Hope Bios: Cesar Chavez

  Cesar Chavez 

1927 - 1993

Change through Unity

His Calling

American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist. Chavez 

grew up as a migrant worker. Working on the farms was difficult, with

long hours, few bathrooms and little clean water to drink. Farm workers

they were not treated with respect or dignity. They made little money.

Chavez worked in the fields until he was 25, when he became an 

organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a Latino 

civil rights group.

His Faith

Chavez was Roman Catholic. Even though his family had little money and sometimes lacked food, their mother would often cook meals for the homeless. They gave other families rides to get medical attention.

Chavez undertook a number of spiritual fasts, promoting the principle of nonviolence, thanksgiving and hope, and to prepare for civil disobedience. Also in 1972, he fasted in response to Arizona’s passage of legislation that prohibited boycotts and strikes by farm workers during the harvest seasons. These fasts were influenced by the Catholic tradition of penance and by Gandhi’s fasting and nonviolence.

His Legacy

Chavez urged Mexican Americans to register and vote, and he traveled throughout California and made speeches in support of workers' rights. His public-relations approach to unionism and nonviolent tactics made the farm workers' struggle a moral cause with nationwide support. 

In 1964, they ended the exploitive Bracero Program, which ensured a constant supply of cheap immigrant labor for growers. (Immigrants could not protest any infringement of their rights, lest they be fired and replaced.) 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. They gained collective bargaining rights to farm workers. 

What can I do?

• Learn more: Movie: Cesar Chavez. And, our campus library has many books. Try Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa. 
• Take a fast to prepare yourself for understanding and action. Try one day drinking only water and fruit juice. (Consult a doctor if you have special medical needs.)
• Everyday things that come from unjust labor around the world- sugar, coffee, chocolate Look for fair trade labels on these items, or fast from them.
• Contemporary issues: Immigration laws continue to provide cheap undocumented labor in the U.S. but don’t protect the poor families or help them legally immigrate and receive American rights. 
• Contemporary US Issues: read hashtags: #blacklivesmatter #MikeBrown #Ferguson 
• Interview one person this week who has a different background from your own. Ask questions, listen, rather than arguing or correcting them.