From these Television Companies and more including communications. Broadband is a force for empowerment. Thats why charter has invested billions Building Infrastructure , upgrading technology, empowering opportunity in communities they and small. Charter is connecting us. Charter communications along with these Television Companies supports cspan2 as a public service. I want to introduce myself, im doctor rita urquoijoruiz. So excited to be here. I was telling kelly i such a nerd. Im a professor of modern languages and literature this typically spanish but also gender and sexuality as well as shekinah latino, latin at and performance at Trinity University street and really a child of the borderlands so todays event is dear to my heart. Let me introduce you to the woman of the hour, Kelly Hernandez is a professor of history, africanamerican studies and urban planning at university of california los angeles where she is the chair in history and directs the rob bunch center for africanamerican studies. One of the nations leading experts on race, immigration and mass incarceration she is the author of, write these down if you havent, a history of the Us Border Patrol with the university of California Press published in 2010 as well as the of inmates, conflict, rebellion and the rise of human caging in los angeles. University of North Carolina press 2017 and of course todays book, bad mexicans race, empire, and revolution in the iborderlands which is just out on press, when was it published . May 10, five days after cinco de mayo. Thank you she also leads a very Important Program and shell tell us about it called milliondollar hurts, a Research Initiative documenting the human cost of incarceration in los angeles. For her historical and contemporary work professor hernandez was named the 2019 carter genius fellow. She is also an elected member of the society of american historians r, the American Academy of arts and sciences Pulitzer Prize board so its just all around genius here. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. Weve been here for a couple of hours and on friday , i want to begin so that you could tell our audience today if we can begin with a personal and then get into the research. In graduate school for me as you see the director of california san diego we had ch this research is me search so when we do our research we go into the work looking for ourselves and looking for what mightidentify with. The first question is can you tell us what attracts you to the history, survival and rebellion of brown and black people. Story of my life. I grew up in the borderlands, im from San Diego California and these questions are really close to my heart, and my personal experience. I was coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s and the war on drugs and war onimmigrants i experienced that as a young black child in the borderlands. Police were coming to our schools into our parks and breaking things up and putting us on the stoop, arresting us but i was seeing across the way it was the way the Border Patrol was treating treating mexicanes immigrants. They were going on the buses, going to the schools and they were sweeping people up and preparing them just like they were preparing everybody i knew but nobody was talking about how these forms of racial violence and policing work related to each other. They seem to be happening in their own silos but from an early age i was curious about what was the relationship between antiblack policing and antinonwhite immigrant policing in particular so many of these stories come from these questions that i had as a child laas a black girl in the borderlands and i pursuedthem for like 20 years at this point in a variety of ways. Began by thinking about Police Violence and mexican immigrant communities as an cmigrc and at that point in time people weretalking about immigration and race and policing altogether. This was an immigrant story. But this is also something about race and whitesupremacy and i want to talk about that and figure it out. I finished negro which was the story of policing and i want to talk about what the next steps in imprisonment and i wrote this book city of inmates which ended up being a far more complex and textured history of mass incarceration that then i anticipated involving indigenous communities, all l forms of nonwhite immigrant communities and of course. Now weve got mexicans so after all this work on ic policing and violence and imprisonment and caging i really want to focus on rebels but it makes sense. Because to be, to have written these two books about the Us Border Patrol, people being incarcerated, brown and black people primarily then to these rebels in the borderlands and getting the history of why and how we get to these communities. Before we dive into the book though i want you to tell us a little bit more about this project that you are internationally recognized for the milliondollar look, could you describe your audience and tell us what it is you and your team are doing their . So milliondollar hoods began as a big data mapping project and what we do is we acquire lapd and la Sheriffs Department arrest and jail data, clean it all up and then make these digital maps you can look at on your phone. And we show every community where more than 1 million is being spent per year locking up local residents of that community and in some communities and tens of millions of dollars every year and on incarceration. The reading charges olare you can guess it, drug possession and dui. And our argument is if we take those millions of dollars and move it out of policing and incarceration and put into counseling and into housing and employment, caeducation and everything we know that builds stronger people, families and communities that would be a much better use of our public resources. So milliondollar could begin with that, its a Community Driven isproject. Our analysis is all coming out of the most impacted communities. When not just a data project anymore, were also an archival project. There was a lawsuit against lapd that one about 200 boxes of previously undisclosed records where we went through those archives right now to figure out what has been the full human toll of policing in la over the last couple decades and were having a major project called implementing that asia abolition which were thinking about policing and incarceration have become Major Economies in los angeles which they certainly have. They are areas of employment and if we want to scale back our commitment to police incarceration, many of whom are black and brown folks who were displaced into these jobs. The argument is we want to get all of our people out. The caged and the cage are, the police and the police are. So were thinking about creating a blueprint. How do you move this massive economy and workforce out of police incarceration and into jobs that help us have strongercommunities. Arts, education, its all. Where working with people formerly incarcerated, use in particular. People who work in probation butcome to a different understanding of the work theyve done. The harm done and the harm based on the others. Work with others to create this blueprint to get out. You mentioned the fact that la is the biggest incarcerated or in the entire world. Let that sink in. To have the city of la incarcerating the most number of people per year as a whole, are there plans to also do this type of project or a similar sister project in other places. Not from us and thats because its so Community Driven. This is a partner project that came out of organizers fighting against the establishment of a 3 million jail in los angeles. We partner with other communities that have driven projects somewhere else. Milliondollar could build upon devious projects elsewhere. He there are millions of these projects in chicago and orleans and elsewhere , the analysis being how can you lock up y,people on a single block. Its not a vertical city, its a horizontal city, we turned this to a milliondollar hood. Thank you. And to wrap up the personal part of this and of course all of this is epidemic as well but what does it mean to have the term genius associated with you now that you have the genius award. I knew you would jump at this one. Look, the work that i do is so Community Driven. It is the genius of our community and its about diversifying the economy and bringing all the force and power of our experiences, of our intuition to the canon, to the mainstream. If theres a genius at work its this genius of bipoc communities and the way where helping in these historical fields. We think of what is the socalled american story, im blessed to be in this particular position for sure. Now lets get to the book. For our audience who havent picked it up first yet, the book is divided into four sections. The second is we will be revolutionaries, the third one is running down the revolutionists and the last one is land and liberty. You argue we cannot understand the history of the United States without understanding the history of the Transnational Movement that precedes and leads into the mexicanrevolution. Can you detail the personal and political relationships that his brothers and allies to fight against that dictatorship. Chapter 1. , in one minute. All right, ill try. Bad mexicans tells the story of this group of mexican dissidents, mainly journalists fighting against the dictatorship in mexico and the title of the book comes from the fact that the diaz regime would disparage these as bad mexicans. After oppression in mexico city and st. Louis, to build a social movement to try to oust the dictator. So it recounts the story of what happens after they arrived in the United States and build a social movement. They restart their rebel newspaper. They start a political party, the plm and establish fan army of the dispossessed, of Cotton Pickers andminors and Migrant Workers that goes on to raid mexico four times between 1906 and 1908. Those stabilize the regime and that diaz days are numbered and why thats important in the United States is that the United States made Major Investments in states in the diaz administration buying up a quarter of the land based reand coming to dominate key Mexican Industries and more. So when the magonistas start reading mexico and saying were going to pull out this dictator the United States government goesin and says weve got to stop this revolution potentially destabilizing our investments. So bad mexicans tells the story of the rebuilding of the inUnited States. Theyre outrunning spies and detectives and all this insurgency work but its also the story of the us and Mexican Government working together to build a counterinsurgency team for this uprising before it can get started. And the part about it is you have all these ordinary people, journalists, mine workers, Cotton Pickers who are able against all odds to outsmart and outrun the mexican and Us Governments to help them fight the outbreak of the mexican revolution so its an extraordinary tail and whats at stake here is a world vision in which n capitalism and capital dominates. World vision in which White Supremacy reigns supreme. Thats how to run a dictatorship in the Us Government and the counter vision for life the rebels bring , that there imagining for the impoverished. Land for all those whove been dispossessed and most important power for the marginalized and its those freedom dreams that they are able to help push forward into thatmexican revolution. That wasnt two minutes, sorry. So the book cover iand we have it up there for those of you who dont have it has these mexicans, these bad mexicans, all men. If im translating the title in my mind im thinking Los Mexicanos in terms of masculinity but as we read the book we see all these amazing revolutionary women that are part and parcel of everything that the magonistas, theyre everywhere. And erits not only mexican women but theres also angloamerican women, all kinds of different women participating in this movement. If you had to choose one or two of these women to provide right another book and i know you have a lot of projects but who would you expand on if you needed to or wanted to and you had another 48 hours in the day to do this, who are those women who call to you when you think ofall of them in the book . I got your answer. So i would definitely write about juan mendoza if i had a chance and if we had apicture archive of her. One was this extraordinary autodidact from the mountains of durango. A crossdressing most likely queer although its not 100 percent clear first became a labor organizer for minors and mine workers and she was arrested so many times that rather than writing her name on her jail records she would simply write sedition and rebellion. Thats hot. Shes so awesome. So she is a really important labor organizer and dissident in mexican mexico and she comes north with the whole group that comes north in 1904 and one of the things i like about her the most is that as the man who is known as the leader of the magonistas, this guy mcgowan becomes more powerful its one of the steps to him and says this movement is getting a little organized around you as an individual, whats really at stake here are the principles we got ready to return to the principles and she goes toe to toe with him and shes just extraordinary in doing whereas i think many people ricardo was brilliant. And he could at the dictators but he was also vitriolic and i think some people want to step back from all of that higher that he could bring. She said were going to do this he tried to hold on a couple of times and she wasnt having it, she was not going to be shamed out of the revolution and she sticks with it. She goes on to help at least organize and plan on major level as it as therevolution was taking place in mexico city. She goes on to join in the at ml llanos army and help reg, she goes on to fight for women Voting Rights and everything in mexico. Shes an extraordinary human being. So thats what we have. Thats what we know about wanda. Im confident theres so much more. The archive is so slim so if i could i would spend the rest of my life lwith her. I love that. And going into the archives, we know as researchers of professors and teachers that to go into an archive especially at the rebel archive that were permitted to look into what is it mean for you to be able to get your hands on all of these boxes and letters and materials so for you to construct this really fun and heartwrenching but also very rebels and f these these women that are in here. Tell us a little bit about the experience of the archives for you. Thats such a good question with this book in particular. This is a social movement that is being built here in the United States and for a long time theyre living on the run, living as fugitives and their being surveilled everywhere they go by the us marshals and everybody. And in fact, theres a private detective that the Mexican Government hires to follow these rebels across the United States and hes able to penetrate the us postal system and by putting plants and spies in the postal system is able to collect up the letters, write down, copy the ttletters and then send off the deletters to mexico for decoding and put them back in the mail with hopes that themagonistas wouldnt figure out that their being followed through the mail. They figure it out and realize that their lettersare showing up to their homes. They been broken into and so they start writing secret codes. And they start writing in pseudonyms. They sent every letter through four of five or six intermediaries before they get to the final person so the thing thats so amazing about this archivist is archivist rent letters and letters written in secret code so it was over the generations. This is a story we dont know in the United States butits a legend in mexico. Its an extraordinarily wellfounded and they would ve spend decades decoding these letters and making them available and so something about this archive is that its an the best archive that takes us to the front lines of the revolutions. What are you doing there, what are you eating today, where are you going to hide ou out today. But also there are disputes with one another. It gets personal. It takes you to the front lines of a revolution. Imagine if we have those letters from the Chicano Movement or from the front lines, thats what we have here so its a real opportunity to see into their minds, to see into their relationships and to see how theyre building this social movement against all odds. By chance do we have a picture . Lets go ahead and show that. Hold on, hold on. Thats one out, everybody fall in love. Sorry, this is a presentation that i have. Thats one of the decoded letters. Really incredible. In the book i give you both a letterand the code. You can break it. And ill break it for you. You can have your students break this letter. Thank you. Fun stuff. T you really have to get this book and dive into it. I also wanted to mention that the way you wrote it, divided into these four sections but also smallchapters, very easy , accessible small chapters. What is it like to write it that way. Ive written to academic books and this is a book for a general readership. And i wanted to be something more accessible and about storytelling. Do you feel you give anything up by transformingit into a readable book . This is more rigorous than academic work, it was difficult to do this and to tell the stories through people. As opposed to our theories and all that kind of stuff. So yes, short chapters, my editor told me its like a videogame. Theres payoffs along the way so be able to read one chapter in one sitting and go thats interesting and come back later. So then look to come back from the next one and thenext one , its wonderful. In the book you detail how these people, men and women, magonistas and others are basically the foundation of what turns out to be the federal bureau of investigation here in the United States, can you tell us more about that and why that is so critical to what it is were living today and how it is that brown and black bodies are being incarcerated and punished and the way that we are in the United States with us imperialism. In june 1908 the plm, the magonistas unleashed three really gleeful raids in northern mexico between about the 25th and 30 june. 1908. On july 1 of 1908, the us attorney general and president Teddy Roosevelt established a new federal police force called thebureau of investigation. Now Teddy Roosevelt had imagined this organization as a deciding land drawn out west but pivots quickly after these raids that had shook the diaz regime had threatened usinvestments in mexico. 50 percent of Foreign Investment at this time are in mexico so this was a significant threat on the us capital. So they bureau of investigation to dedicate about a third of its first agents to tracking down and arresting and hunting down these magonistass so the fbi has in fact its the and born in an effort to suppress the outbreak of the 1910 mexican revolution why is that important . When we talk about counterinsurgency in the us do you think you hear about mexicanamericans . Im seeing a whole lot of shaking hands know so this is another example. This book is a smuggling act in and of itself. Were taking an extra ordinarily dynamic riveting tale of armed revolt and love affairs and betrayals and secret coded letters and its a really riveting story. But were smuggling within its key moments in Mexican American history and documenting how mexicanamericans and mexican immigrants are at the center of the us story. But whats more central than the fbi . Whats more central racialized policing, its a key issue so you get to see these moments where you didnt know mexicans, mexicanamericans existed in the us story. Or were pulling back the veil. So that kind of stuffcomes up and people will do what, no. And thats one example of the ways in which the book is trying to document you cannot tell us history without mexicanamericans, its one example and i hope people read this and keep reading. Its not just about mexicanamericans, its about black history written large, its about bipoc Community Written large. Its one way ofhelping to open up that story. Its difficult. Some of the images we have are vibrant and heartwrenching but yet its just fascinating in terms of getting through the history. In order to leave time for a q a i wanted to have you read the opening of your book and then were going to transition into the questions and answers. Beware, this is difficult to hear but its critical. I went while i wrote this. They let the pyre and watched him burn. Antonio rodriguez,a 20yearold ranch hand h murdered a white woman, they said. Fthey formed a posse to track him down while other residents 400 of them met at the edge of town and piled kindling at the base of the tree. The poppies soon arrived with cowboy in the lead dragging rodriguez by a wrapped around his neck. The mob laughed as they doused in kerosene. Someone threw a match in 30 minutes later Antonio Rodriguez was dead. The residence returned quietly to town and business was resumed. It was november 3, 1910. Mexican american journalists in the borderlands reported the grisly details of rodriguez murder condemning it as active racial terror akin to the lynching of africanamericans in the south. Newspapers in mexico picked prup the story. Lynching is not practiced by blood yankees on races assumed. Inferior of mexicos. Another paper called angloamericans the barbarous whites of the north, the giants with a dollar but pygmies of culture. Theres a negation among mexicans over this lynching. November 8, 1910 riots had arrived across mexico. Targeting a considerable number of us phone businesses te the protesters mash windows and store down american flags by chanting death to the americans. The Police Arrest hundreds of people and in one case officers through sabers and descended upon a crowd telling a man by stabbing him through the neck. The icprotests continued on the streets and in the press pumping henry lane wilson Us Ambassador to mexico to issue a public warning. United States Government will closeleave nothing undone. To protect us citizens and property in mexico. It was a threat. The United States would invade mexico if attacks on ux interest did not cease but the protests raged on. Ambassador wilson decided to visit the dictator of mexico and insist he put a stop to the socalled antiamerican disturbance. But it was too late. The magonistas had already incited the outbreak of the 1910 revolution. Please help me thank zoe styles. I believe we have a microphone that will come to any of you that would like to ask a question. Over here and we will come to the two. Thank you professor, you speak of history in such compelling and fresh revelatory ways and yet so much of the way history is discussed right now is as a kind of skirmish in the socalled culture wars. Theres so much pushback against expanding history to include theperspectives and experiences of people who were traditionally left out. Your scholarship seems so advanced but it seems were moving backwards. Howexactly should we do that and respond to that . Its a great question that the question of the moment. We are in danger if we refuse to acknowledge the violence that has gone into the making of this country. The experience that just this week in buffalo. I know nothing else other than try to speak truth to power. And try to bring us all together in a shared narrative of how we got here. Theres no, its not a little as to why our Community Looks the way it does. Theres a deep history of violence that has led to this racialized outcome that we saw in covid and if we truly want to reckon with all of that, we truly want to move towards something called liberation or democracy or equality were going to have to uproot that and thats what were trying to do as historians is to seeit and make it plain. And i am terribly concerned about many histories and in particular the lack of re recognition of it in the United States nbut also around the story in particular of mexican and Mexican American history. I believe that one of the reasons children can be in cages of the border is because we dont have a Human History ofwho these children are , thatthey are children. And so these histories that we tell our part of trying to o see one another as full human beings. So i dont know, maybe youre a teacher but i recommend to all teachers out there i think that wescholars at the university need to lean in with you a little bit more. Whether thats showing up virtually or in person to your classroom, talking together about how we can collaborate but you are in particular danger, youre at the front lines and im certainly committed to working with you, so please reach out across the k12 university divide but were in this together. Because you are talking with them young and setting the foundation for the framework are going to use going ha forward. Thank you for your questions. I believe we have a question here and for you. I am ashamed to say, could you share with us a little bit more about it is education and the economic upport systems of magc through this period and also if you have a chance to see firsthand thoseiswritings , what did he put on those letters if you got a chance to seeany of that. The question, what was it education . I missed the first park. I think i missed the first part. To you. Hes still bringing his education and reporting from historys he was a Law School Dropout so we all got a revolution inside of us. So hes a lost School Dropout who goes on to become a. His brother brings him into the trade and he learns an apprenticeship more or less and he supported by hisolder brother who had moved into the movement before him. And like an Incredible Community as a journalist in mexico city. He is known as the leader of this movement and there known as magonistas because of that but even that they would have pushed back against that label and said were liberals, we all have our independent voices and thinking especially as they are becoming more and more anarchists to think you would have thissingular leader. That was the first part of your question but you had a second part of your question. And i wanted to answer that, the question of did we had an opportunity firsthand to see some of these letters . Yes, they are available in the archive in mexico city. Theyre bound and see also i will say theres a wonderful mexican scholar who unfortunately passed away recently but who spent his career digitizing many of these letters so if you go to the archive you can look at the letters yourself in their original handwriting, in their secret codes and everything. Thank you. That you for this extraordinary work. My question is about the relationship between francisco and ricardo. Both were opposed enemies, both were in san antonio. So madero is credited with being the person who comes the first president after diaz who really sort of helps to lead the revolution, really takes off in 1911. He and Ricardo Flores certainly did know each other to the organizing communities and was Ricardo Flores and others move north to the United States they were really struggling to get the newspaper started. Theyre having hard time raising enough money. One of their buddies stole a bunch of money and spend it on a girlfriend, that kind of stuff, right . They get it started in san antonio because of a loan from madero. Or a gift from francisco madeira. He says ive been following your for a long time, i support you, 2000 for for them to start in san antonio. He continues to support them. Its quite possible one of the times ricardo is arrested. Its madero who post bail for him. They continue to speak back and forth. Its only when the magnet in east of to beat mexico and their armed insurgency that madero is like no, you know what, we can remove this through the established political system. Thats the best way to remove diaz from power. They are like, hes never going to step down. Hes never going to step down. First of all. Second all, all, if youre looking for a radical economic and social transformation, is not just about some new guy taking power. We have to have a really thorough revolution. And so at that point madero begins to step away from it. Theres close relationship but it becomes contentious overtime. And its really well done and the book to follow the whole saga. Thank you for your question. Good afternoon. I think the question i have for you today is just how can i incorporate, im a teacher and i teach social studies, sought the front line you say with the ones that are most affected. I believe so. Like, i have seen teachers who have twophase parents who may not agree with the things that we teach, but we just teach facts, and Historical Records are there. If i were to be interested in teaching Historical Records like the one you provided, i do think talking about lynchings especially, like the ones youe shown us, like i have not seen that before. Its something thats new to me some going to buy your book and probably like annotated sui can make it accessible. I think a lot about the lynchings that happen in the south and a think a lot about music, so build holidays, even listening to it is very hard to try to incorporate Essie Jenkins blues when i i talk with the 8 pandemic, ma students themselves even without their parents intervention were very taken aback because it lost family members. My question to you is how can i teach history that does justice to the stories, that incorporates these stories, but also is sensitive to the fact that students are still developing morally and cognitively, and hearing things of that sort is heavy, but also they are seeing it in their everyday life. How i not trauma the daily but also incorporate real history into the allies . Because i learned Texas History and a very proud of it and i remember it a to this day some of things ive learned about in the most proud of were factually incorrect and i been corrected by like professors. So how do you personally make amends with those two issues . Thank you. One of my teaching mentors once told me and often says, if a child can live through it, a child can learn about it. So if a child has been subjected to enslavement, children can learn about slavery. A child has been subjected to living in the shadows of being an document, they can about that. If children through time of had lived through these conditions, we should not be terribly afraid of teaching these conditions. Anything can be taught with grace and thoughtfulness, right . It doesnt mean we just ran in the representative thinking about how to pitch these stories, how to frame them for them. So i would be someone who argued, dont ask much of all the things i told them when they were young. They will tell you all about it, right . My kids but seller supremacy by great two. Two. Speaking of two other teachers. Absolutely. The other thing about the story specifically how you incorporate it into the k12 curriculum as a couple of ways. If youre teaching about westward expansion in manifest destiny, you can certainly fold in the story or other stories like it with thinking about once you finish the Transcontinental Railroad in 1876, the railroad investors look up and go whats next . So thats the next extension of what words westward expansion down into mexico, how would you incorporate that piece. You can incorporate the story of immigration that often are immigration history is a k12 are still very european dominated. The fact is by 1980 next to it replaced all the European Community setting the primary primary sending source to the United States. Helping them to see the complexity of u. S. Immigration history. You can teach this in the teach about the red scare, right, who doesnt teach about the red scare . Ricardo flores and the others are certainly an conservator and arrested during the red scare but have been eliminated from the story. Theres so many ways but things you already teach about, boom, you can wrap them right in to the history. The other thing is that is going to hopefully open up some of come established the pillars and new frameworks for how we tell these stories, like centering latinx protagonists in the u. S. Narrative. We have time for just one more question. No . Im sorry. Just 30 seconds. Thirty seconds. So right now the conversation of the museum of the american latino is like being had like where you have it. Second fiddle to if its going to be on the National Mall or not. But you like American History so important. What can we as normal people do you like advocate for latino American History . Okay, thats a big question. Okay, bye books. Right now you to show theres a market for this. Not just this book but but, all the great work thats coming out. I dont want to weigh in on that question. As little political dicey, buy books, go to films, show that people have, want to hear these stories, right, and what more them, with what diverse perspectives even within latinx histories and within indigenous history. The Publishing Industry works by mark is a metaproof with that one out here. In addition to that just telestrator i dont care if you buy the book, right . Organizing committees, all cultures can just tell the stories one another. We have to know our history. We have to know the shoulders with dinner. Theres the market sees but then simply the human organizing peace. Dont tell norton but i would say go organize, right, which starts with storytelling. Yes. Thank you all so much for being here. [applause] if you are enjoying booktv then sign up for our newsletter using the qr code on the screen. To receive a scheduled upcoming programs, author discussion, book festivals and more. Booktv every sunday on cspan2 or anytime online at booktv. Org, television for serious readers. Middle and High School Students its your time to shine. You are invited to participate in this years cspans studentcam documentary competition. In light of the upcoming midterm elections picture yourself as a newly elected member of congress. We ask this years competitors what is your top priority and why . Make a five to six minute video that shows the importance of your issues from opposing and supporting perspective. Dont be afraid to take risks with your document. Be bold. Amongst the 100,000 in cash prizes is a 5000 grand prize. Videos must be submitted by january 20, 2023. Visit our website at studentcam. Org for competition rules, tips, resources and a stepbystep guide. Weekends on cspan2 are an intellectual feast. Every saturday American History tv document americas stories, and on sundays booktv brings you
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