CESAR CHAVEZ died thirteen years ago. But his spirit and vision live on in the
United Farm Workers union he founded and in the Cesar Chavez holiday
celebrated at the end of March each year.
Chavez was the visionary leader behind the United Farm Workers (UFW) union.
He's also a good candidate for a social work hero.
I first heard about Cesar Chavez in the late 1960s, when members of the UFW
came to Minneapolis seeking support for a boycott of head lettuce. Later,
there was a boycott of table grapes.
The UFW didn't send just the farmworkers. Two entire families came to
spread the labor union's message. My first assignment was to find winter
clothing for the families. I went on to picketing, asking churches and
schools not to serve grapes, and urging grocers to carry only lettuce with
the UFW Black Eagle on the box.
Despite all this, I still was not prepared for the man I found when I first
met Cesar Chavez. I met him several times while serving as editor of the
East San Jose Sun, a weekly newspaper serving the city where Chavez got his
start as an activist.
For an activist, he was quite reserved. And for a union leader, he seemed quite uncomfortable in the spotlight. Yet he was very inspiring. I remember
thinking one time when I was listening to him: If there are saints in our
time, Chavez surely must be one.
Over the years, he and others told me about his life and his organizer.
Chavez moved to San Jose, California in 1952 to organize a local chapter of
the Community Service Organization (CSO). The group was born in Los Angeles,
growing out of a city council campaign there. Fred Ross, an organizer from
Saul Alinsky's organization in Chicago, played a key role in getting the
group started.
From Los Angeles, Ross went to work organizing other CSO chapters around the
state. He hired Cesar Chavez to help. Chavez moved to San Jose and organized
a CSO chapter there. At one time, the San Jose chapter was the biggest of a
string of CSOs around California. The chapter offered immigration
assistance, citizenship class and similar projects.
Chavez left San Jose in 1962, intent on starting a labor union for
farmworkers. He had been concerned about the plight of farmworkers, many
from Mexico or of Mexican descent, for a number of years. But he had been
unable to persuade CSO to become a leading voice on behalf of "campesinos." So he quit his CSO job and heading to the Salinas Valley to start organizing. He organized nationwide boycotts of grapes, Gallo wine and head lettuce to draw attention to the poor wages and working conditions of farmworkers and to pressure growers to sign contracts with the union. The boycotts were successful and the UFW signed contracts covering thousands of workers.
By the mid-1970s, it appeared that the struggle for better wages and working
conditions for farmworkers had been won. But a series of setbacks during the
1980s slowed the UFW momentum and even erased some of its earlier gains. By
1990, it was clear that some new strategy was needed. So Chavez and other
union leaders decided to return to San Jose where he had begun 30 years
before.
The last time I saw Chavez was in 1992, less than a year before he died. The
scene was a familiar one in front of a grocery store in San Jose. It was a
sort of homecoming for Chavez; his appearance brought out many activist
friends. In his talk, he linked the dreams of rural farmworkers to the sense
of justice in urban consumers. He urged us to act on our shared hopes for a
better community. Once again I had that feeling: I am in the presence of an
extraordinary person.
Chavez died in 1993. But his legacy continues, both in the UFW and in the
day set aside each March to remember his life and work. You can find out more by visiting these websites: www.ufw.org and www.cesarchavezfoundation.org
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8 comments:
In reading the article the farmers and Cesar Chavez and the work that he did in organizing the farmers, I thought about another book that I had that talks about the mirgrant works and their poverty. In the book “Refer Maddness” Eric Schlosser talks the low wages and extreme poverty that many of the immgrants face and how unfairly the are treated.. It made me very aware of where my fruits and vegatables are coming and made me as person rethink where I shop and what types of place that I support with my money. One of the idea that he brought up in his book is that places like Taco Bell advocates on it’s website “a strong commitment to the well being and humane treatment of animals” and also” that as a major puctchaser of food products we have an opportunity and responsbility to influence the way the animals are supplied to us”, but when the company was asked to pressure suppliers to raise the wages for the labors, Taco Bell told the New Yoker that the “it’s heinous but I don’t think it has anything to do with us.”(Refer Maddness,2003). I guess I do not understand how as a people we can be concerned that livestock is treated fairly but have no concern about the people that pick our fruit and vegatables.
Dawn
I think you're right about Chavez's style of leadership. He saw himself as part of a team, collaboratin together. (Martin Luther King saw leadership in this way as well. In fact, one of the early members of his leadership team is working on a book about King's style of leading.)
One of the other early leaders of the United Farm Workers was Dolores Huerta. I remember she said she wasn't impressed with Chavez when she first met him because he didn't seem outgoing enough to be a union leader.
For more on Chavez and the United Farm Workers, look for this film: Fight in the Fields.
I liked the part where it says he didn't just send the farmworkers but the whole families came. People really believed in him enough to follow him. He must have been amazing and real passoniate about his beliefs. It is hard to have a belief that so many disagree with. He is commendable. I wish that there were more people like him.
I liked that he was very involved with so many different organizations. The great people are the ones that their legacy lives on and has profound, lasting effects on the organizations and people they were involved with.
I think that when people are one of the "greats" they leave a profound, lasting effect on people and the organizations they were involved with. I wrote something similar to this but it did not post. I think Chavez was very involved with the United Farm Workers and with this involvement, there is still things he protested for being brought up. He did not change everything but the small changes that came from his work has made life a little easier for the people of today. Working with Dorothy Day on an occasion or two, he brought another perspective to the table. I enjoyed reading about him and his work.
Chavez sounds like an honorable gentleman. He is someone who I would have like to meet. He did wonderful things for other people. Chavez believed in his heart that his work had a purpose and some people supported him and many did not support him. He helped many people that needed him for guidence. He took much critizism, but believed in his heart that he was doing the right thing for many people. That is an extraordinary person.
I also thought that it was amazing how not only the workers came but how the whole families came. Im sure he felt a great sense of pride knowing that all these people had that much faith in him. Cudos for him!
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