César Chávez

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César Estrada Chávez
César Chávez
Born	March 31, 1927(1927-03-31) Yuma, Arizona, U.S.
Died	April 23, 1993 (aged 66) San Luis, Arizona
Occupation	Farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist.
Parents	Librado Chávez (father) and Juana Estrada Chávez (mother)

César Estrada Chávez (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993), born in Yuma, Arizona, was an American farm worker of Mexican descent, labor leader, and civil rights activist who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.^[1] Supporters say his work led to numerous improvements for union laborers. He is hailed as one of the greatest American civil rights leaders. His birthday has become a holiday in eight U.S. states. Many parks, cultural centers, libraries, schools, and streets have been named in his honor in cities across the United States.

Contents 1 Career as a labor leader 2 Immigration 3 Legacy 4 Quotes 5 Timeline 6 Further reading 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Career as a labor leader

Chávez was hired and trained by Fred Ross as a community organizer in 1952 for the Community Service 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 later became CSO's national director in 1958.

Four years later, Chávez left the CSO. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta. It was later called the United Farm Workers (UFW).

When Filipino American farm workers initiated the Delano grape strike on September 8, 1965, to protest for higher wages, Chávez eagerly supported them. 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. 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 attracted 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 Southern 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 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 reading "NO GRAPES" and "NO UVAS" (the translation 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 César'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 of Gandhi and the Kennedys.

There is a portrait of him in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington , D.C.

[edit] Immigration

The UFW during Chávez's tenure was committed to restricting immigration. César Chávez and Dolores Huerta fought a federal law that prohibited hiring illegal immigrants in 1973. Later during the 1980s, while Chávez was still the UFW president, Dolores Huerta, the cofounder of the UFW, was key in getting the amnesty provisions into the 1986 federal immigration act. ^[2].

On a few occasions, concerns that illegal migrant labor would undermine UFW strike campaigns led to a number of controversial events, which the UFW describes as anti-strikebreaking events, but which have also been interpreted as being anti-immigrant. 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 immigrants as strikebreakers. Joining him on the march were both Reverend Ralph Abernathy and U.S. Senator Walter Mondale.^[3] In its early years, Chávez and the UFW went so far as to report illegal aliens who served as strikebreaking replacement workers, as well as those who refused to unionize, to the Immigration and Naturalization Service.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

In 1973, the United Farm Workers set up a "wet line" along the United States-Mexico border to prevent Mexican immigrants from entering the United States illegally and potentially undermining the UFW's unionization efforts.^[9] During one such event in which Chávez was not involved, some UFW members, under the guidance of Chávez's cousin Manuel, physically attacked the strikebreakers, after attempts to peacefully persuade the illegal aliens not to cross the border failed.^[10][11][12]

[edit] Legacy

See also: List of places named after César Chávez

In 1973, college professors in Mount Angel, Oregon established the first four-year Mexican-American college in the United States. They chose César Chávez as their symbolic figurehead, naming the college Colegio Cesar Chavez. In the book Colegio Cesar Chavez, 1973-1983: A Chicano Struggle for Educational Self-Determination author Carlos Maldonado writes that Chávez visited the campus twice, joining in public demonstrations in support of the college. Though Colegio Cesar Chavez closed in 1983, it remains a recognized part of Oregon history. On its website the Oregon Historical Society writes, "Structured as a 'college-without-walls,' more than 100 students took classes in Chicano Studies, early childhood development, and adult education. Significant financial and administrative problems caused Colegio to close in 1983. Its history represents the success of a grassroots movement."^[13]

In 1992 Chávez was awarded the Pacem in Terris Award. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in Terris is Latin for "Peace on Earth."

César Chávez died on April 23, 1993, of unspecified natural causes in a rental apartment in San Luis, Arizona. His birthday, March 31, is celebrated in California as a state holiday. All state government offices, community colleges, and most libraries are closed, except for K-12 schools. Texas also recognizes the day, and it is an optional holiday in Arizona and Colorado.

The California cities of Modesto, Sacramento, San Diego, Berkeley, and San Jose, California 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, originally two separate streets (Macy Street west of the Los Angeles River and Brooklyn Avenue east of the river), extends from Sunset Boulevard and runs through East Los Angeles and Monterey Park. In San Francisco, César Chávez Street, originally named Army Street, is named in his memory. At San Francisco State University the student center is also named after him. The University of California, Berkeley, has a César E. Chávez Student Center, which lies across Lower Sproul Plaza from the Martin Luther King, Jr., Student Union. Fresno named an adult school, where a majority percent of students' parents or themselves are, or have been, field workers, after Chávez. In Austin, Texas, one of the central thoroughfares was changed to César Chávez Boulevard. In Ogden, Utah, a four-block section of 30th Street was renamed Cesar Chavez Street. In Oakland, there is a library named after him and his birthday, March 31, is a district holiday in remembrance of him. In 2003, the United States Postal Service honored him with a postage stamp.

In 2005, a César Chávez commemorative meeting was held in San Antonio, honoring his work on behalf of immigrant farmworkers and other immigrants. In Santa Fe, New Mexico and Madison, Wisconsin there are elementary schools named after him in his honor. In Racine, Wisconsin, there is a community center named The Cesar Chavez Community Center also in his honor. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the business loop of I-196 Highway is named "Cesar E Chavez Blvd." The (AFSC) American Friends Service Committee nominated him three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.^[14]

On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted César Chávez into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.

On October 9, 2007 The University of Texas at Austin unveiled their César Chávez Statue^[15] on campus.

César Chávez's eldest son, Fernándo Chávez, and grandson, Anthony Chávez, each tour the country, speaking about his legacy.

Chávez was referenced by Stevie Wonder in the song Black Man, from the album Songs in the Key of Life.[11]

[edit] Quotes

Farm workers: "(Farm workers) are involved in the planting and the cultivation and the harvesting of the greatest abundance of food known in this society. They bring in so much food to feed you and me and the whole country and enough food to export to other places. The ironic thing and the tragic thing is that after they make this tremendous contribution, they don't have any money or any food left for themselves."

"It's ironic that those who till the soil, cultivate and harvest the fruits, vegetables, and other foods that fill your tables with abundance have nothing left for themselves."

"Our very lives are dependent, for sustenance, on the sweat and sacrifice of the campesinos. Children of farm workers should be as proud of their parents' professions as other children are of theirs." [12]

Motivation: "¡Sí se puede!" "If you're not frightened that you might fail, you'll never do the job. If you're frightened, you'll work like crazy."

"The road to social justice for the farm workers is the road to unionization. Our cause, our strike against table grapes and our international boycott are all founded upon our deep conviction that the form of collective self-help which is unionization holds far more hope for the farm worker than any other single approach, whether public or private. This conviction is what brings spirit, high hope and optimism to everything we do." [13]

Organizing: "...many have the idea that organizing people is very difficult, but it isn't. It becomes difficult only at the point where you begin to see other things that are easier. But if you are willing to give the time and make the sacrifice, it's not that difficult to organize." "I think one of the great, great problems...is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have."

"If they had $2.00 for food, they had to give $1.00 to the union. Otherwise, they would never get out of the trap of poverty. They would never have a union because they couldn't afford to sacrifice a little bit more on top of their misery."

"Money is not going to organize the disadvantaged, the powerless, or the poor. We need other weapons. That's why the War on Poverty is such a miserable failure. You put out a big pot of money and all you do is fight over it. Then you run out of money and you run out of troops."

"Organizing is an educational process. The best educational process in the union is the picket line and the boycott. You learn about life."

"The life of the union depends upon more people getting to share the limelight, because with the limelight also comes responsibility and with the responsibility comes a little sharing of the load." "There isn't enough money to organize poor people. There never is enough money to organize anyone. If you put it on the basis of money, you're not going to succeed."

"We are organizers at heart. Most of us in the movement take great pride in being able to put things together."

"We're going to pray a lot and picket a lot." [14]

Hope: "If you are going to organize and ask for commitment, you cannot go to the most desperately poor. They are not likely to take action. If you stand on a man's head and push it into the dirt, he may not even see the heel of your boot. But if his whole face is already above ground, he can see your heel and he can see freedom ahead." [15]

Respect: "We want to be recognized, yes, but not with a glowing epitaph on our tombstone..." "Respect for faith of others stands on the same footing as culture." [16]

Culture "Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures." "We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation." [17]

Commitment: "...there has to be someone who is willing to do it, who is willing to take whatever risks are required. I don't think it can be done with money alone. The person has to be dedicated to the task. There has to be some other motivation." "Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do, you can demand their commitment in return."

"Self dedication is a spiritual experience."

"The name of the game is to talk to people. If you don't talk to people, you can't get started...You knock on twenty doors or so, and twenty guys tell you to go to hell, or that they haven't got time. But maybe at the fortieth or sixtieth house you find the one guy who is all you need. You're not going to organize everything; you're just going to get it started."

"There are vivid memories from my childhood--what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions, basically because there was no union. I suppose if I wanted to be fair I could say that I'm trying to settle a personal score. I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers. But the truth is that I went through a lot of hell, and a lot of people did. If we can even the score a little for the workers then we are doing something. Besides, I don't know any other work I like to do better than this. I really don't."

"There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance."

"There's no turning back...We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart..."

"We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure."

"We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline."

"I remember with strong feelings the families who joined our movement and paid dues long before there was any hope of winning contracts. Sometimes, fathers and mothers would take money out of their meager food budgets just because they believed that farm workers could and must build their own union. I remember thinking then that with spirit like that... we had to win. No force on earth could stop us."

"The picket line is the best place to train organizers. One day on the picket line is where a man makes his commitment. The longer on the picket line, the stronger the commitment. A lot of workers think they make their commitment by walking off the job when nobody sees them. But you get a guy to walk off the field when his boss is watching and, in front of the other guys, throw down his tools and march right to the picket line, that is the guy who makes our strike. The picket line is a beautiful thing because it makes a man more human."

"As one looks at the millions of acres in this country that have been taken out of agricultural production;a nd at the millions of additional acres that have never been cultivated; and at the millions of people who have moved off the farm to rot and decay in the ghettoes of our big cities; and at all the millions of hungry people at home and abroad; does it not seem that all these people and things were somehow made to come together and serve one another? If we could bring them together, we could stem the mass exodus of rural poor to the big city ghettoes and start it going back the other way; teach them how to operate new farm equipment; and put them to work on those now uncultivated acres to raise food for the hungry. If a way could be found to do this, there would be not only room but positive need for still more machinery and still more productivity increase. There would be enough employment, wages, profits, food and fiber."

"If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him...The people who give you their food give you their heart."

"In this world it is possible to achieve great material wealth, to live an opulent life. But a life built upon those things alone leaves a shallow legacy. In the end, we will be judged by other standards." [18]

Public Action:

"It is not good enough to know why we are oppressed and by whom. We must join the struggle for what is right and just. Jesus does not promise that it will be an easy way to live life and His own life certainly points in a hard direction; but it does promise that we will be "satisfied" (not stuffed; but satisfied). He promises that by giving life we will find life - full, meaningful life as God meant it."

"Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system - its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union - whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens - and that if it does not, there will chaos."

"Those who are willing to sacrifice and be of service have very little difficulty with people. They know what they are all about. People can't help but want to be near them. They help them; they work with them. That's what love is all about. It starts with your heart and radiates out." [19]

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Further reading

• Levy, Jacques E. and Cesar Chavez. César Chávez: 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 : César Chávez at the Beginning. Keene, California: United Farm Workers: Distributed by El Taller Grafico, 1989. ISBN 0-9625298-0-X
• Soto, Gary. César Chávez: 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: César Chávez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. ISBN 0-15-100239-8
• Handbook of Texas History, Online Edition
• Jacob, Amanda César Chávez Dominates Face Sayville: Mandy Publishers, 2005.
• Prouty, Marco G. César Chávez, 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 Chávez 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.
• Daniel, Cletus E. "Cesar Chavez and the Unionization of California Farm Workers." ed. Dubofsky, Melvyn and Warren Van Tine. Labor Leaders in America. University of IL: 1987.
• LosEstadosLatinos.com will have a month long tribute to Cesar Chavez in 2008[20]

[edit] See also

• César Chávez Day
• Union Organizer

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• "The Story of César Chávez" United Farmworker's official biography of Chávez
• "César Chávez Timeline", Napa Valley Register, March 30, 2006.
• César Chávez Foundation
• César Chávez - County of Los Angeles Public Library
• Cesar Chavez, "Minuteman" Article about Chávez's concern with strikebreaking and illegal immigration
• Spectrum Biographies - César Chávez
• César Chávez 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 (César Chávez Campus)
• Musical inspired by the life of César Chávez
• César Chávez Student Center
• Learn more about the Chávez family short-handled hoe at the Smithsonian, and the United Farmworkers at the Object of History learning site.
• César Chávez Day at California Volunteers - Office of the Governor
• César Chávez Quotes

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Persondata
NAME	Chávez, César Estrada
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	farm worker, labor leader, and activist
DATE OF BIRTH	March 31, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH	near Yuma, Arizona, United States
DATE OF DEATH	April 23, 1993
PLACE OF DEATH	San Luis, Arizona, United States