César Estrada Chávez (March 31 1927 – April 23 1993) was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. His work led to numerous improvements for migrant workers. He is hailed as one of the greatest Mexican American civil rights leaders. His birthday on March 31 has subsequently become a holiday in four U.S. states, and many parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools, and streets have been named in his honor in several cities across the United States.
Early life
Cesar Chavez (named after his grandfather) was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31 1927. His early life was difficult: among other problems, the small adobe home where Chavez was born was swindled from his family by dishonest businessmen: Chavez's father Librado had agreed to clear 80 acres of land and add to the home in exchange for the deed to 40 acres of land, but the agreement was broken and the land was sold to a man named Justus Jackson. Chavez's father then went to a lawyer who advised him to borrow money to buy the land, but when he could not pay the interest on the loan, the lawyer bought the land and sold it back to the original owner.
Chavez did not like school as a child, probably because he spoke only Spanish at home and Spanish was forbidden in school. He remembered being punished with a ruler to his knuckles for speaking Spanish. Some schools were segregated, and he frequently encountered racist remarks. He and his brother, Richard, attended thirty-seven schools.
Chavez felt that education had nothing to do with his farm worker/migrant way of life. In 1942, he graduated from the eighth grade. He could not attend high school because his father, Librado, had been in an accident and did not want his mother, Juana, to work in the fields. Instead, Cesar became a migrant farm worker. After two years, he joined the Navy in 1944 and served a two-year enlistment.
In 1948 Chavez married Helen Fabela. They honeymooned in California by visiting all the California Missions from Sonoma to San Diego. They settled in Delano and started their family. First Fernando, then Sylvia, then Linda, and five more children followed.
Chavez went to San Jose where he met and was influenced by Father Donald McDonnell. They talked about farm workers and strikes. Chavez began reading about St. Francis and Gandhi and nonviolence. After Father McDonnell came another very influential person, Fred Ross, and Chavez became an organizer for Ross's organization, the Community Service Organization (CSO). His first task was voter registration.
Career as a labor leader
Chávez was taught and trained by Pete Fielding, and started working as an organizer in 1952 for the Community Services Organization (CSO), a Latino civil rights group. Chávez urged Mexican-Americans to register and vote, and he traveled throughout California and made speeches in support of workers' rights. He became CSO's national director in the late 1950s.
Four years later, Chávez left the CSO. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Dolores Huerta. In 1965, Filipino farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike on September 8 to protest in favor of higher wages.
Six months later, Chávez and the NFWA led a strike of California grape-pickers on the historic farmworkers march from Delano to the California state capitol in Sacramento for similar goals. Through the recognition of common goals and methods, Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Filipinos, and Filipino-Americans jointly formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), which would eventually evolve into United Farm Workers. In addition to the strike, the UFW encouraged all Americans to boycott table grapes as a show of support. The strike lasted five years and got national attention. When the U.S. Senate Subcommittee looked into the situation, Robert Kennedy gave Chávez his total support. This effort resulted in the first major labor victory for U.S. farm workers.
These activities led to similar movements in South Texas in 1966, where the UFW supported fruit workers in Starr County, Texas, and led a march to Austin, in support of UFW farm workers' rights. In the Midwest, César Chávez' movement inspired the founding of two Midwestern independent unions: Obreros Unidos in Wisconsin in 1966, and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) in Ohio in 1967. Former UFW organizers would also found the Texas Farm Workers Union in 1975.
In 1969, Chávez and members of the UFW marched through the Imperial and Coachella Valleys to the border of Mexico to protest growers' use of illegal aliens as temporary replacement workers during a strike. Joining him on the march were both Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale. Chávez and the UFW would often report suspected illegal aliens who served as temporary replacement workers as well as those who refused to unionize to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.[citation needed]
In the early 1970s, the UFW organized strikes and boycotts to protest for, and later win, higher wages for those farm workers who were working for grape and lettuce growers. During the 1980s, Chávez led a boycott to protest the use of toxic pesticides on grapes. Bumper stickers read "NO GRAPES" and "NO UVAS" (the same thing in Spanish) were widespread. He again fasted to draw public attention. UFW organizers believed that a reduction in produce sales by 15% was sufficient to wipe out the profit margin of the boycotted product. These strikes and boycotts generally ended with the signing of bargaining agreements.
Later in life, education became Cesar's passion. The walls of his office in Keene, California (United Farm Worker headquarters) were lined with hundreds of books ranging in subject from philosophy, economics, cooperatives, and unions, to biographies on Gandhi and the Kennedys.
Legacy
César Chávez died on April 23 1993, of unspecified natural causes. He is celebrated in California by a law that established a state holiday in his honor. The holiday is celebrated on March 31, Chávez's birthday. Texas also recognizes the day, and it is an optional holiday in Arizona and Colorado.
His eldest son Fernando Chavez tours the country, speaking about his father's legacy of union organizing and fighting for workers' rights.
The California cities of Sacramento, San Diego, Berkeley, and San José have renamed parks after him, and in Amarillo, Texas a bowling alley has been renamed in his memory. In Los Angeles, César E. Chávez Avenue extends from Sunset Boulevard and runs through the heart of the city. In San Francisco, César Chávez Street is named in his memory, and in Austin, Texas, one of the main central thoroughfares was changed to César Chávez Boulevard. In 2004, the United States Postal Service honored him with a postage stamp. In 2005, a César Chávez commemorative meeting was held in San Antonio, honouring his courageous acts for the sake of immigrant farmworkers and other immigrants. Also in Santa Fe, NM there is an elementary school named after him in his honor. César Chávez kept fighting for migrant workers until his death in 1993. The American Friends Service Committee nominated him three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.[1]
Timeline
References
- Levy, Jacques E. and Cesar Chavez. Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. New York: Norton, 1975. ISBN 0-393-07494-3
- Dalton, Frederick John. The Moral Vision of César Chávez. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2003. ISBN 1-57075-458-6
- Ross, Fred. Conquering Goliath : Cesar Chavez at the Beginning. Keene, California: United Farm Workers: Distributed by El Taller Grafico, 1989. ISBN 0-9625298-0-X
- Soto, Gary. Cesar Chavez: a Hero for Everyone. New York: Aladdin, 2003. ISBN 0-689-85923-6 and ISBN 0-689-85922-8 (pbk.)
- Ferriss, Susan and Ricardo Sandoval. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. ISBN 0-15-100239-8
- Handbook of Texas History, Online Edition
- Jacob, Amanda Cesar Chavez Dominates Face Sayville: Mandy Publishers, 2005.
- Prouty, Marco G. Cesar Chavez, the Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers' Struggle for Social Justice (University of Arizona Press; 185 pages; 2006). Analyzes the church's changing role from mediator to Chavez supporter in the farmworkers' strike that polarized central California's Catholic community from 1965 to 1970; draws on previously untapped archives of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Notes
External links
- "The Story of Cesar Chavez" United Farmworker's official biography of Chavez
- "Cesar Chavez Timeline", Napa Valley Register, March 30, 2006.
- Cesar Chavez Foundation
- Cesar Chavez - County of Los Angeles Public Library
- Spectrum Biographies - Cesar Chavez
- Cesar Chavez Public Charter School for Public Policy in Washington, DC
- The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworker's Struggle PBS Documentary
- Fresno Adult School (Cesar Chavez Campus)
- Musical inspired by the life of Cesar Chavez
- Cesar Chavez Student Center