Ramon Ramos and Melinda Wiggins

00:08 My name is Melinda Wiggins. I am 42 today's date is November 10th 2012. We are at the staff offices in Durham North Carolina and Ramona and I are co-workers, but we've known each other and different way.

00:31 My name is Ramon. Zepeda Ramos. I am 26 years old today is November 10th 2012 and we are in at the sap offices in Durham, North Carolina. I know Melinda the room fast. She's my executive director and co-worker. We met back in 2005 maybe before that. Yeah.

00:59 So Ramon, I feel like I know some of this but I wondered if you could tell me a little bit more about where you grew up and what it was like growing up where you did the state of Jalisco Mexico SSI, you may know until the age of 10. I lived in very rule town in the mountains pretty much. It was a farming Town my grandfather and father are basically farmed grew corn beans and other vegetables and also raced animals like, you know cows Hogs chicken. I think I remember I remember growing up very

01:48 Very happy with the outdoors. I enjoy time with my grandfather would have been with my father every morning to milk cows DeMent 40 minutes riding a horse. So for me, I always think of it as a very very nice memories. Sometimes I used to think about it as something I could go back to and kind of hoped to go back to before because I used to think of it as something that would give me peace. But as I'm going up, of course, I realize that it's not that I've identified with you because of that. I always said I would go back to the Mississippi Delta but not so much anymore. Like I have very positive memories of growing up in a rural area and of a

02:49 Being outdoors a lot being around animals a lot. But now I don't think I can go back to Mississippi Delta and a very rural communities called phillipston community of sharecroppers that were given an opportunity to buy land and move out of sharecropping to become farmers in the 1940s and my grandparents did that and so it was a lot it was a cotton Farm but we had a huge Garden. So I remember always working in the garden. I loved going Barefoot in the garden like and I loves like picking peas and I always had to Shell them. I wasn't so fond of that but like I liked being outside and we had I had all kinds of animals. I love animals and grew up with

03:40 You know, every chickens rabbits cows horses, even a deer I would take in Deer that were injured and raise them or whatever. So just being outside. Yeah, and I just being with animals and playing I was an only kids. So it was a lot of alone time outside and stuff out of your deer like my wife Rita when I received it was already nine 3. But I kept it so I don't think I've never been there and I didn't realize it was so mountainous. So did y'all live like in the man? You said you you know, I had to had to travel up and down Sierra Madre in Mexico. Just a mountainous region region is very dry, but it's a very good area for farming. There's any you can find anything from corn?

04:40 To sugarcane Agave plants a lot of different things. And it's in between the kids. It's a mountain region that died in between the coast of the Pacific Ocean end and the rest of the states between to grow corn and everything that your family was Raising from the moment. We would start preparing in in the spring like whatever.

05:11 Piece of the line we were going to be growing corn and we would start by cutting like bigger trees and burning like any we said they didn't want their and then I remember that we used to have

05:28 It was so I don't know the name in English, but they're animals that we used to pull the two pretty much till the soil the wooden. I forget the name, but it's pretty much to the till the soil and I remember that because I used to walk behind my dad and my grandfather all the time that it would do that because I remember that I used to love looking down into the ground into the soil and finding little pieces of pottery that that I imagined Native American tribes used to live there and I would find all sorts of things that so for me was always an adventure

06:11 Yeah, I guess the word is both with the + plow with plow.

06:19 And so I always would come back home after spending a day working with them with like a bag full of artifacts plus always fun. But yeah, and you know thinking about the realtor, I guess it's a similar story. Sorry. I've been thinking that I don't really understand the term sharecropping and I wanted to ask you if you can help me understand because I think that something similar happened in in in my town with my family. They were also given land land was distributed because he used to be I know that's Enda and after the Mexican Revolution now, the changes land was divided up and then people will give me the opportunity to become Farmers that I hadn't really

07:12 Noticed that before that is so similar.

07:16 Yeah, and I was wondering how your family got involved in that has lived on the land that I grow gone before it was a plantation. It was a plantation just like the Hacienda but before that I'm Native American, so they're so used to find arrowheads and other things that I imagined people's people before us used.

07:45 But yeah, then it was a plantation and then it was a divided up but my both my grandparents at the grandparents were sharecroppers. My mom's family lived in eastern, Mississippi and my dad's family lived in the Hills right near the Delta of Mississippi in the Northwestern part. I and I know a little bit more about my dad side because my dad did sharecropping to I don't know as much about my mom's grandparents and my dad won't talk about a lot whenever I've tried to talk to him about it. He just text that it was really hard with hard work. But when I was home recently, I was home last month and he started talking about the plantation that they worked on it and he said I think he's he's just getting older and he reminiscing a lot and he said he wanted to take me to the Plantation before he died and come to find out we drive by drive by it and I didn't know because he's never showed me but

08:45 Drove by it but it was dark. We couldn't see and he said that the plantation the big house is still there. But the the shack that they lived in is no longer there, but he's going to talk to the owner cuz it's still lived in this house is amazing houses still lived in and see if he can bring me to this property, but he started talking a little bit about the arrangement and he said that

09:08 On that he said they had different arrangements with different Growers. So it really depended on the grill or as to what the sharecropping Arrangement was and for them on that farm. They would get a plot of land so the grower on the land but they would give a sign his family a certain number of Acres that they would work that season and then the grower would actually sell whatever they produced and give them a portion of what they made so they would work the land they didn't own it and they just got a percentage of what he sold it for. So the cotton it was cotton whatever he sell cotton the cotton for.

09:49 What was the percentage that the families together? Remember? I don't know. I asked him. I think he said they also worked on that he worked for other people too. And sometimes people would do it differently, but that was the arrangement that he remembered most as a kid and then his family it wasn't a good deal. I said, you know, it was a lot of hard work and they really weren't getting anywhere and so his his dad finally decided to move into town which is down in the Delta and they stop doing that and they opened up a store in their house and started selling Goods to people so they got out of it when he I don't know. How old was he?

10:37 He dropped out of school in like sixth grade to work in the fields. And then when he was a teen, they moved into town and stop doing sharecropping, but that was the arrangement he

10:49 Talked about I would just get a percentage of this of the sale of the cotton stone in groin.

11:03 Colin since he knew how to do it, but he was doing it. That's a good question. He when he when they moved into the into town, he started doing mechanic work and he still a mechanic so he's been a mechanic for over 50 years and he's a really good mechanic. And so he was I think it one point he loved that cuz he was also a drag racer and so it kind of facilitated him doing a racing cars and stuff too, but he doesn't love it anymore. He he doesn't love mechanic work anymore. So I think there are times he wishes he had recently come see what she had a different life. It was my mom's grandparents who actually got to buy land. So my it was my turn all grandparents who got to take out a loan from the US government during FDR program for sharecroppers, and they were relocated essentially to the Delta like

12:03 It sounds like there was just this huge relocation of sharecroppers to former plantations. My understanding is that a lot of the plantations were going into dad because the war and the government was taking them over and the government it was like the only land redistribution program in our country's history, but divided up these huge plantations. It's a small family farms essentially. So this one Plantation that I grew up on was divided into 50 sharecropping families. So my family got like a hundred and fifty Acres or something that then my grandfather Farm to my mom grew up on that farm picking cotton and they talked about they also hire day laborers. So they were African American day laborers that worked alongside my mom and then when my parents got married they moved to that far so my dad didn't ever farm. He did the garden.

13:01 And he loved it. So perhaps he would have like that. You know what me. He loved we had like an acre Garden that he loved.

13:11 But I don't know. I mean, I think he wanted something different for his life.

13:18 That makes me think the whole concept of sharecropping now that I understand it better and specially through your story makes me thinks of how ironic it is like now back in our hometown.

13:30 Like my father has some land and he inherited from my grandfather and also my uncle's but most of them are already here in the US. So now they pretty much lease out or make deals with other people to work that land and it's not as I work in the land anymore and somebody that is a sharecropper. You can call them doing that more. Yeah. I still have my grandmother. I'm stuck in specifically in this in the town where I grew up most of my life when I was there. My grandmother's for my father's side is still alive and should they live there while I'm with my aunt and uncle and two to three cousins. Yeah that farm to land anymore. We still on it when my grandmother died. She divided it among her four children and she made one stipulation that they either all had to sell it or all had to keep it.

14:30 So the family can theirs divisions within the kids. So they keep it because two of them live on it. My mom still lives in the house are Groupon on that land and my uncle moved into my grandma's house. So two of them live on that same lion and they lease it to a guy that farms at the actually when I was home last month. They finally said that they had to get a new farmer because the guy who been leasing it for like decades with no longer farming. I think he's gotten older so they have a new person. So yeah, I don't know like when my mom dies when my uncle died my uncle doesn't have any kids like what's going to happen to that land. Do you ever think about going in like maybe doing something with the land yourself? I really struggle with this cuz I have weird issues around land ownership. Anyway, spiritually for me. It doesn't make sense to own a tree or own land.

15:27 So I have I'm going to inherit a fourth of that land when my mom passes and I don't know what to do with that. I've explored or a thought about I haven't really done their research like who can I give it to is there a land trust or like it's right next door to a nature reserve like a lot of the land in the Delta. They're turning back into swamps used to be swamps slaves are the ones who drain to the salon guy doing it though. It become became is really fertile land, but there's a lot of nature reserves close to their Wildlife Reserves.

16:07 So I've thought of that I've looked try to find the families who worked it. I can't find any information. I I know the name of the plantation owner, but I don't know the slaves.

16:20 I don't know. It's the it's something I feel like I've got to figure out my family is going to die when I tell them that I want to give it away or do something like that with what are you going to do? Are you going to inherit the land in Mexico by asking because I think about it often, you know that things are going to happen in my family and we've had these conversations like my brothers and sisters and my dad and my mom like what's going to happen to the house that they have back home in the land and we've got rid of all the farm animals that they used to have cuz my dad used to have animals live in here, but now I think about it and I realized that I don't think I can go back and I just live there for ever again and in farm, that's what I used to think. Yes, but when I add the beginning when I said that I used to think of my childhood as I saw a nice memory that I wish I could go back to always thought I'll go back and farm and I can just land but now I think that it's

17:20 I think that now that I see the world differently is especially after winning ball with staff. I don't know if I can have it again do that anymore. I mean the Deltas way to segregated still and when I go to visit, it feels very claustrophobic to me and it doesn't feel like a very safe space so I can't imagine living there anymore. I still have love that. I lived there and then I grew up there and I still find both Beauty and I don't know it's just a distension for me there. It's both really beautiful and have positive memories and it's also really hard to be there and have conversations with people but I wonder to what's going to happen to our house my my uncle that moved into my grandfather's my grandparents house. That house is a sharecropper house. It was when my I learned this recently that a lot of the white with mostly white sharecroppers that benefited from the

18:20 If they did that when they were relocated to land that they just placed a lot of black sharecroppers so that house you know it. Yeah just the thought that

18:37 Probably ask American sharecroppers were kicked out of that house so that my grandparents cuz move in there and farm it and my uncle's renovated. He's a car that looks nothing like when my grandmother lived there still look like a it was a shack, you know, and she was she grew up in the depression. So she would like not turn on lights and very very frugal and she she ran the farm. My grandfather died a long time ago. He died before I was born my grandmother live like 30 years after him. She ran the farm. She like saved money. She was really great businesswoman in like

19:19 Would work the land me she's just crazy Road role model. But yeah, I mean she lives very very poorly.

19:31 But yeah, those houses are there. I don't know what's going to happen. But it is something like it's going as it has to do with like what happened is happening in agriculture like

19:43 They're probably all kinds of folks like us who grew up on farms and are not going to go back and farm, but I learned more after working with have like pesticides that something that I didn't used to think about. But also as I remember my childhood, I remember spraying in myself for hurting my gums be next to my grandfather when he used to spread, but now I think I'm thinking about how now there's less people.

20:17 For example back home for us working the land that but that means that they're working bigger chunks of land and I'm starting to see similar trends like one of the one of the guys that are actually family that was leaking from my dad. Remember told me that he wanted to borrow the land for four years and even he wanted my dad sign a contract. But after we looked into it, we realize that they wanted to try some new chemical. So I started to worry ma'am. I was like, I used to think that I wasn't going to happen back and neck a little Rancho way too too far removed from from yeah, like what we see here in the US with big finally Corporation, so it scares me anyway because I was like,

21:04 Not only are releasing that like a history of your family's but the line is also starting to change like the way that we

21:26 Why you say?

21:28 Maybe that's why you can't go home go home.

21:34 I guess.

21:37 That I I I feel I feel very

21:41 Committed to the things that I'm already doing. I don't think that I can go back to a lifestyle where where I am. Is it going to be monotonous? I think I will have a lot of fun farming cuz I love the outdoors and I still want to do it but I don't think I could do that full-time and detach myself from everything that I've learned when it comes to

22:05 Working towards social justice and like the movement as we Define and you know a thing that I've seen a lot already and I've seen a lot of people going through similar situation that I'm fair, but

22:18 I think that's obvious to me that we can make make a change make it happen. We can make a difference. I don't think I can stop.

22:28 Working towards social change license of Justice not only for Farm Workers, but

22:35 Or workers in general. I feel like identify a lot I would feel.

22:41 Very bad, if I if I was away and I got attached myself from this and but I know that I can still do so much and give so much to not only the fight for Farm Workers just as bad for immigrants and you know women gay and lesbian transgender everybody that is not being treated fairly under the law. I think that especially to staff and I say that I that I see the world differently because I feel like it I could have just never moved from Jalisco and I would just be a farmer and

23:18 Then that will be it. I would have never learned about all these things all this great leaders of the in justices. When did it start having those feelings of Detachment from Mexico and that farming life and an interest in organizing in worker Justice say that it was definitely after college and when I started working with the UFCW than the union and I started traveling a lot. I got the opportunity to travel to other states to other towns and live on the road. I got to hate it at the end because it's so terrible to live in the hotel room if they need junk food, but but I got to see different people different times and I saw similarities when it comes to labor and the way that workers are treated I said different groups of people different times different leaves.

24:18 Religions but similar treatment when it comes to to you know, the burger and the boss and I think that's one of the things that made me realize I still see is what I want to do. This is just what a TextMe

24:38 Well, I didn't go straight into organizing after college. He was a year after that. But I knew that I was going to go into the labor movement or working on organization after staff. I will have to say that to be honest like after the editor internship in 2005. I had a pretty good understanding that I that I wanted to do something with workers. I didn't know if I wanted to be a lawyer or do something in the fields of Sociology, which was my major, but my freshman year before I did the internship I was

25:14 I was trying my best to stay in school, but I did feel very overwhelmed. I thought I wanted to be like a doctor but science classes were too hard. So then I thought maybe I can be a teacher but I wasn't really getting to like reading a lot more like the text that they would require us, but I didn't sleep and I realize that I like doing this to me was learning about people stories people really shoots in situations and the urgency to do something right there. And then and I realize that that's a blast. What's up a career that I could choose when I start organizing it was actually during college has, you know after staff and I was involved with the Union already. So I knew that that was already at window for an opportunity for me a door.

26:05 But it wasn't that just because I wanted a job. I knew that I knew I could make a difference because I felt the passion after hearing somebody story and especially after learning that they had been injured and been fired. I was like, this is unfair and I think I can do something to help your parents. Also do other working class jobs that gave you that sort of framework.

26:34 You know my day did my parents that went when they migrated to California? I know my could my father came with my uncle's first and they work in the field some in California, but then they settled in the NL a my dad then brought my family, but then my dad work in the Meatpacking planned for a while in California. What kind of meat is unionized the time? I remember that he would go to meetings that my mom working in the Garment factory making dresses and pants and all that for a while. But then my dad lost that union job in the Meatpacking Industry, California and then

27:24 We moved to North Carolina, but I think it wasn't until I I got to North Carolina that I was exposed to.

27:34 Workers rights in Idaho even what unions were and they was definitely one of the internship in 2005.

27:42 I mean, I always knew I guess in the back of my mind that I could help I would help people to translate that help people before that that had issues and I knew I could help by translating but he wasn't until

27:56 I thought I started to really realize that their loss and that people can do stuff. If they cannot achieve something to go to the laws. They can demonstrate that can petition whatever it is. So learned about actually organizing and being strategic about it and Target in the audience has and where your allies and how do I how do I motivate workers and push them to take 10 steps to change things but internship and I think it was great.

28:35 That happened to me. I don't think I knew about unions and organizing stuff until the internship either and I I did have a sense of Injustice and I had a very strong class Consciousness cuz my parents my mom work in a garment Factory and then and electronics Factory, which is where she still works. She's worked there. I think she's the longest she's worked there longer than anyone else. She's been in that same Factory for like 45 years and my dad's been a mechanical is life. So I always I didn't make sense to me cuz I saw my parents working hard and working long hours and working all the time that we were having financial problems. Like I didn't understand that like I was like something doesn't seem right like they work hard. They're doing what you know, what is expected of them their card workers and we don't have any money and I just I felt like something wasn't right and I definitely heard my parents talking about sort of the sort of I guess economically

29:35 Justice and feeling like they weren't paid their due.

29:40 I guess they didn't get paid enough and I certainly heard them talk about not having benefits. Like we don't have retirement. We don't, you know, sort of listing off the things that they didn't have so I knew that that didn't make it didn't make sense and they knew it but we never many unions are not very picky and they didn't they weren't saying we wanted Union or whatever but I did see my mom make some changes after I worked its ass like I would talk about what I was doing and there was a point where she was having problems at work and she called me and she said you need to come organized here cuz I worked at the plant when I was in high school and so I knew all the people stuff too. And of course well, yeah, so I was like Mom you're the one who needs to organize you have worked there, you know, everybody you're the most senior person there, but of course she didn't have any training or

30:32 You know education or any support to do it, but she did do one thing that it was like that one time in my life where I felt like I was my mother's daughter.

30:42 Or whatever. She I'm called me and she was really she had a new boss and he was yelling at her a lot. He was yelling at a lot of people a lot and she it was stressing her out. She was having health problems based on if she was stressed going to work because he was just going to yell and he called her and her and it's not like she wasn't doing our work. I don't know what he was yelling about. He called her and her office and he said he'd she said he slammed his hand on the table, which I want to cuz it'll mess up a recording and said god dammit Shirley and she's a very religious person and she was like, I can't hand like you can't take the lord's name in vain like so she called me is like what do I do? And I was like, do you have a human resources office? Like can you file a you have a grievance procedure course and have any of that but they did have a human resources office. She she knew the woman who worked in it was in the Ohio office. She called her and told her what happened.

31:43 And then I asked her if she's like he does it all these people and I was like I was like, do you know who all he's talked to and I mean who all his yelled at and when it's happened she's like this is when I was most proud of my she's like well, I've been writing down every time I've heard him yell at another woman. She has a long list of like

32:05 Yeah, people dates of when he'd been in the ass. She turned it over to Human Resources as a result of that like several women came forward and he been sick that he been sexually harassing.

32:18 He got fired and I was like, you know.

32:24 Yeah, did you tell your mom to do that to keep a list of the shadow that I knew something about labor laws just to give her advice and stuff and I just was asking her questions. Like do you know who all he's done? You know, do you know who all he's like done this two or whatever and she's like, well, I have a list I don't see done it on their own.

32:54 Yeah, so she got this guy fired and as a result our health improved and you know, any other women weren't sexually harassed anymore. So there's still no Union there. She still makes less than ten bucks an hour. She still works without retirement, but, you know, she's an advocate in her own right? I was actually going to ask you that question, but I'm glad you've you share your story already because I not hear you often talk about how it is going back to Mississippi and talking about your work with your family have power cord he could be but I'm glad that there are positive had positive things come out of that reminded me of my own family and and how they kind of see my work and and I asked you about that and I definitely had my family members call me to ask me about the union and I have my sister call me remember the very first time I was still in college and

33:54 I didn't know if there would be any what I was doing. I was in a lot of activism stuff out through sad through the union and I'm getting involved with the workers compensation lawyers. And I remember my sister got injured one day and I was in college she called me and then she asked me for help and I did and I hadn't had that conversation with her. I didn't really know that she understood what I was doing and that made me feel really special that my family would call me and ask me in that she trusted me before she call anybody else and she work she was working in a in a factory making carpet. It's a toy time.

34:42 So I had I feel like I felt a big sense of responsibility and now that I'm not a lawyer and I didn't I shouldn't have given her advice I felt so I told her this is what I feel like I need to do course. I didn't tell her to go ahead and do it right there and then before talking to a lawyer but and but I think one of the moments that really made me feel proud that was one story, but I remember another time. I was talking to some friends of the family and there I was with my dad.

35:15 And this friends I'd barely found out that I was working with the union and I guess it have had a bad experience before somewhere in their life with with the Union, but I was basically explained to them the campaign that I was working on in.

35:32 Be giving a basic explanation. What unions were but I felt like I was having to defend myself and what I was doing I was starting to get embarrassed because these people had like an honest that experience by remember my dad's digging out for me one day.

35:48 I felt so proud.

35:51 Because he stuck up for me and he said no like unions are good. I used to have a union I used to work in the plan be used to pay me more than they pay here like way more. I had health insurance the health benefits, but more importantly he was typed they work.

36:08 I have never felt.

36:10 So good in my life knowing that my family knew.

36:15 What it meant and you know what I was doing. I used to think that they didn't get it for the rest of my life. But I know that he does some up other people have made a difference in people's lives people have sacrificed and I see myself doing this for the rest of my life because I know that it's real and yeah, I definitely Wonder a lot to my family. I always say they don't get it. They don't get it cuz I don't ask me a lot about my work cuz they still live in a very rule isolated racist community. So I think they have issues with that. I'm working mostly with people of color mostly with Mexicans and they have a lot of stereotypes and prejudices but you know, then when something like that happens with my mom or whatever then I'm like, I think they do get it and I think they understand that it's because of them that I'm doing this work is because

37:15 Of what I've seen them sacrifice and not treated well and their own work, but I feel like one of the reasons that staff has been so important for me and I've been able to stay with it is because it really does feel like I mean like that we have a place for a lot of young people from working-class families who've experienced that seeing their families be abused in the workplace not get their fair share and we want to do something about that and it's just like how do we it's like for me staff has been that way to do something about working-class issues to do something about workers rights to stand up and to try to make things better for workers. I don't know our emotions. Maybe I don't know if anger necessarily better emotions and

38:08 Recent towards towards time.

38:11 Better things I I bet that's something that I've learned through staff. I think for example, I know that I'm not the only one in my family that has questioned or become frustrated with like the situation the living paycheck-to-paycheck, but I know that we reacted differently.

38:31 So I'm very thankful that that's a five gotten the opportunity to think about ways to express that are things that I can do to to change things instead of just expressing it Durango punching something. Yeah. Yeah.

38:53 Any organization, you know like not your title, but just kind of stay in.

39:01 That's a hard one at the hardest question yet.

39:06 Do you want to start a different things? It's at my job has changed a lot cuz I've been here for a while.

39:14 But currently I think the things that give me energy at saph and that keep me here are I get to work with people like Ramon?

39:46 I can't then yes phone.

39:50 I've always wanted to come back and work at Sapphire. I news ever since I did the internship on.

39:57 Because I saw the passion gross off, of course, I mean and I see the dedication but most of all I see the the creativity and and the open mind I think.

40:13 And what I do at SEF now is

40:18 What about we wanted to do bring more people into our art Circle in that are Circle are our movement on to staff and I believe that everybody that we reach should become like us and become a fully prepared to organize and help us build a movement like cuz I don't think anybody should be left behind. Everybody has to be sources the matter who they are so that I'm excited that I'm doing that now that I'm recruiting for our summer programs, but I'm excited about everything else that I've been with staff at work with our youth program with our advocacy and collisions.

40:56 Everything I feel like I've done everything in and organization that I know enough about. You know what it takes two to really make I make an impacted we can really just go and it's important biking you can just go and talk to workers all the time and then expect things will change. You also have to go talk to legislators students and everything that we do really make sense to me and I am happy here soon.

41:25 I'm excited. I mean, but I'm glad that you feel the same way and I guess I'm flattered that you do feel so like special to work with us. I know it's not only me but my all of my co-workers and board and alumni everybody. So like

41:40 Passionate and

41:43 I'm so privileged to work at Sapphire. So, you know, even though I come from a working-class family eye and white and have experienced a lot of privilege in my life because of being white in the Delta, you know gives you a free ride to a lot of stuff and I can trace my entire educational system to being white. And so I just I feel honored to be able to be a part of an organization that's really about bringing people from different backgrounds together and honoring our respective roles in this work and saying there is a role for folks, you know, no matter your background if you're willing to go for it and

42:22 Being relation deep relation with each other and to think that the process is as important as the end, you know that the way we work and with whom we work and how we respect other people is as important as getting the Union contract getting to legislation passed getting mad at those are equally valuable than you know, I just I thought that's what I want to be a part of I want to be a part of a diverse group of people. I want to be in relation with people who've had different experiences for me and I want us to be able to use your Santa be creative, you know to work on all those levels cuz it's just the issues are too deep too big to like have one foe clean O2 just only be doing one piece of that and I love working with young people. I mean, I feel like the young people we work with are just so passionate about this work and like anytime anyone disses young people. I'm like, you just don't other people we work with, you know.

43:22 They're not self-centered. They're not consumed ristic. They are about giving back to their families and making this world a better place and like who wouldn't want to do that like to be surrounded by people who believe that and want that for the world.

43:42 So I want to thank you Melinda for giving me the opportunity. I know that we wanted to tell this we were hoping to fill the spots with people or good good participants are this interviews, but thank you for choosing me. I mean given the opportunity to interview you I know that we don't get this opportunity often, even though we check in and talk often. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to get to know you better for me to share more with you. Thank you. I wish I feel like we need to do that this with all the echo Arthur's now and can y'all stay an extra day and do just staff to staff? Wouldn't it be cool if we do know a lot about each other but not but it was it was good to have opportunity really talk about it in our family. Yeah.

44:40 I'm very different places, but have come to the same place.