Highway to History Podcast

The justification to single out and exterminate another group of people can come from any group coalesced around any ideological system of belief, be it religious or secular in nature. In Revolutionary France, the secular forces of the newly established French Republic were threatened on all sides by the old system of empire they had just overthrown in the guise of the Christian Empires of Europe, a form of civilization that had repressed the French people for many centuries, as they saw it. However, the Catholic peasantry known as the Vendèe, interpreted current events differently, viewing the French Revolution as the overthrow of a divinely appointed monarch by secular heretics. After a year long war with the Vendèe from 1893 to 1894, when the Vendèe were defeated at the Second Battle of Cholet in October of 1894, the Committee of Public Safety ordered the eradication of the Vendèe in the name of preserving the French Republic.

The rallying cry of the pro Prop 1 crowd was "stop gay special rights." They felt that if gay people in Idaho were labeled a minority officially, they'd be protected from discrimination in the workplace and other public organizations like schools and libraries. They said gay people were not a minority like black people or Latinos because they chose to be gay and live "immorally," whereas true minorities had no choice. Proposition 1, claimed the Idaho Citizens Alliance after submitting the initiative for the November 1994 ballot, would prevent this from happening. The LGBT community and others opposed to Prop 1 said the intiative was active discrimination, and all they wanted was fair treatment, not discrimination because they were gay. In 1993 and 1994, the debate filled the headlines in Idaho and without. However, only the pro prop 1 crowd continually applied hatefilled rhetoric and blatant lies to attack LGBT people.

From 1942 until 1948, Mexican citizens came to the United States at the behest of the federal government to fill the labor gaps created by the increased need for agricultural production during WWII. They bolstered the agricultural economy of the United States and proved an asset to the development of our nation, but they also face rampant racism and discrimination, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Idaho, of all the Pac NW States, proved the worst and the Mexican government restricted their citizens from working for growers there in October of 1948. However, most of the Braceros endured as did Mexican laborers using H2-A and H2-B Visas after 1964. Enduring hardship, after all, is a common theme in American history and Mexican laborers known as the Braceros did just that. In that regard, their descendants, those that became American citizens and endured similar bigotry are quintessentially American.

This podcast contains mature themes and language - Parental Advisory Advised 

This conversation is intended for adults and contains mature subject matter and language.

This episode contains adult language and subject matter, parental advisory is advised.

This week Mark sat down with librarian Molly Nota and bookshop owner Chelsea Major to discuss the importance of literature in defining who we are as individuals and Americans. We discuss Idaho's HB 710, an attempt to censor the materials Idaho's readers can readily access within their public libraries. We discuss the books that have defined us, how literature has the ability to represent groups that have been continuously oppressed throughout our nation's history and how books have the ability to fight ignorance and thus hate.  

Tomás Baiza is the author of two published books and numerous articles and short stories. He is also an historian and educator. In short, Tomás Baiza is many things and then more. I see him as a bit of a rebel, but he's also a family man. I could apply more labels to him, but it's hardly necessary, he puts so much of himself onto every page he writes. We talked about our identities and how we were shaped by the United States, but we also talk about our nation's history, and why to call oneself a "real American" is so problematic. Listen in!

This conversation includes material that is not appropriate for children.