Activists Around the World: Rosalinda Guillen

Today we shine a light on the work of Rosalinda Guillen around immigrant and migrant workers' rights.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I never told your protective I heard you. And before
we get into this episode, just a quick content warning.
We're not going to go into details or specifics or anything,

(00:25):
but we are going to mention sexual assault and murder,
so keep that in mind.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
And welcome to an activist around the world. I still
am not one hundred percent with my voice. I feel
like this is the longest run in my voice being
this bad.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yeah. I haven't known you your whole life or anything,
but for as long as I have known you, this
is definitely the longest.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes we were I think we're closing in on like
three weeks of me. Every time I think I'm getting better,
yeah I'm not. I don't know what it is, because
I feel like I'm even worse when I get on
Mike and Christina is doing all the magical work and
making sure that you don't hear me clearing my throat

(01:14):
every three seconds. It's really gross. I'm so sorry, Happy
Allergy season everyone, But with that, yes, the show must
go on sometimes, but today happens to be one of
those times. Because Annie's been running a tight ship even
without me and today, we wanted to talk about a
legendary woman who's been working a majority of her life

(01:34):
to work for immigrants and micant workers in the US,
Rusalinda Gian. She's known as a farm worker and rural
justice leader. Gian has dedicated her life to fight for
the rights of migrant farm workers in the Pacific Northwest
and honestly all over. She's the current executive director of
Community to Community or C two S, which, according to

(01:55):
their site food Justice dot org, is an organization of
a woman of color and farm work led grassroots organization
dedicated to building movements towards a just transition.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
And just a bit more about their information. Their mission
statement and vision is stated as this, we believe that
another world is possible, and we are active participants with
other self determined people's movements. We strive to reclaim our
humanity by redefining power in order to end structural racism
and all of its manifestations, including settler colonialism, capitalism, and

(02:29):
patriarchy and their external and internalized forms.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
And continue saying this Towards this end, we confront racism
in existing power structures, empower underrepresented peoples to have an
equal voice in decision making. Processes, develop cross cultural awareness
with formacy on or information, restore justice to our food
land and cultural practices, promote community relationships towards self reliance,

(02:55):
work in solidarity with those that strive towards human rights
for all race engenders, demand and demonstrate that the value
of feminine intellect and leadership is recognized. And again they
end their whole page with the missions and visions saying this,
at the core of our programmatic work is the belief
in commitment to ecofeminism. Our program work is structured in

(03:18):
three major program areas, participatory democracy, food justice, and movement building.
The program areas are taken to action via projects that
are hands on, community based and lead their link to
each other and ecofeminism in an intersecting circular process.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
And when she was asked about the organization, she said
this in an interview with Blue Heart Quote. Community to
Community was formed to try to gather resources for women
leadership and to give women and people of color and
impacted communities of voice. That was the main reason. Can
we form an organization that's led by women? What will
that look like? The core you see is food sovereignty

(03:58):
and farm worker rights and everything that intersects with food
through the lens and leadership of farm workers. What we're
trying to do is build enough confidence and power within ourselves,
collective power and collective confidence to address fundamental reforms and
changes to the systems that are not working for us.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
But back to Gian's origin story. She grew up in
a family of farm workers and even moved with her
family to Washington State, who were a part of the
migrant farm labor community from Texas, although before this she
had been raised in Mexico. Here's a bit written about
her by Alejandro Aguilar from the University of Washington. They
write Gean is the eldest of eight children and was

(04:36):
born in Texas, but spent her first decade in Quawi.
Like Mexico, her family immigrated to Washington State in the
nineteen sixties and she began working in the fields of
Skatget County at the age of sixteen. She worked alongside
her family until a bit later, where she started her
job at the Scadget State Bank, which actually was noted
as her being the first person of color to be

(04:58):
hired there by the way, and after sixteen years of
working there, she decided to change her path so In
nineteen eighty eight, she started working for the presidential campaign
of Reverend Jesse Jackson rip Here's a bit from her
interview with that blue Heart article we talked about, which,
by the way, was posted through medium. Yes, one of
the places that we have to go to for a

(05:18):
lot of these articles. I was first recruited by an
organizer into the Rainbow Coalition for the campaign to elect
Jesse Jackson way back in the day. I resisted it
a lot. I wasn't political. I wasn't even registered to vote.
I was an operations officer in a local community bank.
We started forming the Watkin County Rainbow Coalition. During that campaign,

(05:40):
we conducted several electoral campaigns and then we were approached
by farm workers to support the Chateau Saint Michelle boycott,
and it was during this time she started her advocacy
work for migrant farm workers. She talked about how it
was in nineteen ninety three, after the death of Saesar Chavez,
that she quit her job at the bank and started
her full time career in my Rant Justice. She'd been

(06:01):
working with Rainbow Coalition for a while, and she then
would work as the lead in the boycott at the
Chateau Saint Michelle.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
From that same interview quote, Chateau Saint Michel is the
largest winery in the state of Washington. There was a
group of farm workers that had been enduring sexual assaults
and poisonings with pesticides. One of the workers had actually
shot and killed a supervisor after the supervisor raped his wife.
It was awful. I was a former farm worker, so
I was assigned by the Rainbow as a lead on

(06:31):
the boycott. My next big life changing organizing experience was
learning about ses Aer Chavez and the Great Boycott and
developing the Chateau Saint Michelle boycott following Caesar Shaudaz's model.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
So she has talked a lot about the influences of
Cesar Chavez and has worked for farm workers, and as
recent news broke of the sexual abuse in assault allegations
against him, she has had to change some of our
organization's stances, specifically the C two C. In a recent
article in the nineteenth News dot org, they write Gian

(07:15):
never met Chavez, but was inspired to devote herself to
organizing on behalf of farm workers after his death. The
news has been quote. This is her quote from her quote.
A revision of everything that many of us know about
the farm worker movement. Her organization is removing images of
Chevez from its office. Gian said, we revisited our values
and principles and how we work together, reiterating that there's

(07:39):
no room for that. She said referring to a sexual misconduct.
So it's it's been a pretty big shock, I will say,
in the advocacy world with that, I don't know. I
feel like most of us women who see men leaders
are used to this disappointment. So for me, it didn't
feel like a shock.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, unfortunately, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
But it still does feel like a dampening of what
he left behind his legacy. And though we don't want
to discredit everything all the good he did, we still
have to acknowledge the fact that he has ruined people's lives,
like he went after very even young girls and harmed them.

(08:22):
So he with the good came the bad. So we
have to acknowledge that. And they as an organization which
actually revolves around women and girls, they have to acknowledge
that as well. So she's obviously acknowledging it, although she
still credits him a lot in the organization. So is
this a balance because you can't undo something that's true.

(08:43):
So all these things and that's an episode feel like
we'll don't have to come back on because we've talked
about what happens when your heroes turn out not to
be heroes. M how do you face those things? But
this is one of those examples blurk. But with that
moving on, she has been working with the principles of
advocating for the rights of farm workers and the migrants

(09:03):
in the US. So she's still hanging on to what
he did do when he did do so much of
the good works in advocating for the farm workers of
the US, and she talked about the recent policies and
atrocities in the US with local news La Connorcommunitynews dot
org is in the Washington area and how the workers
have been in the backbone for years and what this

(09:26):
means overall. So they write every piece of fresh vegetable
of fruit that you eat in Skeatget County was touched
by one of us and probably be on there, one
of the farm workers, one of the immigrants, and you're
eating whatever exploitation goes with that. She said to gig
In and c to see the role of farm workers
in our food system is deserving of recognition beyond the
title of essential worker, which she said has meant having

(09:48):
to work during a global pandemic, not just fair pay
or better working conditions, but a real pathways to residency
and citizenship.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
And the article continues as an organization, we can represent
and work with farm workers without dealing with immigration reform,
she said. Gianne said it has been extremely difficult to
become a US citizen due to what she described as
a costly, slow and difficult process. Under the current administration,
she said it is becoming even harder while the system
gets dismantled and the efforts to become legal residents go

(10:19):
up and smoke. For many immigrants also live in fear
of leaving their homes due to the fear of being
placed in unmarked vehicles by mass agents. In some cases,
she said, US citizens may not be safe either.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Right, and this article was written in twenty twenty six,
so very recently they talked with her about the effects
of what was happening as she goes into also which
we don't mention, which I actually did a little research
on way back when in college about the I think
H two visas which allow for essential workers to remain
in the US two work, but they have no rights.

(10:54):
They are taxed. They it only protects them and working there,
and all of the organizations or the farm landowners they
have more rights in hiring these people and making them
leave and not having to pay, so it's really absurd.
It's pretty much end injured servitude. But they're still forced

(11:17):
to leave after the fact, and they may not be
given equal pay. There's no protections for them as workers
or very little other than they get to be there,
which we already know. The agents don't care even if
you do have those cards. So it's very shady. This
whole practice is very shady. And with that, she continues

(11:37):
to work with her organization and is working to fight
against the policies of the government has placed before them
and tries to advocate for the needs of the migrant
workers today.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Obviously, Yes, yes, very very important work. And I'm sure
we'll be checking back in. We are in the month
of Climate's birthday all of that stuff, So I feel
like this is a good kick off. Well, listeners, if
you would like to contact us, you can. You can

(12:09):
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(12:30):
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