The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 472 - The A-Team

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine the Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower program.SourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. Mr. Jones and me tell each other fairy tales and everybody will ask you. There's no way I'm not living this in the

recording. That would have been me. No, no, no, it's listening to me and Mr. Jones and me tell each other riddles too and everybody are to use Mr. Jones. You're listening to the dollop on the All Things Comedy Network. This is a bilingual American History podcast for each week. I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American History to my friend. Mr. Jones and me, oh sorry, Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. Now on a personal note have they opened Jose's school up again? They have but he still wants to do online. He likes to be home. He wants to do online classes still. So is that permanent? Like

is he making a permanent switch or and what happens with an online cat class? It's you know I mean it's you have the instructor and then the other cats and you know they just go through different things they have to learn about. Why you claw the walls? What's inside the walls and why do you climb them? Why does wicker feel so good on your nails, your claws and things like that? How to lick your butt and how to still feel like you can if you can't get there perfect like if you're still like a centimeter short even though you've been losing weight for a couple years and you still can't fully get

tongue-to-be-hole connection. How to not feel shame about that? That's Jose's in that class. So there's no math? There's no math. And called it quote his jam pass. I'm the fucking hippo guy. My name's Gary. Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tigglypaw. Okay. This is like an 105 part coefficient. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments. No sleep though hippo. That's like actually hard. Hi Gary. No, I see you done my friend. Now it's your time to just shout some time. Shout a time. I can do it. I just don't think it's gonna be in line with I mean I would I just well I mean all right just let me know if I'm

close or not. September 6th, 1891. You're my lord. Cheese and crackers. You're in the wrong century. February 2nd, 888. What just happened? Hey we're not gonna start the podcast until you get the date, right? Oh shit. This is like this is Rumpel still skinny. That's nine days later. Is it June? Did I already say June 7th, 1971? You did. That's June 5th? No. Is it? No. I told you to write these down. I don't even have an exact date. 1920s. A backlash against immigrants grew as often happens in the United States of America. So people were calling for limitations on immigration and US farmers responded to calls for limiting immigration from Mexico by

aggressively lobbing to allow it to continue. Okay great. Was that Jose at the door? I don't I think it might if you heard it then yes. Yeah it sounded like a scratchy. I wasn't sure if I just have been conditioned to hear crying when there's not was that it again? Yeah it sounded like it. Fun thing we do we did play this game where he claws at the door and ruins it. Yeah and yeah and I play my role. Well you guy everyone missed the fight but they had a fight earlier. It wasn't even. I mean it was it was an argument. It was an argument. I had to throw him out. Yeah. Farmers said they would not be able to harvest their

crops without Mexican labor. At the time a lot of Mexicans came legally some did not obviously but when the Great Depression arrived anger rose even more against the migrant workers as you can imagine. Yes we have we have a proud history of losing our shit. At the wrong people. At the wrong people. I've been I've been saying this forever but anytime the economy falls apart it's always the fault of the people on the lowest rung. Yeah. Oh my god. I gotta handle it. Oh here they go. The boys are fighting again. Is he back in? Don't worry about what's going on. Let's just stick to the show. Okay. So he won the cat won. Look there's

no winners. There's no losers. There's just let's just do the show like we just always do. Knock it off. Who's the dominant in that house. Sometimes the dominant has to choose to be the submissive to keep the continuity of dominance. I just wouldn't understand it. I just didn't know. I didn't know the power dynamic there. It's not that there's a power dynamic. Just relax. You wouldn't get it. Are you a switch. God damn it. He wants to go on the top. Now he wants out. What an asshole. Oh my god. You just got so bossed around. All right. Okay come on. Let's go. And the asshole drowns in me. Back to the top.

So so the Mexicans become the scapegoat and many return to Mexico anyway since there's no work during the Great Depression. A lot more are deported at the same time. And then came World War two. Millions of Americans have to go overseas to fight. And then suddenly there's a huge concern about labor. A labor shortage. Everyone's like who's gonna do the work. All the dudes are going. Well thank god that we kicked the Mexicans out for taking those jobs that we're now rejecting. Hey remember a couple years ago we told y'all to fuck off. I would like you to come back now. America. Yeah. I mean it is like I mean

that is basically the dance we keep doing right. That it's just like so I've been thinking about some of the stuff we were saying before and I reckon we probably lost our temper a little bit in your direction. Maybe yeah a little more than we should. So yeah it was not it was not great. I gotta be honest. Here I here we are hat in hand saying we're sorry. Will you come well bar. It's pretty hard to get back on track. Well all the stuff you said last time not great. Yeah. No scumbags. We're dirty. We're lazy. We're filthy. Some of that is taken out of completely out of context as far as what I was saying. You

are a scumbag. You know. So I just very sorry again. If it depends on where we come from scumbags are helpful things. They are a you put your skid to helps get your scum collected. So when we say scumbag we are complimenting the ingenuity of the bag of scum because it used to be not to hold on. Now it used to be that scum was everywhere scattered scum scummy scummy and you'd go what are we gonna do with all scum and some of them. I don't know what are we gonna do. Just maybe put in a pile make a scum pile till someone finally made a bag to put the scum in. And when we did that we went well looky here. Now I've

got a clean floor. Devoid of scum. All thanks to my handy dandy friend here the scumbag. So I'm reckoning that you're fixated on the wrong thing. It was a compliment. Scumbag. You say that all the time over here. That guy's a hell of a guy. One of my best scumbags. So you called me a piece of shit also. Well where I come from a piece of shit is a compliment because the shit is it you know what I mean. It's shit it's good to have. It's shit can be utilized. You just stop talking. When sent. Please come back and save our world. So millions of women end up joining the workforce most of them in the defense industry and then

others leave farb work to go work in the defense industry. So now who's gonna harvest the crops. So the US goes to Mexico asking to make a deal for laborers. A lot of Mexicans don't even believe the US has a labor shortage and just think the US is trying to get cheap cheap workers. But the Mexican government thinks they can help the war effort and benefit economically at the same time by agreeing to a worker deal. So Mexico declares war on the Axis powers on June 1st 1942 and then the next month the Basero program is established. Now we've talked about this before. Yeah right. The program Operation

Wetback episode. Abysmal program right. You know not great not great. The Basero program is where Mexican workers are brought to the US to work on farms and railroads. Literally Basero means a one who uses his arms. It means manual labor in Mexico. Right. So it's literally you're just saying basically the thing very clear. Which is nice. It is not. I do. I do think that there we should pass some sort of legislation that makes like there should be like a title czar. You know. I agree. Charge of just the titles. Yeah. Just as like no child left behind is not what this is. You know just that person is. It's never

it's never what it says. It's always the opposite. Never. No. It's always like you know even when it comes to food like if you bought like a bag of Doritos and it was gnocchi you'd be like what the fuck. Give me my money back. But for some reason when it comes to like bills and laws are like no no no you could totally just whatever you were whatever wrapping you want to put on your turn. So the deal was employers would pay for transportation and living expenses and it's the language of it prohibits discrimination. Recruitment centers open in Juarez and Chihuahua and different places on the border and

many thousands of Mexicans flock to the centers because you need to get a work permit to be a part of the procero program. OK. But then that meant a lot of Mexicans couldn't get it. They ended up being a lot of like get a bribe and do all this shit. So they're still coming in illegally. They're still like fuck it. This isn't worth the shit. I just want to fucking job. Right. But pretty soon reports come out of the braceros being discriminated against not being paid not being fed terrible living conditions. Everything the the program is supposed to you know. Yeah. Help. Not not make happen. Right. So many

braceros go on strike and then so it's a problem in the World War two ends and there's a lot of pressure to end the braceros program because all these soldiers are coming back. Hey we just randomly are changing everything again. Totally unrelated to them coming back. Hey remember all that stuff I said. I was talking about how scumbags nasty everything. I looked over everything and fuck you again. Fuck you. By the way you bought the scumbag rap but you're stupid because the scumbag is a bad thing. We don't. We hate scumbags. USA. Of course the agriculture industry lobbies for the government to continue it

and yes of course they win but the rules became even more lack. So things got so bad that braceros are eating banana peels, melon rinds and even newspapers to survive. Oh my god. So then how is that even does that do something eating newspaper is enough to keep you going. I think it just fills you up so you're not in pain. Oh fucking. Hey god what a horrendous answer. Thank you. So yeah it's not great. So Mexico ends it. They're like we're done. 1948 they're like we're fucking out. This is terrible. So Congress gets lobbied again and they pass a law assuring workers to be protected and then Mexico

returns to the braceros program in 1951. Hey guess who. Howdy who. Hey. Hey. Hey. Are you doing something different? Are you working out? You look so. No I'm the same. I'm the same as I've always been. More hair. I haven't changed at all. That all tougher. No. I'm the same. I'm the same. Okay good to see you. I didn't. I'm not coming to do anything. I just wanted to just randomly. Oh are you good. Just wanted to see if you're good. Not really. I'm not. I'm not great. Okay. Well I'm not a fan. I gotta be honest. I just wanted to say something just to let you know that the last time when I was explaining the scumbag was not a good

thing. No I remember. Well I was changing reality to just I was drunk first. I drank been drinking a lot around that time and the scumbag again is a great thing. You it is a great thing. Do you remember mocking me saying how stupid I was for believing that it was a good thing? But I know the alcohol I was poisoned by a gang to be drunk that day and I know doesn't I don't expect you to believe it or forgive it but a bunch of men put rum in me and drunk drunk me and so I just wanted to say that I feel I feel bad and I just want to say sorry so I'll see you later I don't need a guy also if you wanted to maybe to just turn

a new page come over and pick some stuff again that would be you know give you a shot so I'm so angry I'm just angry you know yeah of course I mean I'm pissed too they just what why why would you be pissed they don't get it who's they it's you just system is just a joke to guys like us the same basically guys you and me and the systems put its boot on our necks no thank you God pisses me off scumbags like us good people good good scumbags I will I will take I will take this job if you shut the fuck up great that's all I'm looking for great yes let's not do this again that's the goal so Mexico comes back to the program in

1951 the law also prohibits them from unionizing striking or negotiating for higher pay I mean it is an abusive relationship yeah it is as usual there's another backlash against immigrants in 1954 the US engaged in operation wet back which is a massive program to deport Mexican workers but the Bracero program continues throughout all this and you can listen to our operation wet back episode it's very uplifting in the mid 60s when baby boomers are starting to hit working age there's this huge concern there won't be enough jobs for these young boomers turning 18 19 okay and that turns more Americans against the

Bracero program than ever before so right so they've it's very strange how it works David see one could call it a completely selfish again farmers are saying their crops will rot in the fields if there's no Mexican laborers so it's literally the same argument we've been having 20 it's the old double fit back around see scumbag is a bad thing we don't need it yeah so William Willard words was born in 1912 willer William Willard words it's the most fucked up name to give a kid it's just fucked yeah he's from the alliteration part of town he's he's born in 1912 his father was a college coach

both football and basketball words goes to Northwestern Illinois University and then Harvard Law School he becomes a prep professor at Northwestern Illinois then he serves on the war labor board which is they like if there's any labor disputes during the war there's a special board to deal with it because they're like wartime we can't have disputes because that's coming out of World War one where the wobblies realized how much power they had and they were shutting down shipbuilding and weapons and you know so they're essentially like no change during war times that's correct the time when you would most want to

possibly enact change we can't have it because we're not now we're all for this war oh but we're not for the war we don't think we should kill our fellow leftists so he ends up he ends up becoming an active Democrat in 1961 he was appointed labor secretary so okay he comes in and this is 61 so he immediately faces this issue of what to do with farm labor he got all these boers coming of age jobs farmers telling you don't do this again that's right so because of public pressure the percent of program officially ends by Congress letting it expire on December 31st 1964 so they just don't reappe it they just it's just dead

let it go okay so words then the next day rules foreign workers could not be brought into the US unless farmers could prove they couldn't get American workers if they offered them a decent wage he's basically saying pay pay raise raised the amount of money you pay workers that Americans will take the jobs that's what he's saying right and farmers are going like yes but the bottom line thing yeah but hmm so he also raises the minimum wage for farm laborers from a buck 25 to buck 40 an hour not a lot but I think back then a lot more obviously the okay the spokesman for California citrus and avocado

growers called the increase quote an intolerable economic burden okay so words said there were enough us farm workers he says there's enough we actually don't need to bring anybody in and that the agriculture corporations are just not recruiting them yes exactly that's the problem so the governor of California pushed works to let in 5100 workers for crops that immediately needed to be harvested so now we're at the point now where crops are just sitting there they need to be harvested no one's doing anything we got 10 white guys they have pretty bad attitudes and but they said they'll do it that's not

enough so in late March works flies works flies to California to tour farms with governor and they get on Air Force plane and they they fly all the state for four days stopping and meeting with farmers and union officials and workers the Vancouver Sun quote words discovered to his astonishment that the growers complained little about the higher pay scale with considerable frankness many said the Mexicans worked harder and didn't talk back yeah I mean I think people will take any work they can get at this point and at this point in America in any point in American history I think that

what's happening here is that the farmers can treat the Mexican workers so badly because they don't have any legal protections that that's what they want okay one farmer told words quote we're frightened and desperate we're afraid to plant crops for fear they'll rot on the vine words keeps telling them to hire us workers and pay them more okay all it's coming down to is the farmers are now saying I can't do this I need to bring in people for cheap later and and the guy who's in charge of labor in the United States I've overseen this shit is saying yeah you can you can afford it so okay interesting so he goes to the

fields and he meets laborers one teaches him how to use an asparagus hoe so like he's learning how hard because it's actually really hard they don't give them a big hoe they give him a little tiny hoe so they have to bend over like it's it's you know so they save a few bucks so you get hoe back hoe back yeah that's what it was basically UPI quote words viewed laborers eating sack lunches in the field so there's some fun stuff going on too wait why don't understand this is from the UPI story quote words viewed laborers eating sack lunches in the field so he just watching guys watching guys eat yeah watch some

guys eat lunch very creepy it's like a fetish it's like an only fans at the end of the tour four-day tour he said quote I think a great majority of Americans would be willing to pay an additional quarter cent a pound for celery to eliminate the present working conditions in the fields so they they estimated that if they paid workers more the increase is less than a cent it's totally right right and that and that's what stopping people that right so the idea being that you will give you give people you know you're gonna make a better existence for people and people pay a little bit more and he's like

people will go for that problem yeah and it's not that much because when it's spread out over all the heads of lettuce it's actually doesn't try not to be that much money right okay what's called for wages of farm workers to increase 50% so he's like look you guys are making enough money that you can pay these people 50% more okay and they go along with that obviously but then he ended up proving 1500 Mexican workers to come to California in May and 6500 West Indians to go to Florida to pick oranges and sugarcane so he's still like okay I get it I'm gonna let some in but again you got to do something he's like saying

you got to do something but I'm gonna let these guys in so the crops don't rot but again you got to do something right okay but more crops would be ready soon and the farmers said that number was wasn't adequate word said the answer was making the job better quote we have been downgrading agricultural labor for years by putting it in in-human housing so he's saying the conditions the material conditions you're providing for the workers is getting worse and worse and worse so maybe that's part of the reason that Americans don't want to work there because you're going as far down as you possibly can't it's not

just the work and they well and also that they now have like I mean you're just but the farmers like but there are people we can exploit yeah but don't do that don't do that that's basically it yeah on Tuesday May 5th Words announces a new program that would be the solution to everyone's problem robots the athletes in temporary employment as agricultural manpower program what so he's like we've got the best athletes here that's yes yeah AP quote the government launched a drive Tuesday to recruit some 20,000 high school boys to work on the nation's farms this summer wow so okay so he's sickly it's like

all right we're gonna learn track this summer why no not at all this summer you're gonna compete in a new sport whoa what's it called picking you ever play picking strawberry picking you're gonna pick strawberries we're gonna have five games or you're gonna go head-to-head against other high school teams and we're gonna see who could get the most strawberry points by picking up and putting them in a basket what so we're good what's the question what why you cry I just I thought that maybe this summer I was gonna do life card stuff for life what this is this I'm we're gonna compete in picking the sport you

guys understand this is huge there's a future in this I don't think that's a sport that's just all it is a sport not with that attitude but we're gonna go head-to-head against other schools now who wants to be center picker who wants to play right pick and then we're gonna need a pick field yeah I don't want to be a teenager anymore ah well all right you're gonna not start your attitude is really weak and terrible it's just got really bad that's all it's guys guy everyone we're picking it's a new sport everyone's doing it come on I'm crying it's Christ it's not going over well with the students so look the reason for

this is it's gonna solve the high summer teen unemployment I mean all of us in these boomers are all coming of age and then the farm labor shortage at the same time right they see it they're like look we got workers here we need workers here let's do it works nicknamed the program the A team all right okay and then when he announces it he has a baseball great Stan amusual next to him Cleveland Brown's running back Jim Brown and Mets pitcher William Spahn so he surrounds himself for these big amazing athletes and gives the press conference mostly they just stood next to him and nodded I think one of them said it was a great

way for high school athletes to stay in shape during the summer sure yes it's for sure is absolutely the idea is that their coaches will go with them and oversee them and then they'd practice in their off hours when they weren't picking it I mean the more I hear about this idea the worse it gets crazy so the idea I mean so I like obviously you like where words his head is at but the idea that you're like you know and instead of cheap labor we'll just use these students and not pay them that's not pretty that seems pretty better that's pretty better right that's nice and pretty better the AP quote the Labor

Department said it will insist that growers provide good housing and food for youths who will be under close supervision during their sojourn on the farm well honey I got to go coach my team to pick peas see you later so I think what he's thinking is and I could be wrong about this but this is the way it comes across I think he's thinking that because they're gonna take these American teen athletes that it's gonna force the farmers to provide better housing and everything else I think he's like well they won't be able to get away with it I wonder why they would do that I wonder what's happening yeah okay so

now they're like yeah so he's basically like all right I will now give you like the white youth yeah and force your hand into because you know that their parents will go ape shit because yeah yeah it's addressing the the clear racism and that's involved in this so it's a pretty good move and now now it it's a good move well okay okay here we go keep going Dave besides calling it the A team words revealed the program slogan farm work builds men so you want to be a you want your boy to be a man send him to work out of farm and everyone Americans like hell that sounds right well it's that thing he's trying to

insinuate that Joseph will not be a man and Joseph will be a man Joseph will therefore go and pick corn for the summer hey Joseph yeah you're gonna go pick corn for the summer what God sounds horrible why because you're gonna become a man otherwise this guy's who I don't know his name's words he's gonna think you're not a man I'm not a man shut up come on you're gonna go pick corn all summer so high schools so high schools are supposed to contact employment offices in their state to find out which farms needed workers and then they put them on top would touch with each other and then 20 or 30 quote athletic boys

from a school would go out to a farm and work and the farm wasn't supposed to be more than 350 miles away works works been a very clear he wanted jocks he's like this is for jocks this is jock work right yes oh boy so this are we just gonna loophole off well I mean the problem with that thinking is is real jocks like the really good athletes are the most pampered kids in a society in America like they're the ones that really in truth are have have really emotionally stunted development wise because they get everything they want right I mean that's the real American yes so he says word says quote they can

do the work they are entitled to a chance at it so he's trying to make it like they're entitled they should get this opportunity to work to work picking strawberries yeah yeah and then we just cut to Johnny Manziel in a field wait what is he no he could get fucked is what he can do dude yeah I mean I always when I think of pampered athletes I always think of Luis Suarez who played for Liverpool and Barcelona like he would bite other players because he was such a little fucking child man child like multiple bites yeah so Republicans are against it and and some Democrats at this point it's a very who you really if

you supported farmers and farming it was really dependent on the state you're from so there's a lot of Democrats that are also in this but Florida senator this is the craziest name Sepsard Holland sure did not like it Sepsard so SEP sounds like an erection I've got away Sepsard that's my boy yes well we couldn't agree on a name so we just threw some scrabble letters on the floor and put them together and this is now our son Sepsard so he's great he's really good so I take the bucket off your head but Sepsard did not like quote this isn't the answer to Florida's problems maybe they need football players in the

West or East we need them we need them on the gridiron when it's the height of our vegetable season so he's like why you taking our football boys away that's his argument right now why you take away our football players like what you know we need is to learn what need means need we need to play football others said Americans would just not do it representative EC gatherings quote you cannot depend on skid row people to work in the harvest of perishables what so he's giving away so much with this statement he's just basically saying the pay is so fucking bad that the only people that will do it are people who

live on skid row it's just coming right out with it it's a very revealing thing to say yeah I don't think much of anybody so the government starts a PR came campaign the ads on the radio the ads in magazines newspapers have you played picking the new sport that's taking over the summer that's right if you've got a son or daughter who's athletic why send them to picking oh boy listen to these testimonials I would really love to have a summer that's right this can be you join us for picking all summer at any farm that needs them send your children 14 to 17 it's time for picking I thought I thought I

was just gonna swim in the lake this summer yeah you're gonna know you're not gonna swim in the lake you're gonna learn what it's like to actually cultivate your own fruits and vegetables that's right you thought throwing a screen pass was difficult or a Hail Mary have you ever tried irrigating join us for picking this summer everyone's having a lot of fun in one ad 1964 Heisman trophy winner yells quote farm work builds men so they're just getting all these I'm on my way to college I'm gonna make college I'm gonna make a ton of money in playing pro football you work on a farm two years

removed from high school being like hey I'm telling you I would do it if I were you guys it's like bullshit farms keep pushing to get the braceros back they said Americans would never do the brutal work I'm sure it had nothing to do with farm workers historically being excluded from labor laws so right they are excluded from and still today there's a lot of exclusions for laborers they just aren't included in shit in our labor laws all the laws that are like keeping people safe and healthy and making sure they're paid well well they're just excluded they're just not a part of it no it's a thing that we do always been

our deal because it's brutal work so yeah words just keeps responding that Americans would do it if the farms paid enough so he just sticks to his argument and they keep complaining he keeps keep saying well pay more and workers will come work said the increase in prices would only be about one cent for head of lettuce or you know whatever any sort of thing that was picked so Michigan pickle farms said they were a thousand workers short even though they had planted fewer crops in 1964 so one of the things that happened was as soon as this looked like it was coming all of the farms started planting less okay right

and that's what Michigan pickle farm cucumber pickle farms did and the goal of that is to have I mean what is there's is the goal there to show that like yeah what are they trying to do I think I think the goal is to well if you plant less and then you're not paying you make to grow as much and it doesn't cost you as much so it is it's it's more precautionary for your business versus trying to make a point I think it's both okay okay all right I get it one farmer said Americans just wouldn't pick the way Mexicans did quote the Latins are built for the job they're used to stooping in the fields all day

and they're used to the heat you can't get Americans to do the same thing now can you imagine American working in a brutal job has that ever happened has ever had Americans ever worked in heat have Americans if Americans ever had tough tough jobs no that's why we're trying to hold on a coal job so much so it's just the Latins that are built for it it's not yeah no I well it is also an amazing it is again I mean just another amazing argument in the history of whites arguments so racist I well it's a racist and it also is an admission of like previous abuse it's like they're used to it

just like yeah but like we're saying don't nobody should be used to it well they are yeah well I mean what it is is they're just more desperate because they have a worse poverty situation and they I mean they really are like we can get away with it which I guess what you don't understand is we're getting away with it you understand so we're very confused as to why you keep coming over here and suggesting that we change our practices when for so long it's just been fine because we can just totally get away with it so I'm sure yeah right this has nothing to do with Mexican workers living in camps close to fields when

they're harvesting so they can they love they think it's camping I hear them all the time they say it's good family holiday so you can literally exploit them more because they're living right next to the field as opposed to an American worker who it gets in a car and drives home yeah it's literally just there's two hours in a day you can make someone work yeah if this hadn't happened they would try to be convincing him to sleep in ears of corn they'd be like just tuck your legs in there a little bit do you see how that's kind of like a sleeping bag oh and the Mexican workers got a dollar an hour and US workers wanted at

least 125 or 140 right so now in Mexico the workers are upset the San Francisco Chronicle quote meanwhile at the border shouting Mexicans who failed to get jobs in California demonstrated noisily yesterday not that that's a horribly racist just shouting Mexicans not not that they're they're not justified there's just shouting you know how they get shouting and noisy yeah yeah they should be upset because they want jobs and it's all they're being prevented from working the jobs so works then allows a thousand workers in on May 20th after a panel of university college professors inspected crops and

said look these are starting to go bad or they're about to now the farms are still thousands of workers short according to them but thankfully the eight teams are coming didn't did didn't did didn't um my hair ow my fingers hurt in July newspapers across the country print photos as proud towns say goodbye goodbye to their groups of high schoolers right getting on the bus and head now many many however are traveling way beyond the 350 miles I mean they're going it's kind of fun it's kind of it's it's pretty funny to send like a bunch of white high school kids to like labor camps for the summer you're doing

your patriotic duty Gregory be like mom I'm in Kansas the courier of Iowa printed a photo of teens getting on a bus headed for Salinas California quote a teacher coach from Cresco will serve as advisor to all 31 so you're looking at it in the paper you're like oh this seems fine there's a bunch of smiling kids on a bus and their coaches and it's gonna be like a summer coach it's got a whistle there's a bag full of basketballs for some reasons overall the press thought it was a very bad idea Detroit free press quote dealing with crops which grow close to the ground requires a good deal stronger motive than

money or the prospects of a good workout like for instance gnawing hunger yeah I mean it's just like a Nathan for you episode this is like I mean it really is you're just your basic I mean I I get the point he's making and it is very interesting to be like I'll just attack these white people with their children to show them but yeah at the end of the day I mean it's not like it's gonna I mean I highly doubt that it's going to you're going to see this work yeah so all together 18,100 teenagers signed up for the eight teams but only 3500 would work in the fields okay the Department of Labor said that was partially because

states requested migrant workers but then changed it when the eight teams were assigned so they would be like I need I need 5,000 so I would be like look I need 5,000 pickers from Mexico and then then the Oscar you got a bunch of 17 year olds and I just need 2,000 I don't need any so I don't any Colorado asked for 6,000 foreign workers and when the Department of Labor said they would send eight teams instead Colorado withdrew the request for all the workers that is quite a rebuff yeah we need 6,400 it's the high school kid thing yeah we're good we're set but not we don't need any so that that to mean means they're

hiring illegally right they're not they're not using the procero program that's what I would take that as right okay right so also a lot of kids dropped out because they thought they would be going to California but when they found out it was somewhere else they bailed so like there's kids who are like oh I'm in Florida I'm gonna go to California Beach Boy yeah Surf City no it's awesome it's Michigan yeah it's Michigan and there's a lot of thorns around these tomatoes but I was gonna meet Bo Derek and shut up and guys remember use your backs not your legs use your backs not your legs come on so also a lot of

kids dropped out because they thought they would be going to California but when they found out so I can do the bit again no it's right dude I'm so excited okay now 17 year Randy Carter signed up with 24 San Diego high school classmates quote we thought I'm not doing anything else this summer why not now none of them are athletes not one of them most of the 18 members are not athletes because football coaches didn't want players picking salary because they have summer practice yes yes but so many teams especially football teams this time they have summer practices they keep going can you also imagine I

just I mean I hated school to my bones I can't imagine over a summer being like I don't have anything to do and that being like something I need to fix that was like the point the whole point was you had nothing to do yes the idea of like my dad tried to send me to this thing called super camp one summer and it was gonna be six weeks of like I don't know learning how to be super or something yeah and I'm telling you I fought so hard that he ate the money he paid and didn't send me because I was like no I'm not gonna and there's you talking about going to like pick fuck go and live like on a farm to pick stuff and these

they are actively been like yeah let's go do it oh god so teens were shipped all over the country most of Texas in California Carter and his San Diego group were sent to Blythe California which is sort of a desert hell it's literally just in the middle of a desert okay there's like crops it's like it's like kids are going to desert hell there they picked cantaloupes so that so when they arrive I guess they must arrive later in the day it seems okay the winds blowing it's not that warm quote then you go out in the field and the first ray of sun comes over the horizon the first ray everyone

looked at each other and said what did we do yeah the yes the thermometer went up like in a bugs bunny cartoon by 9 a.m. it was 110 degrees oh it's just even saying a bugs bunny cartoon is like really shows you the age like a bugs bunny cartoon so they're giving garden guys they let there's a basically like little basketballs on plants pick them and then toss them to each other all right we're gonna run the triangle cantaloupe offense very simple pick the cantaloupe you toss it to Teddy Teddy you put in Barry's basket boom two points the goal is to get 50 million points by the end of the summer do you believe that what a

nightmare let's go guys come on hey can you just treat us keep just treat us like this is a terrible job instead of the weird sort of thing you're doing about sports not a job it's not a job it's not a job I'm getting paid and it's about we are we are playing lope ball this is lope ball gentlemen this is what it is all right now we got our center he grabs the lope tosses it to the forward right he puts the lope in Barry's basket Barry when you got a bunch of lobes in your basket you go to the point center and you put all those lobes up on that scale then we'll see how many is that again the goal is to get 50 million

points this is this is not a game it's not we're gonna win this we're gonna win state we're gonna win we're not gonna win we are we're watching we're gonna everyone's a bunch of teams it's around Robin is what it is come on all right get to picking the cantaloupes we've got so fucking many to pick it's crazy I didn't know this but melons have fine hairs by the way guys melons have heads of hair they have little fine hairs on them that make them feel like quote picking up sandpaper yeah and guys but sometimes when you first pick up the lope it's gonna feel like a but it's gonna feel like a handle in a porcupine

that's all part of the sport that's what's gonna make this team so good now what you want is your hands to bleed that means you're getting closer to them never bleeding again so they give them gardening gloves to pick but the gloves only lasted four hours before they fell apart what who what kind of mystery glove is this that's the kind of glove salesman you want to have where's that glove guy I can't return him he left town okay so this is the thing this is what you talk about material needs for the workers right so they don't have a union fighting for them which would the union to be like no everybody needs

gloves that will make them so it's it's Mexican dudes coming up and Mexican women and they probably know because they've been doing this for a while they know other people have and they probably come up with their own gloves they probably bring their own gloves that work right and these kids have no idea so they just get there and they're like here's some shitty gloves dudes and they don't work so there you go the farmers are trying their best yeah so aside from a buck 40 an hour they got five cents for every crate and crates like 30 or 35 cantaloupes okay breakfast was beans eggs and bologna sandwiches that the

breakfast of champions am I right come on guys what I like to do is make a little bologna enchilada put the beans in there a little bean loney it's called a morning fuck you go go fuck yourself you guys are gonna need those nitrates when you're in the field today guys are gonna need that nitrates in your stomach okay like athletes so they only got Sundays off all the 18s only got Sundays off so it's six days a week housing turns out to be terrible old army barracks rooms made from discarded wood some were in buildings where Japanese Americans had been interned I mean so they were like and nobody could live like this and

they were well we were forced so tons of kids right when they got to the place and saw what it was bailed immediately oh yeah for sure the second I find out that cantaloupes have hairs I'm like hey you turn this bus around so in Salinas California at 26 a teams arrived not that the company even wanted them Salinas strawberries that's the name of the company asked for three a teams and was quote sandbagged with 24 oh my god Jesus now I would imagine that they were planning on hiring people who had not come in legally through the Bracero program and now they're mad that they

got stuck with high teenagers yeah that's stuck with high school students 24 groups of high school students 135 students bailed in the first week one told the AP quote we worked three days and all of us are broke so they teams headed back to Wyoming so these these kids from came from all over and they had come from Wyoming they had no way to return because the way it was set up was they would pay for them to come the company and then when the contract was over after six weeks they would pay to send them back but if they didn't finish six weeks well they're stranded you're just okay so so basically I mean the

company is incentivized to get these kids to quit in a way if they don't if they don't well no the company still had paid for them to come there I mean or I mean that the farmers no the farmers aren't because the farmers still want the crops to be picked and they're and they're kind of in a fucked situation right because they didn't hire the workers they wanted right they got these other kids so parents in Newcastle Wyoming agreed to pay $2,000 to bring their 37 kids back on a charter bus wow but now the bill was due and they were looking at the labor department to pay it and they're saying look you didn't live

up to your part of the bargain it was shit living conditions and they left the Californian quote a labor department official said he knew of no way to get the money so the labor department's like fuck I don't know what okay so needless to say things are going pretty well a state department of employment officials said the Wyoming group quote didn't even give it a try it was a defeatist group oh they didn't even want to be picking all summer these kids didn't have the right attitude they didn't want to be living in shit conditions they didn't want to be living on these kids they were so they were so

spoiled the amount of times I heard my gloves broke again it was like cry me a river and when you do throw some seeds in it okay because it'll grow faster than most of the stuff these kids know how to do they are just useless when it comes to horticulture yeah so I mean the toilets were like supposed to be ungodly like it was just it was fucking hell like it was like it was nothing you would ever work in or live right so he calls him defeatist right yeah a bunch of 17-year-olds defeatist Matt McIntyre 18 said there was a lot of fighting and that's why the Wyoming kids had wanted out quote there were an awful lot of

rough kids down there so besides the food and bad pay and no laundry facilities and literally toilets that are backed up and they can't use their there's other kids who are problems and are starting fights everywhere so they literally set them part of part of you thinks that this is potentially a job for adults that potentially that's what the idea should be here 200 who had come to Salinas from New Mexico Kansas and Wyoming were gone after two weeks the ones who stayed weren't happy on June 16th 100 teens refused to work the field they were assigned because it had already been picked by braceros and the

company asked them to sign a waiver not guaranteeing their 100 their $1.40 an hour so so now so now the company could you ever get a better crash course in America than what these teeth they're like wait what it's like don't worry we hired a link to shut the fuck up so now they've taken I and they're calling them braceros here but I don't even know if they're braceros now they're just sending out their usual migrant workers to pick a field and then sending the boys to then pick afterwards so that all the good shit is gone yeah and then sign the things that said that you don't need to get paid right you and so so and then on top of that say having a holiday here

essentially it's just a vacation away from your life right so they want them to not take the buck 40 an hour and take a piecemeal meaning just whatever you can pick then you get paid like five cents 10 sound good everybody you like America one boy said the fields were so bad he was only only gonna make $11 in a 40 hour week Christ all of these a hundred kids or most of them had all had signed unionization cards so these kids in a week are like let's fucking unionize all right you obviously we need unions that is the backbone of I mean it's like you're 15 we're unionizing so they've signed on with the agricultural workers

organizing committee the company refuses to listen to the teens complaints and just fires them I mean which would be a blessing you'd be like thank God and then they were not paid for what they had already made that week okay good so their coach Audie Woodward said they hadn't been told ahead of time about how bad the pay and working conditions would be quote if we had known many of these kids wouldn't have come come on guys it's I know it's not looking great but where the what this is an underdog story we got a dig deep in the second half of the summer we can figure this out we can do this okay I got your back if you got

mine come on let's pick together we are let's do this go wildcats remaking Hoosiers except this time it's about yeah kids being taught the worst labor lesson in this dream yeah there's one cantaloupe left out there just go grab it 56 boys from New Mexico had accompanied their band director and baseball coach sip Senna where the fuck are these names coming from also your band leader like hey we're gonna the band leader is gonna take a bunch of adolescents to the farm to work for a summer sound good Senna said the boys who quit didn't give it a fair chance and that the ones who lasted acted like men yeah sure yeah USA

tolerated he also said the food wasn't great and for the first two weeks all there was to drink was coffee yeah well that's fine for a child at that age these are growing children their bones need to be awake all the time to grow so they need this week caffeine of the coffee to grow the coach had a great how was your summer Randy well I'm hooked on coffee cigarettes and I hate this country I came back a socialist mom oh dear your hands are sir bludgeoned yeah cantaloupes have spikes do you know that the coach had a gripe session with the company now this came up several times in the newspaper articles I read gripe sessions I guess

it's like a meeting where you discuss what's wrong Dave Dave 100% you need to start a podcast called gripe is your destiny this this show this show was created for the show you're about to make you'd be you'd crush a gripe session that's all you do that's your Twitter handle should have been at gripe session because you had a gripe session with the company and government officials and after that the kids also got milk and cocoa there you go huh see what a good gripe session does you guys ready to go work more forever for nothing also the New Mexico kids toilet situation was so bad a

health inspector was called after which it was quote improved the toilet yeah was so bad they called a health inspector and he had notes he was like it's terrible do you know yeah do you know how bad asked me to get to the point where you call where you actually talk about what to do and you seek out a government official to help with your toilet and he agrees he's like that good you bring in a regulator to deal with the thing you shit in that's how bad it is and these are kids that means they went to the company and they were like hey man this is fucking the companies like I don't know that seems fine we'll call a

referee in so there was no transportation so they had to hitchhike if they want to do anything oh my god and the kids I would read they would like go to like hitchhike to Santa Cruz now that's fucking over the hills that's miles away to go to the boardwalk and stuff so they are they are on their Sundays they are trying to go and do as much as they can they're going to say I'm sure they're going to but they're hitchhiking everywhere yeah they got to go glove shopping in Michigan the cucumber pickle farms brought in 158 teams 368 boys the eight teams formed in Detroit never got to work because the

farm they were supposed to go to refused to provide barracks now if you're on that bus and you're like why aren't we getting off you know you're watching that like oh please please please please yes like just watching it go to shit just to go home turning around we're turning around we're fucking you know ah and again that's because the the Mexican workers would pitch tents and build a camp and they're like we're not building you a place to live you just you work your day and night you do it you just you do it you'd like a you just figure it out you make up a hole in the dirt or something if you need to I don't know the first

morning the eight teams were showing how to pick quote bend over with your legs straight about three feet apart straddling the rosy cucumber plants and then they pull up one vine and pick every cucumber that was larger than a thumb and then pick up the other vine and do it it's called stooping now this is what all they called it for everybody and that's why they they didn't have the big hose for the asparagus that I brought up earlier it's stooping up to bend over and this is one of the farmers it sounds like terrible body posture it is it's it's another thing terrible lower back and if they had unions they

might have tools to do it better or whatever I don't know if you can with cucumbers but they all the farmers all the growers say well only only the Mexicans can do this so what the the white man can't bend over for hours I mean that's just over and over and over right right six-year-old Stan of Brazil said it was quote a back breaking by late July the government said it had fixed the terrible conditions the teens were living in a this is a labor they are now able to shit this is an actual statement from a labor department 18 co-coordinator he said the living conditions were quote no longer a

survival effort oh god is that that I mean that is and you better believe there's some spit shining going on already but that is such a low bar yeah they are now survivable that's pretty good if you ask me progress look out the ones that stuck it out the kids who stuck it out I tried to make the best of it Carter's group in Blythe the cantaloupe pickers would swim in irrigation canals on Sunday or hitchhike into Blythe and try to find someone to buy them beer every group is supposed to have a chaperone around college age or a coach but they just Carter just had a college age kid and that he would just

take off so he'd show up for one day and then bail for like four and how was the week Carter said his group had taken a vote if they'd taken a vote on the first day they would have left but the more they stuck it out the more days went by the more they became determined to make it the whole six weeks I can't imagine having that in me as a teenager no to be like I want to show them I'd be like I want to be shown the door I need to leave yeah quote it literally became a thing of pride we weren't gonna be fired and we weren't gonna quit we were gonna finish it the Republicans continued to say not using

braceros would lead to food shortages so now the Republicans are saying this is gonna be food shortages and the Democrats are saying it's not or most Democrats others said Dems would lose the next election a syndicated column by John Chamberlain quote the loss in gross income to California's farmers because of the unplanted tomato acreage should run to 25 and a half million the coming disaster in tomatoes means the pizza vote in addition to the vote of housewives and tomato growers Dave I just want to on behalf of everybody thank you for pizza vote obviously it is it is a fantastic sect of our voting public the

pizza vote is I mean a movie title it's also so true like and we do and there's I mean we how honest to God we should have the pizza party we are there it is time for us to finally embrace who we are hey you are you wanted the pepperoni ah American water America wants a pepperoni we just want pizza every one of you is gonna get a free pizza every week that would probably be enough to get elected president I'm not gonna give you every singular every one man a woman a child yes we're waiting a spicy meatball pizza okay she's just I I'd love his policy just I wonder if he's the best spokesman it seems a little I'm a

little off put sometimes it's just very on the nose the spicy meatball thing is or a veggie deluxe you want a veggie deluxe you want a spicy people you get a pizza all right it's he's trying which I don't see a lot in politics anymore vote a pizza Peter pizza Peter wins within a landslide election you can see sweeping the south and the northeast and July prices of lettuce had risen 29 cents word said the rising prices had nothing to do with the labor shortage and was due to weather and that companies were pushing propaganda to convince people it was a labor issue in front of Congress he said quote the that

propaganda was poppycock so of course they're they're using the labor shortage to justify stuff that's happening and and the and the Labor Department saying at this is just absolute bullshit so by August the California newspaper wrote it was hard to know who disliked the program or teenagers the farms or the government officials good that's fine uniting force one kid said he had saved $50 over the summer which is about $420 today pretty pretty good for a summer of back breaking field labor Selena strawberries said hiring eight teams had cost the company over $75,000

when asked about good features of the program a company spokesman said quote as much I don't think there are any we've never seen that much feces the teens were not good compared to the usual migrants they said one farmer called the program quote a wasteful experiment he started with 40 teens and by the end of it he had 10 in Michigan the eight teams fell apart oh somewhere said to just disintegrate and vanish by the end of the 15 teams only seven were left and of those they there are hardly any teens teens on them okay sure in Salinas there were only 227 teens which was about 28% of what had come okay so we're

not we're seeing a turnover rate that's pretty high yes and then there is one paper that interviewed all of the New Mexico kids that came back every single one of them had gained like seven to ten pounds oh just built like brick shit houses now I don't think so because then the more I started to read about it the food they were eating was fucking horrendous so they were all putting on your teen off for a summer of farm labor and he comes back doier I think I bet I'm betting their legs had more muscle but it really sounds like they put on a bunch way one kid was like I just kept I kept going I also was going everywhere and

eating as much as I could so he would like hitchhike in a town every day and so it seemed like that bologna boys you need that bologna figure by the end of this summer you're all gonna look like circus strong men enormous legs with beautiful bellies it's also like if you send out a bunch of teenagers well that's probably the period of my life when I ate the worst yeah but I mean I would just imagine picking all day you know when I used to work on houses like I would eat anything and it wouldn't matter because I would just be sweat it all out yeah I mean when I first read it I was like oh this has got to be muscle

and then the more I read it was like oh it's not muscle it's not muscle it's amazing so they're just eating the strawberries the hell are they the hell the strawberries we don't know they're gone I need to lay down so full so full it's just a bunch of strawberry stems here yeah that's how they were coming off the tree or whatever it is Josh sometimes I worry about this country so as the date came when the students would be done the states start fighting over the few migrant workers that there are well Texas farmers called recruiters from other states pirates farmer dick more said quote what what up you better

believe you're taking a break you try to move on are you kidding me you're gonna tell me there's a guy named dick more and you're just like I would just keep going yeah they just put that in the story and no one said anything about it but yeah it was well it should have they needed someone like me around to immediately flag it is not okay yeah there's hello I missus dick more nope it is eight so dick more said quote the California recruiters are the ones going wild one came down and took the crew leaders and got him drunk sent trinkets to their wives and all that wait what so they're literally sending down they are

now so basic I mean this is for the Mike this is for migrant workers yeah are now currently working they are now valued so highly yes I mean their existence is just like you're just like what a turnaround as I had to make I had to make my own tent last summer and now this guy's like and what other trinkets do you want in your home yeah I mean this is their now they're valuable and they are fucking valuable and they should be right right but it's still to have gone from no valve it's seemingly no value for years to now suddenly been like do you want some Hubble figurines what sort of what kind what kind of candy you

like the Croswell Picker Growers Association in Michigan hired ex-migrant crew leaders to go to Texas to recruit workers Velasic Foods in Detroit put down a $20,000 deposit with a recruitment agency to bring in 2,000 workers for the pickle harvest only 500 came wow in Saginaw Michigan teens were brought in to pick cucumbers for pickles this was the only crop that had been picked using braceros in Michigan so of all the Michigan crops the only one using braceros is the pickle cucumber crops everyone else all the other ones in Michigan are hiring domestic laborers

so again this shows you what the fuck is going on right it's just these group of people have decided not to pay as well or treat people as well and they want to keep doing it the Detroit now I'm reading the story and I can't figure out what's going on the Detroit free press is referring to them as stags stags as referring to who the workers yeah these workers that they're going trying to take from other states they're they're just called they're just calling them stags okay it's in parentheses so maybe the farmers were saying that it's it was very strange quote the daily pickle company looked forward to the arrival of

240 stags from Kentucky but that's not how many arrived the field manager quote some of the boys got off the buses at red stop rest stops and never got back on we lost nine from one bus in the first half hour after they arrived in Saginaw so they're putting people they're getting there they're not just it doesn't sound like they're just getting migrant workers who are used to working crops it sounds like they're just going to places and talking people into working and then the people realize it's gonna be shit before they even get there and they're just bailing at like rest stops stuff so I mean it's yeah I

just could it's just crazy that like you you are in this position where recruiting just random people I mean it's just it's a joke yeah yeah although daily brought in Puerto Rican high schoolers who stuck around the entire season you ever heard of a loophole boy because how are they gonna get back it's an island they have to fucking wait until you send them back you fucks horrible they your problem is you got a bunch of student laborers that can walk home of the 240 stags from Kentucky they raged in age from teenagers to an old man of 72 one had a ready I'm ready to go whenever it is time we're ready to do

this one had a wooden leg and two others were blind in one eye just point me in the direction of what we're picking and put my hands on the things each time and I'll be able to do great for you sir I'm sorry which which one of them did this say was gonna grab it so your honor judge whatever your name is my wood leg is stuck in the mud all right look there's a lot of problems going on and I understand that but we're gonna fight through it so just pick that's all you got to do is pick I can't I'm like a pole here I'm I'm like pulled I don't know what to tell you just pick the things around you rotate a little bit as you

can I don't understand where I am that's gonna be a major problem obviously you're on a farm so we're gonna need you to take some of those things off of there what are these that's the strawberries those are strawberry okay so we're picking these we're picking them the green the green part no don't grab the green part look and for those of you who can't see don't worry about the conversation we're having about the green part that just pick have you tried these these are good don't eat the goddamn strawberries I can't eat them it makes my skin swell everything does I need to lay down we haven't started

working yet so there'll be no laying down already hey this guy laid down on my peg leg why did you come here I guess is a question that's a question I need a job yeah well it's probably not the best job for you look I maybe what you can do is maybe hold on to the blind guys and sort of tilt them in the direction of what they should pick three weeks later of the 240 26 were left Heinz recruited 130 stags for Mississippi and only 15 were left so works then ends the West Indian workers who had gone to Florida ends their stay in Florida okay the unit US Attorney General then overrules words and allows the West Indian to stay

longer farmers in California plead for words to allow 23,000 braceros to pick tomatoes in September he only allows 8,000 in mid-September that's the beginning of a the pizza part in the beginning of September Congress tries to vote to strip the Labor Department of its foreign labor decision-making power they're like let's take this away from words it fails by it fails by one vote it's amazing to be like Labor Department is no longer in charge of labor for the rest of your farmers asked permission to bring in foreign workers and words kept denying the request saying they should pay more

to attract domestic workers he would allow some foreign workers in certain circumstances he over the whole year he led in 40,000 but usually it's like 300,000 so it's way fucking less he's also got to be like stressed out of his mind because he's probably already seeing that the farmers are holding pretty strong that public opinion is really easy to sway and that you know the government is going to be influenced by and I mean it's not like people are going like all right shit we'll pay better wages they're really digging in their heels well so the day of the year there was no food shortage none of that

happened crops were picked farms got by a lot of them went to mechanized shit you know they they brought in things like that others clearly went and hired dudes who weren't here legally so nothing changed in the grand scheme of things as far as food and anything else everything the farmer said wasn't true none of that happened right right by 1966 unauthorized entry was the only way to work in the US so mass exploitation of undocumented migrant workers dawn in the US and obviously continues today so that the legal program went away and now the result is crazy much worse working conditions it's crazy much more

dangerous for them getting into the country they're still working here we just decided to do this this this country is so good at making you fear trying to make progress because it can so easily be exploited and flipped yeah and so it's like in this situation when you're going the goal is to make a better condition and situation because of you because you lost the leverage battle you now have no legal option so it's just I mean no you know like entering illegally there's no Bracero program so you get like you're saying I mean you get rid of the one that you know is a compromise and now you just

have the two polarizing ends that's right yeah I'll put up there there's a really there's a really great there's a professor who did this video Dr. Doug Massey he did a video for the Gravel Institute that explains that explains immigration the cost the human cost and and what making immigration illegal actually does which is it actually increases problems as opposed to you know fixing there's no solutions that are being off I'm gonna I'll put that at the end and I'll put a link if you want to watch the video because it's really fascinating but I'll just put up the sound to it I think it should be totally

understandable so the final thing is the 18 kids would forever have a different understanding of migrant workers Carter quote we know the work they do they do it all their lives not just one summer for a couple of months they raised their families on it anyone ever talks bad on them I always think keep talking buddy because I know what the real deal is right so he got put he got put in the the circumstances that they live in every day of their lives and he did it for three months and he knows how fucking hard it is and also what they do for us which is put food on our table well and if you look at I mean look at the

treatment during COVID times it's it's crazy unions would help yeah that's why everyone's mad at the teachers because the teachers are the first one ones who are able to slightly stand up for themselves it happens in big cities because those are the bigger unions they everyone's like why do they get to be special well they get to be special because they're one of the few places left with the union that's why they get yeah and yeah and unions yeah I mean you know like good union representation is what you need yeah but we we need them everyone needs to yeah support we need unions we need we need organizing for

unions we need everyone needs to organize at their local level whether that's to create a union or a group well because we've seen what happens if we don't be just it's it's necessary you know there's a lot of European countries that have like 99% unions and people are just part of unions just because you need a counterbalance and yeah you know in this case it's we're way past counterbalance and you get things you get things yeah and it's interesting like you know I think the narrative that everyone buys into is that Americans can't do or won't do that that farm work I mean obviously it's propaganda that's

been pushed down our throats for so long but think about all the backbreaking work that Americans have done and still continue to do it's it's yeah that's that's what our system is like it's it's backbreaking brutal work for tons of people and then all of a sudden it comes to farms and they're like ah Americans won't do that yeah they would if they were paid enough and treated well enough the way it works now is these people from another country have to come in because they have harder lives in their in their country they need the work they need to take care of their families so they come here but honestly it's like

Americans it's just racist to say that it's racist to say only Mexicans can do this work it's completely what their bodies work differently like we're all fucking human beings it's crazy it's a crazy thought but it's it's the thought that everyone has in America that Americans won't do that work yeah they will well I mean we also just I mean this country just has you know like such a strong history of yeah just doesn't want to pay people yeah treat him bottom line treat people better and they'll do the fucking work I mean that's it like it's hard work but there's tons of hard work but you know don't treat him like fucking

shit and they'll do the fucking job yeah people do it yeah very interesting David very interesting all right I love you bye buddy talk to you soon love you miss you buddy where we going see you later pal sources for this episode the millennial source on medium article migrant labor made America great history behind the US Mexico border crisis NPR when the US government tried to replace migrant farm workers with high schoolers and then just a ton newspaper articles which you can go see on our sources page Gareth Gareth left he doesn't care about you or me or anybody else he just he just took off sorry I can't hear you

if I could hear you I would tell people what you're saying which is I don't care about them I just I stopped the recording because I don't care that's what he just said all right bye and now I'm gonna play this little info piece by professor Massey from Princeton it's really good give it a listen it really gave me an interesting perspective on all this what game first illegal immigration or the wall the US Mexico border is the most militarized border in the world with the exception of the Korean DMZ over 700 miles of fencing patrolled by 20,000 border patrol agents each year American taxpayers spend

over 4.8 billion dollars on border patrol and another 8.4 billion on immigration and custom enforcement is our southern border really worth all the money and taxes were pouring into it hello I'm Dr. Douglas Massey I'm a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University I've been the director of the Mexican immigration project since 1982 I've been collecting real-time data on what's going on at the border and none of the conclusions I've reached to my knowledge have ever been challenged by anyone what many Americans might not realize it's just how new all of this border

security is in the early years of our republic there was no firm border line only a fuzzy western frontier as the frontier pushed westward the border between America and its neighbors continued to be blurred when the southern border was finalized in the mid-1800 it was still soft and porous an invisible line on a map that ran through the middle of towns and even houses in the early 1900s labor shortages led many American farmers to begin recruiting field workers from Mexico the work was seasonal though with workers coming from Mexico for the planting and harvest and then returning to Mexico for the off

seasons because they only stayed for the harvest Mexican workers were not considered immigrants and weren't included in early immigration laws that put quotas on other nations the US border patrol was established in 1924 not to prevent the entry of Mexicans but to catch Europeans who are trying to get around the quotas at Ellis Island during the Second World War the US government actually encouraged migration through a temporary worker program the precero program was created in 1942 and steadily expanded after the war ended by the late 1950s it was recruiting around 450,000 Mexicans per year for temporary

labor in the United States everything changed in 1965 when the precero program was ended and numerical limits were put on Mexican immigration for the first time almost overnight Mexico went from having access to around half a million legal visas to less than 20,000 permanent resident visas and no work visas but the demand for agricultural labor didn't go away and what was now unauthorized or illegal migration rose to fill the gap left by the end of the precero program border apprehensions went from 40,000 a year in 1965 to over 1.6 million in 1986 however these were still seasonal workers and

the flow was still circular with 86% of undocumented workers returning home at the end of the season in practical terms little had changed in the Mexican American migration system but in symbolic terms much had changed for now the majority of migrants were illegal and thus by definition considered to be criminals and lawbreakers while the demand for seasonal agricultural work stayed the same what the government did was criminalize its workers reacting to this perceived change the US government began pouring more and more resources into the border patrol from 1986 to 2010 the number of uniform border patrol

officers increased 5.6 times the agency's budget grew by a factor of 17 and hundreds of miles of walls and fencing were constructed around ports of entry none of the extra border security did anything to stop border crossings during the 1970s and 80s the odds of a migrant being in apprehended while crossing the border was about one in three as more resources are poured into the border patrol migrants begin crossing in more and more remote parts of the border and the odds of a migrant being apprehended actually went down for a while the diversion of border crossings into remote areas lowered the odds of

apprehension but it also increased the risk of injury and even death for in addition to being less populated and less patrolled these desolate areas were also more dangerous between 1993 and 2010 the number of deaths along the border skyrocketed coyotes and other smugglers moved into capitalize on the new black market and border crossing became much more expensive in the two decades after 1993 the cost of hiring a coyote to cross the border increased by a factor of 4.6 in real terms but the biggest impact of increased border security was that for the first time in the history of the Mexican-American

migration the movement of migrants stopped being circular finding an increasingly difficult and dangerous and expensive to move back and forth across the border for seasonal work migrants begin staying in America during the off seasons as men stayed longer north of the border they were increasingly joined by wives and children transitioning from a seasonal migrant flow to a permanently settled population in other words the effect of restrictive immigration and border policies was a creation of an undocumented population removing the Brasero program made a traditional

migratory system illegal building walls in the southern border didn't keep people out but rather trap them in since 2007 the number of undocumented migrants in the United States has actually declined not because of the efforts of border patrol but rather because of an unrelated shift in Mexican migration patterns in the last 15 years more people have moved from the U.S. to Mexico than from Mexico to the United States this shift was started by the 2008 recession but has been continued by a change in Mexico's age demographics people tend to migrate when they're younger if they do not move

before the age of 30 they're very unlikely to move at all in the last 50 years Mexico's fertility rate has dropped from 7.2 children per woman to 2.1 children per woman in the median age of the Mexican population has gone from 16.7 to 29.3 turning Mexico into an aging country new undocumented immigrants in recent years have come not from Mexico but from other countries today most undocumented immigrants enter the United States legally they enter as tourists and overstay their visas border security doesn't affect them and yet still to this day there are calls to increase border patrol staffing and to

build more barriers and to strengthen our borders why no matter which way you stand on the issue there are better ways to address undocumented migration than a largely symbolic totally ineffective and extremely expensive border wall