(time machine warbling) (festive music) (clock ticking) (Cory laughing) - Hey!

Ahem.

What's up, what's up you all?

How did you all get to the fair?

Wait, how did I get here?

(time machine beeping) Right now?

(time machine beeping) You know, you're interrupting my field trip, (time machine beeping) but I got you.

What's up you all?

It's Cory.

And as you can see, I love the fair.

The food slaps!

Popcorn, cotton candy, fried pickles.

And there's so much to see, wood carvings, demolition derbies, and even racing pigs.

Did you know fairs have been around for almost 200 years?

But they haven't always been about the food.

Fairs showed how the United States was building an empire.

Ooh, here's a good stop.

Buffalo 1901, the Pan-American Exposition.

A world's fair to celebrate the social and business connections of North, Central, and South America.

See, the US had just fought a war with Spain to create an empire that stretched from the Caribbean across the Pacific.

People wanted to see all the military displays the government sent to Buffalo.

There was this huge map with these tiny magnetic ships showing where the US Navy was at any given moment across the world.

The Pan-Am also showed our growing industrial strength, trains, planes, and automobiles.

Well, not planes yet, but lots of steam engines and early cars, and electricity.

(electricity buzzing) The Electric Tower was a tribute to the new source of power generated by Niagara Falls.

Buffalo became known as the City of Lights for being one of the first to have widespread streetlights.

But for all these elaborate displays of advancement, there was a darker side to American success in the early 1900s.

Factory workers, laborers, and immigrants were mistreated and excluded from the wealth lining the pockets of the robber barons.

(villain cackling) Mark Twain called this era the Gilded Age.

He said it was like a golden egg that was rotten on the inside.

Ew.

People called muckrakers dug beneath the surface, exposing the divide between the crazy rich millionaires and the poor folks that worked for them.

One of the most famous muckrakers was Upton Sinclair, who wrote a book called "The Jungle".

He went undercover in a meat packing plant in Chicago to reveal how disgusting working conditions were.

Sawdust, maggots, rat parts, ugh.

His work led to food safety laws about how meat was prepared.

Now, some businesses got big by gobbling up so many small companies that there was no competition left, like John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

(villain laughing) Eventually, President Teddy Roosevelt got involved.

He was worried about how much power these monopolies had, so he wanted to break them apart.

People started calling my man Teddy the Trust Buster, and his efforts made him very popular.

But you don't have to be the most powerful man in the country to take on bad business, all you need is a crew.

(lively music) - Whoa.

Hello, Mr. Cory.

Hey everyone.

- Hey, who are you?

Nice shirt.

- Oh, you like it, huh?

They call it guayabera, you know, from the 1960s like I am.

- Oh.

- My name is Francisco.

And the history-verse brought me from the past to the future to get you back to the present.

Remember?

Your students are waiting for you.

- Oh, geez.

Yeah.

But first, I got to finish telling my friends here about the Progressive Era and how folks organized to make big change.

- Allow me.

When you want to improve conditions at work in the government, at school, you can't do it alone.

You got to do it with friends.

By banding together, reformers and labor unions found strength in numbers and scored big wins like limits on child labor, the 40 hour week, better wages, and overall safer conditions for working people.

Right?

- Okay, man.

Preach, brother, preach.

Yes.

(both laughing) So we gained a lot in the Progressive Era, but unfortunately, these advances didn't help everyone.

We doing this together?

- Yes, let's do it, but quick.

- All right, take it back.

- The Spanish were the first Europeans to set foot in Central and South America.

They came as conquistadores, colonizing land for the idea of gold, God, and glory.

- There were advanced civilizations from the tip of Chile north to California and Florida, like the Aztec and the Inca.

- The Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was way larger than London in the 1500s.

And the Inca used a system of cords and knots called quipu to keep all sorts of records.

- But Spain permanently changed the culture and language of the Indigenous people in this region of the world.

Now, folks from countries that speak Spanish can be called Hispanic.

- Hispanic is about language, but Latine is about geography.

It refers to people who came from Latin America, which includes Brazil and the Caribbean Islands.

- Other conquerors from Portugal and France, countries that don't speak Spanish, also colonized parts of Latin America.

So while people often use Hispanic and Latine in the same way, they aren't really the same.

- Across Central America, Latine people regained their independence by fighting off colonizers, and in South America, leaders like Simon Bolivar helped throw off Spanish rule.

In fact, Bolivia was named in his honor.

- But Spain held tightly on to the Caribbean territories, and the US had beef with that for two reasons.

One was to push the European influence out of the Western Hemisphere, and two, because the US was hungry to capture resources and workers for our growing economy.

So the US military fought to liberate Spanish colonies and, well, became colonizers.

All around Latin America, agencies were set up to Americanize the population and recruit thousands of Latine people to work in the States.

- From the Tejanos of Texas to the Boricuas of Puerto Rico, where I come from, Latine folk were absorbed into the United States, but they weren't really seen as equal by all Americans.

- They were denied legal and political rights, why?

Because many non-Latine people saw them as a threat to the American way of life.

- What does that even mean?

- I don't know what it means.

I mean, do you know what it means, honestly?

- And it's totally bonkers, loco.

- Yeah, I mean, there's so many influences on our way of life.

- We brought empanadas.

- Yes, yes.

- Rice with frijoles.

- And horchatas.

- Chipotle.

- Agua fresca, come on.

- Salsa dancing and reggaeton.

- That's what I'm talking about.

Is there really just one way?

- [Both] Heck no!

- It's called a salad bowl for a reason, you all.

We all add our own flavors to this big old American dish.

But still, some communities struggle to be included.

But throughout history, activists have held it down and organized to make changes.

- Emma Tenayuca was a Latina who became a labor organizer in Texas.

Even as a young woman, she noticed many Latine people were pressured to ditch our culture in order to fit in.

- Whack.

- She was only in high school when she began supporting Latinas who went on strike to protest low wages and horrible working conditions.

- You're out!

- What?

- Just kidding.

- Oh.

(laughing) - See, strikes have nothing to do with baseball.

A strike is when employees stop working in order to force a change.

- For her compassion and leadership, Emma is remembered as La Pasionaria de Texas.

- In the 1960s, many migrant workers picked grapes out in Cali, and you guessed it.

The conditions were horrible and they got paid doo-doo.

- Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta organized the United Farmworkers Union, and together they encouraged a nationwide movement to boycott grapes.

- The boycott lasted for years, successfully leading to better pay and protections for the farmworkers.

- You know, around the same time as Cesar Chavez's boycott, we led our own migrant workers' movement not too far from Buffalo.

- I heard about this, yeah.

Boricua migrant workers have been coming to Western New York since the 1940s?

- Exactly.

Puerto Ricans became American citizens in 1917, but the average farmworker in Puerto Rico only made 12 cents per day.

So we hoped for better opportunities in places like Western New York.

- Here, farmers cultivated berries, grapes, lettuce, onion, potato, tomato, you name it.

Agricultural towns like North Collins provided food for folks all the way in New York City and Canada, but there weren't enough local farmers to help.

- We were brought here from Puerto Rico to pursue the American dream only to end up in a nightmare.

We were forced to live in overcrowded makeshift camps with only a few bathrooms and no running water.

I mean, it was nasty.

We were underpaid, uninsured.

One Latina broke her arm while at work and had to wait six months before getting treated.

- Puerto Ricans were disrespected by the locals, weren't welcomed at churches and restaurants.

So what did you all do for fun?

- We kicked it with our friends on the sidewalk.

(laughing) Where else could we go?

But the police wouldn't even let us have that, imposing curfews on us and booting us off the streets.

We couldn't vote, own businesses.

Our children weren't allowed in schools.

And when we got in trouble, the courts discriminated against us.

After an incident where an officer beat, harassed one of our coworkers, man, we had enough.

By July 1966, we were so hurt.

We loaded up cars with bricks and gasoline and geared up to wreck the town.

But luckily, cooler heads prevailed.

Social workers Isaias Gonzalez and Jorge Colon, a labor specialist, rose to the challenge saying, hold up, hold up, hold up.

Let's not burn this town, we need to express how we feel though.

- Alongside hundreds of other migrant workers, they shed light at town meetings on the awful discrimination they faced.

- Together, we expressed that we belong in the community by organizing and using our collective voice.

Small but meaningful changes happened.

The nastiest camps were shut down.

Programs were created for our children.

Our movement inspired Puerto Ricans from all across the New York State to rise up and declare that we deserve to be treated with respect like everyone else.

- Woo-woo!

- Woo-woo!

(both laughing) Hold up, now, now you got to get out of here.

Go, go.

You got things to do.

- Oh yeah.

(laughing) (upbeat music) Whew.

So on one hand, there's been a lot of progress over the last 60 years, but the work is far from over.

Many Americans and immigrants still face discrimination in the workplace, the justice system, and society in general.

But it doesn't have to be this way.

What happens next is up to you.

Find a cause that's important to you and get involved.

You may need help just like Emma and Dolores, and Cesar and Francisco.

So grab some friends and get organized, petitions, posters, voting drives, social involvement.

Things change when we work together.

Now, remember, history surrounds you and includes you.

So go ahead and make history, and maybe someday we'll be telling your story right here on "Compact History".

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues)