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PJ is joined by professor and farmer Dr. Matthew Garcia. Together, they talk about the history of farming in America, how migrant workers came to this country, and how to fix our food problems.
Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
[pj_wehry]: Hello, and welcome to chasing the Vithan. I'm here today with Doctor Matthew
[pj_wehry]: Garcia, uh, Doctor Matthew Garcia, throughout his career has been inspired to ask
[pj_wehry]: why we as a nation have frequently demonstrated little regard for the people who
[pj_wehry]: pick pack, prepare and serve the food we eat. Uh, he knows the struggle of food
[pj_wehry]: workers personally through his work as a meat cutter and store clerk in his
[pj_wehry]: father's meat market, and through the lives and experiences of his own Ma, Uh,
[pj_wehry]: paternal grandparents, who toiled in the fields of California and prepared and
[pj_wehry]: served meals to college students. He's written three books, Uh, world of its own,
[pj_wehry]: From the Jaws of Victory, Eli and the Octopus, Uh, which for him form a trilogy,
[pj_wehry]: Uh, approaching the food industry in America from multiple different places, And
[pj_wehry]: so today what we'll be talking about is how does America get its food, Doctor
[pj_wehry]: Garcia,
[pj_wehry]: So happy to have it here today.
[matthew_garcia]: think of e. ▁j. It's a delight to be here and I should say that that last
[matthew_garcia]: book is in production right now.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, that's yes. I should have. Yeah, I knew that I should have mentioned it.
[matthew_garcia]: it is written. it is written.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: Yes, and it really excit, and then, Um, is it Food across Borders, Food without
[pj_wehry]: borders. I should have written that down, but I'm excited about that coming out as
[pj_wehry]: well.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, Food across borders, Um was a collective of Um. writers, mostly young
[matthew_garcia]: thinkers that are uh, thinking about Um, food culture, labor and borders,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, my colleagues Melan Depe and Don Mitchell, um, uh, basically fellow
[matthew_garcia]: travellers and investigating food in our in our society, decided we want to
[matthew_garcia]: do something Um
[matthew_garcia]: in a collective edited
[pj_wehry]: Hm.
[matthew_garcia]: volume and it's been really popular. So Um, it's not just it's it's partly,
[matthew_garcia]: you know, physical borders. It's the U. S. Mexico border, but it's also the
[matthew_garcia]: Canadian border,
[pj_wehry]: Hm.
[matthew_garcia]: and then the borders of the body, Um, the mouth, Uh, the the Colin.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: So we? we do all of that.
[pj_wehry]: that's
[pj_wehry]: awesome. Uh, so that's already out
[matthew_garcia]: it's very popular. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: yes.
[pj_wehry]: okay, Gotcha yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, yeah, and it's very popular. It gets taught a lot. Uh, recently,
[matthew_garcia]: London School of Economics said they were using it for some course there.
[matthew_garcia]: That kind of blew our minds, but yeah, it's been pretty popular.
[pj_wehry]: Oh, that's awesome. Well'll definitely include a
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: link to all these books. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: uh, down below, so uh, tell us a little bit. Obviously, I mentioned it, and uh, at
[pj_wehry]: my apologies, My, I can't pronounce English correctly. Uh, My, my family always
[pj_wehry]: likes to make that joke about like I was five years old. I said, Mom, the world is
[pj_wehry]: full of chaos, so I'm not going to try and right and I still struggle to this day.
[pj_wehry]: I, I'm thirty three and I struggle saying. Come promise. Um, so I, I'm not going
[pj_wehry]: to try and pronounce the name for the Mexican meat market, but obviously you grew
[pj_wehry]: up Uh, within this culture, Um, at least very closely tied to it. You have
[pj_wehry]: historical roots, Tells a little bit how you got interested in this topic of how
[pj_wehry]: America gets it. Foodm,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, so the word is Garaceia, and my father owned a Conedia, Um. It was
[matthew_garcia]: sort of late in his life, and Uh, he had been electrician for General
[matthew_garcia]: Dynamics, the Defense contractor in Pomona, California, and Um, during one
[matthew_garcia]: of the economic downturns in the early eighties, they were either forcing
[matthew_garcia]: him to move to Phoenix, where they were going to relocate the plant or take
[matthew_garcia]: a buy out. and he took a buy out and invested into Carnicia, But that was
[matthew_garcia]: sort of um,
[matthew_garcia]: uh, investing in a kind of family long investment in food processing. My
[matthew_garcia]: grandmother, Uh, she was employed at the Claremont Colleges and Claremont Mc
[matthew_garcia]: Mckenna, before that Claremont Mens, but she was uh, uh, someone that worked
[matthew_garcia]: in food preparation and made all the salads. and Ch, actually, to this day
[matthew_garcia]: is like the longest
[matthew_garcia]: employed employee of the Claremont Colleges ever. I think she worked there
[matthew_garcia]: almost sixty five years in total. Um, but then going further back,
[pj_wehry]: Wow, Yeah, and that's where you went for your bachelors, right?
[matthew_garcia]: No, I actually went for my Phd at Claremont, Uh, graduate school, Yeah, my
[pj_wehry]: P. Oh, my apologies. Yeah, I saw that in there and I time connecting. So is that
[matthew_garcia]: bachelor.
[pj_wehry]: it was? Yeah? Go ahead.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, and then the The. The connection to conness, said my Uh, her father
[matthew_garcia]: uh, owned a carasia in um, uh, downtown Los Angeles in the twenties, and so
[matthew_garcia]: he produced meat for Um. At that time a thriving Mexican community
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: that had yet to migrate Uh across the river into East ▁l A. to create that
[matthew_garcia]: sort of important
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, Mexican American bodio that turned into the Mexican American homeland.
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: In some ways, Um, and uh. During the a mini depression of Uh, the twenties,
[matthew_garcia]: he lost, that kind of said is Um. And so my father investing in this kind of
[matthew_garcia]: city was heard of Um, a way of Uh, drawing on our history and legacies. And
[matthew_garcia]: and so he owned it for thirteen years through my high school years. My
[matthew_garcia]: undergraduate years that were at Berkeley, and then my graduate years is at
[matthew_garcia]: Claremont, And so Um. I worked in high school. Um. I used my summers to work
[matthew_garcia]: at Uh, The the place, Uh, work at Frontier Meats, That's what it was called.
[pj_wehry]: hm. yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: We inherited that that title, but most of our our, Um, and then I worked
[matthew_garcia]: there Uh, through my graduate years, but most of our our uh, Uh, customers
[matthew_garcia]: were actually
[matthew_garcia]: um,
[matthew_garcia]: second or third generation Mexican
[matthew_garcia]: Americans. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: like ourselves, had migrated in the nineteen twenties, Um during the Um. the
[matthew_garcia]: Mexican Revolution, and then were recent immigrants from Central America,
[matthew_garcia]: and then increasingly Asian immigrants. So we had this really interesting
[matthew_garcia]: diverse community and some of the sort of languishing working class white
[matthew_garcia]: family. So we had this really interesting um um cross section of America,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: and of greater Los Angeles, and uh, my grandmother sold her manuo, which is
[matthew_garcia]: a um um soup. a Mexican soup made of uh, uh, the tripee, um, Which is this
[matthew_garcia]: The cowlining the stomach of the lining of cow's stomach, and it was really
[matthew_garcia]: wildly popular. We sold tamas during Uh Christmas, which is tradition for
[matthew_garcia]: Mexican Americans and it was just a really rich experience. We. We lived
[matthew_garcia]: through the ninety two riots
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: in Los Angeles and there was a Korean um, swap meat across the street, and
[matthew_garcia]: uh they. I never forget they had guns on top of their roof, you know,
[matthew_garcia]: pointed at. Uh. people trying to get in and our community basically left us
[matthew_garcia]: alone. Did not break the windows. Did not do anything. My dad pulled his.
[matthew_garcia]: Um. I always remember, pulled his van up on the sidewalk and just waited.
[matthew_garcia]: And and we had agreed that if someone came to the door and wanted something,
[matthew_garcia]: he didn't lock the door and let them come and take it. Our community
[pj_wehry]: hm, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: really respected what we gave to
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: them, And this was sort of before the era of Big Box where we had like
[matthew_garcia]: Costco and Food for last. That eventually kind of priced us
[pj_wehry]: yep.
[matthew_garcia]: out of the market,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: But this was the eighties and nineties, when um, little mom and pop food,
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, stores could still kind of provide for the community, so that's a kind
[matthew_garcia]: of long answer. I'm sorry, P. ▁j, but you took me back
[pj_wehry]: no, I love that at. no. I mean we. we can keep going with that if you want to. I.
[pj_wehry]: I
[matthew_garcia]: Mhm,
[pj_wehry]: love. Um. a little. That connection
[pj_wehry]: definitely want to ask, So I mean, seems obvious to me, but I, I've been wrong
[pj_wehry]: before. Is that the reason went to Claremont Because that's where your grandma
[pj_wehry]: was?
[matthew_garcia]: in part. um, I sort of B.
[pj_wehry]: Well. Yeah, I say because it's also good. It's also a good school. You felt like.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: well, I broke their heart. I got a invitation to go to Claremont, Mckenna
[matthew_garcia]: and I ended up going to Berkeley. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: then um. when I finished Berkeley. Uh, I had a. actually a girlfriend who
[matthew_garcia]: became a fiance that never became a P. A, a, um, a wife
[matthew_garcia]: that was going to U, C, ▁l A, and she was from that area and she was very
[matthew_garcia]: close to that that community, so I actually went to Claremont, sort of to be
[matthew_garcia]: close to her and to get an education And it worked out wonderfully because
[matthew_garcia]: it allowed me to tap into this history that I just
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: shared and uh, meanwhile, Claremont made some really, uh, well placed hires
[matthew_garcia]: that Um accelerated my career. So, people like the Vicky Ruues, who is Uh,
[matthew_garcia]: probably the the most important um Latina historian, Um, of the last
[matthew_garcia]: de, uh, uh, generation,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm.
[matthew_garcia]: Um. she's recently retired, and then Mike Davis, who wrote City of Courts,
[matthew_garcia]: and some other really wonderful books. But at the time City of Courses was
[matthew_garcia]: like Loom large. It was a history of Los Angeles, and he's just an amazing
[matthew_garcia]: scholar. So I was. I benefited from their mentorship, and Um, it just
[matthew_garcia]: carried me forward.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, that's awesome. Um,
[pj_wehry]: so um, looking at this, Uh, I think a good place to start, and uh, I think I'm
[pj_wehry]: still figuring out how to pull exact what I want when talking about history right,
[pj_wehry]: because it can be so broad, and uh.
[pj_wehry]: I, I was looking at your three books. Can you give us kind of a log line so that
[pj_wehry]: people understand how each of those books works in? in kind of your overall
[pj_wehry]: thought, So like a world of its own? Can you give like the you know, the marketing
[pj_wehry]: log lines that people understand what that is, And then maybe that could provide
[pj_wehry]: the structure for our discussion. Is that like three tier approach that you have?
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, yeah, so it's It's really kind of an accidental trilogy that I
[matthew_garcia]: realized somewhere about the time I was publishing the second book, But let
[matthew_garcia]: me explain it.
[pj_wehry]: sure,
[matthew_garcia]: There's a through line. Um, and I think you got it. I mean, I always uh,
[matthew_garcia]: really appreciated Um, the people in my life that were feeding our community
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: and they were my family, and I never understood why Um. Society treated them
[matthew_garcia]: so poorly, or they got paid so poorly, so my grandmother and food services,
[matthew_garcia]: my father, who eventually uh, succumbed to bankruptcy as a consequence of
[matthew_garcia]: those big box retailers, Um. and we were providing a service. Um. And and we
[matthew_garcia]: were all Mexican,
[pj_wehry]: hm, hm,
[matthew_garcia]: so why is it that we have so little regard for F, food, Um, producers
[matthew_garcia]: and providers, Um. And why is why is it that Mexicans always do this work,
[matthew_garcia]: or seemingly always do this work and get have little regard or are given
[matthew_garcia]: little regard by society? So that sort of formed, Uh, the questions I, I was
[matthew_garcia]: uh, answering my for myself. The first book was Uh, a world of its own. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: I tried to answer the question of how Los Angeles was built on the backs of
[matthew_garcia]: those food producers. you know. ▁l A before World War Two was primarily um,
[matthew_garcia]: an agricultural town. It was built on agriculture, and that agriculture with
[matthew_garcia]: citrus. And that's why my family moved to that area, and and and worked in
[matthew_garcia]: that industry.
[matthew_garcia]: So it was a, as labor historians like to say, a bottom up, uh, understanding
[matthew_garcia]: of the creation of what we call greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles proper is
[matthew_garcia]: is not really Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a a network of suburbs. And so I
[matthew_garcia]: studied the suburbs that had citrus growing, and I talked about everything
[matthew_garcia]: from Yes, labor politics to Um. the cultural contributions that Mexican
[matthew_garcia]: people made, such as Uh, theater and music, and and that kind of thing,
[matthew_garcia]: Um. But then as I got into this I, I. I continue to ask that question. Well,
[matthew_garcia]: why were they treated so badly? And and the next book, Uh, From the Jaws of
[matthew_garcia]: Victory was well, what has been done to remedy that situation? How Um, have
[matthew_garcia]: in particular unions tried to help Um. these these workers. So I immediately
[matthew_garcia]: was drawn to the United Farm
[pj_wehry]: Hm, Hm, hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Workers, Um, and asked the question. Well, Um, if the farm worker movement
[matthew_garcia]: happened in Caesar Chavas, as did exist. he did. I studied him, and and at
[matthew_garcia]: Berkeley. Why haven't things change? Why are Uh, a farm worker still paid so
[matthew_garcia]: poorly, And that led me to the discovery, Um that the United farm Workers
[matthew_garcia]: was successful but a flawed enterprise and it was flawed largely because
[matthew_garcia]: Caesar Cha took his foot off the gas,
[pj_wehry]: Hm, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Um. that around the mid nineteen seventies, Um. he sort of lost interest in
[matthew_garcia]: Um, organizing farm workers and a union, and Uh became more interested in
[matthew_garcia]: organizing an intentional community. Someone would say a cult, and the U F W
[matthew_garcia]: went down that rabbit hole and I told that story. So the way I looked at it
[matthew_garcia]: was sort of the Uh, this question of food and immigrants and labor from the
[matthew_garcia]: middle rung perspective, like the organizers, and to understand this
[matthew_garcia]: organization, So that led me to the question of well, Can reform come from
[matthew_garcia]: the top down, And is there a a company or um, a figure in the business world
[matthew_garcia]: that tried to do right by its workers, and in particular immigrants, and
[matthew_garcia]: even more particular Latinos. Well, it turns out that in that second book Um
[matthew_garcia]: Caesar, Chavia, Uh, had an alliance with a man Eli Black
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: and Eli Black ran United, Uh, Brands, and United Brands. Um was a a
[matthew_garcia]: conglomerate that was made up of a lot of things, Um, but meat production in
[matthew_garcia]: the Midwest, Lettuce production in California, and Uh, most importantly
[matthew_garcia]: bananas in Hondurs,
[matthew_garcia]: so he ended up Uh, signing contracts with U F W, when the rest of the
[matthew_garcia]: lettuce industry was fighting, U, F. W, and Caesar and him became really
[matthew_garcia]: close friends and it led me to this exploration of a kind of top down study
[matthew_garcia]: of this subject
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: from A with a bottom up sort of uh mentality. You know he. he. He understood
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, the plight of immigrants because he himself was an immigrant. He was
[matthew_garcia]: from Uh, Poland, Um, and he tried to do things as he said with social
[matthew_garcia]: responsibility.
[pj_wehry]: hm, Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: So he, his, his ethic for this company United Brands was We're gonna produce
[matthew_garcia]: socially responsible food
[matthew_garcia]: and it's a tragedy, like a lot of La books. Because in nineteen seventy five
[pj_wehry]: Oh,
[matthew_garcia]: um, he pe, he paid a bribe to the President of Honduras, the first of two
[matthew_garcia]: um, in which he he paid him a bribe to lower tariffs on his bananas to be
[matthew_garcia]: more competitive, Um, with his competition standard, Uh, fruit, um, and it
[matthew_garcia]: ended up collapsing the company and he committed suicide in nineteen seventy
[matthew_garcia]: five,
[pj_wehry]: wow,
[matthew_garcia]: when he was about to be exposed for this, Uh, it wasn't really a crime, but
[matthew_garcia]: it was un unethical thing,
[pj_wehry]: right right, yeah.
[matthew_garcia]: right, And so he dove from the forty fourth floor
[matthew_garcia]: of the then Pan American building. Now Met Life Building in Med midtown
[matthew_garcia]: Manhattan, and uh, it's me. memorialized People don't really understand
[matthew_garcia]: this. But if you've seen the film Um Hudstuck Hudsucker Proxy by the Cone
[pj_wehry]: Is that what it iss referenceing?
[matthew_garcia]: Brothers,
[matthew_garcia]: that's the reference.
[pj_wehry]: I love the Ced Brothers, and that movie was so confusing to me. I
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: all right. So that's what? that's okay?
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, so it's all about business ethics? Yeah, yeah. And so
[matthew_garcia]: you know, Uh, And And, and United Brands Incorporated, maybe the most
[matthew_garcia]: notorious Uh food company in U. S history. Certainly in the twentieth
[matthew_garcia]: century, United Fruit, So United Fruit was behind a Cou, and Guatemala
[pj_wehry]: right?
[matthew_garcia]: in nineteen fifty four. Uh, It had really suppressed unions across. Uh, uh,
[matthew_garcia]: Latin America, it. It was written about Um
[matthew_garcia]: as the Octopus or Elbuople, Um, by Nedruda pal Pablo Noruuda, Um, and a
[matthew_garcia]: famous Uh, a poem. And so the unwritten history of United Fruit was like.
[matthew_garcia]: How did it end?
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: And ironically it ended with this guy who was actually toowing, trying to do
[matthew_garcia]: right by the union, Um at Um at Lalima plant in Lalima Plantation in
[matthew_garcia]: Honduras, Um. The union was Citraterko. He had a lot of respect for the guy
[matthew_garcia]: who ran it, Oscar Gale Verllla, and he was also trying to uh, make any ad.
[matthew_garcia]: made sort of uh agreements in contracts with Um Caesar Chabas in California
[matthew_garcia]: to honor farm workers, so ironically the most malevolent uh, odious Co Food
[matthew_garcia]: company in twentieth century U. S. Latin American history.
[matthew_garcia]: Um ended Um in the P. Likeych, ignominious way, but it kind of eclipsed what
[matthew_garcia]: was a narrative of social responsibility that was sort of ahead of its time,
[pj_wehry]: Hm. Hm.
[matthew_garcia]: So there's a long way of telling you about the Tra trilogy. but I,
[pj_wehry]: No, it's perfect.
[matthew_garcia]: I. I'm kind of exhausted just telling you about it and I
[pj_wehry]: All right. That's a rapper. Good. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: feel I feel like, uh, yeah, yeah,
[pj_wehry]: So that helps explain the title. the book Eline the Octopus O, was reference to a
[pj_wehry]: Pablo Nua, um, uh, His own poetry about it is. Um, I'm guessing, or did he was
[pj_wehry]: that an essay?
[matthew_garcia]: it was no. it was a. It was a um,
[matthew_garcia]: uh, poem,
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, I mean, that's what I would
[matthew_garcia]: and
[pj_wehry]: expect to, right. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, and um,
[matthew_garcia]: and and um. He refers to hunters, in particular as a dictatorship of the
[matthew_garcia]: flies,
[matthew_garcia]: And Um. You know, it's more about the concept of octopus.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, You know, companies have worn that label throughout time. So,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, the railroads in the nineteenth century, Standard Oil in the early
[matthew_garcia]: twentieth century, but also Um, United Fruit,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: And so the idea is that this company
[matthew_garcia]: basically controlled all aspects of
[matthew_garcia]: that society's life
[pj_wehry]: Yes,
[matthew_garcia]: right from cradle to grave, Um, from how they fed themselves to how they
[matthew_garcia]: educated themselves. And so what happens when an entiremp company becomes a
[matthew_garcia]: company town? Basically that's what happened.
[pj_wehry]: yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: you hear about that? Um, it's really interesting. I. I just wanted double check.
[pj_wehry]: Um. when you talk about uh, United Fruit, that is connected with United, Uh,
[pj_wehry]: brands. Like those were the same thing, or Unite Fruit was underneath United
[pj_wehry]: brands.
[matthew_garcia]: So United Brands was formed in Uh, officially in nineteen
[pj_wehry]: Yes,
[matthew_garcia]: seventy, but it U. I Black started as Pursuit of United Fruit in nineteen
[matthew_garcia]: sixty Eight,
[pj_wehry]: Okay,
[matthew_garcia]: consummated the The. The purchase in sixty nine, and it went into effect in
[matthew_garcia]: nineteen seventy, and then from nineteen seventy to seventy five, United
[matthew_garcia]: Fruit was nested in under this umbrella United Brands,
[pj_wehry]: got it. Yes,
[matthew_garcia]: which was a conglomerate, and my book is in part about this moment in U S
[matthew_garcia]: history. It was really important. It's the conglomerate movement,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: And so we had conglomerations being formed from roughly about the Kennedy
[matthew_garcia]: Era era to the early nineteen seventies, And you know we've continued to see
[matthew_garcia]: this happen, But that's when it
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: was. That's when it was born, and Eli was different from his peers and that
[matthew_garcia]: he was, he was preaching an ethic of social responsibility
[pj_wehry]: right.
[matthew_garcia]: and I thought that that was really interesting.
[pj_wehry]: yeah, that's definitely much earlier than you normally think of that occurring
[pj_wehry]: right, like you said ahead of his time. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: Mhm.
[pj_wehry]: so tell me a little bit about Uh, multinational corporations. You know you
[pj_wehry]: mentioned that in your work, Uh, and I think people
[pj_wehry]: uh, have like a fuzzy idea in their head. But what's a? What's a good way to
[pj_wehry]: define them? And then what? Let? So Basically what are multinational C Co
[pj_wehry]: corporations and how do they function?
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, so a multinational corporation. First of all, it's multiination,
[pj_wehry]: Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: So in this case United Brands fits, because it produced Um, food in in
[matthew_garcia]: Honduras, primarily, but not exclusively There other places in Latin America
[matthew_garcia]: they were producing, and also in the United States. number one, Um, the
[matthew_garcia]: second is that you know. Usually it's it's not indicated, but it's assumed
[matthew_garcia]: that it's a conglomerate, so it's not just Uh, someone that's a a A company
[matthew_garcia]: that's producing something abroad and then bringing it to U. S. It's
[matthew_garcia]: actually doing multiple things by the nineteen sixties and seventies, So in
[matthew_garcia]: our case Um, they morale meets is uh, producing meat in South Dakota and
[matthew_garcia]: Iowa, Um. In the nineteen Uh, sixties under United Brands, it's producing
[matthew_garcia]: lettuce Uh, under the label of Inter Harvest in Um California, and then it's
[matthew_garcia]: producing bananas from Um Honduras, Uh under United Fruit, and that Uh
[matthew_garcia]: company
[matthew_garcia]: has almost three separate companies working underneath it. But the the
[pj_wehry]: yeah, Mhm.
[matthew_garcia]: bottom line, The kind of economic health is determined by Uh. the ebbs and
[matthew_garcia]: flows across these companies. United Brands also included the second largest
[matthew_garcia]: fast food a chain in America, at the time, A W. rupier. It included Baskin
[matthew_garcia]: Robins, the Um. ice cream maker, so you begin to see
[pj_wehry]: wow, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: that it's multiinational, but it's also multi,
[matthew_garcia]: uh, corporate
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: in that structure, and what we call these companies is subsidiaries, as
[matthew_garcia]: opposed to like one standing company.
[pj_wehry]: yes,
[matthew_garcia]: And and so I thought that was interesting to study, because E, I, Black was
[matthew_garcia]: uh, pulling levers in one company to increase the market ability and the
[matthew_garcia]: health of another company,
[pj_wehry]: right.
[matthew_garcia]: So he was able to do the kind of deals with Caesar Chavz or Oscar Gale
[pj_wehry]: Mhm.
[matthew_garcia]: Verllla, Um. because of what he was doing to erode
[matthew_garcia]: unions and old contracts, what he saws, outdated expensive contracts in the
[matthew_garcia]: meat production in South Dakota in Iowa.
[pj_wehry]: Interesting. Yeah.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, so so in some way,
[pj_wehry]: hence the other Ps.
[pj_wehry]: Yes, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Yes, exactly so the octopus is not just what he's doing to honur
[pj_wehry]: yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: us. This octopus now, Uh, expands over uh, North America, as well as Latin
[matthew_garcia]: us. This octopus now, Uh, expands over uh, North America, as well as Latin
[matthew_garcia]: America.
[matthew_garcia]: America.
[pj_wehry]: yes, uh, it's multiple legs.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: multiple things going on, Um,
[pj_wehry]: uh, I don't know
[matthew_garcia]: and it's
[pj_wehry]: if this go ahead.
[matthew_garcia]: and I think the other interesting thing is it's publicly traded,
[pj_wehry]: Okay, Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: so he. His His obligation is, in part to you know, the workers, the
[matthew_garcia]: consumers, but it's the shareholders.
[pj_wehry]: to their holders, which is becomes very important because stock
[matthew_garcia]: Yes,
[pj_wehry]: price matters a lot, and stock price manipulation matters a lot. Um, I don't know
[pj_wehry]: if you're familiar with Terry Pratett, and maybe this isn't uh,
[pj_wehry]: uh, super, uh, helpful. I find I. I do enjoy uh fiction as a means of uh,
[pj_wehry]: understanding these sorts of things. Um, so Terryratchttrs fantasy, Uh, is a fancy
[pj_wehry]: cot, or he was a fantasy comic novelist. Um,
[pj_wehry]: and uh, but he did one about a post office that became outdated. Uh, it's written
[pj_wehry]: in medieval fantasy setting. and they, they added a telegraph system, what they
[pj_wehry]: call the Claqu.
[pj_wehry]: And what happens in the book Is, it's about one of the politicians trying to get
[pj_wehry]: the post office running again because
[matthew_garcia]: Mhm, Mhm,
[pj_wehry]: the clax becomes this monopoly, and the guy who's running it is running it
[pj_wehry]: inefficiently And there's a very key moment in the book
[pj_wehry]: where the
[pj_wehry]: the business is running inefficiently and one of the guys underneath him goes. You
[pj_wehry]: know, we could make it more efficient if we did this,
[pj_wehry]: and he goes. I don't want to. I want it to break. I want it to be inefficient,
[pj_wehry]: because then the government will bail me out and they'll pay me and I will take
[pj_wehry]: the money they're paying me, and I have a construction company that will do all
[pj_wehry]: the repairs, and so I'll actually make more money doing this, regardless of how
[pj_wehry]: terrible my service is, And the important thing is
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: that he owns the multiple companies, and by shift think the responsibility between
[pj_wehry]: them. he's playing like the shell game right,
[matthew_garcia]: yes, most definitely.
[pj_wehry]: so I'
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, you know
[pj_wehry]: a baby. That reference is too obcure. I don't know that'll off anybody but help
[pj_wehry]: me,
[matthew_garcia]: No. It's It's actually very useful and so I think it allows me to also bring
[matthew_garcia]: in here Leon Black,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm.
[matthew_garcia]: who was Eli Black's son.
[pj_wehry]: yes,
[matthew_garcia]: Um. He, he was at. He was attending and finishing Harvard Business school
[matthew_garcia]: when Eli committed suicide, But he became the owner of a Apollo Global
[matthew_garcia]: International and he was recently Uh, brought down by Um. his relationship,
[pj_wehry]: h.
[matthew_garcia]: Toeffrey
[pj_wehry]: h.
[matthew_garcia]: Epstein, and he, Um,
[matthew_garcia]: allegedly
[matthew_garcia]: trafficked a girlfriend
[pj_wehry]: h.
[matthew_garcia]: and Uh abused to women, But the thing about Apollo was that, Um, it is the
[matthew_garcia]: uh, um, private equity. It's it's the private equity world, and so the
[matthew_garcia]: private equity world is really invested in sort of breaking companies
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: in the in the Um name of sort of greater efficiency,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Um
[matthew_garcia]: concerns of the Uh, employees or consumers be damned.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: And it's all about you know the profit and the and, and the ways in which
[matthew_garcia]: you just described,
[pj_wehry]: yes,
[matthew_garcia]: right to break it to make it make the money.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: But for a particular group of people, E lies different,
[pj_wehry]: yes,
[matthew_garcia]: So he, he was arguing, and this is true of this period of time like they,
[matthew_garcia]: they. S sincerely believe that Uh, United Fruit would be stronger, Um, for
[matthew_garcia]: uh, its relationship to these other subsidiaries in this larger company, and
[matthew_garcia]: that the whole ship would rise. Um, if he managed the whole thing,
[pj_wehry]: h.
[matthew_garcia]: and so bigger was better, And and they were still invested in in building
[matthew_garcia]: things and creating things and producing things. So Um, he did. He did worry
[matthew_garcia]: about how many bananas he was producing. He did worry when a hurricane blew
[matthew_garcia]: through and destroyed Um
[pj_wehry]: h.
[matthew_garcia]: his crop. Um. he did worry when the teamsters went on strike and Uh,
[matthew_garcia]: destroyed his lettuce harvest. Um, so I think that's that's a different
[matthew_garcia]: period
[pj_wehry]: yeah.
[matthew_garcia]: like the nineteen sixties and seventies Was Ste. Still period When these
[matthew_garcia]: these conglomerates existed, but they still were vested invested in
[matthew_garcia]: producing things as opposed to breaking them, so that a a, um, a small group
[matthew_garcia]: of people could make money.
[pj_wehry]: um, and I think it leads to a question that I want to ask you.
[pj_wehry]: how does the corporate world structure the food industry, and how much of that
[pj_wehry]: structure is intentional and how much of that is unintentional
[matthew_garcia]: Oh, I think it's very intentional, and the question is what's the motivation
[pj_wehry]: H.
[matthew_garcia]: right? So are you talking about today or are you talking about the past?
[pj_wehry]: good, great, great, follow up.
[pj_wehry]: So, uh, why we start in the past, And if if you have any uh
[pj_wehry]: observations for today I would love to hear those.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, So in the past, and I'm talking about the nineteen sixties and
[pj_wehry]: Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: seventies. When I'm writing about Eli, it's about greater efficiency. It's
[matthew_garcia]: this belief that Uh,
[matthew_garcia]: one man, um, usually man, almost always a man, Um, could organize Uh, a
[matthew_garcia]: variety of companies, a food company, in this case, and be more efficient
[matthew_garcia]: together, as opposed to separate entities, And there was a real faith that
[matthew_garcia]: you know that company would be more profitable. Would uh, uh, be good for
[matthew_garcia]: the shareholders, good for the consumers. Um, there'd be cross fertilization
[matthew_garcia]: in terms of packaging branding All that stuff. In fact, United Brands, the
[matthew_garcia]: second part of that title brands was really important because they actually
[matthew_garcia]: tried to market the very um, well known, very highly regarded concept of
[matthew_garcia]: United, from United Fruit, and and then cross market, and started trying to
[matthew_garcia]: market the lettuce as United, Uh brands, or excuse me, United Fruit, uh
[matthew_garcia]: um um
[matthew_garcia]: lettuce. In fact, they used the brand that United Fruit is known for Chkea,
[matthew_garcia]: and for a short time Chka lettuce existed in in the world, So so there's
[matthew_garcia]: this notion like branding Um. managing budgets. You know, when one's down,
[matthew_garcia]: maybe we can take from the other one to lift that one. And and that's that
[matthew_garcia]: was the motivation
[matthew_garcia]: today. What we see is Uh, you know, market shares, for example of meat
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: production, Not's something I'm really invested in, you know, during the
[matthew_garcia]: pandemic, we went from Uh, sixty four percent of our meat, Uh, being
[matthew_garcia]: produced by Um. four big companies. Uh, some are g, multinationals set
[matthew_garcia]: outside the United States. ▁j, B s in
[matthew_garcia]: Brazil, Um, but running the meat meat, Uh, processing in Iowa, South Dakota,
[matthew_garcia]: now, and in the very plants that United Brands and Eli owned
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, and they went from sixty four percent to eighty five percent of our meat
[pj_wehry]: hm, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Today
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: In in the span of three years during the
[matthew_garcia]: pandemic, Why that happen? Well, it's because they controlled the the
[pj_wehry]: yes,
[matthew_garcia]: production of that meat, the delivery of that meat, Um. and also there was
[matthew_garcia]: uh, uh, The, the, The, the sickness and the death of workers, and Um. that
[matthew_garcia]: effect, Uh. That was, that effect was felt by small slaughterhouses as well,
[matthew_garcia]: so they were able to really consolidate their power,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm.
[matthew_garcia]: and uh to get a strangle hold on on the meat we eat today. and so we're in a
[matthew_garcia]: actually far worse place than we were before coveed. Because, Um, of the
[matthew_garcia]: intent on really strangling small
[matthew_garcia]: producers of meat,
[pj_wehry]: H.
[matthew_garcia]: and you know there's huge environmental consequences of this, so much of
[matthew_garcia]: that meat is produced in Um, these uh, confined feed lots, Um, where there's
[matthew_garcia]: more methane and more erosion of of Uh, greenhouse gases going in erosion of
[matthew_garcia]: the the ozone layer and and heating of the planet, as opposed to Um, the
[matthew_garcia]: creation or the existence of multiple producers across the land that are, do
[matthew_garcia]: manage grazing, and really kind of sequestering more carbon than emitting
[matthew_garcia]: carbon. And that gets to why I'm farming.
[pj_wehry]: I was going to say yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, yeah, so, but
[pj_wehry]: Im like that sounds familiar.
[matthew_garcia]: but it's a sicphian, um, uh effort, and you know we lose more days than we
[matthew_garcia]: win against those big conglomerates,
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: But the conglomerates are really invested in just consolidating
[pj_wehry]: right,
[matthew_garcia]: and making money, and they don't care about the worker's health. They don't
[matthew_garcia]: care about Um, the health benefits or or, or negative, uh, consequences to
[matthew_garcia]: the consumer and they certainly don't give a damn about the planet.
[pj_wehry]: yeah, uh, and I just want to make sure. So in the course of three years did you
[pj_wehry]: say it went from sixty four percent to eighty four percent?
[matthew_garcia]: Eighty five percent of our meat. So, if you go to the market today, Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: You know I was trying. I was trying to get that one percent. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: so you go to the market and you buy. Even if you go to, you know, your local
[matthew_garcia]: kind of cooperative
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: more often than not, that meat is really really bad for the planet. It's
[matthew_garcia]: usually coming from these producers that have exploited, mostly
[matthew_garcia]: immigrants from Asia and Latin America that are working in these hell holes,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, and really outdated, Uh processing plants that E I black owned in the
[matthew_garcia]: nineteen sixties and seventies,
[pj_wehry]: yeah, I, um,
[pj_wehry]: and I have bought from local farms, and
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: uh, it's interesting cause like uh,
[pj_wehry]: I live in a multi geninerational house of my parents and they see the price that I
[pj_wehry]: pay for meat because I watched like food. I've watched Food Inc. I see, I've seen
[pj_wehry]: the inside of those plants and it's uh. it's not appetizing, right. Um.
[matthew_garcia]: yep,
[pj_wehry]: And so I buy from local farms and it's the. It's so much more expensive. But
[pj_wehry]: that's just
[matthew_garcia]: right,
[pj_wehry]: a. like. That's how much effort meat really takes right.
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: Um, uh, my wife and I were just talking about this the other day. Like how crazy
[pj_wehry]: it is that Uh meat is subsidized by the government, So that a cheese burger the
[pj_wehry]: reason it like it doesn't make any sense from any way you look at it. that a a
[pj_wehry]: cheese buurger could be a dollar twenty. And then like Ah, headad of lettuce is a
[pj_wehry]: dollar sixty, you know,
[matthew_garcia]: yep, yep, y, yeah,
[pj_wehry]: like how, Like what like when you look at the effort required for these two
[pj_wehry]: things, like there's lettuce on the cheese burger. Like what? what has
[matthew_garcia]: yup,
[pj_wehry]: happened right? and it's just
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: um. so I, this is. uh, I mean this part of the why, I'm I'm excited about this.
[pj_wehry]: but uh yes.
[matthew_garcia]: y,
[pj_wehry]: I'm
[pj_wehry]: uh, very passionate about this as you can tell,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah.
[pj_wehry]: Um, not as passive passionate as you are. though,
[pj_wehry]: uh, really,
[matthew_garcia]: two assaults.
[pj_wehry]: it's amazing. Yeah, it's a. I mean, it's amazing. What what you're doing? I love.
[pj_wehry]: I love your work. Um, we. we've talked quite a bit about that top down approach.
[pj_wehry]: you know. um,
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: uh, why do we talk? Maybe a little bit more of that. You know, a world of its own,
[pj_wehry]: kind of that whole idea of what does it look like for workers?
[matthew_garcia]: right,
[matthew_garcia]: Um for a worker
[matthew_garcia]: in that period of time for the nineteen twenties and
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: thirties, when migrants were coming to create the foundation for Um, citrus
[matthew_garcia]: industry that really made Los Angeles before World War two.
[matthew_garcia]: Um. it was sanctuary. You know,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: this was a time when the Mexican countryside is raging in re war. Um. it's a
[matthew_garcia]: revolutionary war. Um. it's a war for independence, Um. it's also a war that
[matthew_garcia]: was precipitated by U. S, investment
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: and Um, earlier versions of Uh, corporate investment and exploitation, Um in
[matthew_garcia]: the mines in northern Mexico, and you know they, they pressed upon Um porpho
[matthew_garcia]: di S to Uh, you know, break up, collect uh, farming collectives and to hand
[matthew_garcia]: land over to these uh, U. S corporations and force people into these kind of
[matthew_garcia]: really onerous Um work environment. So the the revolution was not a product
[matthew_garcia]: simply of Uh, you know, Mexican Anngston, anger and passion. It was very
[matthew_garcia]: much, Uh, it's proximity the United
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: States, but by the nineteen twenties and thirties in in southern California,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, those Mexican people came to southern California, and they could make
[matthew_garcia]: money for the things they knew well, which is they knew O animal husbandry.
[matthew_garcia]: They knew farming. They had a skill set that was seen as unskilled, but it
[matthew_garcia]: was deeply important and essential to the grounding of that Uh industry, and
[matthew_garcia]: the only reason why they were Uh paid so poorly. They were housed in such
[matthew_garcia]: crappy Uh housing is because there was partly so many of them, and number
[matthew_garcia]: two that this country had traditionally paid farm workers poorly, Starting
[matthew_garcia]: not with not paying them at all in slavery, and then coming out of slavery
[matthew_garcia]: right having indentured uh contracts, and so his, the history of farming in
[matthew_garcia]: this country has always been about suppressing what is an essential
[matthew_garcia]: component of farming, but as labeeled, an unskilled one, and worthy of only
[matthew_garcia]: low pay, so one of the like ▁ulterior motives for the work that I do is to
[matthew_garcia]: recognize. The skill sets of
[matthew_garcia]: the the very robust and very important skill sets of farm workers in our
[matthew_garcia]: food economy,
[pj_wehry]: Yes, are you familiar?
[matthew_garcia]: and that was true. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: go ahead,
[pj_wehry]: Are you familiar with the documentary The Biggest little farm.
[matthew_garcia]: Mhm.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, I mean,
[pj_wehry]: I think of that. Oh, do, teacher? okay,
[matthew_garcia]: I keep it. I teach it.
[matthew_garcia]: I teach that. So there it's That's a funny. I mean, just a side. It's like
[matthew_garcia]: there are Mexicans in that film,
[matthew_garcia]: But the font of knowledge and inquiry is all coming from these white ▁urban
[matthew_garcia]: transplants to the countryside and they're drawing
[matthew_garcia]: very clearly on Mexican knowledge, deep
[pj_wehry]: yeah, yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: knowledge and skill, but it's never really acknowledged in the film, They're
[pj_wehry]: no, it's all Allen right. it's all Allan. Yes,
[matthew_garcia]: there, but they never.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[pj_wehry]: uh, really interested. Yeah, I mean, I didn know I was like they've been there
[pj_wehry]: like he's been at the farm for twenty to thirty years, and that's his only mention
[pj_wehry]: like he's been at on this land. And it was like
[matthew_garcia]: yes,
[pj_wehry]: that seems like it'd be important, you know, but you know you just
[matthew_garcia]: yeah. so
[pj_wehry]: get swept up in the cinematography and you just keep going right like it's it's
[pj_wehry]: too easy.
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, it's a beautiful. It's a beautiful movie. I like it because it does
[matthew_garcia]: show you the challenges of
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: farming. farming's hard. Um, but I love what it does.
[pj_wehry]: right, well, that's why I thought of it this serious skill set like you're saying.
[matthew_garcia]: Yes, For sure. yeah, um. but it does something that I argue is always there.
[matthew_garcia]: It's hiding in plain sight, and that is the reliance on immigrant labor, and
[matthew_garcia]: more specifically in southern California, Mexican
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: labor. And so my first book, A world of its
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: own is like there was a world of its own existing side by side these Bucolic
[matthew_garcia]: landscapes and beautiful oranges
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: that Uh, that world depended on. And it was these Mexican colonias and
[matthew_garcia]: Mexican culture
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: that made it all possible.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: And so that was the intent of my first book And it's really the intent of
[matthew_garcia]: all my work is like to show. There's a thing that ha, ha, um,
[matthew_garcia]: existing in plain sight all
[pj_wehry]: right.
[matthew_garcia]: along in our food system, which is the incredible skill sets that immigrants
[matthew_garcia]: bring to this system and that are necessary for for feeding Um. our
[matthew_garcia]: communities
[pj_wehry]: hm. yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: our society.
[pj_wehry]: yeah, and I think that's uh, even growing up that it was just something that was
[pj_wehry]: part of my culture. that uh, gardening is simple. Right farming is simple. It's
[pj_wehry]: hard work. but it's simple. And then I mean, I've started a garden in my backyard
[pj_wehry]: and I'm like this is really complicated. right like people look at digital
[pj_wehry]: marketing and it has that flash and possess that it's got. it's. It's hard and to
[pj_wehry]: understand those kind of things, and sure, it is like every every skill you know
[pj_wehry]: you requires knowledge. but it's It's just as complex to do gardening well, which
[pj_wehry]: you know, Talking about how much time I have goes to show you I'm not doing well
[pj_wehry]: with my garden, but the right like these are, these are serious skills. Um, and I
[pj_wehry]: think that's important, Uh
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, yp,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: you. there's a couple of uh, historical connections that I I'd love to touch on if
[pj_wehry]: you have time. Um,
[pj_wehry]: So you before World War Two, you have ▁l A as this agricultural hub, and then with
[pj_wehry]: World
[matthew_garcia]: yes,
[pj_wehry]: War Two, I'm assuming what changed is the advent of Hollywood.
[matthew_garcia]: So Hollywood' is always there, Um, even before World War two,
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: but it it. It accelerates in part because of the new economy, and Um, the
[matthew_garcia]: industrialization of of of entertainment production and it just grows right,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: so um and then just weather has something to do with it, too. You can shoot
[matthew_garcia]: all year round. You have the back lots there, and so yeah, but but that's
[matthew_garcia]: only one part of ▁l. A. ▁l A also grows because of the war industry. And so
[matthew_garcia]: there's t production. There's uh, uh, all kinds of combustion engine, Uh
[matthew_garcia]: production. there's there's Um. The. The. The other thing that happens is
[matthew_garcia]: that Uh, the port of ▁l A becomes important for importing goods after the
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: war in that connection with Asia. So now the port of ▁l A is the most modern
[matthew_garcia]: port in in the world. Um. and the innovations that are going on
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: there are really important and there's a lot of focus on that today because
[matthew_garcia]: of the Uh supply chain. But Um,
[pj_wehry]: right,
[matthew_garcia]: you know that all opens up after world war, too, And so it ▁ultimately
[matthew_garcia]: transforms Los. Angeles. I mean San Francisco has the natural harbor, but ▁l
[matthew_garcia]: A builds its harbor Um in the early twentieth century, and then that becomes
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, the the major port Um for importing Uh, goods and and materials Um from
[matthew_garcia]: the Pacific after World War Two, You know, and that is sort of the Um. The
[matthew_garcia]: spoils that the United States wins as a result of winning World War Two, so
[matthew_garcia]: ▁l A changes Um as a consequence of World War Two, but before that um, it
[matthew_garcia]: was very much an ideal place to grow certain types of uh, uh, fruits and
[matthew_garcia]: vegetables, and Um citrus was really really popular. You know bananas are
[matthew_garcia]: important from Central America, and people are impbing and um, uh, eating
[matthew_garcia]: them in Boston and New York, and uh, uh, theres songs written about it, But
[matthew_garcia]: that same culture for citrus happened Um before World War Two, and it was an
[matthew_garcia]: overland migration, or or uh, transportation of that citrus fruit, G grown
[matthew_garcia]: in warm Southern California and sold in cold Iowa and eastward,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: And so you talk about marketing the the company S, sun kissed,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: yeah.
[matthew_garcia]: right, um, sun kissed, Uh was a way of reminding people during you know
[matthew_garcia]: right, um, sun kissed, Uh was a way of reminding people during you know
[matthew_garcia]: winters that there's this beautiful. Place out here called California, and
[matthew_garcia]: winters that there's this beautiful. Place out here called California, and
[pj_wehry]: hm.
[matthew_garcia]: we produce these wonderful fruits, And wouldn't you like to live here in? In
[matthew_garcia]: we produce these wonderful fruits, And wouldn't you like to live here in? In
[matthew_garcia]: fact, that Uh becomes one of the reasons why people move to ▁l A and
[matthew_garcia]: fact, that Uh becomes one of the reasons why people move to ▁l A and
[matthew_garcia]: transform it and make it the kind of um,
[matthew_garcia]: transform it and make it the kind of um,
[matthew_garcia]: industrial juggernaut that it becomes after World War
[pj_wehry]: Hm.
[matthew_garcia]: two. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: two. Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: that is so interesting because uh people just
[pj_wehry]: forgive me thissist, just mygnance. People that just don't think of ▁l A as an
[pj_wehry]: industrial town, Right if that?
[matthew_garcia]: yeah, yeah,
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, like a as that general cultural ignorance. You know, it's like everyone
[pj_wehry]: always
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: thinks Hollywood. Um, I knew a little bit about like the farming in the area. Um.
[pj_wehry]: And so that's just really. You don't think about that. You don't realize that
[pj_wehry]: until like you said, like, I mean just recently we're like. Oh, we need all that
[pj_wehry]: right. Well need, but
[matthew_garcia]: y.
[pj_wehry]: we we use all
[matthew_garcia]: right.
[pj_wehry]: that um, really, uh, Fascinating. and you, you
[matthew_garcia]: well, you.
[pj_wehry]: drew Goode,
[matthew_garcia]: Well, you just think, in my own life, my father, he started working for
[matthew_garcia]: General Dynamics,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: which was an industrial
[matthew_garcia]: weapons munitions producer based in Southern California,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: In part, and so that's just part of a larger network. Um. that gave people
[matthew_garcia]: jobs and created that foundation. Um. There's a really good book Um. called
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, Iffi Hallers,
[pj_wehry]: mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, let him go by Chester Hims, The talks about the black community drawing
[matthew_garcia]: on this industrial, uh, uh, economy of Southern California during World War
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Two, which I teach. So the Indus, the industry, part of it, has always been
[matthew_garcia]: there in ▁l A, and it really accelerated during World War
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Two, And so Um,
[matthew_garcia]: some of the ways in which our our minds are clouded about what ▁l A is Um is
[matthew_garcia]: partly because of the kind of image making
[matthew_garcia]: a media, making, uh industry of of of Hollywood,
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: but it also is a kind of hangover of Um. The the notions of Uh, Southern
[matthew_garcia]: California being this bucolic place created by the agricultural production
[matthew_garcia]: and sun kiss. Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: yes, yeah, like. uh. Well,
[pj_wehry]: y, no one. like If you ask people to write down the first five impressions of
[pj_wehry]: California that pop into their head, no one's going to be like factories Right,
[pj_wehry]: it's going to beaches. It's going to be Hollywood movie. lots. Uh, that makes
[pj_wehry]: total sense, right. um,
[matthew_garcia]: yeah,
[pj_wehry]: Oh, that's yeah. uh, you do a connection and I think this is really important to
[pj_wehry]: point out. Uh, between slavery and tentr servitude and then immigrant labor. Can
[pj_wehry]: you expand on that a little bit?
[matthew_garcia]: well, there' been a acceptance of agricultural w work um as being a cheap
[matthew_garcia]: Uh labor. And so when
[matthew_garcia]: Um, the Civil War happened, and after the Emancipation Proclamation and then
[matthew_garcia]: the Fourteenth Amendment, they' these, these producers still wanted to have
[matthew_garcia]: their cheap labor. And so that's when Um companies became very invested in
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, contract labor from Uh the East, So they were importing Uh, Chinese Uh
[matthew_garcia]: workers, Um. And it kind of overlaps in part with Uh, slavery, but it. it's
[matthew_garcia]: accelerated after Um, the uh, after civil war. So that's why things like the
[matthew_garcia]: a Chinese Exclusion Act come along in eighteen eighty two, where you know Th
[matthew_garcia]: people start to get nervous about all of these uh,
[pj_wehry]: Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: uh, Chinese immigrants. and and and and the industries are becoming dep, uh,
[matthew_garcia]: dependent on them. So then that's when uh, and and, and we've always been
[matthew_garcia]: this kind of a country where we need our immigrants. We hate our immigrants.
[matthew_garcia]: We need our immigrants. we hate themem, and so in the wake of the eighteen
[matthew_garcia]: eighty two, uh, uh, exclusion Act, then these producers still want their
[matthew_garcia]: cheap labor and they start to go south and they say, Oh, well, there's all
[matthew_garcia]: these Mexicans that know how to work the land, and new how you know, have
[matthew_garcia]: all these agricultural skills and they're right there, And so there's a lot
[matthew_garcia]: of contracting that goes on. There's actually we. We often talk about the
[matthew_garcia]: most exploitative time. Um. in terms of getting that cheap labor is the
[matthew_garcia]: Burso program from nineteen forty two to sixty four. but in fact there were
[matthew_garcia]: Ck, Uh. contracts before six, Uh, before forty two, that brought Mexican
[matthew_garcia]: workers on temporary contracts crossing the border doing the work and then
[matthew_garcia]: going back to Mexico,
[pj_wehry]: Hm.
[matthew_garcia]: and the whole concept of a brassero, It's it comes from the word brassos,
[matthew_garcia]: and they just basically want their arms to do the work, but they don't want
[matthew_garcia]: their bodies. They don't want their lives. They want them to go back Um,
[matthew_garcia]: recruiters for the citrus industry.
[pj_wehry]: Forgive me. How do you spell Uh breruerels
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, B, r a c, e r, o. S.
[matthew_garcia]: So it's a
[matthew_garcia]: uh. It's a way of taking the concept of Brasos, b, r a ▁z O. And then Um.
[matthew_garcia]: it's the embodiment of that, or really, kind of the disembodiment of that
[matthew_garcia]: farm worker into arms. And we want those
[pj_wehry]: H,
[matthew_garcia]: arms up here. They want when we were harvesting during the season. When the
[matthew_garcia]: when the the the harvest is happening, they're gonna work and then they're
[matthew_garcia]: not going to stay around. They're gonna go away
[pj_wehry]: yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: well. That was. That was a myth in many ways because the citrus industry was
[matthew_garcia]: a kind of year round industry.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Um. And so
[matthew_garcia]: that myth was created in ways to um, uh, try to honor or or or appease those
[matthew_garcia]: that were worried about the Um. imgration of these um, ethnic others,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, just as they were worried about the Chinese as this racial leather. Um,
[matthew_garcia]: But the reality was that these Mexican people were setting up uh
[matthew_garcia]: communities, Uh, having children. They were crossing racial lines and having
[matthew_garcia]: babies with. uh, uh, you know white families. I am a product of one.
[pj_wehry]: yeah, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: And and that was actually one of the reasons why I wrote that first book as
[matthew_garcia]: a world of its own, is that there was a separate kind of community and it
[matthew_garcia]: was a diverse community. It had Gu workers. like Braruseros. It had people
[matthew_garcia]: that were migrated who migrated during the revolution. Um. it also had mixed
[matthew_garcia]: families like my family.
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, and they had a separate culture. They had a separate entertainment, so
[matthew_garcia]: they had theater. They had music and I explored those those parts of it as
[matthew_garcia]: well.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: uh, go ahead,
[matthew_garcia]: so so yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: so so that's what? in fact, this this thirst, this need for cheap labor
[matthew_garcia]: begets is that these all these kind of hypocrisies and contradictions that
[matthew_garcia]: lead to the kind of diversity, Uh, in spite of ourselves,
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: in spite of our ▁xenophobic sels, we have all of this diversity and it's
[matthew_garcia]: partly in pursuit of those,
[matthew_garcia]: Uh, the desire not to work as hard as the people that are doing the
[matthew_garcia]: essential work of things like farming
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: from slaves to what were then called coole laborers, the Chinese workers to
[matthew_garcia]: Mexican birds of passage as they. Eupheemistically called them, They
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: would come do the work and then go back to Mexico, fly south for the winter,
[matthew_garcia]: But the reality is that
[matthew_garcia]: Um blacks were here to stay Chinese. We're here to stay, and Mexicans stayed
[matthew_garcia]: and they've transformed the society
[pj_wehry]: yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: in spite of the fact that we create these fictions that they don't
[matthew_garcia]: and that they're not needed, and that their work is Yeah, and that their
[pj_wehry]: Yes, to make ourselves comfortable.
[matthew_garcia]: work is expendable.
[matthew_garcia]: it's not
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, no, yeah, food is kind of basic. Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: y.
[pj_wehry]: necesity for sure.
[pj_wehry]: So how does that fit in with Caesar Shascause, So that was nineteen twenty to the
[pj_wehry]: nineteen forties, And then it
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: seems like you know you. you, um, travel not only in terms of the corporate
[pj_wehry]: ladder, but also in terms of time.
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah, Caesar was asking the same questions that I did, except from a
[matthew_garcia]: different point of view. Is
[matthew_garcia]: he wasn't trying to understand why this
[matthew_garcia]: happens and
[matthew_garcia]: contradictions? he was trying to resolve them, And so he said, You know, how
[matthew_garcia]: do i? um? the son of Uh, Arizona farmers, Um, who have no esteem in the
[matthew_garcia]: society who are mistreated. How do I bring esteem to them? How do I bring
[matthew_garcia]: rights to them? How do I let give them Uh, a leg up on society to to kind of
[matthew_garcia]: leverage their existence into something better for future generations? And
[matthew_garcia]: so he studied past attempts. Um, most notably by Ernesto Glasa that tried to
[matthew_garcia]: organize brarseros and failed And and he said, Okay, there's gotta be a
[matthew_garcia]: different way. You know. there's gotta be a way to do this.
[matthew_garcia]: Um, and uh, that's how he. He happened upon theited farm workers, but he was
[matthew_garcia]: always ambivalent about a union.
[pj_wehry]: Hm, hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Um. He was a part of a group called the Community service Organization, and
[matthew_garcia]: the community service organization was all about working with disepowered,
[matthew_garcia]: mostly Mexican, but not exclusively Mexican, Mexican, um families, to
[matthew_garcia]: leverage the kind of politics and laws, um, uh, and expectations of
[matthew_garcia]: government in their communities, to you know, improve street lights or to
[matthew_garcia]: improve male service, or to pave uh, Um, You know streets that are unpaved,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, and it was through those that work and he'd do these things called House
[matthew_garcia]: M meetings, where he was great. In these small settings he'd go into their
[matthew_garcia]: homes and he talk about. Don't you want this for your child? Don't you want
[matthew_garcia]: to to not have to you know? walk on that muddy road. Don't you want more
[matthew_garcia]: postal service to this community? And then
[matthew_garcia]: he would uh make the appeal to government and and and start making that work
[matthew_garcia]: together. Um. But the thing that he found was that he traveled throughout
[matthew_garcia]: California is like the thing that all these communities house in Commons.
[matthew_garcia]: They work for in agriculture, and so um any, and he discovered that the
[matthew_garcia]: thing that held them back the most was that there were these uh, temporary
[matthew_garcia]: workers that were allowed to be paid less could be sent back the moment that
[matthew_garcia]: they rose up and asked for more. These werebseros and the first thing we
[matthew_garcia]: need to do is end the bursero program and then once we end the Barser
[matthew_garcia]: program, then we're free to create a union. And so that's why he ended up
[matthew_garcia]: doing Uh, working working towards unionization. But he was sort of
[matthew_garcia]: ambivalent about that and it was actually another immigrant group Filipinos
[matthew_garcia]: that were more radical that were more studied in terms of philosophy
[pj_wehry]: hm, hm, hm, Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: and and ideology. There were many of them communists. Um. Who said No, What
[matthew_garcia]: we need to do is confront the owners and we need to form a union, And that's
[matthew_garcia]: also why he decided to go the the labor organizing route, but he never sort
[matthew_garcia]: of reconciled that, and that's why you know in the nineteen seventies, Um,
[matthew_garcia]: you know, you think farming's hard. Organizing farm workers is harder.
[matthew_garcia]: And when
[matthew_garcia]: and when he discovered that you know, he started to take his eye off the
[matthew_garcia]: prize, and and started to go down a route which I don't think is a bad
[matthew_garcia]: intention, But you know, which was Why don't we just own our own land? Why
[matthew_garcia]: don't we produce for ourselves? La? we organize into smaller pods. Um. That
[matthew_garcia]: was at the headquarters in Lapoz, The problem was that he had made a
[matthew_garcia]: commitment to the farm workers that he organized. The problem was that he
[matthew_garcia]: was, he had created a union. He had started something and he, he wanted to
[matthew_garcia]: redirect it and a lot of the organizers wouldn't allow him to do
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: it. So there was tension and it just kind of pulled the whole thing apart by
[matthew_garcia]: nineteen seventy eight. It's a shadow of its former self.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah, and that's a. then, of course, at least you, your third book Ellck to
[pj_wehry]: withwwie, we kind of start with, and I really enjoyed that
[matthew_garcia]: Yeah,
[pj_wehry]: kind of as we wrap up here. I think that the last question I have for you and
[pj_wehry]: again, thank you so much for coming on. Um.
[pj_wehry]: what are some possible solutions to the problems that faces today in the food
[pj_wehry]: industry?
[matthew_garcia]: it's really tough, I mean, but
[matthew_garcia]: you know I, it's a question that I think about a lot and I guess I,
[matthew_garcia]: if you try to take it on all at once, the whole thing, it can just be
[matthew_garcia]: overwhelming. And so for me, if it've sort of gone back to my roots. We, we
[matthew_garcia]: started off talking about my Um. farming. I own livestock, Um, I raise right
[matthew_garcia]: now seventeen cows. I have thirteen sheep. I do manage grazing, and there's
[matthew_garcia]: a real debate about Um. how to solve the problems that are confronting us in
[matthew_garcia]: terms of climate change
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: in terms of food bottlenecks and meat model necks. And there are some people
[matthew_garcia]: like out there like Jonathan Saffron. For who just say we need to stop
[matthew_garcia]: eating meat and meats Bad. And uh, you know what that does? Is it inflames
[matthew_garcia]: the other side that you know, particularly the the Trump side that that
[matthew_garcia]: says. Ah, you know they're trying to take a awayar of burgers. Um, and I
[matthew_garcia]: also think it dumbs down the whole issue of how do you deal with complex
[matthew_garcia]: systems? The food system's a complex system, And so there's a saying, Um,
[matthew_garcia]: amongst Uh, livestock producers, it's not about the cow, it's about the
[matthew_garcia]: howl,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: and so for for us that are engage in manage graging. There is a lot of
[matthew_garcia]: practice and a lot of evidence that if you manage that the the ways in which
[matthew_garcia]: Um ruminant graze, and that's what you call
[matthew_garcia]: sheep, goats, Uh, cows, animals that take in grasses, and they produce
[matthew_garcia]: energy and they ▁ultimately produce meat. There's a way in which you do it
[matthew_garcia]: that actually sequesters more carbon dioxide than emits it. Um. and I think
[matthew_garcia]: that requires us to uh, first of all, respect the heavy labor that it takes
[matthew_garcia]: to grow food, Um. The second is that we need policies that support that kind
[matthew_garcia]: of approach which runs counter to the kind of big box, uh, corporate, uh,
[matthew_garcia]: production that I've talked about. so in some ways, Um, I'm I'm talking
[pj_wehry]: hm, yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: about Eli's idea of doing things s socially responsible through like a big
[pj_wehry]: Mhm,
[matthew_garcia]: corporation as a fool's errand,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: But I think it's worth kind of walking through why it was a fool's errand,
[matthew_garcia]: Which is why I made this. Uh, wrote that book,
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, That will be out sometime either this year or early next. Um.
[matthew_garcia]: and so you know, I think we need to eat less meat. I think we need to buy.
[matthew_garcia]: Spend the uh more for our meat. Um, as you are doing, P. ▁j, that's good.
[matthew_garcia]: Um. but that's a recognition of what meat really costs.
[pj_wehry]: Yeah,
[matthew_garcia]: It costs in terms of like the skill that's put into it, the labor that's put
[matthew_garcia]: into it, and the cost to the planet. right. So if you're buying meat that's
[matthew_garcia]: produced by ▁j B, S, that's the company
[pj_wehry]: for Brazil. Yes,
[matthew_garcia]: the Brazilian company that. Yeah, yeah, um, you're contributing to Uh, the
[matthew_garcia]: destruction of the Mississippi Delta. Um. where all the food that those cows
[matthew_garcia]: eat is being grown Um. in you know these monocultures of Sowy, Beean, And
[matthew_garcia]: And and what have you? Um? There's pesticides putting on there. There's uh,
[matthew_garcia]: uh. the the support of uh, um. big companies like Monsanto that's supplying
[matthew_garcia]: Um that seed and
[pj_wehry]: hm,
[matthew_garcia]: on those inputs, Um, and it's contributing to the destruction, and it's also
[matthew_garcia]: not a true representation of the cost of that meat. It's also fly in the
[matthew_garcia]: face of the kind of uh, benefits of rotational manage grazing that Uh, small
[matthew_garcia]: producers like myself are doing. so I think we need to go back to eating
[matthew_garcia]: locally. We need to respect that labor. And that's why you know the the, The
[matthew_garcia]: film that you mentioned, Um, Uh, the biggest little farm. Um is really
[matthew_garcia]: important. ▁ultimately. You know, I could say what I want about the
[matthew_garcia]: invisibility of the Mexicans that they rely on, but the message that movie's
[matthew_garcia]: really important, which is to respect how hard it is to produce food and to
[matthew_garcia]: produce it in a way that Um is benefiting the planet, as opposed to Uh,
[matthew_garcia]: hastening the end of the planet. And so I guess in my own life right now,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, in a, in addition to the scholarship, I'm trying to model good behavior
[matthew_garcia]: in my food production. and I'm thinking about my great grandfather that
[matthew_garcia]: owned that carnicidia, but didn't think about where that mo me came from.
[matthew_garcia]: I'm thinking about the meat that I sold when I was working behind the
[matthew_garcia]: counter at my dad's shop. Now I'm actually
[matthew_garcia]: in touch with that farming, and I'm thinking about what it takes. What's the
[matthew_garcia]: true cost of production and Um, I think my next project. I'm done with the
[matthew_garcia]: trilogy, but I'm also thinking about Um. writing a book for farmers,
[pj_wehry]: hm, Hm,
[matthew_garcia]: Um, that you know, explores these questions and and contradictions in our
[matthew_garcia]: practice. I don't have it all worked out, but Um, I do think, um that we
[matthew_garcia]: need to empower consumers to be much more informed, Um, and much more
[matthew_garcia]: thoughtful about the the food that they're eating and the true cost of it.
[pj_wehry]: that is, uh, a beautiful suimmation of what we've been talking about today. and
[pj_wehry]: thank you so much for all the historical contxts. for that for our audience. If
[pj_wehry]: you appreciate the depth of discussion or learn something, please like sure, and
[pj_wehry]: subscribe to someone else can to Doctor Gara, It's been an honor. Thank you so
[pj_wehry]: much.
[matthew_garcia]: thank you, P. ▁j.