Cesar Chavez – Nostalgia Central

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Cesario Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona, on 31 March 1927. One of five children, he had two sisters, Rita and Vicki, and two brothers, Richard and Librado.

The Chavez family joined the growing number of American migrants who were moving to California during the Great Depression, working first as avocado pickers in Oxnard and then as pea pickers in Pescadero.  They moved regularly, and on weekends and holidays, Cesar joined his family in working as an agricultural labourer.

He moved schools many times, facing ridicule amongst the other children for his poverty and anti-Latino prejudice from many European Americans (many establishments refused to serve non-white customers).

He graduated from junior high in June 1942 and became a full-time farm labourer.

In 1944, Chavez enlisted in the US Navy and was sent to Saipan and Guam, receiving an honourable discharge in 1946 and returning to work as an agricultural labourer.

Chavez joined the National Farm Labor Union (NFLU) in 1947 and married his high school sweetheart Helen Fabela in October 1948 (his sister Rita married her fiancé at the same ceremony).

Befriending social justice activists Fred Ross and Father Donald McDonnell, Chavez helped establish a chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO) in San Jose and was soon voted vice president of the chapter.

He eventually became a CSO organiser and travelled around California setting up other chapters.

Amid the broader context of the Cold War and McCarthyite suspicions that leftist activism was a front for Marxist-Leninist groups, the FBI began monitoring Chavez and opened a file on him.

Chavez became the CSO’s national director in 1959, but by 1962 was intent on forming a labour union for farm workers and began devising the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).

In April 1965, rose grafters approached the NFWA and requested help in organising a strike for better working conditions. Aided by the NFWA, the workers went on strike on 3 May, and after four days, the growers agreed to raise wages, after which the strikers returned to work.

In September 1965, Filipino American farm workers, organised by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), initiated the Delano grape strike to protest for higher wages. Chavez and his predominantly Mexican American supporters voted to support them.

The strike covered an area of over 400 square miles and attracted national media attention. It also attracted the attention of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters – a more conservative union – who began competing against the NFWA.

Chavez appealed to Pat Brown, the Governor of California, to intervene. Brown agreed, wanting the endorsement of the Mexican American Political Association.

Chavez’s NFWA subsequently merged with the AWOC, resulting in the new United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), which was made an organising committee of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), ensuring that it would become a formal part of the US labour movement.

When Robert Kennedy announced he was running to be the Democratic Party’s next presidential candidate, he asked Chavez to run as a delegate in the California primary, and his activism contributed to Kennedy’s victory in that state.

It was at the victory celebration in Los Angeles on 5 June – an event attended by Chavez – that Kennedy was assassinated. Chavez acted as one of Kennedy’s pallbearers.

In May, Chavez appeared on the Today television show and announced a boycott of all grapes produced in California, urging consumers to avoid buying California grapes so that farm workers would get better wages and working conditions. The growers turned to the newly elected Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who in turn sought the support of the Teamsters.

By 1968, Chavez was a national celebrity. Journalists increasingly approached him for interviews and in July 1969, he was featured on the front of Time magazine. That same month, the Delano grape growers agreed to negotiate.

In July 1970, the growers signed contracts with the union in front of the press, agreeing to wage rises for pickers, the introduction of a health plan, and new safety measures regarding the use of pesticides on their crops.

Chavez continued to lead a combination of strikes and boycotts to support labourers, expanding operations across the US and rallying publicly against the Teamsters.

But by 1974, the UFW was broke, and its boycotts were floundering.

Chavez increasingly blamed illegal immigrants who were brought in as strikebreakers and launched the “Illegals Campaign” to identify illegal migrants so that they could be deported.

The UFW eventually negotiated with the Teamsters, and the two unions reached an agreement by which the UFW would cease bringing litigation against the Teamsters if the latter stopped operating among farm workers altogether. This left the UFW as the only dominant union among the farm workers.

Opposition to Chavez’s hostility to illegal migrants led senior UFW members in Texas and Arizona to break from the union and form their own groups, such as the Texas Farm Workers Union and the Maricopa County Organizing Project.

In 1977, Chavez travelled to the Philippines as the guest of its president, Ferdinand Marcos. There, he was treated as a high-ranking dignitary and received both an award from Marcos and an honorary doctorate from the Far Eastern University in Manila.

He then spoke to a reporter from The Washington Post and commented positively about Marcos’ introduction of martial law

This generated an outcry in the US, especially among religious groups, who argued that Chavez was overlooking the human rights abuses taking place under Marcos’ administration.

The UFW’s membership – and the subsequent membership dues they paid – continued to decline.

In January 1983, UFW contracts covered 30,000 jobs, but by January 1986, this had fallen to 15,000.

From the mid-1980s, Chavez increasingly focused the UFW’s campaigns on opposing the use of pesticides, which he argued posed a danger both to farmworkers and to consumers.

With membership dues declining, the UFW increasingly turned to commercial activities as a means of raising funds. Chavez also set himself up as a housing developer, buying properties undergoing foreclosure and renovating them before selling them.

To conceal the UFW’s involvement in these projects, Chavez and businessman Celestino Aguilar formed American Liberty Investments. They also established the Ideal Minimart Corporation, which built two strip malls.

It was later reported that most of the UFW’s housing projects had been built by non-union contractors.

In the early 1990s, the UFW continued to market Chavez as a heroic figure, especially on university and college campuses.

He died in bed on 23 April 1993, aged 66.

Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest honour for non-military personnel, in August 1994 by President Bill Clinton. Chavez’s widow collected it from the White House.

In 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted Chavez into the California Hall of Fame.

Cesar Chavez’s birthday, 31 March, is a holiday in California, Denver (Colorado), and Texas. It is intended to promote community service, honouring Chavez’s life and work.