Cesar Chavez

Led by his desire to secure a better quality of life for migrant farm workers, Cesar Chavez helped found the United Farm Workers of America, the first effective farm workers' union in the United States. Under his leadership of nonviolent protest, the UFW was able to secure improved wages and benefits, more humane living and working conditions, and better job security for some of the poorest workers in America. Through his life of service, Chavez provided inspiration to countless others.

"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own."

— Cesar Chavez

Born: March 31, 1927 North Gila Valley, Arizona, near Yuma, Arizona
Died: April 22, 1993 St. Luis, Arizona, near Yuma, Arizona

"La Causa" signifies the struggle of migrant workers everywhere to gain higher wages, humane living and working conditions, reasonable working hours and job security. Cesar Estrada Chavez is remembered as the champion of that struggle. He founded and led the United Farm Workers of America, the first effective union for farm workers ever organized in the United States. Under his leadership of nonviolent protest the organization was able to secure higher wages and benefits for farm workers that enabled them to enjoy healthier working environments and a better quality of life.

Cesar Chavez was the second child and eldest son of Librado and Juana Chavez. Born on the land that his grandfather had successfully homesteaded since the 1880's, Cesar was ten years old when the family lost the land during the Depression. The Chavez family learned that agricultural work was steady in California and soon moved to the Imperial Valley joining throngs of migrant workers following the harvest of crops throughout the state. As a family, they earned a little more than a dollar a day in total. For several weeks the family picked grapes in Fresno for eight to twelve cents per hour, but they were never paid for their labor and the contractor disappeared leaving the family destitute. Cesar would learn that this was not an uncommon experience for migrant farm workers.

Cesar Chavez was learning about poverty but also learning about bigotry, racism, and segregation. These armies of migrant laborers lived in segregated areas, frequently encountering signs admonishing "White Trade Only." Schools encouraged rejection of one's heritage. Spanish students often stood at the blackboard writing 300 times "I will not speak Spanish." Chavez said, "The schools treated you like you didn't exist. Their indifference was incredible." He quit school in the eighth grade and went to work in the fields. Feelings of anger, humiliation, and powerlessness were settling deep within Cesar Chavez. In 1943, when he was sixteen, a defiant Chavez sat in the "whites only" section of a Delano, California movie theater. He was arrested and taken to the local police station.

Chavez began his fight for immigrant farm workers' rights during the late 1940's after serving in the Navy during World War II. In 1947, he went back to the fields of Delano, California to harvest grapes and arrived in the middle of a workers' strike that brought recognition of their farm labor union. The local sheriff and U.S. Immigration Service used intimidation tactics by raiding the workers' camps nineteen times looking for illegal aliens. The strike failed. Two years later, cotton growers tried to lower farm workers' wages and a strike followed. When the workers' efforts failed again, Chavez knew that his mission was to provide leadership and organization to the migrant farm workers.

After his marriage to Helen Fabela, on October 22, 1948, Chavez settled in Delano, California, picking grapes to support his family. In 1951, he went to work for the Community Services Organization (CSO) of Oakland, California, a social and civil rights action group for Hispanics. It was there he learned the art of organizing groups of workers and how to sustain worker strikes. He returned to the rural barrios of his youth to register voters and help begin a citizenship drive.

As his influence spread among workers, so did his reputation as an effective leader and Chavez was named director of CSO in 1958. In 1962 Chavez resigned from the CSO realizing that this organization was not interested in organizing farm laborers. He left this well paid job, moved his family back to Delano and formed the National Farm Workers Association. By 1965, Chavez had recruited 1700 families into the union and in September of that same year the organization boycotted the products of a successful wine grape grower. The grape strike resulted in a march from Delano to the state capitol in Sacramento. This 25 day demonstration yielded a contract that provided an increase of hourly wage, job protection, standby pay, and paid vacation for the farm workers. This first victory of the organization was made official by June of 1966, and other strikes followed.

The union merged with the American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organization (AFL-CIO) and became known as the United Farmer Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC). By the end of 1966, consumption of grapes had been reduced by twenty percent. The boycott continued, union members, including Chavez were jailed, and Chavez began a 25 day fast on February 14, 1968. When he ended the fast in Delano, religious leaders, public officials, ordinary citizens, and Robert F. Kennedy were among his ten thousand supporters. At the strike's conclusion, 23 local growers had signed a contract with the field workers. For Chavez, the strike signified more than a labor dispute; it was a fight for justice. Following the nonviolent teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Chavez advocated nonviolent protest and strict dedication to "la causa." His vision and leadership made him a hero to many, but his failure to separate community and labor issues occasionally weakened his role as a union organizer.

After 1970, conditions for farm workers slowly improved, though their way of life remained difficult. In that same year Chavez called for a nationwide lettuce boycott and several times he fasted to protest the violence that arose. By 1973, the union was known as the United Farm Workers with 147 contracts covering 10,000 workers on farms in California, Arizona, and Florida, but a new grape boycott was called. California's 1975 Agricultural Labor relations Act, which formally granted farm workers the right to collective bargaining, represented an important milestone. By 1978, some of the workers' conditions had been met, and the United Farm Workers lifted their boycotts.

Although union contracts began to provide benefits for families such as healthcare and retirement, failure to enforce the Agricultural Labor relations act resulted in many lost union contracts, so Chavez returned to boycotting in the mid 1980's. He fasted again for 36 days in 1988 to protest the use of pesticides on crops. His demonstrations had gained national attention and he had the support of the Kennedy family and several celebrities. Chavez continued to head the union, join picket lines and speak before audiences about organizing non-violent demonstrations across the country.

In 1991, Cesar Chavez was the recipient of Mexico's Aguila Azteca Award for his contributions. It was after testifying in a large lawsuit, brought by a grower against the union, that Cesar Chavez died, in his sleep, on April 23, 1993. More than 50,000 people attended the funeral in Delano. He was buried in his beloved rose garden at his home, La Paz, in Keene, California. In 1994, President Clinton posthumously awarded Chavez a Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Cesar Estrada Chavez dedicated his entire life to enhancing the rights and dignity of farm workers. He and a handful of followers created a labor organization, the United Farm Workers, where none existed before. They did it in the hot, windy, flat, and occasionally violent fields of California where generations of poorly paid farm workers have labored to put food on American tables. Today, the farm workers still struggle to preserve their rights. In 2000, Dick Meister wrote, "The vast majority of farm workers are still mired in poverty, their working and living conditions a national disgrace... A high percentage of the workers are desperately poor immigrants, legal and illegal, from Mexico and Central America who must take whatever is offered or be replaced by other desperate workers... We need the words and deeds to carry on what Cesar Chavez started." Chavez lived his life with a dedication to non-violence, volunteerism, public action, and a respect for all cultures, religions and lifestyles. He continues to be an inspiration for the countless number of people working to protect the rights of the oppressed.


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