"Searching for the history of the Texas Farm Workers Union"

Storytelling CATEGORY — SHOWCASE certificate of merit

Texas Standard
Raul Alonzo

10/14/2024

The story of the Texas Farm Workers Union is one that has seldom been told. There is only one extensive academic history written on it – a master’s thesis from 2005. The TFWU and those of its participants are not mentioned in state historical markers or public school curriculums. And though the union did take on grand campaigns to draw attention to the plight of Texas’ farmworkers, such as a 1977 march that began in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and ended on the steps of the White House, finding documentation of its efforts can be difficult without extensive and intentional digging.

The union was born following a bitter split from César Chávez’s California-based United Farm Workers and, as a result, many of the TFWU’s participants feel that their exclusion from popular historical narratives is intentional so as not to draw attention to the more controversial elements of Chávez’s legacy. In fact, the UFW’s story overshadows that of the Texas union in the popular consciousness and within institutions, even in the TFWU’s home state.

This is a story that can’t be told without delving into some of those controversial elements, but “Searching for the Texas Farm Workers Union” is an audio documentary that mainly aims to simply introduce this story to those who have not yet heard it.

Listeners hear from those who took part in the TFWU: the daughter of the union’s standard-bearer who has turned her small home into a makeshift museum, a social studies teacher who was six when he joined the march to D.C. and now takes on the lonely task of sharing the story with his students, along with several other witnesses and participants.

They also hear some of the only accessible archival news footage of the march, as well as rarely-accessed clips of the union’s radio show and speeches delivered from supporters the union encountered on their march to D.C. They’ll also hear the corridos composed about the union’s exploits.

The digital presentation of the documentary splits it up into three parts, each with an extensively written narrative story that provides further details and links to other resources. It includes photographs taken by reporter Raul Alonzo, as well as archival photos. An interactive StoryMap also allows audiences to visualize the union’s march to D.C., complemented with audio clips of participants sharing their experiences on the march as well as images from the union’s newspaper. Social videos were also utilized on the Texas Standard Instagram page, including a trailer for the documentary and a video featuring one interviewee talking about her artistic contributions to the farm workers movement.

There is also a call to action for those visiting the documentary homepage to make further pitches for the ongoing oral history component of this project, which Texas Standard views as having no explicit conclusion.

“Searching for the history of the Texas Farm Workers Union,” sheds light on a little-known chapter of Texas history. It asks listeners if this history has been effectively preserved, and if not, what steps should be taken to rectify that. And it aims to foster a discussion around the hegemony of popular narratives and how the desire to preserve legacies within the histories of traditionally marginalized communities can sometimes cause the stories of others within those communities to be overshadowed.

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Submitted by Laura Rice.