WEBVTT

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All right.

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All right, so each one
of these characters

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is either a video or a document
about the Transcontinental

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Railroad.

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So you're going to tell me what
you would like to know about.

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Would you like to
know about adoption,

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African-American workers,
African-American porters,

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archeological artifacts,
biracial 19th century

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journalists, the Civil
War, Chinese death rituals,

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Chinese descendants of railroad
workers, Chinese exclusion,

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phrasebooks from
the 19th century,

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Cholera, environmental
change, ghost towns,

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gender roles on trains,
hobos, Hollywood,

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immigration questionnaires,
Irish-Americans, labor unions,

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land art, Robert Smithson and
the Great Salt Lake, manifest

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destiny, mass murder,
Mormons, Native Americans,

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the Plains Indian war,
photography, polygamy,

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prostitution,
presidential impeachment,

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race relations on the train,
the telegraph, or LGBTQ lives?

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Choose your poison.

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You just yell it out.

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Mormons.

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OK, what else?

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Laborers.

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Laborers, OK.

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Cholera.

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Cholera.

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Oh, you guys are a fun crowd.

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You guys are a fun crowd.

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No, a lot of people are
like, Oh, prostitution.

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But I know you're thinking that.

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We'll get to it.

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I know it.

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OK, so let's start
with labor first.

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Oh my gosh, is it easier
on this other screen?

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Oh my gosh.

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Yeah, that would
work, that would work.

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No more wine for
Paisley before reading.

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OK, don't do the obvious thing.

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No, that would be stupid.

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OK, here you go.

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Not.

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Dennis Kearney, speeches, 1878.

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"I am not a railroad king,
banker, professor, bummer

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politician.

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Under their flag of
slaveholder, they have rallied

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and we permitted
them to grow rich.

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They have loaded down
our nation with debt.

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They have stolen public lands
by their unprincipled greed,

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brought distress on millions.

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They who have resources enough
to feed, clothe, and shelter

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the entire human race.

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We propose now to take charge.

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The press will say I
am a common Irishman.

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Good, I am a working
man too like you

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who did not come here as
English, Scotch, Dutch,

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or Irish, not Catholic either,
Protestant, or infidel.

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Let there be no sects.

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We are white
working men who will

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elect the hard-fisted,
obscure artisans, coopers,

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bank smashers.

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If the legislature
oversteps human decency,

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then rope will be
our battle cry.

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White men, women,
girls, and boys

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will not compete with the
mechanics of the market.

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The Chinese must
leave our shores.

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None but an idiot would
hope to work as cheap.

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None but a slave
make the effort.

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Death is preferable to
life on par with these.

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We make no secret
of our intentions.

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We can discuss if
it would be better

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to hang, shoot, or cut the
capitalists to pieces later.

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Money is always on
alert to divide us.

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But as I walk into
this starless heaven,

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still I know Mars
holds its course,

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Venus whirls in flashing
fields of light.

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Thus it is with a
movement of our kind.

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We are working men and
we will exhibit ourselves

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when the time is right.

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Not in loneliness or
in shame, but splendor,

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alive in our true
and native powers."

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Anywhere and everywhere.

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You will not replace us.

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You will not replace us.

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You will not replace us.

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You will not replace us.

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The book has notes.

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Each one of these notes
is a mini lyric essay.

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All the notes together
comprise one essay.

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So each poem comes with its note
and this is the note for Not.

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Dennis Kearney was
an Irish immigrant

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who in 1877 along with J.G.
Day and H.L. Knight, founded

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the Workingmen's
Party of California,

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an American labor organization
formed in response

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to high unemployment
caused by the 1873/78

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national depression.

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Members of the Workingmen's
Party of the United States

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participated in the great
railroad strike of 1877,

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which began in West
Virginia and spread

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to New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland,

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Missouri, and Illinois, leading
to the burning of railroad

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stockyards and buildings and the
deaths of at least 100 people.

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After the California party won
a significant number of seats

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in the California state
senate and state assembly,

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it rewrote the
state constitution

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to deny Chinese
citizens voting rights.

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It also wrote into
the constitution

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the California
Railroad Commission,

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which oversaw the activities
of the Central and Pacific

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railroad companies.

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The party's
anti-Chinese sentiment

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helped fuel support for the
1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

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Nearly 150 years later,
ostensibly concerned

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that Chinese nationals
at US universities

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were stealing state or
technological information,

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the Trump administration
canceled the visas

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of more than 1,000 Chinese
students and researchers

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in the United States who had
direct ties to universities

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affiliated with the
People's Liberation Army.

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In fall 2020, Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo

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said he wanted China's
government funded

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Confucius Institutes, which have
branches on university campuses

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across America, shut down.

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The US state department
also announced

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that the entry of senior
Chinese diplomats to US campuses

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would require state
department approval,

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lectures were canceled,
fellowships revoked,

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universities
unsurprisingly balked.

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My own institution,
the University of Utah,

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includes a Confucius Institute.

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It is directly responsible
for funding this project.

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