How shall I
begin my story that has no beginning?
In these arroyos, my great-grandfather
raised cattle before the Anglos ever came.
Our roots go deep in this place, deeper than the pines,
deeper than the mine shafts.
This is my village.
When I was a child, it was called San Marcos.
The Anglos changed the name to Zinc Town.
Zinc Town, New Mexico, USA.
This is our home.
The house is not ours.
But the flowers-- the flowers are ours.
My name is Esperanza.
Esperanza Quintero.
I am a miner's wife.
18 years, my husband has given to that mine,
living half his life with dynamite and darkness.
The land where the mind stands, that
was owned by my husband's own grandfather.
Now it belongs to the company.
Who can say when it began, my story?
I do not know.
But this day, I remember as the beginning of an end.
It was my saint's day.
I was 35 years old.
A day of celebration.
And I was seven months gone with my third child.
And on that day, I remember, I had a wish.
It felt so simple.
It felt so evil that I prayed to the Virgin
to forgive me for it.
I wished-- I wished that my child would never be born.
No, not into this world.
- Are you sick, Mama?
- No, Estellita.
Are you sad?
Are we going to church for the confession?
- Fighting again, with those Anglo kids?
- Aw, they think they're tough.
- But you promised me you wouldn't.
- Papa says if an Anglo makes fun of you, to let him have it.
- Never mind what your Papa-- hold still.
Does it hurt?
- Nah.
How come the cake?
- Never mind the cake.
Go get your father when he comes off shift.
Tell him to come straight home.
Hear you had a little trouble, Quintero.
Defective fuse?
Well, you're all in one piece, so what's the beef?
- You know the beef, this new rule of yours
that we work alone.
We're taking it up with the super.
- Super's busy with your negotiating committee.
- So much the better.
- Now wait a minute.
Super's the one made the rule.
He ain't gonna give you no help.
- He will if he wants us to go on blasting.
- Read your contracts-- or get somebody to read it for you.
It don't say nothing about no help.
- Listen, Mr. Barton, there's blood in that mine,
the blood of my friends, all because they had to work alone!
- That's how you get splattered over the rocks,
when there's nobody to help you check your fuse.
- And nobody to warn the other men to stay clear.
- Warning's the shift foreman's job.
- Foreman wants to get the ore out.
Miner wants to his brothers out in one piece.
- You work alone, savvy?
You can't handle the job, I'll find someone who can.
- Who, a scab?
- An American.
- Mama.
Shh!
Not a word about the cake, hear?
- Papa, is there going to be a strike?
- Ramon, I don't like to bother you,
but the store lady said that if we don't make another payment
on the radio this month, they'll come and take it away.
We are only one payment behind.
I argued with her.
It isn't right.
- It isn't right, you say?
Was it right that we bought this-- this instrument?
But you had to have it, didn't you?
It was nice to listen to.
- I listen to it every night when you are out at the beer parlor.
- No money down.
Easy term payment.
I tell you something-- this installment plan,
it's the curse of the working man.
- Where are you going.
- Got to talk to the brothers.
This water's cold again.
- Oh, I'm sorry, the fire went out.
- Forget it.
- Forget it?
I chop wood for the stove five times a day.
Every time, I remember it.
I remember that across the tracks,
the Anglo miners have hot water in pipes, in bathrooms inside.
- Do you think I like living this way?
What do you want of it?
- But if your union-- if you're asking
for better conditions, why can't you
ask for different plumbing, too?
- We did.
Got lost in the shuffle.
- What?
We can't get everything at once.
Right now, we have more important demands.
- What's more important than sanitation?
- Safety of the men.
That's more important.
Five accidents this week, all because of speedup.
You're a woman.
You don't know what it's like up there.
First we gotta get equality on the job.
Then we'll work on these other things.
Leave it to the men.
- I see.
The men.
Your strike may be for your demands, but what wives want,
that comes later, always later.
- Now don't you start talking against the union again.
- What has it got me, your union?
Esperanza, have you forgotten
what it was like before the union came,
when Estella was a baby and we couldn't even
afford a doctor when she was sick?
It was for our families we met in graveyards
to build that union.
- All right, have your strike.
I'll have my baby, but no hospital
will take me because I'm a striker's wife.
The store will cut half our credit
and the kids will go hungry.
We'll get behind on the payments,
and they'll come and take away the radio.
Is that all you care about?
That radio?
Can't you think of anything except yourself?
- If I think of myself, it's because you never think of me.
Never
- Stop it.
The children are watching.
Stop it!
That's a problem that has to be taken care of.
The company will always tell you those things.
We know it's not safe for miners to work alone.
But they don't work alone in another mines.
Anglos always work in pairs.
So why should I risk my life, 'cause I'm a Mexican?
- That's in the demands.
- We're negotiating.
- Three months of negotiations, nothing happens.
Even with Brother Barnes here from the International,
what have we got?
No raise, no seniority, no safety code, nothing!
- Take a drink.
Calmate.
I say we gotta take action, now!
- The rest of the men feel the way you do?
- He talks for all of us.
- Did you ever stop to think maybe they want us to strike?
Don't horse me!
Not with a war boom on!
- Then why is the company hanging tough?
They signed contracts with the other locals.
Why not this one?
- Because most of us here are Mexican American.
Because we want equality with Anglo miners--
the same pay, same conditions.
- Exactly.
And equality's the one thing the bosses can't afford.
The biggest club they have over the Anglo locals is,
well, at least you get more than the Mexicans.
- OK.
So discrimination hurts the Anglo too.
But it hurts me more, and I've had enough of it.
- But you don't pull a strike when the bosses want it,
so they can smash your union.
You wait till you're ready, so you can win.
- Do the bosses wait?
No sanitation, so my kids get sick?
Did the company have to wait?
$20.
So we miss one payment on the radio I bought for my wife.
Does the company store wait?
Pay or we take it away.
Why is the boss's store in such a hurry?
They're trying to scare us, that's why,
to make us afraid to move.
To hang on to what we got and like it.
Well, I don't like it, and I'm not scared.
And I'm fed up to here!
- Hey, Ramon.
Te buscan!
- What are you doing here?
Something wrong with Mama?
- I thought maybe you forgot.
- Forgot what?
- It's Mama's saint's day.
- What a kid.
He can't wait.
It's my, uh, wife's saint's day.
I was going to ask you brothers, how about a mananita, huh?
- What time?
- For a mananita, the later the better.
Why are they singing?
- They are singing for me.
- Can we light the candles?
- Yes.
Now we can light the candles.
- Happy birthday!
- I did not mean to weep again.
Why should I weep for joy?
- I'm a fool.
- No, you aren't.
Was it expensive, the beer?
- Antonio paid for it.
- Forgive me for saying you never thought of me.
- I did forget.
Luis told me.
All the next week,
I kept thinking about my mananita.
I had never had so nice a party.
It was like a song running through my mind.
- One, two, three.
A daydream
to lighten the long day's work.
We all forgot our troubles at the mananita, even Ramon.
I couldn't dance that night, not in my condition.
But I wasn't really jealous when he
danced with the others, because it was good
just to see him smile again.
And then one morning,
I was hanging out my wash.
And while we were talking, the ladies came.
- Buenos dias--
They were kind of a delegation.
It was about the sanitation, they said.
The Anglo miners had bathrooms and hot running water.
Why shouldn't we?
I know.
I spoke to Ramon about it only a week ago.
He said they dropped it from the union demands.
- We've got to make him understand, make
the men face up to it.
Show her the sign.
- We'll make a lot of signs like this.
Then we'll get all the wives together
and go right up to the mine.
- To the mine?
- Sure, where they're negotiating in the company office,
we'll go up there and picket the place.
- Then both sides will see we mean business.
- A picket line of ladies?
- Sure!
Why not?
- You can count me in!
- Luz!
- Listen, we ought to be in a wood chopper's union.
Chop wood for breakfast.
Chop wood, wash his clothes.
Chop wood, heat the iron.
Chop wood, scrub floors.
Chop wood, cook his dinner.
And do you know what he will say when he comes home?
"What have you been doing all day, reading funny papers?"
- Come on, Esperanza, how about it?
We got to.
- No, no, I can't.
If Ramon ever found me in a picket line--
- He'd what?
Beat you?
- N-no.
No.
Accidente!
- It's Mr. Kalinsky.
- Easy now.
Let me see, let me see!
Let me see!
Darling, he's all right!
Let's go, he'll be all right.
- How did this happen?
- They wandered into a drift when that fellow was blasting.
- I told you it would happen!
It's bound to happen when a man works alone.
- Why didn't you give the man a warning signal?
- Your foreman says that's the foreman's job.
- I checked the drift just before he blasted.
Was all clear.
- They must have been asleep or something.
- You weren't even there!
You were back at the station.
Kalinsky told me!
- You're a liar, Pancho.
A no-good, dirty--
- You there!
Get a hold on yourself!
A man's been hurt.
I'm as sorry about it as you are, savvy?
Accidents are costly to everyone,
to the company most of all.
Now I see no reason to treat the occasion like a paid holiday.
Suppose we all get back to work.
Martin?
- All right, now that the excitement's over,
let's get to it!
- What are they saying?
- No savvy.
- Well, Barnes, what about it?
Tell the men to get back to work.
- They don't work for me.
I work for them.
- Luis.
- It's up to you, brothers.
- Si.
- Cente!
Apagalo!
That night
the men held a union meeting, just
to make the walkout official.
It didn't take them long.
They voted to strike, 93 to 5.
And Teresa said now was the time for us to go in.
I didn't want to.
I had never been to a union meeting.
But the others said, one go, all go.
The meeting
was nearly over when we came in.
Charley Vidal was making a speech.
He said there
was only one issue in this fight-- equality.
But the mine owners would stop at nothing
to keep them from getting equality.
He said the bosses would try to split
the Anglo workers and the Mexican American workers,
and offer rewards to one man if he would sell out his brothers.
- Yes, uh, you ladies have an announcement?
Well, it's not an announcement, I guess.
Only, the ladies wanted me to--
Louder!
Consuelo, will you speak from over here?
- The ladies have been talking about sanitation.
And we were thinking, if the issue is equality,
like you say it is, then maybe we
ought to have equality in plumbing, too.
I mean, maybe we could make it a strike demand.
Some of the ladies thought it might be a good idea
to have a ladies' auxiliary.
Well, we'd like to help out if we can.
- I think I can speak for all the brothers in saying
we appreciate the ladies offering to help.
But it's getting late, and I suggest that we table it.
The chair will entertain a motion to adjourn.
I so move.
Second!
All those in favor?
Aye.
Opposed?
So ordered.
- It's just a question of when.
- Why didn't you support her?
You're the worst of the lot.
- But Teresa, you can't push these things too fast.
- You were pushing, all right, pushing us right back
in our place.
- Why didn't you check this thing with me?
It's embarrassing.
- At least you didn't make a fool of yourself, like Consuelo.
- It's not a bad idea to make sanitation one of our demands.
- But honey!
- Or why don't you just put a sign outside?
"No dogs, no women allowed."
And so it began, much
like any other strike.
There would be no settlement, the company said,
till the men returned to their jobs.
But their back-to-work movement didn't work.
And so the company recruited a few strike-breakers
from out of town.
But they usually lost their nerve
when they saw the size of the picket line.
The sheriff's men were always there.
They stood around, showing off their weapons.
But the men only marched.
Day after day, week after week.
At first it was an unwritten rule that women stay at home.
The union gave us rations, and we
had to figure out how to feed our families on them.
But then one morning, Mrs. Salazar
went to the picket line.
Her husband had been killed in a strike many years before,
and she wanted to be there.
Nobody remembers just how it happened,
but one day, Mrs. Salazar started marching with them,
and she kept on marching with them.
After a while, some of the other women
began to bring coffee for the husbands,
and maybe a couple of tacos, because a man
gets tired and hungry on picket duty.
It was about that time the union decided maybe
they'd better set up the Ladies' Auxiliary after all.
I didn't come to the lines at first.
My time was near.
And besides, Ramon didn't approve.
But Ramon is a man who loves good coffee,
and he saw the other ladies made it taste like zinc sludge.
So one day, I made the coffee.
- Prieto, Sebastian Prieto?
- Haven't seen him for three days now.
- Hey, Ramon, listen to this.
Chief foreman come to me last night,
said he'll make a shift foreman out
of me if I start the back-to-work movement.
"Jenkins, why string along with them tamale eaters?"
I just said I'd come to like tamales fine.
- Two scabs got through on the other side of the hill.
We chased the rest back.
- Recognize them?
- Anglos from out of town.
But they're not miners, I could tell that.
They don't know zinc from shinola.
- OK, take five.
Get yourself a cup of coffee.
Hey, Ramon, here comes the super.
- Morning.
How's it going?
Well, those new fellows you hired from out of town,
we brought them up here by truck this morning.
They took one look at that picket line, turned tail.
- They don't look so rough to me.
- Well, Mr. Hartwell, they've got some pretty tough hombres
there.
Especially that picket captain-- what's his name?
Ray?
Raymond, something or other.
- Oh, yes, I know that one.
That's their main picket line.
They have another post on the back road and roving patrols
all over the place.
- On company property?
Why don't you have them thrown off?
- It's all company property, Mr. Hartwell.
The store, the housing area, everything.
Where are you gonna throw them?
And who does the throwing?
Well, are they going to let us pass?
- Eventually.
This is just a little ritual to impress us with their power.
- Now why don't you let these gentleman pass?
Don't you know who's in that car?
It's the paymaster from Moscow, with our gold.
- No, no!
It's the president of the company himself,
come all the way out here to make Jenkins general manager.
- So why are you acting so mean?
- Childish.
- Well, they're like children in many ways.
Sometimes you have to humor them,
and sometimes you have to take their food way.
Oh, here comes the one we were talking about.
He's quite a character.
Claims his grandfather once owned the land
where the mine is now.
- Want to go up to your office, Mr. Alexander?
- Naturally.
You think I parked here for a cup of coffee?
- You're welcome to one.
No thanks.
- The men would like to know who this gentleman is.
- That's none of their affair.
- It's all right.
It's no secret.
My name's Hartwell.
I'm from the company's eastern office.
- You mean Delaware?
- No, New York.
- New York?
You're not the company president, by any chance?
- No.
- Too bad.
The men have always wanted to take a look at the president.
Did you come out here to settle the strike?
Well, if that's possible.
- It's possible.
Just negotiate.
Are we talking to a union spokesman?
- Not exactly.
But I wish he were one.
He knows more about mining than those
pie-cards we've had to deal with.
I mean it.
I know your work record.
You were in line for foreman when this trouble started.
Did you know that?
Yes, sir, you had a real future with this company.
But you let those Reds stir you up,
and now they'll sell you down the river.
Why don't you wake up, Ray?
Huh?
That's your name, isn't it?
Ray?
- My name is Quintero.
Mr. Quintero.
- Are you going to let us pass, or do I
have to call the sheriff?
- There's nothing stopping you.
I was wrong.
They don't want Jenkins for general manager.
They want me!
- You should have heard that fellow.
What a line.
I was up for a foreman, he says.
Fijate!
What's the matter?
- It's nothing.
Just a little catch.
Papa!
Over here!
- Is that Luis?
What is he doing, playing hooky again?
Luis, come back here!
Papa, we seen the two scabs over there!
- They're hiding over there in the gully!
- Hold it, brothers!
You, Antonio, Alfredo, Cente, come with me.
The rest of you stay on the line.
Luis!
Ramon!
That's them over there!
There they go!
- Prieto!
Sebastian Prieto.
- Ramon, listen to me.
For the love of God--
- You?
You?
I'd expect it of an Anglo, yes--
- Ramon, I'm in a jam.
I had to get a job.
- You Judas!
Bloodsucker!
- Ramon, my kids--
- Tu!
Traidor a tu gente!
Rompehuelga!
Desgraciado!
- My kids don't have enough to eat.
- You think my kids have enough to eat, you rat?
- I know it's wrong.
Just let me go.
I'll leave town.
Just let me go!
- You think I was gonna work you over?
I wouldn't dirty my hands on you.
- Papa!
- Luis!
The baby!
Get the women, quick!
- Why do you stop?
- Want to have a little talk with you,
why you slugged that fella back there.
- But that's a lie.
I didn't.
- Now you know that's no way to talk to a white man.
- Oh, no, no!
Go back and get a blanket, you idiots, so we can carry her!
- Hey, Vance, I thought you said this bullfighter was
full of pepper.
Don't look so peppery now.
- Oh, but he is.
He's full of chili, this one.
- Unh!
- He likes it hot.
His chiquita makes it good and hot for him, don't she, Pancho?
Aaah!
- Sheriff, we need a doctor quick.
There's a woman going to have a baby.
- What do you take me for, an ambulance driver?
- There's a company doctor.
We don't have a car-- if you'll just get him.
- Are you kidding?
Company doctor won't come to no picket line.
- We can't get her home.
There isn't time.
Take her inside!
- Hold your head up, Pancho.
That's no way to sit.
- I'll outlive you all, you lice.
How's that?
What's that spic talk?
- Unh!
- Oh, God, forgive me for wishing this child would never be born.
Ay, Madre-- Oh!
- Have mercy on this child.
Let this child live.
- Ay!
- Oh my god, Esperanza!
- Ramon!
Aaaahhhh!
Ramon was in the hospital for a week,
and then in the county jail for 30 days, charged
with assault and resisting arrest.
But I made up my mind to postpone the christening
till he got out of jail.
We christened him Juan.
That night we had a double celebration,
Juanito's christening, Ramon's homecoming.
And we put all the children to sleep in the bedroom, as usual.
And the men took over the parlor, as usual.
- $5,000.
That beats.
- Raise you $10,000.
- You dog.
All right, let's see 'em.
- Aces, wired.
Come to papa!
- Hear those deputies slugged Cente.
- Yeah.
Been lots of provocation lately.
They figure if they can lock up the leadership
on some phony charge, maybe they can bust the strike.
- Are we gonna let them play poker all night?
I want to dance.
- With whose husband?
- With any of them, even my own.
- If you dance with my husband, you'll
have to put up with this.
- And another thing-- your attitude towards Anglos.
If you're going to be a leader--
- What attitude?
- You lump them all together, Anglo workers and Anglo bosses.
- He's a guest in my house, isn't he?
- You're even suspicious of him.
- Maybe.
I think he's got a few things to learn about our people.
- Go on.
Spill it.
- Well, you're the organizer.
You work out strike strategy, and most of the time,
you're dead right.
But when you figure everything the rank-and-file's to do down
to the last detail, you don't give us
anything to think about.
Are you afraid we're too lazy to take initiative?
- You know I don't think that.
Maybe not.
But there's another thing.
Like when you came in tonight, I heard
you ask your wife, "Who's that, his grandfather?"
That's Juarez, the father of Mexico.
If I wouldn't know a picture of George Washington,
you would say I was an awful dumb Mexican.
- I've never seen it fail.
Try to give Ramon a friendly criticism
and he kicks it right back in your face.
- No, he's right.
I got a lot to learn.
Makes you feel any better, he's
got even less use for women.
- What are they talking about in there?
- Discussing each other's weaknesses.
- I didn't know they had any.
- Right now Ramon's on the receiving end.
- If we shut out the women from the life of the union--
Come on, bet!
- Let's break up that game.
- We can't think of them just as housewives, but as partners.
And we have to treat them as such.
- Well, look who's talking.
A new world's champion of women's rights.
- Oh, cut it out, Ruth.
- Me?
I'm a camp follower, following this organizer from one mining
camp to another-- Montana, Colorado, Idaho.
But does he ever think to organize the women?
No.
Wives don't count in the Anglo locals, either.
- Not that I like the way you treat your wife, Ramon.
I think you're all wrong.
But when Dr. Barnes here gives you
his cure-all for female problems,
just ask him if he's tried it at home.
- Hey, Esperanza?
- Esperanza's nursing the baby.
- There goes the game.
- Good.
Consuelo, turn up the radio.
Come on, Papa, on your feet.
- Look at him.
A fighter, huh?
- He was born fighting, and born hungry.
- Drink.
Drink, Juanito.
You'll never have it so good.
- He'll have it good.
Someday.
What were they saying about you in there?
- They say I'm no good to you.
- You are no good to me in jail.
I'd in my cell, in my cot,
and I couldn't sleep, with the bugs and the stink
and the heat, and I'd say to myself, think of something
nice.
Something beautiful.
And then I'd think of you, and my heart
would pound against the cot for love of you.
Not just Juanito.
You'll have it good too, Esperanza.
We're going to win this strike.
- What makes you so sure?
- Because if we lose, we lose more than a strike.
We lose the union, and the men know it.
And if we win, we win more than a few demands.
We win something bigger-- hope.
Hope for our kids.
Juanito can't grow strong on milk alone.
This the Quintero place?
What do you want?
We've got a court order.
You can't come in here without a warrant.
We got the warrant, too.
We don't want no trouble.
All we want's this radio here.
We hate to break in on you folks like this,
but this here fella owns the radio store,
and he got himself a repossession order.
- Don't touch it.
- We don't want no trouble, Mr. Quintero.
We got orders to repossess this machine.
- I said, don't touch it.
- Let him take it.
- Over my dead body.
- I don't want your dead body!
I don't want you back in jail, either.
- But it's yours.
I won't let them!
- Can't you see they want to start a fight so they
can lock you all up at one time?
What are you so sad about?
- Let's have some real music.
The strike did not end.
It went on into the fourth month, the fifth, the sixth.
The company still refused to negotiate.
They printed lies about us in their newspapers.
They said that all the Mexicans ought
to be sent back where they came from.
- How can I go where I come from?
The shack that I was born in is buried under company property!
- Why don't nobody ever tell the bosses
to go back to where they come from?
There wouldn't be any bosses
in the state of New Mexico if they did.
- Brother, live to see the day.
- Jenkins ain't no boss.
You mean we're gonna let people like Jenkins stay here?
- You can't send him back to Oklahoma.
It would be inhuman!
- But I was borned in Texas.
- Oh, no!
- That's even worse!
And the seventh month came.
We couldn't buy food at the company store.
By now, the strike fund was nearly gone.
A few families couldn't take it any longer.
And where they went, we do not know.
And so it was decided by the union
that hardship cases should seek work in other mines.
The strikers who found jobs divided their pay
with the union so the rest of us might eat.
Ramon was not a hardship case-- only three children to feed.
Even so, the mine owners might have starved us out,
were it not for the help we got from our International
in Denver and from the other locals.
And we, who thought no one outside our county
knew of our troubles, or cared if they did know,
found we were wrong.
Letters came from our own people of the Southwest,
from far away-- Butte, Chicago, Birmingham, New York.
Messages of solidarity and the crumpled dollar bills
of working men.
We women were helping, and not just as cooks and coffee
makers.
A few of the men made jokes about it,
but the work had to be done, so they let us stay.
No one knew how great a change it
was till the day of the crisis.
The sheriff was smiling, so we knew he brought bad news.
The company had got a court injunction
ordering the strikers to stop picketing.
A Taft-Hartley injunction, they called it.
It meant heavy fines and jail sentences for the strikers
if they disobeyed.
A decision had to be made at once
whether to obey the order or not.
If we obey the court, the strike will be lost.
The scabs will move in as soon as our picket line is gone.
If we defy the court, our pickets will be arrested.
and the strike will be lost anyway.
So there it is, brothers.
The bosses have us coming and going.
I just want to say this.
No matter how you decide, the International
will back you up as it's always backed you up.
This is a democratic union.
The decision is up to you.
- Brother Chairman, if we give up now,
if we obey this rotten Taft-Hartley,
we are fools and cowards.
There is only one way-- fight 'em.
Fight 'em all.
Ramon, we don't gain nothing.
They'll arrest us.
Que nos arresten.
The men quarreled.
They made brave speeches.
But it seemed that Brother Barnes was right.
The company had them coming and going.
It seemed the strike was lost.
- Brother Chairman, if you read the court injunction carefully,
you will see that they only prohibit striking miners
from picketing.
We women are not striking miners.
We will take over here your picket line.
Don't laugh.
We have a solution.
You have none.
Brother Quintero was right when he
said we'll lose 50 years of gains
if we lose this strike, your wife and children, too.
But this we promise.
If women take your places on the picket lines,
the strike will not be broken, and no scabs
will take your job.
- If that's a motion-- only members of the union
can make a motion.
- I so move.
- Second.
- You have heard the motion.
The floor is open for debate.
Luz asked which was worse--
to hide behind a woman's skirt or go down on his knees
before the boss?
- Brothers, we don't count enough on our women.
The bosses don't count on them at all.
- Will the bosses win now because there
is no unity between the men, their wives, and their sisters?
Carlotta Sanchez
said she didn't think picketing was proper for ladies.
It wasn't nice, maybe even a sin.
I say let's give the sisters a chance.
- And what will happen when the cops come
and beat our women up?
Are we going to stand there and watch them?
No.
We'll take over anyway, and we'll
be right back where we started-- only worse.
Even more humiliated.
Brothers, brothers, I beg you-- don't allow this.
- Call the question.
- All right.
The question's been called.
You brothers know what you are voting on,
that the sisters of the auxiliary
take over the picket line.
All those in favor will so signify.
Brother Chairman, point of order!
I, uh, I don't know anything
about these questions of parliament.
You men are voting on something the women
are to do or not to do, so I think
it's only fair that the women be allowed to vote.
Especially if they have to do the job.
Brothers and sisters, it would be
unconstitutional to permit women to vote at a union meeting.
If there's no objection,
we could adjourn this meeting.
No!
- No, no, no, no, wait, wait.
And reconvene this meeting as a community mass meeting,
with every adult entitled to a vote.
- I so move.
- All right.
On the motion to adjourn, all those in favor
will raise their hands.
Aye!
All those opposed?
The ayes have it.
Now every adult is entitled to a vote.
- On the original question.
Question!
- All those in favor that the sisters take over the picket
line will so signify it by raising their hands.
Aye!
All those opposed?
The motion has carried, 103 to 85.
And so they came, the women.
They came from Zinc Town and the hills
beyond, from other mining camps, women we had never seen before.
Women who had nothing to do with the strike.
Somehow they heard about the women's picket line,
and they came.
And the men came, too.
I think they were afraid, afraid the women wouldn't stand fast,
or maybe afraid they would.
But not all the women went to the picket post.
Some were forbidden by their husbands.
- It's not fair.
I should be there with them.
After all, I'm the one who got the women the vote.
- The union don't run my house.
Those Anglo dames stirred you up to make fools of yourselves,
but you don't see any of them down there.
- Yes, I do.
There is Ruth Barnes.
She's the organizer's wife.
She's got to be there.
No, she wants to be there.
And there is Mrs. Kalinsky.
There's Jenkins' wife.
You don't see her on no picket line.
Anglo husbands can also be backward.
- Can be what?
Backward.
Can't I even put in an appearance?
With a baby in your arms?
- The baby likes to be walked.
It helps him burp.
Hey, girls.
Wait a minute, don't you wanna see my pistol?
- Shut up!
- What's so amusing?
They're flaunting a court order.
- Oh, I'm not so sure about that, Mr. Alexander.
Letter of the law, you know.
All that injunction says is no picketing by miners.
- Whose side are you on, anyway?
- Ah, don't get excited.
They'll scatter like quail.
Well, let's get at it, before another 100
dames shows up.
- All right, boys.
- What about these?
- Forget it.
They'll scatter like quail.
- They're beating up my wife!
- Get back!
They're beating up my wife!
- They'll start shooting!
They'll throw you in jail.
Get back!
- Push them back!
Why are you standing there?
Do something!
- Relax.
- But women are getting hurt.
We've got to take over!
They're doing all right.
Anyway, looks like you got your hands full.
The union is our leader,
we shall not be moved.
The union is our leader, we shall not be moved.
Just like a tree that's standing by the water,
we shall not be moved.
- Papa, I'm hungry.
- So am I.
- Where's your mama?
- She's coming.
Charley Vidal gave her a lift.
Boy, did you see the way Mama whupped that deputy?
Knocked the gun right out of--
- I don't want you hanging around there, hear?
You all right?
- Sure.
- Must have been some experience for you, huh?
- Yes.
- I guess you got enough today to last you a lifetime.
- I'm going back tomorrow.
- Listen, you might get hurt.
- I might.
- If you think I'm going to play nursemaid from now on,
you're crazy.
I've had these kids all day.
- I've had them since the day they were born.
- I'm telling you, I don't stay home with these kids tomorrow.
- OK.
Then tomorrow I take the kids with me to the picket line.
And so I came back the next day,
and every day for the next month.
I kept Juanito in the coffee shack.
And when the weather was good and there
was peace on the line, I brought his crib outside.
Estella played with the little ones,
and Luis-- Luis was in school.
Ramon came every day, just watching.
The ladies, well, they criticized Ramon
for not keeping the kids.
For a while, the sheriff's men left us alone.
But then they cursed us, insulted us,
called us foul names.
It started again.
They used tear gas again.
This time the wind was against us,
and I took the baby away from the danger, as we had planned.
Quickly!
Get out of--
We spread out as we had planned.
- Form your line!
But they couldn't break our line.
They couldn't break it.
- Well?
- I've tried everything but shooting them down.
- You haven't tried locking them up.
- You want them all arrested?
- No, just the ringleaders, the-- the fire-eaters.
And the ones with big families.
Barton, where's that boy?
- Hey, you.
Come here.
- All right, girls.
I'm going to give you a choice.
You can go home or go to jail.
No ifs, ands, or buts.
Get off the picket line or get arrested.
OK.
Point them out.
- That one, Teresa Vidal, she's the leader.
- You're under arrest.
Home or the hoosegow, what'll it be?
- Keep marching, sisters.
Let's show some discipline.
But Teresa--
- They'll charge us with resisting arrest.
Keep marching, sisters.
Keep marching.
Mrs. Salazar, the old one.
Chana Diaz, that one in the blue dress.
Luz Morales, this one.
Mrs. Kalinsky, the Anglo.
Ruth Barnes.
She's the organizer's wife.
And Lala Alvarez, the pretty one.
And that one.
- With the baby?
- She's Ramon Quintero's wife.
He doesn't like her being here.
- We'll take care of the baby, Esperanza.
Don't worry about Juanito.
We can take care of Estella, too.
- No.
The baby stays with me.
The union is our leader,
we shall not be moved.
The union is our leader, we shall not be moved.
Just like a tree that's standing by the water,
we shall not be moved.
Shall not be moved.
We shall not, we shall not be moved.
Just like a tree that's standing by the water,
we shall not be moved.
Queremos banos!
Queremos comida!
Queremos banos!
Queremos comida!
Queremos banos!
Queremos camas!
Queremos comida!
Queremos banos!
Queremos comida!
- Let us out!
Queremos camas!
Queremos comida!
- Be quiet!
I told you ten times, we have no food.
We have no beds.
So will you please, please shut up!
Queremos comida!
Queremos banos!
- He can't drink this milk.
It will make him sick.
He's on a formula.
I was a fool.
I shouldn't have--
- Don't you worry.
We'll get some action.
- The baby can't drink this store milk.
We want his formula.
- You want the what?
- The formula.
The formula.
- We want the formula.
We want the formula!
Well, you can get
the JP to swear out peace bonds.
Or you can hike the bail high enough to keep them in jail.
- Keep them?
What am I supposed to do, feed them out of my own pocket?
What I want to know, Mr. Hartwell,
is when are you gonna settle this thing?
You won't negotiate with them.
What do you want, anyway?
- The company has other mines.
You've got to see the larger picture.
Once these people get out of hand--
- What you doing here?
Ain't you seen enough of me?
- I come for my kids.
They're in your jail.
But you've played
every trump in your hand.
They're not dead yet.
Not every trump.
Such as what?
- I can't shut them dames up.
They keep yelling about a formula.
- A what?
- A formula for the baby or something.
His kid.
- Hey!
Hey!
Now lookee here.
I got you some milk for the baby,
so what's all the bellyaching about?
- That milk is no good.
Queremos la formula.
Queremos la formula!
- Queremos la formula.
- If Juanito gets sick, you'll be responsible.
Yeah!
- I am not running a drugstore.
You girls got only yourselves to blame for this.
You'd be back with your families in an hour.
All you got to do is to sign a pledge
not to go back on the picket line.
- Don't sign nothing for the stinker!
No!
We want the formula!
- Where'd that fellow go?
- Hey, Pancho, come here!
We want the formula!
All right, where's his baby?
And the little girl?
- Queremos comida.
Queremos camas.
Queremos banos.
- Will you kids get out of those baskets?
- Como va?
- Esto no tiene fin.
Three hours just to heat enough water to wash this stuff?
I'm telling you something, if this strike is ever settled,
which I doubt, I'll never go back to work for that company
unless they install hot running water for us.
It should have been a union demand from the beginning.
- You're telling me?
- It's like Charley Vidal says.
There's two kinds of slavery-- wage
slavery and domestic slavery.
The woman question, he calls it.
- Woman question?
- Yeah.
The problem is, what to do about it?
So?
What does he want to do about 'em?
He says, give them equality.
Equality in job, equality in home, and also sex equality.
- What do you mean, sex equality?
- You know.
Lo que es bueno para el hombre es bueno para la mujer.
He's some organizer, that Charley!
He can sure organize a wife right out of your home!
- Papa, can't I leave now?
There's a meeting of the Junior Shop Stewards.
- The what?
- The Junior Shop Stewards.
There's lots of ways we can help.
- Don't I have enough problems without them shipping you off
to reform school?
- But you need all the help you can get.
You've got to help around the house.
But you've got me doing everything.
Mama never used to make me dry the dishes.
You should have helped her without being asked.
Good night, Esperanza.
Hasta manana.
- How do you feel?
- I'm OK.
- Four nights!
How did you sleep?
- We raised so much fuss, they finally brought cots in.
I nearly lost my voice, yelling so much.
How's Estellita, and the baby?
- They're asleep.
Did you have to sign a pledge not
to go back to the picket line?
- No, no, we wouldn't do it.
- But if you go back, they'll lock you up again.
- No, no, the sheriff's had enough of us.
We drove him crazy.
Buenas noches, Luz.
- Hi.
- Hi there.
Que tal, Teresa?
Hello.
Well?
- It's all set.
Consuelo's squad can take the day off tomorrow.
We're taking over.
- All right.
We'll work it out.
- We've got to have a talk, you and me.
- All right, but later.
We have got a meeting now.
- A meeting?
- Yes, to plan for the picket line tomorrow.
You can sit in, if you want.
Now let us see, who's available?
Chana's husband is out of town on that delegation
to see the governor.
- And there are a whole lot of men
going on a fuel-hunting expedition tomorrow, 30 or 40
of them, so their wives are out, too.
- But we can ask them to keep our kids so the rest of us--
- What are we going to do about him, Esperanza?
- It's about time he was housebroken.
Maybe if a delegation of us talked to him?
- I have to work it out with him myself.
- I got a friend, he's got a friend in the Bureau of Mines.
You know what he says?
They ain't never gonna open that mine up again.
- How come?
- Oh, he says that the ore's gone out, so help him.
Bull.
Lot of bull.
That's a rich mine.
I know.
What's the difference?
They'll never settle with us-- never.
Hey!
What do you know?
It's him!
It's him, el presidente!
The president of the company!
- Let me see this.
Listen to this.
"Man of distinction, J. Hamilton Miller, financier,
business executive, board chairman of Continental
Factors, and president of Delaware Zinc, Incorporated--"
- Let me see it.
- Wait a minute, wait a minute, now.
"An enthusiastic sportsman and expert marksman, Mr. Miller
manages to find time every year for an African safari.
He leaves this month for Kenya, where
he hopes to bag his 13th lion."
- I'm gonna frame this.
Look, Ramon!
- Got to look at the larger picture.
So the guy's a lion hunter.
- What'd you expect him to hunt-- rabbits?
- Boy, oh, boy, would I like to get me some venison.
I ain't tasted meat in four weeks.
- How about it, Ramon?
Let's take off for a couple of days, huh?
- Why ask me?
Am I running this strike?
If you want permission to go over the hill,
go ask the Ladies' Auxiliary.
- I waited up till midnight.
- You weren't waiting for me.
- That meeting only lasted 10 minutes.
The first night I am home, you run to the beer parlor.
What is it?
Can't you bear the sight of me?
Be still.
- But you wanted to talk.
Tell me.
- We can't go on this way.
I just can't go on living with you, not this way.
- No, we can't go on this way.
We can't go back to the old way, either.
- The old way?
What's your new way?
What's it mean?
Your right to neglect your kids?
- Where are you going?
- Hunting.
- When?
- Sun up.
- Alone?
- No.
- Ramon, you can't.
- Why not?
I'm not needed here.
- But you are needed, especially now,
with most of the other men away.
You are the captain of the standby squad.
- Sure, the standby squad.
Stand by for the funeral.
- Whose funeral?
We are doing all right.
There hasn't been a scab near the picket line for three days.
- And you know why?
Because the company knows they can starve us out,
even if it takes them another two or three months.
What's it to them if the mine's shut down a little longer?
- It's a lot to them.
They'd do anything to open that mine.
- Ah, they've got other mines.
You don't see the larger picture.
They've got millions.
Millions.
They can outlast us, and they know it.
- You mean you are ready to give up?
- Who said anything about giving up?
I'll never go back to that company on my knees.
Never.
- You want to go down fighting, is that it?
I don't want to go down fighting.
I want to win.
Ramon, we are not getting weaker.
We are stronger than ever before.
They are getting weaker.
They thought they could break our picket line,
and they failed.
And now they can't win unless they pull off something big,
and pull it off fast.
- Like what?
- I don't know.
But I can feel it coming.
It's like a lull before the storm.
Charley Vidal says--
- Charley Vidal says!
Don't throw Charley Vidal up to me.
- Charley's my friend.
I need friends.
Why are you so afraid to have me as your friend?
- I don't know what you're talking about.
- No, you don't.
Have you learned nothing from this strike?
Why are you afraid to have me at your side?
Do you still think you can have dignity only if I have none?
- You talk of dignity after what you've been doing?
Yes.
I talk of dignity.
The Anglo bosses look down on you, and you hate them for it.
"Stay in your place, you dirty Mexican."
That's what they tell you.
But why must you say to me, "Stay in your place"?
Do you feel better having someone lower than you?
Shut up!
You're talking crazy.
- Who's neck shall I stand on to make feel superior?
And what will I get out of it?
I don't want anything lower than I am.
I am low enough already.
I want to rise, and to push everything up with me as I go.
- Will you be still?
- And if you can't understand this,
you are a fool, because you can't
win this strike without me.
You can't win anything without me!
- Ahh!
- That would be the old way.
Never try it on me again.
Never.
I'm going to bed now.
Sleep where you please, but not with me.
- So they had a little taste of what it's like to be a woman,
and they run away.
With Ramon, it's pride.
I spoke out of the bitterness in me, and he was hurt.
- Anything worth learning is a hurt.
These changes come with pain.
For other husbands, too, not just Ramon.
You mean you're ready to give up?
I don't want to go down fighting.
I want to win.
Have you learned nothing from this strike?
Ramon, we are not getting weaker.
We are stronger than ever before.
They are getting weaker.
I can feel it coming.
It's like a lull before the storm.
And now they can't win, unless they pull off something big,
and pull it off fast.
Brothers!
We've got to go back!
- Esperanza, where's Ramon?
Did he go hunting with the others?
- Where?
Where can we find him?
Do you know?
- No.
- Deer hunters.
Deserters, that's what they are.
- Something's wrong?
Charley, tell us.
- The company has an eviction order.
- Eviction!
Eviction!
- Where?
En la casa de Quintero!
- Eviction!
- Donde?
- En la casa de Quintero!
- Eviction!
Eviction!
- Don't worry.
Quintero's gone hunting with the others.
Evict him first, the rest will be easy.
Let the neighbors watch.
It'll scare some sense into them.
Can't we do something?
- All right, girls.
Get back, get back.
- What's up, huh?
- Eviction at the Quintero place!
- Come on!
- Let's go!
Hey, hey, hey, hey!
- Get 'em!
Hey!
Leave them brats alone!
Come on!
Let's get our work done.
Don't pay any attention to 'em.
Go back and get the rest of the stuff.
This is what we've been waiting for.
- What are you saying?
This means they have given up
trying to break our picket line.
Now we can all fight together-- all of us!
Go get the kids.
Pick up the stuff.
- Go!
Come on!
- Now see here, Quintero, these women are obstructing justice.
You make 'em behave, savvy?
- I can't do nothing, Sheriff.
You know how it is.
They won't go listen to a man anymore.
- You want me to lock 'em up again?
- You want 'em in your lock-up again?
- Keep 'em out of the yard!
- Hey, the guys from the open pit!
- Yeah, and the guys from the mill.
- Got any more ideas?
- I don't make policy.
- I'll talk to New York.
I think maybe we'd better settle this thing.
For the present.
We did not
know then we had won the strike.
And yet our hearts were full.
And when Ramon said--
- Thanks, sisters and brothers.
Esperanza, thank you.
You were right.
Together we can push everything up with us as we go.
Then I knew
we had won something they could never take away, something
I could leave my children, and they, the salt of the earth,
would inherit it.