Brown Berets

It's very patriarchal.

There isn't too much of that matriarchy, which you had that whole episode with the Brown Berets, which was fantastic, by the way.

But talking about that matriarchy versus like feminism and how feminism is actually a colonial kind of like construct and that actually uses a lot of racism because it depends on what your background and upbringing and everything like that are.

where you get your brown-skinned woman versus a white-skinned woman, and you're going to have completely different feminist struggles depending on each other.

And so we wanted to do something about it.

And it was through the vision, really, of our leader, of our CEO, Castillo de la Rocha, who is, if you do a little search on him, you'll know that he's actually a pretty prominent civil rights leader in the 1960s, part of the Brown Berets.

And so if we are true to our history as AltaMed that came out of the Brown Berets movement, then we have to address the social justice issues and the social determinants of health.

And the best way to do something about it was to launch MyVoteMyHealth at that point in time in 2018.

And it's been such a huge success ever since.

So a myriad of takeovers, and this was coming out of a community in which coalition politics, which is the bedrock of the 1960s politic in which the black Panther party worked security and for Alcatraz.

Brown Berets begin to try to take over Catalina Island off of Los Angeles.

Indians of all tribes march in the moratorium march sponsored by the Brown Berets to end the Vietnam War.

In other words, this coalition factor was, we couldn't do it alone.

And if we were going to have any kind of future outstanding, it needed a future in which we saw each other as equals, as humans, as relatives as neighbors and we break down societal constructs of race and we we adopt a more generous version of our humanity and in so doing we find a new kind of freedom and that's literally at the heart and center of what's happening so it it ends but it never really ends is the other way to put it and so the federal marshals come in in june of 71 they escort people off of the island.

I mean, back then were different times, you know.

I know that the Panthers is just one of them, right? You also have the Brown Berets that, you know, came afterwards.

And there's so many organizations, but I think it's...

They're the first neighborhood watch.

I'm, I am actually on a panel with the Black Panther Party, the, uh, the Panther Party, the, the Hicks of America, um, or the Rednecks of America, they're call- they call themselves.

The Chicano movement, which is the, the Brown Berets.

Like, I'm literally sitting on Zoom calls with all of them because we all are, in a crazy way, tied to each other and have, uh, that's like one of the most beautiful, uh, conversations that I have, is that we all now are speaking the same speak.

And we're all like, "Okay, we have one common enemy.

I first met Esty and Lieutenant, and I'm going to introduce you all to them today.

We did an episode with them before, but Esty, who is the Capitana of the Brown Berets, and Lieutenant Shimali.

Welcome, family.

We've had plenty of discussions before, but I think it's good to let's revisit all the things that you all have taught me about matriarchy, about indigenous governance and about reconnecting with the roots.

Thank you.

Yeah, so...

Captain and Lieutenant, let's talk about y'all's background real quick in relation to your indigenous roots in this land, what called you to becoming Brown Berets, and just a little history, a brief history of the Brown Beret organization that y'all belong to.

And for the audience, can we start with the Brown Berets for context? We'd really appreciate that.

of smoke screening, that was to just say the Holocaust is the only thing going on that was horrifying, and that kind of, it just grabbed the world's attention on that one thing in Europe, and everything that happened in Africa didn't hear about didn't hear about you know

even even though it was more people that died even though you know and not to say that the jewish holocaust was not a terrible thing it was but also just bypassing the many many more millions of russians who actually died yes you know like fighting fascism right in the second world war so so we've had this whole period of history that has happened where the west right has had this this kind of uh you know this this income right again at the expense of other parts of the world like through extraction right but it has had this income in order to be able to bring up the standard of living of its own people, right? Like raise the standard of the middle class, have education for everyone, you know, like stop political revolutionary movements like the Panthers, the Brown Berets, the Gray Berets, who have you, right? What have you, by literally buying people off in many cases, by killing them in others, but essentially by creating a middle class, right? This is what they did.

from all those layers of society, right? And what is happening now and the reason why so many people are so confused in this moment is because that time has now ended.

Right.

Which at the time, those sentences, we had, there was a liberals judges in Los Angeles, and some were Hispanic.

And you might remember back in the ear- late '70s, early '70s and the late 80- uh, si- '60s, you had the Brown Berets out in the street.

You had the Black Panthers out in the street.

You had, uh, different groups out in the street marching, uh, socialist, communist, et cetera.