of our way to do anything that we could.
We'll, this is the situation that we're in right now and we are seeing the beginnings of it.
And we know it's going to get worse.
And we know that the only way this can be stopped, it's going to take every single one of us.
22:17
As again, during the pandemic that everybody had to protect everybody, that now we have to protect the vulnerable people in our community and to know because at some point we are in that line that we're also going to be hurt, you know, and so we have to step up and not be afraid.
22:33
And it, it just take a, a little bit of courage, you know, But when we see what we're facing and when we see that our constitutional rights are being wiped away, it's, it's, you know, I like to say people, you know, we, we had the War of Independence where in our country people fought and died so that we could have our own country, that we could elect our own representatives.
22:56
And then we had the Civil War, you know, which by the way, I have a great grandfather that was in the Civil War on the Union side by, you know, we were fighting to get away from slavery, you know, And so we had these two way where we had World War 2 when millions of people died during that war again, so that we would not have fascism to to we would have democracy.
23:17
Hey, it's our turn now.
It's our turn now.
And you know, we don't have to carry a gun.
None of us are supposedly will not have to to go out there and and and die for this, but we have to take action.
You say them and you have.
Actions that that we can take.
23:33
You say that and you have this big beaming smile on your face.
And I think also of your slogan, Si SE Puede.
That positive vision of what it is like to be in movement is another thing you're conveying in the video.
Do you think?
I mean, this is a leading question, but do you think haranguing people into action works?
23:52
Well, I was just thinking about Dolores when you said that about we're not having a gun and just think about she lost her spleen and then in a demonstration in San Francisco with a cop that beat her.
So people have given a lot, you know, and and you know, we talk about non violence, but we're facing a violent situation here, you know, so, but I wouldn't say that in the video there are four women and I didn't even realize until after it was made over 90.
24:20
Well, the Holocaust survivor, the Japanese internment survivor, the the woman who's being victimized, Mexicana and Dolores, 4 women who turned the whole situation around, who provide information, know your rights, who say, where's the warrant signed by a judge.
24:39
Very slow, very simple, very direct.
And then the the chanting, the beautiful chanting from Dolores leading the leading this, this team of younger people, you know that all the young folks that came out as extras.
So that wasn't conscious choice on your part, which having four women and then it was conscious.
24:57
It was unconscious.
It was like, you know what I mean?
Like I didn't stop and think with other ones taking action, you know, and also a 90 year old man.
But the, the fact that the lessons of history is what I was trying to say, the lessons of history, people have lived this and know and can see what's coming and can say we're doing something about it.
25:16
What I love about Los Angeles is it has unified us.
Karen Bass has been a leader.
People have come out, it has unified us.
And it feels like that the, the, you know, it's almost laughable when he sends in the National Guard and it's like a block of somebody threw a sandwich or, you know, there was a fire, you know, one car set on fire.
25:36
Please.
You know, the, the, the truth is that Los Angeles was unified and the country is unified against this.
We have to demonstrate it, and it has to be demonstrated by numbers.
Well, the country is divided, to be fair.
We'd like to believe it's more unified that it is.
25:54
Yeah.
And we've seen expressions of unity.
I'm thinking of Chicago and Governor Pritzker coming out with all of the Democrats behind him.
We don't have that in New York.
We have division in New York, and we have, in the wake of the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, we have those divisions playing out with guns, this one, blaming that one for the climate that is undeniably violent.
26:22
Coming back to you, Dolores, it wasn't as if, and you've mentioned this, it wasn't as if the early days of your organizing were not violent days, that violence against you was real.
Yeah, we had the five people killed in the farmer good movement.
You know, the first one was a young Jewish girl, Nan Friedman from Boston.
26:41
The second one was a Muslim, Najidai father.
And then we had three other farmers.
There were there were Catholics that were killed, you know, killed how not?
Well, they were killed.
Nan Friedman was run down by a truck in a strike that we had in Florida, shook the cane strike.
And Nanja Daipala was killed by a deputy sherp in Kern County.
27:00
He hit him on the head with a big battery and had a concussion and he got from the concussion.
Juan de la Cruz was killed by a strike breaker who actually shot him in the heart with a gun.
Rupino Contreras also was shot by bullets.
27:17
You know, when they went in to talk to some strike Breakers, Renee Lopez and the youngest 1, he was some one of the goers, brought up some goons and he actually called him over to the window of a car to talk to him, put a gun at this temple and shot him in the temple because they won the election for a union representation.
27:39
Very brutal killings that they had all, all five of them.
But in the farm market, we didn't respond with violence.
You know, it was very hard.
We all fasted for three days after one of our martyrs were killed.
And it's, you know, Cesar fasted for 25 days and then 36 days.
27:57
But we always wanted to respond with nonviolent.
And that's what we have to do now because the other side, they want us to respond with violence, if we can respond with nonviolence, because they would like to have martial law for the whole country, for the whole United States of America.
28:13
So we've really got to have a lot of discipline now.
And in spite of the anger or the fear that we feel, we've got to respond, to respond with nonviolent.
Let's follow them.
The lessons of Gandhi, who liberated India with nonviolence, OK dot.
28:29
Martin Luther King, Junior and Cesar Chavez.
OK, Dorothy Day, another one.
Let's respond with gun violence.
This is a way that we can win.
Another tactic, thank you for that, Dolores.
Another tactic that you used in the fields in those early days that I think of in the context of our discussion today about empathy and narrative was theater, the Tiato de Camposino with Luis Valdez.
28:53
What was the role that that played and what was that for people that don't know?
Well, culture is so important.
The songs that theater the colony to keep our spirits alive so that we do not, we were not drawn into despair.
We don't want to do that or or people feel helpless if there's nothing that we can do.
29:12
One thing about theatre, it not only teaches us, it keeps us alive.
It energizes us.
It gives us that inspiration that we need to keep on going.
You brought people with flatbed trucks into the fields to perform?
Yeah.
Yeah, yes.
In fact, that's even happening now in Los Angeles as some of the some of the groups that are like it was a they're actually going into the fields with the music where the farm workers have a lot of fear right now.
29:38
They're actually just going into the field flat backed truck and playing for the workers.
You've used theater, but you've also been an activist for years.
The 2 are not that distinct, but other stories you want to share of how they've come together in your lawyer?
29:57
I think about it, you know, I did some work in 2010, I think it was I worked on a a social soap opera in Nicaragua and it was a Amy Bank was the producer and we it was a 26 episode series of storylines that were that were actually educating while they were acting as a soap opera.
30:16
So people were watching it literally five nights a week, five nights a week that was on and dealt with LGBTQ rights and violence against women.
And and I always remember back to the day when Alan Bolt, who was another legendary theatre artist in Nicaragua, used to go into the into the fields and do work around domestic violence.
30:35
And at one point he would have people acting out a scene and a compassino would get up and say, Compermiso Senor stop.
He would interrupt the violent act because he had no idea it was theater.
He thought it was real.
And he said, please no, not in this community.
30:54
And is there anything more powerful than that?
To have somebody literally think it was real and say, this is not what we do and a member of the community that you're trying to educate.
So there's so many wonderful ways to use it.
You know, you want to touch people's hearts.
31:10
And I think touching people's hearts in a community setting, you know, I mean, I love live theater because you're in a room and you're having a virtually religious experience with people.
But I think also there's this short format.
I mean, there's not a person I have shown this to that doesn't have a tear in their eye when Dolores is leading everyone in singing and chanting.
31:31
And that's the spirit that we need to nurture.
So talk a bit about how you'll be using the People United the video.
Well, it's going to be broadcast on all social platforms by people of the American Way and United We Dream.
And I love that because it's 2 cross organizations.
31:48
And then the AC ACLU was talking about also reposting it and maybe doing some events.
They would like the two of us to be on a in a live stream together talking about this in a virtual town hall after they show the film.
So many, many ways.
32:04
And then we're going to be asking some of our celebrities to repost.
The idea these days is to go viral and have as many people as you can see it.
I mean, I produced the video called State Line that you had featured in another show that got 16 million views.
And that was before Trump was elected.
32:22
But it was showing precisely what would happen.
And we did another one called The Pledge.
And the young after who is in this video was in that one where he was recruited to then be a part of ICE.
And in that one, we basically had these these military people pledging to Trump and he will deport, detain, arrest, everything that he's doing was in that video.
32:43
So there is a way that if you are putting your fears and your aspirations out ahead of time, you know that you can ring a bell of warning or ask people to mobilize.
And I mean, I forget what there's a, there's a number, which is when with fascism, where you get to, I think they say 3 percent, 3% percent of the population has participated in some kind of direct action in the street.
33:07
And we need 3% of the people in the street now.
And so that's, that's I think the direction to go in.
And I am losing patience for people that can't figure out what to do.
Get on the Google machine and find the demonstration in your neighborhood or find the group in your neighborhood.
33:26
Or I have friends in LA who are driving and buying groceries for people who are afraid to leave their home or taking children to school because their parents are afraid to take them.
I mean, this is terrible and we can all find a way to push back against.
It your advice, Dolores, to people that don't have your long organizing experience and may have in their own families or in their workplaces, people who are participating in something that maybe doesn't feel right to them.
33:55
Maybe they signed up to be part of ICE in this new effort to recruit people with offering them great bonuses and they don't have a lot of other options in their lives.
Or maybe they've just always voted Republican and they're always going to vote Republican.
Or maybe they've been told that Trump really will eventually bring their economy back.
34:14
How do you get to them?
And what's your advice to people born of your years of organizing?
Well, I think we have to have a lot of patience and the one thing we do not want to start hating people that are not on our side, so to speak, you know, and having that patience with them and, and let's talk to them.
34:35
And we may think, well, they're not paying attention or they're not listening.
But The thing is you're planting that seed of justice into their into their minds, OK.
And it may take a little while for that seed to germinate and to actually boom, you know, so that they they will see what's actually going on.
34:55
But I think it, it takes a lot of patience to do that.
But but we should not feel deterred or somehow we should feel that we, we can't talk because they're not on our quote up or on our side that we have to do this.
You know, this is what we have visible as organizers.
35:13
This is what we have to do and get two or three people that we can.
And the other thing is the people that are not yet active, we've got to get them to participate in somewhere form or the other.
And so each one of us should see ourselves as a recruiter and recruit two or three people that, you know, ask them to recruit two or three people that they know.
35:31
And this is a way that we build our numbers because we know it's going to take a lot of us to fight the power right now that we see is, is is in place in the United States of America right now.
And life elections is that we say elections are coming up like the special elections going on right now and the elections in Arizona where Adelita Kirihalo is running for the Congress as Congresswoman Goodihalgar's daughter.
35:57
He passed away.
And so we have this special election and then start organizing for the elections in 2026.
We have we have a a way we can think about what's happening in 2026.
We get a new Congress.
Then we can have some kind of a guardrail against what what Trump is doing, some kind of a guardrail of what the Supreme Court is doing against us right now.
36:19
And this is some of the work that what the Dolores Huerta Foundation is doing.
Yes, exactly.
And we do it, you know, house by house going, knocking on doors, doing house wings and doing human billboarding.
We're going to be up to holding signs out there in the street, passing, you know, thousands of leaflets out there in the street, at grocery stores, at churches, any place where people gather, you know, guess you just do all of that outreach mobilization that needs to be done.
36:47
We're getting to a close, but I don't want to end without giving you a chance to talk about what's happening in Bakersfield.
I'm not sure how much we'll be able to get into it, but there's a huge detention center being built near where your operations are headquartered in Bakersfield.
What is that detention center like been like for you to protest it and is there a chance of stopping?
37:08
It, well, it's actually California City, which is actually up in the Mojave Desert.
And this is a detention center.
This it was a state detention center that was closed, OK, that big was uninhabitable.
Now they've opened it up to bring immigrants in there.
37:24
And as far as we know right now, they have been housing immigrants that have been arrested and detained, but without any permits.
So we're meeting, we've met with the Planning Commission, we've met with the City Council.
Show us the documents, show us the documents that show that you actually have the authority to open this detention center.
37:44
And the group, the core Civic that is opening this detention center is one of the organizations that has a lot of complaints against them, a lot of lawsuits against them.
People have died in their detention centers.
They're very unsanitary.
37:59
They're they, they have a really, really bad reputation to begin with.
And, and the other thing that we have to think about the growth of the prison industrial complex, that 45 or $47 billion that they have appropriated under Trump's leadership to have more detention centers and more prisons.
38:20
I mean, this is wrong.
And that's something we as American citizens have to think about.
Do we want our tax dollars going into keeping people in prison?
I mean, in California, our high school budget is less than the prison budget.
38:36
And this is happening everywhere.
We have more people in prison in the United States of America than they do in India or China.
And those countries have billions of people in the population.
We only have 300 million.
How is it that we have more people in prison than they do?
38:52
This is an industry that needs to be.
Stopped.
I end all of these conversations by asking my guests what they think.
The story is that the future will tell of this moment.
So I don't know, Ellen, if if you want to look forward 2550, a hundred years, what do you think is the story the future will tell about us?
39:10
I think what has happened here is that the kind of ugly underbelly of the country has been completely exposed and in concentrate, concentrated form.
It's terrible because if they win, we're, we're over.
39:28
But it's also an opportunity.
And I really see it as once it's been exposed, we can just shine the sunlight on it.
We can get our act together.
We can own up to it.
We have to look at the history of racism in this country, which is the foundational aspect of fascism is racism.
39:45
We have to deal with it.
We have to own it.
We have to understand, we have to teach it.
But I really believe we're going to come out the other end of much better country.
I think I, I, I feel like I can see it and I think it could happen pretty quickly.
Yet we could dip our toes into fascism and say we don't like it, we're out of here.
40:02
We're not doing this again.
I mean, it's hard work to do to make it hold.
But if we just go back to democratic principles and fairness and equality, we can get there.
And I just truly believe, believe this and and we just might look back on it and say, wow, that was a close call, but we got out of it because we mobilized.
40:24
What do you think, Dolores?
Well, I, I agree with Ellen and I think it will, we'll look back into history during the Depression and people that didn't have work.
It was a really bad time in the United States of America.
But after the Depression, what did we get?
We got welfare programs, we got labor.
40:41
Labor unions had the right to organize.
We got Social Security and then we had what happened during World War 2.
And again, coming out of that, you know, we had really good things that came out after World War 2.
And so we see the good things come out of bad things that happened.
40:58
So the civil rights movement in the 70s and where we got the women's movement, LGBTQ movement, you know, the Chicano movement, the environmental movement, all came out of this.
And now we know what we need in our country.
We are the richest country in the world.
41:14
There is no reason why we don't have universal health care.
There's no reason why we shouldn't have free college education.
Every country in Europe has of this except the United States of America, OK.
And we are the richest country in the world, you know, so free childcare for every family here.
41:33
These are the things that we have to start working for.
And you know, again, we, we could, we can see it, we can taste it.
We know it's possible and we have to start working for them and all of those billionaires out there, we've got to make them responsible so that they have to pay their share of taxes.
41:51
And I've like, I mean, their share all of the business that they're making, you know, there's no reason why we should have the poverty that we have in the United States of America and we can make it happen.
And I like just say again, I'm going to repeat, as I said, as I said at the very beginning, we know that we will never have peace in the world until feminists take power.
42:12
And when I say feminists, that's that's not just the women.
That includes men who are feminists.
I have to ask you, what does feminists mean to you?
Yeah, What does it mean to you?
It means people that believe in justice, people leave, people that believe that we are all equal, so to speak, you know?
42:29
And what I mean by that, I mean no racism, no sexism, no homophobia, and take all the hatred out of society.
And again, when I talk about feminists, what, what, what do we believe in?
We believe in justice #1 we believe in cooperation, not competition.
42:47
We believe in Sherry.
You know, if we could think of a role where we actually are able to use our resources to help each other out, you know, and instead of competition that we share what we have, then I think it takes away a lot of the antagonism that we have, a lot of the hatred.
43:07
Let's share what we have.
No, let's not just compete.
Thank you too, really what a pleasure to talk.
To you today.
The People United people will be able to catch it wherever they are online streaming, share it, pass it around.
43:25
Thank you for putting this beautiful work together and for spending this time with Laura Flanders from France.
Thank you.
Thank.
You thanks for taking the time to listen to the full conversation.
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43:41
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43:56
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