Which Side Are You On: The Story of Bisbee Arizona's Ethnic Cleansing of 1,300 Immigrant Mineworkers! with Katherine Benton-Cohen, Professor of History, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University
The border town of Bisbee, Arizona is known for a few things. First, theres that massive copper mine that was turned into a tourist attraction back in the seventies. Then, theres that can-do spirit that wont let said town " or mine " die, no matter how much times change. Oh, and theres also the hundred-year-old ethnic cleansing that everyone is eager to forget, including those concerned that the atrocity might reflect badly on that damn mine, which kickstarted the event a century ago. We tell the story of Bisbees ignoble, anti-immigrant past to juxtapose it as an admonition against the advent of our anti-immigrant, anti-worker behavior today. which is recounted in Robert Greene's new film "Bisbe '17"
We talk with Katherine Benton-Cohen about the 1917 labor strike against Phelps Dodge, a copper mining company based in Bisbee, Arizona, a town seven miles from the Mexican border. The labor action was cut short when 2,000 strikebreakers and hastily deputized citizens rounded up 1,300 protesters, many of them members of the radical, Industrial Workers of the World, aka The Wobblies. In this process two strikers were killed. The strikers were taken across state lines by train and dumped in the New Mexico desert with a warning to never return. The event tore apart families and created divisions in Bisbee and the surrounding county that linger to this day. One of the most harrowing anecdotes recounted here finds a sheriff's deputy arresting his own brother, a striking union member, at gunpoint in his own home.
produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
please notify us if you plan to broadcast this program - knash@igc.org
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