WEBVTT

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(somber music)

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(dramatic music)

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- If we concentrate.

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If we dedicate energy, money and manpower

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to develop and stimulate
and revolutionize justice.

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Ladies and gentlemen I daresay
that history will record

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that this part on this
planet where justice played

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its greatest and major
role was in New Mexico.

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- Reies Lopez Tijerena, the Allianza,

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the brown people, the Indo-Spano.

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This is the fire that is
coming out of the volcano

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which is in the northern
part of New Mexico.

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- He was not afraid.

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He was a brave man or he is a brave man.

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He\'s a courageous guy.

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- As much as the enemy,
as much as the oppressor

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would like to have the world
believe that I\'m a king tiger

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that I\'m a militant,
that I\'m a violent man,

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he is mistaken, for I am
as violent as Jesus Christ.

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- Usually the story is
Tijerina was this volatile

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violent guy and he was the
leader of this very dangerous

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violent group and they made
these incendiary claims.

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- I think he had a boundless courage

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but it was because he was living
always in some other realm.

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- Very complex person
with many, many sides,

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many aspects to his life.

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- For some people he\'s a
militant leader that they always

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wanted, for some people
he\'s a prophetic figure.

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For other people he\'s the devil incarnate,

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for some people he\'s a savior.

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- [Reies] For 300 years, my
ancestors settled in Texas,

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New Mexico and California.

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Our roots, the pillars of our
culture are here, the towns.

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I had a vision, God spoke
to me through three angels.

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And they brought me here.

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- New Mexico was populated by
these enormous grants of land.

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Some of them are 500,000 acres.

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The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
ends the US-Mexican War.

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Basically, it does a couple of things.

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The first thing it does is
it transfers half of what

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was then Mexico to the United States.

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All of those land rights, that
Spain and Mexico after it,

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distributed to settlers in New Mexico

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were supposed to be respected
by the United States.

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- Although we are fighting
for land we are fighting

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for the survival and
protection of our culture.

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- Incredibly dangerous in
the 17th and 18th century

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because of the violence
between Indian nations

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and Spanish authorities,
it became a battle ground

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in the early 1900s as the
heirs of those original

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land grants were trying to
claim the land for themselves

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and their families and these
very wealthy speculators

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were trying to make a lot of
money claiming those lands.

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- [Announcer] Reies Lopez Tijerina.

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(audience applauding)

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(gunshots banging)

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- After the court house raid,
the New Mexican state police

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conducted this huge hunt for Tijerina.

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- The court house raid
then is seen symbolically

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as an assault on the law itself.

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- That\'s when he moved
to, I think, to Cuba.

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- My friend Phil Saphier
of Albuquerque called me up

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and said, \"Reies Tijerina
is in Juarez and he\'s living

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\"in a little house and he
needs help because he can\'t,

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\"he needs medical help.\"

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- I told Bobby that I was
coming down to see Reies

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and did you wanna, you know, so.

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- So I called up my friend Willivaldo

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to see what he could do.

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(somber music)

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- His house was this,

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it was probably as big
as this space right here.

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It had a bathroom, but he
was cold, he had no heat.

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It was concrete block.

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It was winter, it was a cold, cold winter.

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Might have been that winter
that was so cold here.

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- At that point, his mother
took it extremely seriously

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Before she died, told her
husband Reies\'s father

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to take good care of Reies
because he was special.

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So, from an early age he believed,

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he was told that he was
special and that continued

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and that the prophetic dreams
were an indication of this,

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a confirmation of this.

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(drums banging)
(people chanting)

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- Sometime in the late
50s he starts traveling

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through New Mexico.

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And it\'s not just him, he\'s
with this group of people.

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I would talk to people
and they would describe

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a group of very strange looking people

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with really long beards
listening to Tijerina preach

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and it had nothing to do with New Mexico

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because he didn\'t know
anything about it in the 50s.

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- And Reies was the leader of the commune,

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interested in people sharing,

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that people shouldn\'t be materialistic.

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Valle de Paz was also a communal exercise

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and expression of that belief.

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It were kind of Old Testament.

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Although we are fighting
for land, we are fighting

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for the survival and
protection of our culture.

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To the extent that we feel
that to rape the culture

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and the language of a
people is a greater crime

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than to rape a two year old child.

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We will fight like a
she-dog fights to protect

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her puppies in her nest
when an outsider comes.

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That\'s just the way we will fight.

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(ominous music)

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\"Brother Tijerina, what
you have done in New Mexico

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\"is the greatest thing
that has ever been done

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\"to help the poor people in all America.\"

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(dramatic music)

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- Tijerina and Allianza
represented a real threat

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to a particular kind of
social order in New Mexico,

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that was a social order based
not just the repression.

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It was structural racism that
marginalized Chicano people.

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(explosion booming)
(sirens wailing)

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- I was photographing a
sporting event I think

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when my dad came and picked me up.

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We saw a cop car going down Central Avenue

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and we said, \"Ah let\'s go
see what that\'s about.\"

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Following the red lights.

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I didn\'t know that it had happened.

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There was always news stories about him

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agitating for the ability
to have conversations

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about the land grant issue and so forth.

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He was a total schism.

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There were people who supported him,

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there were people who opposed him.

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(timer beeping)

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He was a cause celebre for certain people.

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(foreboding music)

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That\'s the photograph
that eventually gave me

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access to him in 1969.

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And I had contacted five
magazines, five newspapers,

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national level newspapers and asked them

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if they wanted this story.

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Anyway I approached
Tijerina and he said no.

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I couldn\'t travel with
him, I couldn\'t cover him.

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And I don\'t take no lightly

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so I followed him into his office

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and it was a 16 by 20, I think,
of this image, on the wall.

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\"You know who I am?\"

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He says, \"What?\"

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I said, \"I took that photograph of you.\"

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He says, \"That\'s my favorite picture.\"

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And he wrote up a letter immediately

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that to all those concerned

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I traveling with him and covering this.

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So anyway what we got
here is more pictures.

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And this fellow was named Evans.

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Now Evans actually came
out of Mississippi.

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Apparently, he was a troubleshooter
for the Forest Service.

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He had been involved with

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the civil rights movement in the South.

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(foreboding music)

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- Here\'s Patsy setting
up to burn the sign.

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And she poured gasoline on the fire.

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And Reies was present but
stood back from the event.

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This was the photograph
that was on the front cover

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of the Albuquerque Journal.

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(ominous music)
(glass smashing)

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- Evans reaches out and
grabs Reies by the belt.

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Jack Johnson, the one who
came down off of the bridge,

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opened the hood, took the distributor cap

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and then put his rifle
over the hood of the car

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and said, \"Psst, Reies,
you\'re a dead man.\"

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(rifle clicks)

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- So Reies decided that he
would submit to the arrest

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but he wanted a Hispanic
officer to arrest him.

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(sirens wailing)
(ominous music)

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(bombs exploding)

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- It was not something to
scare us off but to either

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kill some of the children or all of us.

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(trumpeting)

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(people yelling)

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- Echo Amphitheater what they
do is they stage a caravan,

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I\'d say 20 or 30 cars at least.

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(people yelling)

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- They impound Forest Service vehicles.

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They place Forest Rangers
under citizens arrest.

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They establish the free city state

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of San Joaquin del Rio de Chama.

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- We take these upon our shoulders.

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In the name of the town of
San Joaquin del Rio de Chama.

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- They bring in hundreds of people.

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They seize Echo Amphitheater which is run

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by the Forest Service on
the former land grant.

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And they also seize some
Forest Service employees

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and put them on trial.

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So the symbolic thing.

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Aztlan for him would be this,

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New Mexico represented this mystical place

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where east and west come together.

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(somber music)

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- Hated Tijerina.

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He despised Allianza,
was very conservative--

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- The tension between the police

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and the Allianza was very high.

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Alfonso Sanchez pre-emptively
arrests 11 Alliancistas.

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- Most of the arrests happen
throughout the day on June 4th.

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They arrested Jose Maria
Martinez at his home

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while he was having dinner with his family

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and they just said, \"You\'re under arrest.\"

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I asked Sanchez, \"What were
the charges for those arrests?\"

00:56:35.320 --> 00:56:37.910
and he said, \"They were
going to break the law.\"

00:57:30.288 --> 00:57:33.038
(dramatic music)

00:59:08.929 --> 00:59:13.929
(gunshots banging)
(people yelling)

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(gunshots banging)

00:59:39.743 --> 00:59:44.743
- (speaks foreign language)
I\'m praying, don\'t kill me.

00:59:47.291 --> 00:59:50.208
(gunshots banging)

01:00:02.172 --> 01:00:07.172
(gunshot banging)
(people yelling)

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(sirens wailing)

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- [David] FBI Director
J.Edgar Hoover was briefing

01:01:50.820 --> 01:01:52.890
other agencies of the US Government

01:01:52.890 --> 01:01:55.320
about Tijerena and Allianza.

01:01:55.320 --> 01:01:57.223
So he was briefing the CIA,

01:01:57.223 --> 01:01:59.863
he was briefing Defense Intelligence.

01:02:45.940 --> 01:02:48.650
- I think the newspaper
had something like 2,000

01:02:48.650 --> 01:02:51.330
National Guards, about
them beating the bushes

01:02:51.330 --> 01:02:53.143
looking for Reies.

01:02:54.918 --> 01:02:56.574
He had empty (mumbles).

01:02:56.574 --> 01:03:01.440
We saw the cops and sheriff\'s deputies

01:03:01.440 --> 01:03:03.100
fanning out into the woods.

01:03:03.100 --> 01:03:08.100
Out of the woods came
this narrow line of people

01:03:08.730 --> 01:03:10.343
with their hands on their heads.

01:03:11.370 --> 01:03:15.750
These were men and women
and they were being guarded

01:03:15.750 --> 01:03:17.903
by people with rifles.

01:03:24.290 --> 01:03:26.087
- [David] And they just
arrested a bunch of people

01:03:26.087 --> 01:03:28.570
and the put \'em in a corral outside

01:03:28.570 --> 01:03:30.292
and they held them there for 24 hours.

01:03:30.292 --> 01:03:32.600
They didn\'t give them water or food

01:03:32.600 --> 01:03:34.143
and they were just holding them.

01:04:04.180 --> 01:04:08.275
- The New State Police
conducted this huge hunt

01:04:08.275 --> 01:04:11.790
for Tijerena and he
was eventually arrested

01:04:13.230 --> 01:04:16.950
just north of Albuquerque
when police officers

01:04:16.950 --> 01:04:19.175
pulled over a car and he
was in the back of the car.

01:04:19.175 --> 01:04:21.842
(ominous music)

01:06:22.332 --> 01:06:24.749
(folk music)

01:06:28.430 --> 01:06:32.263
(singing in foreign language)

01:07:15.649 --> 01:07:18.316
(phone ringing)

01:08:21.010 --> 01:08:22.553
- There\'s three reels.

01:08:23.600 --> 01:08:24.450
They\'re original.

01:08:25.370 --> 01:08:26.203
First one.

01:08:45.920 --> 01:08:48.220
Okay, I\'ll do this first one here,

01:08:48.220 --> 01:08:49.883
so you can see how that looks.

01:08:52.920 --> 01:08:57.007
I\'ve made a 15 minute.

01:08:58.894 --> 01:09:01.977
(projector whirring)

01:09:16.380 --> 01:09:18.000
- Testimony has finally begun

01:09:18.000 --> 01:09:20.480
in the trial of Reies Lopez Tijerena.

01:09:20.480 --> 01:09:22.740
And it was difficult
getting to this point.

01:09:22.740 --> 01:09:24.540
It took the better part of six days

01:09:24.540 --> 01:09:27.050
and the questioning of
over 70 people to seat

01:09:27.050 --> 01:09:28.363
a jury and one alternate.

01:09:31.298 --> 01:09:33.170
- The organized conspiracy to quash

01:09:38.090 --> 01:09:41.883
and destroy or intimidate,
terrorize the membership

01:09:41.883 --> 01:09:44.103
the Allianza, the officers.

01:11:59.970 --> 01:12:04.803
- But I also know that within
the New Mexico state police,

01:12:05.830 --> 01:12:10.077
Gilliland in particular,
he said that, that killing

01:12:11.560 --> 01:12:15.633
was not actually associated
with the Allianza.

01:14:24.737 --> 01:14:27.737
(people applauding)

01:14:30.609 --> 01:14:33.192
The greatest Christmas present.

01:14:36.628 --> 01:14:39.230
We would like to thank the jury,

01:14:39.230 --> 01:14:40.907
from the bottom of our hearts.

01:15:30.646 --> 01:15:33.313
(ominous music)

01:16:53.613 --> 01:16:56.010
- I\'ve seen documents from
the New Mexican state police

01:16:56.010 --> 01:16:59.260
that really describe those
patterns of harassment

01:16:59.260 --> 01:17:00.780
and particularly of the family too,

01:17:00.780 --> 01:17:03.385
it wasn\'t just Tijerena right,

01:17:03.385 --> 01:17:08.385
It was a coordinated
campaign against Tijerena

01:17:08.440 --> 01:17:10.660
and his whole family.

01:17:10.660 --> 01:17:14.450
- [Mark] He had a lot of
stories about, number one,

01:17:14.450 --> 01:17:18.210
what they did to his
family when he was in jail,

01:17:18.210 --> 01:17:22.897
including his wife, his
daughter and his son Noe.

01:17:51.088 --> 01:17:53.720
- Certainly there were
never any criminal charges

01:17:53.720 --> 01:17:57.770
against any law enforcement
officer or agent

01:17:57.770 --> 01:18:00.300
about any of the violence perpetrated

01:18:00.300 --> 01:18:02.950
against Tijerena or his family.

01:18:02.950 --> 01:18:05.663
Most of the time people
just didn\'t believe it.

01:18:09.322 --> 01:18:12.170
- [Interviewer] (mumbles)
This interview voluntarily.

01:18:12.170 --> 01:18:13.280
- Right.

01:18:13.280 --> 01:18:14.640
- [Interviewer] You couldn\'t
get anything out of,

01:18:14.640 --> 01:18:15.646
\'cause they weren\'t doing anything?

01:18:15.646 --> 01:18:17.592
- No they would become frustrated.

01:18:17.592 --> 01:18:22.592
They would tell me, these
people given the minimum.

01:18:23.080 --> 01:18:27.480
I never saw him poison
the water or shoot a cow

01:18:27.480 --> 01:18:29.620
or burn a haystack, that\'s what I mean.

01:18:29.620 --> 01:18:32.120
I never saw any of Tijerena boys do that.

01:18:32.120 --> 01:18:33.460
- [Interviewer] You all were doing that?

01:18:33.460 --> 01:18:34.360
- We were doing that.

01:18:34.360 --> 01:18:36.272
We were burning clinic, we were--

01:18:36.272 --> 01:18:37.590
- [Interviewer] And that was to blame him?

01:18:37.590 --> 01:18:38.423
To put the blame on him.

01:18:38.423 --> 01:18:39.256
- Right, right.

01:18:39.256 --> 01:18:43.440
- This is real, campaign of terror

01:18:43.440 --> 01:18:46.363
that the state was using
against his family.

01:18:55.720 --> 01:18:58.303
(somber music)

01:20:07.796 --> 01:20:10.327
- (speaks foreign language)
He lose all strength.

01:20:10.327 --> 01:20:13.450
He couldn\'t move, he
couldn\'t talk about nothing.

01:20:17.240 --> 01:20:22.240
- And they gave him
very powerful sedatives

01:20:22.560 --> 01:20:27.550
that made him feel like
he was losing his mind.

01:20:27.550 --> 01:20:29.657
He did talk about that.

01:23:11.005 --> 01:23:13.588
(bell gonging)

01:23:17.962 --> 01:23:20.879
(melancholy music)