Rare Letter Mexican American Labor Leader Afl-Cio Cesar Chavez Great Content

$1,387.07 Buy It Now, FREE Shipping, 30-Day Returns, eBay Money Back Guarantee
Seller: memorabilia111 ✉️ (808) 100%, Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan, US, Ships to: US, Item: 176299960635 RARE LETTER MEXICAN AMERICAN LABOR LEADER AFL-CIO CESAR CHAVEZ GREAT CONTENT. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL LETTER SIGNED BY LABOR LEADER CESAR CHAVEZ WITH EXTRAS Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers labor union.  UNIted farM workers, AFL-CIo un P. O. Box62• Keene, Ca. 93531 JAN 2 6 1973 January 18, 1973 Dr. Janet Travell 4525 Cathedral Ave. N.W. Washington D.C. 20016 Dear Dr. Travell: Thank you very much for your beautiful note. It was very kind of you and Mr. Powell to think of us in La Causa and I appreciated the articles you sent. - the court decision was a great victory for us. It is hard to believe that it is over ten years since we began organizing farm workers. While we have had some victories there is still so much to be done. The clinic in Delano is running very smoothly. It is wonderful to see the farm workers receiving such fine medical care at a reasonable cost and from doctors whom they trust. We are expanding medical care as fast as we can, however we need doctors and other medical per- sonnel very badly. Best wishes for the New Year. Viva la Jus ticia! Cesar Chavez January 4, 1973 Dear Cesar: Mr. Powell and I sent few cards this Christmas, but we want you to know that we thought of you and your family and all that you are doing to make a better world. This morning we were delighted to read about the Supreme Court decision in Salinas, according to the enclosed clipping from the Washington Post. Congratulations to you and the United Farm Workers. Not long before Christmas, I was given a copy of this N.E.A, article about you, written by Murray Olderman. It reminded me of my visit with you in Delano. With very best wishes for continued good health in the many new years, Cordially, Janet G. Travell, M.D. Mr. Cesar E. Chavez P. 0. Box 62 Keene, California 93531 Enclosures (2) May 16- kRIER Kennedy J BE CHRISTENED BY CAROLINE, 9 Nine - year - old Caroline Kennedy will christen a giant new aircraft carrier in honor of her father on May 27. Caroline and her mother, Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy, will join President Johnson in ceremonies marking the launching of the USS John F. Kennedy. The ceremony will take place at Newport News Ship- building and Drydock Co. in Newport News, Va. Mrs. Kennedy will act as matron of honor and John- son will speak. The new ship, whose keel was laid on Oct. 22, 1964, is 1,051 feet long with a dis- placement of 64,000 tous.a Her crew, including a navə air wing, will number mo than 5,000 men. Pr Su °alij July 19 Sam Return'd from Genl, Thomson 21 hired Sam to Mr. Hosenclever at 8 pound pr. Month Cloaths and Shoes and Stockings August gave Mr. Sickle a Barrell of sugar to Sell for which he is to return me an Equal quantity of A better quality Weight one hundred three quarters and four Pounds.
The Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez dedicated his life’s work to what he called la causa (the cause): the struggle of farm workers in the United States to improve their working and living conditions through organizing and negotiating contracts with their employers. Committed to the tactics of nonviolent resistance practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (later the United Farm Workers of America) and won important victories to raise pay and improve working conditions for farm workers in the late 1960s and 1970s. Early Life and Work as a Community Organizer Cesar Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927. In the late 1930s, after losing their homestead to foreclosure, he and his family joined more than 300,000 people who moved to California during the Great Depression and became migrant farm workers. Chavez dropped out of school after eighth grade and began working in the fields full time. In 1946, he joined the U.S. Navy, serving for two years in a segregated unit. After his service was over, he returned to farmwork and married Helen Fabela, with whom he would eventually have eight children (and 31 grandchildren). In 1952, Chavez was working at a lumberyard in San Jose when he became a grassroots organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a Latino civil rights group. Over the next decade, he worked to register new voters and fight racial and economic discrimination, and rose to become the CSO’s national director. Chavez resigned from the CSO in 1962, after other members refused to support his efforts to form a labor union for farm workers. That same year, he used his life savings to found the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in Delano, California. Founding of National Farm Workers Association and the 1965 Grape Strike Chavez knew firsthand the struggles of the nation’s poorest and most powerless workers, who labored to put food on the nation’s tables while often going hungry themselves. Not covered by minimum wage laws, many made as little as 40 cents an hour, and did not qualify for unemployment insurance. Previous attempts to unionize farm workers had failed, as California’s powerful agricultural industry fought back with all the weight of their money and political power. Chavez was inspired by the nonviolent civil disobedience pioneered by Gandhi in India, and the example of St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century Italian nobleman who gave up his material wealth to live with and work on behalf of the poor. Working doggedly to build the NFWA alongside fellow organizer Dolores Huerta, Chavez traveled around the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys to recruit union members. Meanwhile, Helen Chavez worked in the fields to support the family, as they struggled to stay afloat. In September 1965, the NFWA launched a strike against California’s grape growers alongside the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a Filipino-American labor group. The strike lasted five years and expanded into a nationwide boycott of California grapes. The boycott drew widespread support, thanks to the highly visible campaign headed by Chavez, who led a 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966 and undertook a well-publicized 25-day hunger strike in 1968. Recommended for you ap_698444089319 Why Martin Luther King’s Family Believes James Earl Ray Was Not His Killer Martin Luther King, Jr. 10 Things You May Not Know About Martin Luther King Jr. martin-luther-king-jr-3 ‘I Have a Dream’ Speech “I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice,” Chavez declared, in a speech read on his behalf when his first hunger strike ended. “To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us be men." READ MORE: How Cesar Chavez Joined Larry Itliong to Demand Farm Workers' Rights The United Farm Workers and Chavez’s Later Career The grape strike and boycott ended in 1970, with the farm workers reaching a collective bargaining agreement with major grape growers that increased the workers’ pay and gave them the right to unionize. The NWFA and AWOC had merged in 1966 to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which in 1971 became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Throughout the 1970s, Chavez continued leading the union’s efforts to win labor contracts for farm workers across the agricultural industry, employing the same nonviolent techniques of strikes and boycotts. In 1972, he went on a second hunger strike to protest an Arizona law banning farm workers from organizing and protesting. Thanks to the UFW’s efforts, California passed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, giving all farm workers the right to unionize and negotiate for better wages and working conditions. In the mid-1980s, Chavez focused the UFW’s efforts on a campaign to highlight the dangers of pesticides for farm workers and their children. In 1988, at the age of 61, he underwent his third hunger strike, which lasted for 36 days. Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993, at the age of 66. The following year, President Bill Clinton awarded him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In a sign of the labor leader’s enduring influence, Barack Obama borrowed a Chavez slogan—Si, se puede, or “Yes, we can”—during his successful run to become the first Black U.S. president in 2008. Cesar Chavez (born Cesario Estrada Chavez /ˈtʃɑːvɛz/; Spanish: [tʃaβes]; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ideologically, his world-view combined leftist politics with Roman Catholic social teachings. Born in Yuma, Arizona to a Mexican American family, Chavez began his working life as a manual laborer before spending two years in the United States Navy. Relocating to California, where he married, he got involved in the Community Service Organization (CSO), through which he helped laborers register to vote. In 1959, he became the CSO's national director, a position based in Los Angeles. In 1962, he left the CSO to co-found the NFWA, based in Delano, California, through which he launched an insurance scheme, credit union, and the El Malcriado newspaper for farmworkers. Later that decade he began organizing strikes among farmworkers, most notably the successful Delano grape strike of 1965–1970. Amid the grape strike his NFWA merged with Larry Itliong's AWOC to form the UFW in 1967. Influenced by the Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, Chavez emphasized direct but nonviolent tactics, including pickets and boycotts, to pressure farm owners into granting strikers' demands. He imbued his campaigns with Roman Catholic symbolism, including public processions, masses, and fasts. He received much support from labor and leftist groups but was monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In the early 1970s, Chavez sought to expand the UFW's influence outside California by opening branches in other U.S. states. Viewing illegal immigrants as a major source of strike-breakers, he also pushed a campaign against illegal immigration into the U.S., which generated violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and caused schisms with many of the UFW's allies. Interested in co-operatives as a form of organization, he established a remote commune at Keene. His increased isolation and emphasis on unrelenting campaigning alienated many California farmworkers who had previously supported him and by 1973 the UFW had lost most of the contracts and membership it won during the late 1960s. His alliance with California Governor Jerry Brown helped ensure the passing of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, although the UFW's campaign to get its measures enshrined in California's constitution failed. Influenced by the Synanon religious organization, Chavez re-emphasized communal living and purged perceived opponents. Membership of the UFW dwindled in the 1980s, with Chavez refocusing on anti-pesticide campaigns and moving into real-estate development, generating controversy for his use of non-unionized laborers. A controversial figure, UFW critics raised concerns about Chavez's autocratic control of the union, the purges of those he deemed disloyal, and the personality cult built around him, while farm-owners considered him a communist subversive. He became an icon for organized labor and leftist groups in the U.S. and posthumously became a "folk saint" among Mexican Americans. His birthday is a federal commemorative holiday in several U.S. states, while many places are named after him, and in 1994 he posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Contents 1 Early life 1.1 Childhood: 1927–1945 1.2 Early adulthood: 1946–1953 2 Early activism 2.1 Working for the Community Service Organization: 1953–1962 2.2 Founding the National Farm Workers Association: 1962–1965 3 The Delano Grape Strike 3.1 Start of the Delano Grape Strike: 1965–1966 3.2 Growing success: 1966–1967 3.3 Forty Acres and public fasts: 1967–1968 3.4 End of the Grape Strike: 1969–1970 4 Later activism 4.1 Salinas Lettuce Strike: 1970–1971 4.2 Expanding beyond California: 1972 4.3 Immigration and legislative campaigns: 1973–1975 4.4 Proposition 14: 1976–1977 4.5 Links with Synanon and Ferdinand Marcos: 1977 5 Later life 5.1 Growing schisms: 1978–1982 5.2 The Chicano Lobby and commercial activities: 1983–1989 5.3 Final years: 1990–1993 6 Personal life 7 Political views 7.1 On organization and leadership 8 Reception and legacy 8.1 Orders, decorations, monuments, and honors 9 See also 10 References 10.1 Footnotes 10.2 Bibliography 11 Further reading 12 External links Early life Childhood: 1927–1945 Cesario Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927.[1] He was named for his paternal grandfather, Cesario Chavez, a Mexican who had crossed into Texas in 1898.[2] Cesario had established a successful wood haulage business near Yuma and in 1906 bought a farm in the Sonora Desert's North Gila Valley.[3] Cesario had brought his wife Dorotea and eight children with him from Mexico; the youngest, Librado, was Cesar's father.[2] Librado married Juana Estrada Chavez in the early 1920s.[4] Born in Ascensión, Chihuahua, she had crossed into the U.S. with her mother as a baby. They lived in Picacho, California before moving to Yuma, where Juana worked as a farm laborer and then an assistant to the chancellor of the University of Arizona.[5] Librado and Juana's first child, Rita, was born in August 1925, with their first son, Cesar, following nearly two years later.[6] In November 1925, Librado and Juana bought a series of buildings near to the family home which included a pool hall, store, and living quarters. They soon fell into debt and were forced to sell these assets, in April 1929 moving into the galera storeroom of Librado's parental home, then owned by the widowed Dorotea.[7] Chavez was raised in what his biographer Miriam Pawel called "a typical extended Mexican family";[2] she noted that they were "not well-off, but they were comfortable, well clothed, and never hungry".[8] The family spoke in Spanish,[9] and he was raised as a Roman Catholic, with his paternal grandmother Dorotea largely overseeing his religious instruction;[10] his mother Juana engaged in forms of folk Catholicism, being a devotee of Santa Eduviges.[11] As a child, Chavez was nicknamed "Manzi" in reference to his fondness for manzanilla tea.[6] To entertain himself, he played handball and listened to boxing matches on the radio.[12] One of six children, he had two sisters, Rita and Vicki, and two brothers, Richard and Librado.[13][14] Cesario began attending Laguna Dam School in 1933; there, the speaking of Spanish was forbidden and Cesario was expected to change his name to Cesar.[15] After Dorotea died in July 1937, the Yuma County local government auctioned off her farmstead to cover back taxes, and despite Librado's delaying tactics, the house and land were sold in 1939.[16] This was a seminal experience for Cesar, who regarded it as an injustice against his family, with the banks, lawyers, and Anglo-American power structure as the villains of the incident.[17] Influenced by his Roman Catholic beliefs, he increasingly came to see the poor as a source of moral goodness in society.[18] The Chavez family joined the growing number of American migrants who were moving to California amid the Great Depression.[19] First working as avocado pickers in Oxnard and then as pea pickers in Pescadero, the family made it to San Jose, where they first lived in a garage in the city's impoverished Mexican district.[20] They moved regularly, and at weekends and holidays, Cesar joined his family in working as an agricultural laborer.[21] In California, he moved schools many times, spending the longest time at Miguel Hidalgo Junior School; here, his grades were generally average, although he excelled at mathematics.[22] At school, he faced ridicule for his poverty,[20] while more broadly, he experienced anti-Latino prejudice from many European-Americans, with many establishments refusing to serve non-white customers.[23] He graduated from junior high in June 1942, after which he left formal education and became a full-time farm laborer.[22][24] Early adulthood: 1946–1953 In the early 1950s, Chavez was introduced to the ideas of nonviolent protest advocated by Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi. In March 1946, Chavez enlisted in the United States Navy, and was sent to the Naval Training Center San Diego.[25] In July he was stationed at the U.S. base in Saipan, and six months later moved to Guam, where he was promoted to the rank of seaman first class.[26] He was then stationed to San Francisco, where he decided to leave the Navy, receiving an honorable discharge in January 1948.[27] Relocating to Delano, California, where his family had settled, he returned to working as an agricultural laborer.[28] Chavez entered a relationship with Helen Fabela, who soon became pregnant.[29] They married in Reno, Nevada in October 1948; it was a double wedding, with Chavez's sister Rita marrying her fiancé at the same ceremony.[30] By early 1949, Chavez and his new wife had settled in the Sal Si Puedes neighborhood of San Jose, where many of his other family members were now living.[31] Their first child, Fernando, was born there in February 1949; a second, Sylvia, followed in February 1950; and then a third, Linda, in January 1951.[30] The latter had been born shortly after they had relocated to Crescent City, where Chavez was employed in the lumber industry.[30] They then returned to San Jose, where Chavez worked as an apricot picker and then as a lumber handler for the General Box Company.[32] Here, he befriended two social justice activists, Fred Ross and Father Donald McDonnell, both European-Americans whose activism was primarily within the Mexican-American community.[33] Chavez helped Ross establish a chapter of his Community Service Organization (CSO) in San Jose, and joined him in voter registration drives.[34] He was soon voted vice president of the CSO chapter.[35] He also helped McDonnell construct the first purpose-built church in Sal Si Puedes, the Our Lady of Guadalupe church, which was opened in December 1953.[36] In turn, McDonnell lent Chavez books, encouraging the latter to develop a love of reading. Among the books were biographies of the saint Francis of Assisi, the U.S. labor organizers John L. Lewis and Eugene V. Debs, and the Indian independence activist Mahatma Gandhi, introducing Chavez to the ideas of non-violent protest.[37] Early activism Working for the Community Service Organization: 1953–1962 In late 1953, Chavez was laid off by the General Box Company.[38] Ross then secured funds so that the CSO could employ Chavez as an organizer, traveling around California setting up other chapters.[39] In this job, he traveled across Decoto, Salinas, Fresno, Brawley, San Bernardino, Madera, and Bakersfield.[40] Many of the CSO chapters fell apart after Ross or Chavez ceased running them, and to prevent this Saul Alinsky advised them to unite the chapters, of which there were over twenty, into a self-sustaining national organization.[41] In late 1955, Chavez returned to San Jose to rebuild the CSO chapter there so that it could sustain an employed full-time organizer. To raise funds, he opened a rummage store, organized a three-day carnival and sold Christmas trees, although often made a loss.[42] In early 1957 he moved to Brawley to rebuild the chapter there.[43] His repeated moving meant that his family were regularly uprooted;[44] he saw little of his wife and children, and was absent for the birth of his sixth child.[45] Chavez grew increasingly disillusioned with the CSO, believing that middle-class members were becoming increasingly dominant and were pushing its priorities and allocation of funds in directions he disapproved of; he for instance opposed the decision to hold the organization's 1957 convention in Fresco's Hacienda Hotel, arguing that its prices were prohibitive for poorer members.[46] Amid the wider context of the Cold War and McCarthyite suspicions that leftist activism was a front for Marxist-Leninist groups, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began monitoring Chavez and opened a file on him.[47] At Alinsky's instigation, the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) paid $20,000 to the CSO for the latter to open a branch in Oxnard; Chavez became its organizer, working with the largely Mexican farm laborers.[48] In Oxnard, Chavez worked to encourage voter registration.[49] He repeatedly heard concerns from local Mexican-American laborers that they were being routinely passed over or fired so that employers could hire cheaper Mexican guest workers, or braceros, in violation of federal law.[50] To combat this practice, he established the CSO Employment Committee that launched a "registration campaign" through which unemployed farm-workers could sign their name to highlight their desire for work.[51] I guess the best thing is to keep organizing new groups until they become rotten with personalities, then just move over and begin another group. I really don't know. The only one suggestion I have is to make sure there is always one person who is in charge... I think this way the work of the group moves forward always. — Cesar Chavez, on avoiding the pitfalls of the CSO[52] The Committee targeted its criticism at Hector Zamora, the director of the Ventura County Farm Labor Association, who controlled the most jobs in the area.[53] It also used sit ins of workers to raise the profile of their cause, a tactic also being used by proponents of the civil rights movement in the southern United States at that time.[54] It had some success in getting companies to replace braceros with unemployed Americans.[55] Its campaign also ensured that federal officials began properly investigating complaints about the use of braceros and received assurances from the state farm placement service that they would seek out unemployed Americans rather than automatically hiring bracero labor.[56] In May, the Employment Committee was formerly transferred from the CSO to the UPWA.[57] In 1959, Chavez moved to Los Angeles to become the CSO's national director.[58] He, his wife, and (now) eight children settled into the largely Mexican neighborhood of Boyle Heights.[59] He found the CSO's financial situation was bad, with even his own salary in jeopardy.[59] He laid off several organizers to keep the organization afloat.[60] He tried to organize a life insurance scheme among CSO members to raise funds, but this project failed to materialize.[61] Under Chavez, the CSO secured financing from wealthier donors and organizations, usually to finance specific projects for a set period of time. The California American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) for instance paid it $12,000 to conduct voter registration schemes in six counties with high Mexican populations.[62] The wealthy benefactor Katy Peake then offered it $50,000 over three years to organize California's farm workers.[63] Under Chavez's leadership, the CSO assisted the successful campaign to get the government to extend the state pension to non-citizens who were permanent residents.[64] At the ninth annual CSO convention in March 1962, Chavez resigned.[65] Founding the National Farm Workers Association: 1962–1965 Dolores Huerta (pictured in 2016) was a key ally of Chavez's in his formation of the NFWA. In April 1962, Chavez and his family moved to Delano, where they rented a house on Kensington Street.[66] He was intent on forming a labor union for farm workers but, to conceal this aim, told people that he was simply conducting a census of farm workers to determine their needs.[67] He began devising the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), referring to it as a "movement" rather than a trade union.[68] He was aided in this project both by his wife and by Dolores Huerta;[69] according to Pawel, Huerta became his "indispensable, lifelong ally".[70] Other key supporters of his project were the Reverend Jim Drake and other members of the California Migrant Ministry; although as a Roman Catholic Chavez was initially suspicious of these Protestant preachers, he came to view them as key allies.[71] Chavez spent his days traveling around the San Joaquin Valley, meeting with workers and encouraging them to join his association.[72] At the time, he lived off a combination of unemployment benefit, his wife's wage as a farmworker, and donations from friends and sympathizers.[73] On 30 September 1962 he formalized the Association at a convention in Fresno.[74] There, delegates elected Chavez as the group's general-director.[75] They also agreed that, once the association had a life insurance policy up and running, members would start paying monthly dues of $3.50.[76] The group adopted the motto "viva la causa" ("long live the cause") and a flag featuring a black eagle on a red and white background.[77] At the organization's constitutional convention held in Fresno in January 1963, Chavez was elected president, with Huerta, Julio Hernandez, and Gilbert Padilla its vice presidents.[78] The flag adopted by the NFWA at its launch in 1962 Chavez wanted to control the NFWA's direction and to that end ensured that the role of the group's officers was largely ceremonial, with control of the group being primarily in the hands of the staff, headed by himself.[79] At the NFWA's second convention, held in Delano in 1963, Chavez was retained as its general director while the role of the presidency was scrapped.[79] That year, he began collecting membership dues, before establishing an insurance policy for FWA members.[80] Later in the year he launched a credit union for NFWA members, having gained a state charter after the federal government refused him one.[81] The NFWA attracted volunteers from other parts of the country. One of these, Bill Esher, became editor of the group's newspaper, El Malcriado, which soon after launching increased its print run from 1000 to 3000 to meet demand.[82] The NFWA was initially based out of Chavez's house although in September 1964 it moved its headquarters to an abandoned Pentecostal church in Albany Street, West Delano.[83] During its second full year in operation the association more than doubled both its income and its expenditures.[84] As it became more secure, it began to plan for its first strike.[84] In April 1965, rose grafters approached the organization and requested help in organizing their strike for better working conditions. The strike targeted two companies, Mount Arbor and Conklin. Aided by the NFWA, the workers struck on May 3, and after four days the growers agreed to raise wages, and which the strikers returned to work.[85] Following this success, Chavez's reputation began to filter through leftist activist circles across California.[86] The Delano Grape Strike Start of the Delano Grape Strike: 1965–1966 In September 1965, Filipino American farm workers, organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), initiated the Delano grape strike to protest for higher wages. Chavez and his largely Mexican American supporters voted to support them.[87] The strike covered an area of over 400 square miles;[88] Chavez divided the picketers among four quadrants, each with a mobile crew led by a captain.[89] As the picketers urged those who continued to work to join them on strike, the growers sought to provoke and threaten the strikers. Chavez insisted that the strikers must never respond with violence.[90] The picketers also protested outside strike-breakers' homes,[91] with the strike dividing many families and breaking friendships.[92] Police monitored the protests, photographing many of those involved;[93] they also arrested various strikers.[94] To raise support for those arrested, Chavez called for donations at a speech in Berkeley's Sproul Plaza in October; he received over $1000.[95] Many growers considered Chavez a communist,[96] and the FBI launched an investigation into both him and the NFWA.[97] In December, the United Automobile Workers (UAW) president Walter Reuther joined Chavez in a pro-strike protest march through Delano.[98] This was the first time that the strike attracted national media attention.[99] Reuther then pledged that the UAW would donate $5000 a month to be shared between the AWOC and NFWA.[100] Chavez also met with representatives of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which became an important ally of the strikers.[92] Influenced by the civil rights movement's successful use of boycott campaigns, Chavez decided to launch his own, targeting companies which owned Delano vineyards or sold grapes grown there. The first target selected, in December 1965, was the Schenley liquor company, which owned one of the area's smaller vineyards.[101] Chavez organized pickets to take place in other cities where Schenley's grapes were being delivered for sale.[102] By 1965, Chavez was aware that the numbers joining the picket lines had declined; although hundreds of pickers had initially struck, some had returned to their jobs, found employment elsewhere, or moved away from Delano. To keep the pickets going, Chavez invited left-wing activists from elsewhere to join them; many, particularly university students, came from the San Francisco Bay Area.[103] Recruitment was fueled by coverage of the strike in the SNCC's newspaper, The Movement, and the Marxist People's World newspaper.[104] By late fall 1966, a protest camp had formed in Delano, opening its own medical clinic and children's nursery.[105] Protesters were entertained by Luis Valdez's El Teatro Campesino, which put on skits with a political message.[106] Within the protest movement there were some tensions between the striking farm-workers and the influx of student radicals.[105] Growing success: 1966–1967 WE SHALL OVERCOME. Across the San Joaquin Valley, across California, across the entire Southwest of the United States, wherever there are Mexican people, wherever there are farm workers, our movement is spreading like flames across [a] dry plain. Our PILGRIMAGE is the MATCH that will light our cause for all farm workers to see what is happening here, so that they may do as we have done. The time has come for the liberation of the poor farm worker. History is on our side. MAY THE STRUGGLE GO ON! VIVA LA CAUSA! — Luis Valdez's "Plan de Delano", read aloud at each stop along Chavez's march to Sacramento[107] In March 1966, the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor held three hearings in California. The third, which took place in Delano, was attended by Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who toured a labor camp with Chavez and addressed a mass meeting.[108] As the strike began to flag in winter, Chavez decided on a march of 300 miles to the state capitol at Sacramento. This would pass through dozens of farmworker communities and attract attention for their cause.[109] In March, the procession started out with about fifty marchers who left Delano.[110] Chavez imbued the march with Roman Catholic significance. Marchers carried crucifixes and a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe and used the slogan "Peregrinación, Penitencia, Revolución" ("Pilgrimage, Penitence, Revolution").[111] Portraying the march as an act of penance, he argued that the image of his personal suffering—his feet became painful and for part of the journey he had to walk with a cane—would be useful for the movement.[112] At each stop, they read aloud a "Plan de Delano" written by Valdez, deliberately echoing the "Plan de Ayala" of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.[113] At Easter, the marchers arrived in Sacramento, where over 8000 people amassed in front of the state capitol. Chavez briefly addressed the crowd.[114] During the march, Chavez had been approached by Schenley's lawyer, Sidney Korshak. They agreed to contract negotiations within 60 days. Chavez then declared an end to the Schenley boycott; instead, the movement would switch the boycott to the DiGiorgio Corporation, a major Delano land owner.[115] DiGiorgio then called an election among their vineyard workers, hoping to challenge the NFWA's influence.[116] A more conservative union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, were competing against the NFWA in the DiGiorgio workers' election.[117] After DiGiorgio altered the terms of the election to benefit a Teamster victory, Chavez removed the NFWA from the ballot and urged his supporters to abstain. When the vote took place in June 1966, nearly half of eligible workers abstained, allowing a Teamster victory.[118] Chavez then appealed to Pat Brown, the Governor of California, to intervene. Brown agreed, wanting the endorsement of the Mexican American Political Association. He declared the DiGiorgio election invalid and called for an August rerun to be supervised by the American Arbitration Association.[119] On 1 September, Chavez's union was declared the victor in the second election.[120] DiGiorgio subsequently largely halted grape production in Delano.[121] The focus then shifted to Giumarra, the largest grape grower in the San Joaquin Valley.[122] In August 1967, Chavez announced a strike against them followed by a boycott of their grapes.[123] An agreement was reached that Chavez's NFWA would merge with the AWOC, resulting in a new United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC).[124] AWOC's Larry Itliong became the new group's assistant director,[125] although soon felt marginalized by Chavez.[126] UFWOC was also made an organizing committee of the AFL-CIO; this ensured that it would become a formal part of the U.S. labor movement and would receive a monthly subsidy.[124] Not all of Chavez's staff agreed with the merger; many of its more left-wing members mistrusted the growing links with organized labor, particularly due to the AFL-CIO's anti-communist views.[127] UFWOC was plagued by ethnic divisions between its Filipino and Mexican members,[128] although continued to attract new volunteers, the majority Anglos brought into the movement via left-wing and religious groups or as part of social service internships.[129] Chavez brought new people, such as LeRoy Chatfield, Marshall Ganz, and the lawyer Jerry Cohen, into his inner circle.[130] His old friend, Fred Ross, had also joined.[131] Soon, the secretary-treasurer Antonio Orendain was left as the only Mexican migrant in the union's senior ranks.[126] In June 1967, Chavez launched his first purge of the union to remove those he deemed disruptive or disloyal to his leadership. His cover story was that he wanted to eject members of the Communist Party and related far-left groups, although the FBI's report at the time found no evidence of communist infiltration of the union.[132] Some longstanding members, such as Esher, left because they disapproved of these purges.[133] Tensions between Chavez and the Teatro had been building for some time; the Teatro's members were among those highly critical of the union's new links with the AFL-CIO.[134] Chavez was concerned that the Teatro had become a rival to his prominent standing in the movement and was questioning his actions.[135] Chavez asked the Teatro to disband, at which it split from the union and went on a tour of the U.S.[136] Forty Acres and public fasts: 1967–1968 The Forty Acres complex in Delano, which Chavez established as his headquarters, was made a National Landmark in 2008. The union purchased land known as The Forty Acres for their new headquarters.[133] Chavez hoped for it to be a "spiritual" center where union members would relax; he designed it to have a swimming pool, a chapel, a market, and a gas station, as well as gardens with outdoor sculptures.[137] He wanted the main building to be decorated inside with Gandhi quotations in English and Spanish.[137] Meanwhile, Chavez was increasingly concerned that his supporters might turn to violence.[138] Members had engaged in the destruction of property, something they regarded as not breaching the movement's ethos on non-violence.[139] Chavez's cousin Manuel had tampered with refrigerator units on trains, so that grapes being shipped out of Delano spoiled before reaching their destination;[139] Chavez noted that "He's done all the dirty work for the union. There's a lot of fucking dirty work, and he did it all."[139] In February 1968, the Giumarra company obtained a contempt citation against the union, claiming that its members had used threatening and intimidating behavior against its employees and had placed roofing nails at the entrances to its ranches.[140] In February 1968, Chavez began a fast; he publicly stated that in doing so he was reaffirming his commitment to peaceful protest and presented it as a form of penance.[141] He stated that he would remain at Forty Acres for the duration of his fast, which at this point had only a gas station there.[142] Many members of the union were critical of what they saw as a stunt; Itliong was annoyed that Chavez had not consulted the union's board before making his declaration. The union introduced a motion urging Chavez to cancel his plan, although this failed.[142] Father Mark Day announced that a mass would he held every night at Forty Acres. These attracted many of Chavez's supporters, with the gas station decorated as an impromptu shrine.[143] Sympathetic Protestant clergy and Jewish rabbis also spoke at these masses.[144] After three weeks, Chavez's doctors urged him to end the fast. He agreed to do so at a public event on 10 March.[145] He invited Robert Kennedy to be the guest of honor at this event. Kennedy arrived at the event, which was attended by thousands of observers as well as the national press, and there they shared bread.[146] You stand today as a living example of the Gandhian tradition with its great force for social progress and its healing spiritual powers. My colleagues and I commend you for your bravery, salute you for your indefatigable work against poverty and injustice, and pray for your health and your continuing service as one of the outstanding men of America. — Martin Luther King's telegram to Chavez after the latter announced his fast in February 1968[147] Not long after, Kennedy announced his candidacy to be the Democratic Party's next presidential candidate. He asked Chavez to run as a delegate in the California primary.[148] Throughout May, Chavez traveled across California, urging farmworkers and registered Democrats to back Kennedy.[149] His activism was a contributing factor to Kennedy's victory in that state.[150] It was at the victory celebration in Los Angeles, an event attended by Chavez, that Kennedy was assassinated on June 5.[151] Chavez then attended Kennedy's New York funeral as a pallbearer.[152] Kennedy's assassination came two months after that of Martin Luther King, generating growing concerns among the union that Chavez would also be targeted by those who opposed him.[153] In May, Chavez appeared on the Today television show and announced a boycott of all grapes produced in California.[154] The boycotters' message was that consumers should avoid buying California grapes so that farmworkers would get better wages and working conditions.[154] Supporters across the country picketed stores selling California grapes and disrupted annual meetings of several supermarket chains.[154] Chavez hoped that by putting pressure on the supermarkets, they in turn would pressure the grape growers to give in to strikers' demands.[154] The growers hired a public relations firm to counteract the boycott, warning stores that if they gave in to the boycott they would soon be faced with similar boycotts for many other products.[155] The growers also turned to the newly elected Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who in turn sought the support of the Teamsters.[156] Chavez's back pain worsened and in September 1968 he was hospitalized at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose.[157] He followed this with a recuperation stay at St Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara.[158] He returned home, but finding it too crowded moved in to Forty Acres.[158] Due to a donation from the United Auto Workers, the union had erected an office and meeting hall here, with a trailer being used as a medical clinic; it was still far from Chavez's original vision.[159] He used his image of physical suffering as a tactic in his cause, although some of his inner circle thought his pain to be at least partially psychosomatic.[160] By 1968, Chavez was a national celebrity.[152] Journalists increasingly approached him for interviews; he granted particularly close access to Peter Matthiessen and Jacques E. Levy, both of whom wrote favorable books about him.[161] In July 1969, Chavez's portrait appeared on the front of Time magazine.[162] Within the union, personal loyalty to Chavez became increasingly important;[163] tensions between him and Itliong grew.[164] End of the Grape Strike: 1969–1970 In March 1969, the doctor Janet Travell visited Chavez and determined that fused vertebrae were the source of his back pain. She prescribed various exercises and other treatments which he found eased his pain.[165] Between September and December, Chavez traveled the country in a Winnebago speaking at dozens of fundraisers and rallies for the grape boycott.[166] At a speech in Washington D.C., he came out publicly against U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, a topic he had previously avoided speaking on, because his son Fernando had been arrested as a conscientious objector.[167] In the late 1970s, Chavez also sought to advance his control over the California Rural Legal Assistance (CRLA), a group which advocated for farmworkers. Chavez demanded that the CRLA make its staff available for union work and that it would allow the union's attorneys to decide which cases the CRLA would pursue. Under the leadership of Cruz Reynoso, a former Chavez ally, the CRLA refused.[168] Pawel believed that these attempts reflected Chavez's desire to be seen as the only voice for farmworkers.[169] Chavez negotiated with Lionel Steinberg, a grape grower in the Coachella area. They signed contracts allowing Steinberg's products to be sold with a union logo on them, indicating that they would be exempt from the boycott.[170] Other Coachella growers regarded Steinberg as a traitor for negotiating with Chavez but ultimately followed suit, resulting in contracts being signed with the union.[170] In July 1979, the Delano growers agreed to negotiate.[171] Chavez insisted that their negotiations also cover issues at the Delano High School, where several pupils, including his own daughter Eloise, had been suspended or otherwise disciplined for protesting in support of the boycott.[172] On July 29, 1970, the Delano growers signed contracts with the union at the Forty Acres Hall, in front of press.[173] These contracts agreed to wage rises for pickers, the introduction of a health plan, and new safety measures regarding the use of pesticides on the crop.[174] Later activism Salinas Lettuce Strike: 1970–1971 National Farm Workers Association buttons advertising their campaigns In July 1970, the Grower-Shipper Association representing lettuce growing companies in California's Salinas Valley renegotiated its contracts with the Teamsters, allowing the latter union to represent their employees.[175] Chavez was angry at this, traveling to Salinas to talk with the lettuce cutters, many of whom were dissatisfied with the way that the Teamsters represented them.[176] In August, thousands of cutters marched into Salinas, converging at Hartnell College where Chavez addressed them.[177] Rallying against the Teamsters, he emphasized that their union was run by white people, in contrast to the largely non-white makeup of the lettuce cutters.[178] There, the cutters voted to go on strike.[177] Over the coming days, many of them joined the UFW.[177] Chavez decided that the strike should initially target the valley's largest lettuce grower, Interharvest, which was owned by the United Fruit Company.[177] Seeking to avoid industrial action, the Teamsters set up a meeting with Chavez, where they eventually reached an agreement. The Teamsters agreed to relinquish their contracts with the Grower-Shipper Association, opening the way for the Salinas lettuce cutters to choose the UFW as their representative.[179] The Salinas lettuce growers secured a temporary restraining order preventing a strike, at which Chavez initiated another protest fast.[179] Amid a ten-day truce, he reached an agreement with Interharvest but not the other Salinas growers.[180] Thus, the strike against them began on 24 August, when cutters started picketing the lettuce fields.[181] Lettuce production slumped by three quarters and prices of lettuces doubled.[181] Various restraining orders were issued against the picketers, and when they broke them they were fined; the UFW paid many of these, as well as financially supporting the strikers in other ways.[182] This proved expensive for the union, and Chavez decided that the pickets could not be maintained. Instead he decided to switch towards a boycott of Salinas lettuce.[182] Chavez selected the Bud Antle company as the first target of the boycott campaign.[183] Bud Antle secured an injunction legally preventing a boycott against them, but Chavez continued regardless.[184] Due to this, Chavez was charged, found guilty of contempt of court, and sentenced to ten days imprisonment in the Monterey County jail.[185] During Chavez's imprisonment, supporters held a round-the-clock vigil outside the jail.[186] Among those who visited him were Martin Luther King's widow Coretta Scott King,[187] and Robert Kennedy's widow, Ethel Kennedy. She took part in a rally which included a Roman Catholic mass; it was opposed by a group of local counter-protesters who opposed the concentration of leftist activism in their community.[188] These events attracted national media attention.[189] Soon after, the California Supreme Court voted to dissolve key aspects of Bud Antle's injunction and ordered Chavez's release.[190] Chavez wanted a more remote base for his movement than Forty Acres, especially one where he could experiment with his ideas about communal living.[191] To this end, the Hollywood movie producer Edward Lewis, a wealthy supporter of Chavez's, fronted the purchase of an old tuberculosis sanatorium in Keene, along the foothills of the Tehachapi Mountains, for the union.[192] Chavez named this new base Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz ("Our Lady Queen of Peace"), although it became commonly known just as "La Paz".[193] Renovating the existing buildings,[194] he invited various families to come and live there.[195] In creating this commune, he drew on Gandhi's experiments with ashrams in India;[195] he envisioned it as a retreat center where workers could come for three day retreats modeled on the Roman Catholic cursillo.[194] La Paz became the union's new headquarters, something that various backers and funders were critical of due to its remote location;[196] Chavez said that this was necessary for his security, particularly following allegations of a plot against his life.[197] At night, the perimeter of the commune was patrolled by armed guards.[198] The organization at La Paz was often chaotic, with frustrated detractors in the movement referring to it as "Magic Mountain".[199] Amid his growing frustrations with Chavez's leadership, Itliong resigned in October 1971.[200] Expanding beyond California: 1972 The Santa Rita Hall was used as a meeting place for a local Chicano group; Chavez undertook his Arizona fast there. Arizona became the first state to pass a bill that was designed to keep the UFW out of their state; this would criminalize boycotts and make union elections among farm-workers almost impossible.[201] In response, Chavez drove to Arizona and demanded a meeting with Governor Jack Williams, who refused.[202] They subsequently launched a campaign to gain a recall election to remove Williams from office.[203] This started the UFW's first major farm-worker campaign outside California.[204] Farmworkers rallied outside Williams' office while Chavez embarked on a fast in the Santa Rita Center, a hall used by a local Chicano group.[205][206] On the nineteenth day of his fast, Chavez was hospitalized.[207] He then broke the fast at a memorial mass on the anniversary of Robert Kennedy's death, where he was joined by the folk singer Joan Baez.[208] It was during the Arizona campaign that the UFW started using the slogan "Si Se Puede" ("It Can be Done"), which subsequently became closely associated with it.[209] Chavez increasingly pushed for the UFW to become a national organization, with a token presence being established in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Texas, and Florida.[210] Parts of the union expressed concern that it was now overstretching its resources.[210] Chavez also pushed for the California Migrant Ministry, which supported the UFW, to transform into a National Farm Worker Ministry (NFWM), insisting that the UFW should have the power to veto decisions made by the NFWM.[211] At the AFL-CIO's request, Chavez had suspended the Salinas lettuce boycott, but prepared to relaunch it eight months later as the growers had only conceded to one of their demands.[212] Tensions grew between the UFW and AFL-CIO, with the latter's president George Meany concerned that if the UFW broke the law by extending its boycott to cover supermarket chains then the AFL-CIO could be held liable.[213] As a result, Chavez formally requested a charter so that the UFW could become an independently chartered union separate from the AFL-CIO; he was loath to do so as it meant losing the AFL-CIO's subsidy.[213] While Chavez had been focusing on Salinas, his brother Richard had been tasked with overseeing the UFW's activities in Delano. In early 1972, Richard visited Chavez and confronted him about the problems in Delano, telling him that the union was losing support among farmworkers and that they were in danger of losing the contracts when they came up for renewal.[214] In Richard's opinion, Chavez was losing touch with the union's membership.[214] There was anger that members were expected to pay monthly dues to the union when their work was usually seasonal;[215] there was also frustration at the union's $1-a-week voluntary fund to support the Salinas strikers.[214] Part of the membership thought that Chavez's new isolation at La Paz was leading him to take decisions unpopular with the farmworkers.[214] There were concerns about the inept and inexperienced volunteers, mostly English-speaking European-Americans, who were running the UFW's hiring halls;[216] growers were complaining that these volunteers were often hostile and uncooperative.[217] Union branches had been ordering members to miss work to engage in political rallies and Salinas picket lines, further angering growers.[218] Chavez responded to these criticisms by reassigning his brother away from Delano.[219] In late 1972, Richard and Huerta, his partner at the time, briefly left the UFW in frustration with Chavez's leadership.[220] Other senior members continued to warn Chavez about the same issues that Richard did, but Chavez dismissed their concerns as grower propaganda.[219] Chavez photographed in 1972 California growers then organized a ballot on Proposition 22 for November 1972 which would ban boycott campaigns in the state.[213] Chavez tasked LeRoy Chatfield with running the campaign against it; at the ballot, Proposition 22 lost by 58 percent to 42 percent.[221] In April 1973, the UFW's contact with grape growers in the Delano area expired.[222] At this, Chavez called a strike in the Coachella Valley.[223] The Teamsters union saw this as an opportunity to replace the UFW in representing the region's farmworkers.[224] The Teamsters organized counter-protests; their picketers were often armed and violent clashes between members of the two unions broke out.[225] The UFW used these instances of Teamster violence to rally public support for their cause.[226] The AFL-CIO was concerned by this clash between unions, and Meany struck a deal with Chavez that they would provide the UFW with renewed financial support if it pushed for state legislation to govern the rights of farmworkers to organize. Chavez agreed; although he did not want such a law, he thought that Governor Reagan would never agree to it anyway.[227] The AFL-CIO gave the UFW $1.6 million, allowing the latter to pay Salinas picketers $75 and later $90 a week.[228] Amid the Delano strike, one of the UFW strikers, the Yemeni migrant Nagi Moshin Daifullah, died after an altercation with a police officer breaking up a bar-room fight. The UFW portrayed Daifullah as a martyr for the cause and over 5000 people marched at his funeral, with Chavez fasting for three days.[229] Chavez then called off the Denalo strike, stating that he would do so until the federal government guaranteed the safety of UFW protesters; the government believed that this was a cover to conceal the financial problems that the strike was causing the UFW.[230] By this point, the UFW had lost much of its membership, and most of its California contracts, to the Teamsters.[231] Many farmworkers found that while the Teamsters appeared less interested in workers' rights, they did not expect their employees to spend their weekends on political campaigns and boycotts as the UFW did.[214] Immigration and legislative campaigns: 1973–1975 Chavez speaking at a 1974 UFW rally in Delano, California In September 1973, the UFW's first constitutional convention was held in Fresno, representing the final step in the organization becoming a full union.[232] A new constitution was announced that gave the group's president, a post occupied by Chavez, significant powers; he feared that greater democracy would paralyze the group.[233] At the convention, the UFW agreed to scrap monthly membership fees in favor or charging members 2 percent of their annual income.[234] It also announced that volunteers who had worked for the UFW for more than six months could become members with voting rights. Previously, membership had been restricted primarily to farmworkers.[234] The new executive committee, which included Huerta and Richard Chavez, was racially mixed, although some members expressed dissatisfaction that it did not contain more Mexican Americans.[235] By 1974, the UFW was again broke and its boycott was floundering.[236] That year, The New York Times Magazine opened with a headline: "Is Chavez Beaten?".[237] Chavez flew to Europe to urge the unions there to block the imported goods that the UFW were sending there. He traveled through London, Oslo, Stockholm, Geneva, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Brussels, and Paris, although he found that the unions were cautious about joining his campaign.[238] In Rome, he met with Pope Paul VI, who commended his activism.[239] Chavez increasingly blamed the failure of the UFW strike on illegal immigrants who were brought in as strikebreakers.[240] He made the unsubstantiated claim that the CIA was involved in part of a conspiracy to bring illegal migrants into the country so that they could undermine his union.[241] He launched the "Illegals Campaign" to identify illegal migrants so that they could be deported, appointing Liza Hirsch to oversee the campaign.[240][242] In Chavez's view, "if we can get the illegals out of California, we will win the strike overnight."[243] This was a reiteration of an early view he expressed concerning the problems the UFW boycott faced in 1972; Chavez believed that illegal labor could undermine any strike undertaken by agricultural workers could be undermined by "wetbacks" and "illegal immigrants".[244] Huerta urged him not to refer to migrants who had come to the U.S. illegally as "illegals" but Chavez refused, stating: "a spade's a spade."[243] Some UFW field offices refused to collaborate with the campaign,[243] and the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) refused to allow its interns to work on it, at which Chavez cut the UFW's links with the NLG.[243] Chavez pulled up to my Laurel Canyon house in an old car with a German shepherd dog named Huelga—Spanish for strike. We talked for several hours about whether the proposed state law or any labor law could actually help farm workers. Chavez repeatedly said that his boycott was a much better organizing tool because the law would always be corrupted by the powerful economic interests that control politics. I argued with him and said that a law would be his best protection. He finally agreed but remained skeptical. — Jerry Brown on his relationship with Chavez[245] While Chavez had been in Europe, his cousin Manuel Chavez had established a UFW patrol, or "wet line", along Arizona's border with Mexico to stop illegal migrants crossing into the United States.[246] There were rumors that this patrol was employing violence against these migrants, beating and robbing them and in one case castrating a man. These allegations soon appeared in the local press.[247] A Mexican investigation determined that the UFW had bribed San Luis city officials to prevent them from interfering in these activities along the border.[248] A Mexican union, the Confederation of Mexican Workers, broke its links with the UFW over the issue.[249] Chavez dismissed the reports of violence as the smears of paid provocateurs,[240] a claim which many of his supporters accepted.[250] Chavez protected Manuel,[251] while the executive board kept silent on his activities, regarding him as useful.[252] The Chicano activist Bert Corona staged a protest against the UFW wet line, at which Chavez directed Jerry Cohen to launch an investigation into the funding of Corona's group.[243] In 1974, Chavez proposed the idea of a Poor People's Union with which he could reach out to poor white communities in the San Joaquin Valley who were largely hostile to the UFW.[253] Meanwhile, the UFW announced that it would launch a boycott of the Gallo Wine company.[254] In February 1975, the UFW organized a four-day march from San Francisco to the Gallo headquarters in Modesto, where a crowd of around 10,000 protesters amassed.[255] The Modesto march had been a means of trying to rekindle the successes of the late 1960s and a public display of strength despite the setbacks that the UFW had experienced.[256] In November 1974, the Democratic Party's candidate, the modern liberal Jerry Brown, was elected governor of California.[257] At this point, farm-worker's rights took center stage in the state's political agenda.[258] Chavez met with Brown and together they developed a strategy: Brown would introduce a bill to improve farmworkers' rights, at which the UFW would support a more radical alternative. Brown would then negotiate a law with other stakeholders that included all the UFW's bottom lines.[259] The purpose of this law would be to guarantee farmworkers the right to a secret ballot in which they could decide which union, if any, should represent them in their negotiations with their employer.[260] Brown signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) into law in June 1975.[261] This was widely seen as a UFW victory, as California now had the most favorable labor bill in the country.[262] Chavez nevertheless worried that it would kill the movement's spirit, stating that the cause would now lose "the essential fight of recognition, which is the one that appeals to the human mind and the heart", instead focusing on more prosaic issues such as wages and benefits.[262] Proposition 14: 1976–1977 Chavez placing Jerry Brown's name for nomination during the roll call vote at the 1976 Democratic National Convention The ALRA law created a state agency, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), to oversee union elections among farmworkers.[263] Brown appointed a five-person board to lead the ALRB which was sympathetic to Chavez; it included the former UFW official LeRoy Chatfield.[263] As the UFW prepared for the elections in the fields, Chavez organized a "1000 mile march" from the San Diego border up the coast in July 1975.[264] During the march, he stopped to attend the second UFW convention.[265] For the campaign, the UFW hired 500 organizers, many of them farmworkers.[266] The UFW won more elections than it lost, although in instances where it went head-to-head with the Teamsters, the latter beat the UFW.[267] This indicated that the UFW's greatest strengths were among vegetable and citrus growers, rather than in their original heartlands of the Delano vineyards.[268] The Teamster victories in the Delano vineyards angered Chavez, who insisted that there had not been free elections there.[269] Chavez criticised the ALRB and launched a targeted campaign against Walter Kintz, the ALRB's general counsel, demanding his resignation. He also put pressure on Governor Brown to remove Kintz.[270] UFW organizers moved to follow their electoral victories by signing contracts with the growers;[268] the UFW needed these contracts to stabilize its finances.[271] Meanwhile, to develop the UFW's administration, Chavez hired the management consultant Crosby Milne, whose ideas led to a restructuring of the union. These reforms further centralized the union's powers among the executive committee.[272] The changes involved decision-making powers being delegated from Chavez to the department heads, although Chavez—who liked to oversee everything personally—found this difficult to adhere to in practice.[273] As part of these reforms, Chavez continued to call on the union's leaders to all relocate to La Paz, which many were reluctant to do.[274] In July 1976, Chavez traveled to New York to attend the Democratic Party's National Congress, at which he gave a speech nominating Brown as the party's presidential candidate. Brown would come third in the contest, which would be won by Jimmy Carter.[275] Carter went on to win the 1976 election, initiating an administration that was keen to fund UFW projects.[276] In 1976, the ALRB ran out of its budgeted money for the year. The California legislature refused to allocate more money, so the ALRB closed shop for the year.[277] Seeking to get the farmworkers' rights introduced by ALRA enshrined in California's constitution, in early 1976 UFW activists put forward the idea of Proposition 14, which would go forward to the electorate later that year.[278] Chavez thought that Proposition 14 had little chance of being passed by the electorate and was concerned that devoting its resources to the campaign would be financially costly for the UFW. [279] Brown also warned them not to, arguing that it would backfire on farmworkers by polarizing communities.[278] Despite these concerns, Fred Ross urged the union to take on the issue,[279] and after much debate, the UFW's executive board voted to involve itself in the 'vote yes' campaign on Proposition 14.[278] Growers responded with a well-funded multi-media campaign that emphasized the claim that the measure would give unions the right to trespass on private property.[280] When it went to the electorate in November 1976, Proposition 14 was defeated by a measure of two-to-one.[281] Although this defeat had little serious impact on the UFW, Chavez took it as a very public rejection of him personally.[282] Chavez blamed the defeat on the UFW's national boycott director, Nick Jones, who had been the only staff member to publicly voice disquiet over the Proposition 14 campaign. He claimed that Jones and the New York boycott director, Charlie March, had been part of a far-left conspiracy to undermine the UFW.[283] Under pressure, in November 1976, Jones resigned; in a letter to the executive board he stated that he was "deeply concerned" about the direction in which Chavez was taking the union.[284] Chavez also fired Joe Smith, the editor of El Macriado, after accusing him of deliberately undermining the newspaper.[285] He then ordered Ross and Ganz to interrogate everyone who worked on the campaign, ostensibly to decide on new assignments but also to route out alleged malcontents, agitators, and spies.[284] Many of those involved in running the UFW's boycott expressed concerns about a McCarthyite-style atmosphere developing within the union,[286] and Chavez's purge attracted press attention.[287] As the criticisms of his leadership intensified, Chavez responded with further purges, inspired by those in China's Cultural Revolution.[288] He became convinced that there was a far-left conspiracy, whose members he called the "assholes" or "them", who were trying to undermine the UFW.[289] At a La Paz meeting in April 1977, later called "the Monday Night Massacre," Chavez called together a range of individuals whom he denounced as malcontents or spies. They were verbally abused by members of the executive board and ejected from the community.[290] He later accused Philip Vera Cruz, the oldest member of the executive board, of also being part of the conspiracy, and forced him out.[291] Chavez reversed many of the changes he had implemented under Milne's guidance, with executive board members being reassigned to cover geographic areas rather than having union-wide responsibilities.[292] Milne, who had been living at La Paz, soon left, with Chavez later alleging he had been part of a conspiracy against the union.[292] UFW had also entered into a negotiation with the Teamsters union, a process led by Cohen. The two unions reached an agreement by which the UFW would cease bringing litigation against the Teamsters if the latter ceased operating among farm-workers altogether. This left the UFW as the only dominant union among the farmworkers.[293] The Teamsters agreed because farmworkers were a marginal group for them; their typically low incomes also meant that farmworkers did not generate sufficient funds for the union to warrant its ongoing and costly clashes with the UFW.[294] Links with Synanon and Ferdinand Marcos: 1977 I'm going to tell you something. It's not threatening, it's just plain fucking fact. If this union doesn't turn around and become a movement, I want no part of it. I'll help and everything, but I don't want to be in charge. I want to do something else. I tell you because that's the way I feel. — Chavez arguing with the executive board to reform the UFW in 1977[295] Chavez told the executive committee that radical change was necessary in the UFW; he stated that they could be either a union or a movement, but not both. If the former, they would have to start paying wages to their staff, rather than rely on volunteers, which at that time they were not in a financial position to do.[296] He instead urged them to become a movement, which he argued meant establishing communal settlements for members, drawing on a Californian religious organization, Synanon, as an exemplar.[296] Chavez had become increasingly interested in Synanon, a drug-treatment organization that had declared itself a religion in 1975 and which operated out of a compound east of Fresno. He admired Synanon's leader Charles Dederich, and the way that the latter controlled his planned community.[297] In Chavez's opinion, Dederich was "a genius in terms of people".[298] In February 1977, Chavez took the UFW's executive board on a visit to the Synanon compound.[299] There, they took part in a therapy system based on Dederich's own process, "the Game," as part of which each "player" was singled out in turn to receive harsh, profanity-laced criticism from the rest of the community.[300] Dederich had told Chavez that "the Game" was key to reshaping the UFW,[301] and the latter decided that he wanted everyone at La Paz to play it.[295] He received tacit agreement from the executive board although some of its members privately opposed the measure.[302] The Game took place at La Paz on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, and at its height about 100 people were taking part in it each week.[303] There it was used to shape behavior and punish nonconformity.[304] Many individuals dreaded the humiliation it involved, disliked the obscenities that were part of it, and found going through it to be a traumatic experience.[305] Chavez remained enthusiastic about the Game, calling it "a good tool to fine-tune the union".[305] Many of those close to Chavez, including his wife and Richard Chavez, refused to take part.[305] The farmworkers were not informed about the Game.[306] Various long-term supporters of the UFW, including various clerical figures, visited La Paz at this time and left alarmed by how it had changed.[307] Synanon provided the UFW with $100,000 worth of cars and materials;[308] building links with Chavez's movement burnished Dederich's reputation with rich liberals who were among Synanon's core constituency.[309] Dederich suggested that Synanon and the UFW establish a joint communal farm, and although the option was explored, it did not materialize.[310] Following Dederich's advice, Chavez began grooming young people who had grown up in the movement to remain committed to him and his ideals.[311] He created a curriculum for them to follow, which included the Game.[311] Whereas Chavez had previously refused to accept government money, he now applied for over $500,000 in grants for a school and other projects.[312] Formal celebrations and group rituals became an important part of life at La Paz,[313] while Chavez also declared that on Saturday mornings all residents of La Paz should work in the vegetable and flower gardens to improve sociability.[314] A rule was passed that everyone at La Paz had to wear a UFW button at all times on penalty of a fine.[315] After attending a course in Los Angeles, Chavez began claiming that he could heal people by laying on his hands.[316] Chavez's support for the Filipino government of Ferdinand Marcos (pictured) brought strong criticism. In the field elections, the UFW was largely rebuffed by Filipino-American workers. Seeking to remedy this, in 1977 Chavez traveled 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.[317][318][319] He then spoke to a reporter from The Washington Post where he spoke positively about Marcos' introduction of martial law.[317] This generated outcry in the U.S., especially among religious groups, who argued that Chavez was overlooking the human rights abuses taking place under Marcos' administration.[320] Chavez then organized an event on Delano for five senior Filipino government officially to speak to an assembled audience.[320] The incident eroded support among religious organizations, a key constituency for Chavez and the UFW.[320] Time magazine published a story reporting on violence and child abuse at Synanon, which it termed a "kooky cult". Synanon launched a boycott of Time in response, with Chavez urging the UFW to support it, stating that they should assist their friends and help protect religious freedom.[308] Los Angeles police then raided Synanon's compound and revealed evidence that Dederich had sanctioned the use of violence against the group's critics and ex-members; several senior members were also found guilty of murdering a lawyer representing ex-Synanon members.[321] Shortly after, the Peoples Temple run by the civil rights activist Jim Jones, a group which had been closely linked with California's leftist movement, committed mass suicide at their Jonestown community.[322] A Democrat assemblyman soon issued a press release comparing the cult surrounding Chavez to the Peoples Temple.[322] The UFW stopped using the Game in response to these developments;[321] Chavez's calls for it to resume were rejected by other senior members.[323] The UFW continued to rely on voluntary labor, only paying a small number of employees, such as lawyers. When the union's lawyers, who were paid, asked for a raise, it generated a major debate among the executive committee. Chavez framed the issue along the lines of whether the UFW should start paying wages to everyone or instead continue to rely on volunteers. The executive committee split largely on generational lines, with older members backing Chavez's desire to remain a voluntary organization, and this attitude narrowly prevailed.[324] Medina, one of only two former farmworkers on the board, resigned over the issue.[325] Drake also resigned.[326] Half of the lawyers left straight away, and the others in the coming weeks as the UFW switched to a voluntary legal department; the new volunteers were largely inexperienced.[322] It was also in 1977 that the UFW declared that contributions to the union's political fund would become mandatory for members; this was then used to support political groups and candidates considered sympathetic to the UFW's interests.[327] Later life Growing schisms: 1978–1982 A photograph of Chavez taken in 1979 In June 1978, Chavez joined a picket in Yuma as part of his cousin Manuel's Arizona melon strike. This broke an injunction and Chavez was thrown into the county jail for a night.[328] By 1978, there was growing anger at the UFW among vegetable workers; they were frustrated by its incompetency, especially in the running of its medical plan.[329] In the 22 farmworker elections that took place between June and September 1978, the UFW lost two-thirds.[330] To stop the loss of its contracts and members, Chavez launched his Plan de Flote, an initiative to regain the trust of the vegetable pickers.[331] Chavez organized a new strike over wages, hoping that salary increases would stem the UFW's losses; the union made its wage demands in January 1979, days after its contracts had expired.[332] Eleven lettuce growers in the Salinas and Imperial Valleys were included in the strike,[333] which caused lettuce prices to soar.[334] During the strike, the picketers trespassed on the Mario Saikhon company fields and attempted to drive away those still working. The foreman and other employees opened fire and one picketer, Rufino Contreras, was killed.[335] Chavez urged the strikers not to resort to violence and with Contreras' father led a three-mile candlelit funerary procession, attended by 7000 people.[336] In June, Ganz and other strike organizers planned a show of strength whereby strikers rushed onto the Salinas field to cause disruption. This generated violent clashes; several people sustained stab wounds and 75 were arrested.[337] Vegetable growers accused Chavez of terrorism over the incident;[338] Chavez criticized Ganz for organizing this without his approval.[337] He then led a 12-day march from San Francisco to San Jose, beginning a fast on the sixth day.[339] Arriving in Salinas, he met with strike leaders at a UFW convention. He argued that the strike was proving too costly for the UFW—it cost the union between $300,000 and $400,000 a month—and that they should end the strike and switch to a boycott campaign. The strike leaders rejected these suggestions.[340] To end the strike, in August and September, several growers signed contracts with the UFW but many held out and the union was broke.[341] Chavez continued arguing for a boycott, suggesting that the union could use alcoholics from the cities to run the boycott campaign, an idea most of the executive board rejected.[342] Under the new contracts, the growers agreed to pay for paid workers' representatives whose job it would be to ensure a smooth relationship between the growers and the UFW. Chavez brought these paid representatives to La Paz for a five-day training session in May 1980.[343] Ganz, who was becoming increasingly distant from Chavez, helped tutor them.[344] Chavez called all staff to a meeting at La Paz in May 1981, where he again insisted that the UFW was being infiltrated by spies seeking to undermine it and overthrow him.[345] He arranged for more of his loyalists to be put on the executive board, which now had no farmworkers sitting on it.[345] At the UFW's Fresno convention in September 1981, the paid representatives nominated some of their own choices, rather than Chavez's, to go on the board.[346] Chavez's supporters responded with leaflets claiming that the paid representatives were puppets of "the two Jews", Ganz and Cohen, who were trying to undermine the union.[347] This brought allegations of antisemitism against Chavez.[348] Seeking to undermine the paid representatives, Chavez proposed a measure that if 8% of workers at a ranch signed a petition, the representatives of that ranch would be obliged to vote for Chavez's chosen candidates. The measure passed.[347] Now we come to this 1981 convention facing yet another assault on our beloved union. An assault even more menacing than the past conventions. More menacing because it is clandestinely organized by those forces whose every wish and desire is our destruction. Obstruction by those evil forces visible and invisible who work at every chance to destroy us—the growers, the teamsters, disaffected former staff, scoundrels, and God knows who, some unwittingly trying to each the same goal—that is to bury our beloved union. — Chavez at the 1981 convention[347] By October, all of those who had opposed Chavez's choices at the convention had been fired.[348] They responded by launching a fast in protest outside the UFW's Salinas office.[349] Nine of them then sued Chavez in a federal court, claiming that he had no right to fire them from positions that they had been elected to represent by their peers in the fields.[349] Chavez responded with a counter-suit, suing them for libel and slander.[350] He acknowledged to a reporter that in doing so, he was trying to intimidate the protester's lawyer, something which brought negative publicity for the UFW.[350] One of the protesters, Chava Bustamante, got work with the California Rural Legal Assistance group, at which the UFW began picketing their offices, trying to get Bustamante fired.[351] In court, Chavez denied that the paid representatives were ever elected, alleging that they were appointed by him personally, but produced no evidence to support this claim. The US District Court Judge William Ingram rejected Chavez's argument, ruling that the sacking of the paid representatives had been unlawful.[352] The UFW appealed the ruling, which dragged out for years, until the paid representatives ran out of funds to continue.[353] 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.[354] Chavez and his cousin Manuel went to Texas to try and rally opposition to the schism.[354] Manuel also went to Arizona, where he introduced a range of measures to undermine the new group.[355] This led to the investigative journalist Tom Barry looking into Manuel's activities. It was revealed that under a pseudonym he had become a melon grower in Mexico, and that he was initiating strikes among U.S. melon pickers as a means of improving the market for his own produce.[356] The UFW's reputation was further damaged after the magazine Reason exposed that the union had improperly spent nearly $1 million in federal funds. Federal and national investigations followed, confirming these allegations.[357] The government asked the UFW to return over $250,000 in funds while the Internal Revenue Service ruled that the union owed $390,000 in back social security and federal unemployment taxes.[358] In 1982, the UFW held a celebration of the twentieth anniversary of its first convention at San Jose.[359] It was in October that year that Chavez's father died, with the funeral being held in San Jose.[360] Chavez was also involving himself in a broader range of leftist events. He co-chaired Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda's fund-raising dinner for their Campaign for Economic Democracy.[359] In the summer of 1982 he also appeared at Peace Sunday, an anti-nuclear event.[359] The UFW had established itself as one of the largest political donors in California.[327] Its political donations were often concealed from the public, funneled through intermediary committees.[361] It donated thousands of dollars to Howard Berman's campaign to unseat Leo McCarthy as the Speaker of the California State Assembly because of McCarthy's role in defeating Proposition 14. Many Democrats feared that Berman would be beholden to Chavez and so backed Willie Brown, who won.[362] The UFW subsequently also donated to Willie Brown.[363] The Chicano Lobby and commercial activities: 1983–1989 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.[364] In 1982, the dues that membership brought in were $2.9 million although this had fallen to $1 million three years later.[365] By the early 1980s, there was a burgeoning Latino middle-class in the U.S. Although Chavez hated the aspirational approach that had encouraged working-class Latinos to become middle-class, he recognized that this offered the UFW a wider support base.[366] At the 1983 UFW convention, he announced the formation of a new non-profit organization, the Chicano Lobby.[366] At the Lobby's launch, addresses were given by the San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros and the newly elected president of the Mexican American Political Association, Chavez's eldest son Fernando.[367] To cope with its declining membership, the UFW sought to build its political influence.[368] In November 1984, Chavez gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California.[369] The UFW launched a print shop, with politicians who were eager to court the Latino vote increasingly used.[368] Chavez launched a boycott of grapes and Red Coach Lettuce because their parent company, Bruce Church, had refused to sign a contract with the UFW.[370] Chavez launched a boycott of Lucky, a California supermarket chain. His strategy was to convince the supermarket that the UFW could damage its patronage among Latinos.[371] Chavez had observed that the Christian Right was beginning to use new computer technologies to reach potential supporters and decided that the UFW should do the same.[372] Through this, they were better able to target specific groups whom they regarded as sympathetic to their cause: Hispanics, middle-class African Americans, and liberal professionals living in the major cities.[373] As part of its boycott, the UFW also bought television commercials, which it used to help raise money.[374] From the mid-1980s, Chavez increasingly focused the UFW's campaigns on opposing the use of pesticides in the fields, which he argued posed a danger both to farmworkers and to consumers.[375] The UFW raised over $100,000, as well as donated equipment, to launch its own pesticide research lab, but this never opened.[376] In his anti-pesticide campaigns he gained support from Ralph Nader.[377] Chavez linked this approach in with the ongoing boycott of Bruce Church, arguing that if consumers boycotted the company's products, the growers would stop using pesticides.[378] The UFW claimed that the high rates of childhood cancer in McFarland represented evidence of how pesticides impacted humans; they used footage of some of these children in a 17-minute video, The Wrath of Grapes. Many of the parents were angered and several sued the UFW, claiming that the union was exploiting their children for its own agenda.[379] UFW activists also turned up at the funereal procession of a 14-year old who had died from cancer, where they carried union flags; the child's furious mother demanded that they leave.[380] In 1982, Jerry Brown ceased to be governor of California.[381] He was replaced by the Republican George Deukmejian, who had the backing of the state's growers; under Deukmejian, the ALRB's influence eroded.[382] In 1987, the UFW was found liable for $1.7 million in damaged to the Maggio company for the illegal actions that the union carried out against it during their 1979 strike.[381] As the UFW's boycott of Bruce Church products failed to gain traction, in July 1988 Chavez launched another public fast at Forty Acres.[383] Three of Robert Kennedy's children visited, generating media attention for the fast.[384] After 19 days, Chavez broke the fast at a ceremony attended by the Democratic politician Jesse Jackson.[384] The fast was followed by further purges at La Paz as Chavez accused more people of being saboteurs.[385] Hartmire was among those pushed out, resigning in January 1989.[386] Some of those at La Paz left before Chavez could target them, and the commune became increasingly depopulated.[387] Chavez meanwhile continued to receive awards and honors.[387] In November 1989, the Mexican government awarded him the Order of the Aztec Eagle, during which he had a private audience with Mexican President Carlos Salinas.[388] In October 1990, Coachella became the first district to name a school after Chavez; he attended the dedication ceremony.[388] With membership dues declining, the UFW increasingly turned to commercial activities as a means of raising funds.[365] It began marketing UFW branded merchandise through Ell Taller Grafico Speciality Advertising (ETG), which had Chavez as its chair.[389] Chavez also set himself up as a housing developer, working in partnership with the Fresno businessman Celestino Aguilar. Together they bought properties undergoing foreclosure, renovated them, before selling them on.[390] They ultimately moved from foreclosures to high-end custom built houses and subsidized apartment blocks.[390] To conceal the UFW's involvement in these projects, Chavez and Aguilar formed the company American Liberty Investments.[390] They also established the Ideal Minimart Corporation, which built two strip malls and operated a check-cashing store.[390] Richard's company, Bonita Construction, was hired for some of the work.[390] The Fresno Bee subsequently reported that most of the UFW's housing projects had been built by non-union contractors.[390] The trade unions representing the building unions expressed outrage at the news, highlighting that they had previously given financial support to the UFW.[391] The New Yorker later termed the incident an "embarrassment".[392] Final years: 1990–1993 The grave of César Chávez is located in the garden of the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, California. In the early 1990s, the UFW continued to market Chavez as a heroic figure, especially on university and college campuses.[393] In 1990, he appeared at 64 events, earning an average of $3,800 for each appearance.[393] In 1991, he launched a "Public Action Speaking Tour" of U.S. colleges and universities.[394] His standard speech at these events covered the problems facing farmworkers, the dangers of pesticides, the alliance of agribusiness and the Republican Party, and his view that boycotts and marches were a better means of achieving change than electoral politics.[395] Chavez's mother died in December 1991, aged 99.[396] The following year, in September 1992, Chavez's mentor Ross died. Chavez gave the eulogy at his funeral.[397] Chavez's final years saw the UFW's involvement in a legal battle with Bruce Church. The company had sued the union, claiming it libeled them and had illegally threatened supermarkets to stop them selling Red Coach lettuce.[398] In 1988, a jury returned a $5.4 million verdict against the UFW, but this verdict was thrown out in the appeals court.[399] The case was then remanded for trial on narrower grounds.[399] Chavez was called to testify in front of a Yuma court in 1993.[400] The stakes were high; a verdict against the UFW would have financially crippled it.[401] During the case, Chavez stayed at the home of a San Luis supporter. It was there that he died in bed on 23 April.[402] He was aged 66.[403] Chavez's body was flown to Bakersfield aboard a chartered plane.[403] The autopsy proved inconclusive, with the family stating that he had died of natural causes.[404] Chavez had already stipulated that he wanted his brother Richard to build his coffin,[405] and that his funeral should take place at Forty Acres.[404] There, his body lay in state, where tens of thousands of people visited it.[405] A funeral procession took place in Delano, with 120 pallbearers taking turns to carry the coffin.[406] Chavez was then buried in a private ceremony at La Paz.[407] Personal life The union's survival, its very existence, sent out a signal to all Hispanics that we were fighting for our dignity. That we were challenging and overcoming injustice, that we were empowering the least educated among us, the poorest among us. The message was clear. If it could happen in the fields, it could happen anywhere: in the cities, in the courts, in the city councils, in the state legislatures. I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but the coming of our union signalled the start of great changes among Hispanics that are now only beginning to be seen. — Cesar Chavez, 1984[408] When Chavez returned home from his service in the military in 1948, he married his high school sweetheart, Helen Fabela. The couple moved to San Jose, California.[24] With his wife, he had eight children: Fernando (b.1949), Sylvia (b.1950), Linda (b.1951), Eloise (b.1952), Anna (b.1953), Paul (b.1957), Elizabeth (b.1958), and Anthony (b.1958).[409] Helen avoided the limelight, a trait which Chavez admired.[410] While he led the union, she focused on raising the children, cooking, and housekeeping.[411] During the latter part of the 1970s, his infidelity with a range of women became common knowledge among senior UFW figures, who kept this knowledge quiet so as not to damage his reputation as a devoted Roman Catholic family man.[412] After Helen read a love letter written to Chavez by another woman, she temporarily left La Paz and lived with one of her daughters in Delano.[413] Chavez's children resented the union and displayed little interest in it,[240] although most ended up working for it.[414] Of these children, Chavez's eldest son, Fernando, was the only one to graduate college;[414] Chavez's relationship with Fernando was strained, for he was frustrated at what he saw as his son's interest in becoming middle-class.[415] Chavez expressed traditional views on gender roles and was little influenced by the second wave feminism that was contemporary with his activism.[410] In his movement, men took almost all the senior roles, with women largely being confined to background roles as secretaries, nurses, or in child-care; the main exception was Huerta.[410] Chavez had a close working relationship with Huerta. They became mutually dependent, and although she did not hesitate to raise complaints with him, she also usually deferred to him.[416] During their working relationship, they often argued,[220] something which intensified in the latter part of the 1970s.[417] Huerta stated that she was Chavez's "whipping girl" when he was under pressure.[337] He never had close friendships outside of his family, believing that friendships distracted from his political activism.[418] Physically, Chavez was short,[44] and had jet black hair.[419] He was quiet,[70] and Bruns described him as being "outwardly shy and unimposing".[420] Like many farm laborers, he experienced severe back pain throughout his life.[421] He could be self-conscious about his lack of formal education and was uncomfortable interacting with affluent people.[70] When speaking with reporters, he sometimes mythologized his own life story.[422] Chavez was not a great orator; according to Pawel, "his power lay not in words, but in actions".[423] She noted that he was "not an articulate speaker",[44] and similarly, Bruns observed that he "had no special talent as a public speaker".[424] He was soft-spoken,[425] and according to Pawel had an "informal, conversational style",[426] and was "good at reading people".[44] He was unwilling to delegate or trust others.[427] He preferred to tackle every task personally.[428] He was also capable of responding quickly and decisively to events.[429] Chavez visiting Colegio Cesar Chavez Bruns described Chavez as combining a "remarkable tenacity with a sense of serenity".[430] A tireless worker, he was known for often working 18 hours a day;[431] he used to start his working day at 3.30am and would often continue working until 10pm.[428] He stated that "I just sleep and eat and work. I do nothing else."[286] Pawel stated that as a leader, Chavez was both "charming, attentive, and humble" as well as being "single-minded, demanding, and ruthless".[432] When he wanted to criticize one of his volunteers or staff members he usually did so in private but on occasion could berate them in a public confrontation.[79] He described his own life's work as a crusade against injustice,[423] and displayed a commitment to self-sacrifice.[433] Pawel thought that "Chavez thrived on the power to help people and the way that made him feel".[44] Ross, who was a friend and colleague of Chavez's for many years, noted that "He would do in thirty minutes what it would take me or somebody else thirty days".[118] Pawel noted that Chavez was "openly ruthless" in his "drive to be the one and only farm labor leader".[434] He was stubborn and would rarely back down once he had taken a stance.[435] He would not accept criticism of himself, but would deflect it.[436] Chavez was a Roman Catholic whose faith strongly influenced both his social activism and his personal outlook.[437] He rarely missed mass and liked to open all of his meetings with either a mass or a prayer.[438] Privately, he also liked to meditate.[439] In 1970, he became a vegetarian,[440] stating that "I wouldn't eat my dog, you know. Cows and dogs are about the same."[250] As part of this diet he also shunned most dairy products except cottage cheese.[250] He credited this diet with easing his chronic back pain.[250] He also avoided eating processed foods.[250] Among his favorite foods were traditional Mexican and Chinese cuisines.[441] Chavez had a love of the music of Duke Ellington and Big Band music;[25] he enjoyed dancing.[442] He was also an amateur photographer,[442] and a keen gardener, making his own compost and growing vegetables.[443] For much of his adult life he kept German shepherd dogs for personal protection;[444] two of those he kept at La Paz were named Boycott and Huelga.[445] Chavez preserved many of his notes, letters, the minutes of meetings, as well as tape recordings of many interviewers, and at the encouragement of Philip P. Mason donated these to the Walter P. Reuther Library, where they are kept.[446] He disliked telephone conversations, suspecting that his phone line was bugged.[447] He tended to see problems faced by his movement not as evidence of innocent mistakes but as deliberate sabotage.[284] Chavez was self-educated, with Pawel noting that he was "disinclined to analyze information".[448] Once Chavez accepted an idea, he could dedicate himself to it wholeheartedly.[448] Political views The men and women who have suffered and endured much and not only because of our abject poverty but because we have been kept poor. The color of our skins, the languages of our cultural and native origins, the lack of formal education, the exclusion from the democratic process, the numbers of our slain in recent wars — all these burdens generation after generation have sought to demoralize us, to break our human spirit. But God knows we are not beasts of burden, we are not agricultural implements or rented slaves, we are men. And mark this well[..] we are men locked in a death struggle against man's inhumanity to man in the industry you represent. And this struggle itself gives meaning to our life and ennobles our dying. — Cesar Chavez's open letter to the grape industry amid the Grape Strike[245] Chavez described his movement as promoting "a Christian radical philosophy".[137] According to Chavez biographer Roger Bruns, he "focused the movement on the ethnic identity of Mexican Americans" and on a "quest for justice rooted in Catholic social teaching".[449] Chavez saw his fight for farmworkers' rights as a symbol for the broader cultural and ethnic struggle for Mexican Americans in the United States.[441] Chavez utilized a range of tactics drawing on Roman Catholic religion, including vigils, public prayers, a shrine on the back of his station waggon, and references to dead farmworkers as "martyrs".[450] His point in doing so was not necessarily to proselytize, but to use the socio-political potential of Christianity for his own campaigns.[450] Most of the farmworkers his union represented shared his Roman Catholicism and were happy to incorporate its religious practices into their marches, strikes, and other UFW activities. [451] Chavez called on his fellow Roman Catholics to be more consistent in standing up for the religion's values.[450] He stated that "in a nutshell, what do we want the Church to do? We don't ask for more cathedrals. We don't ask for bigger churches or fine gifts. We ask for its presence with us, beside us, as Christ among us. We ask the Church to sacrifice with the people for social change, for justice, and for love of brother."[450] Ospino stated that "The combination of labor organizing strategies with explicit expressions of Catholic religiosity made Chavez's approach unique" within the U.S. labor movement,[452] although some of his associates, non-Catholics, and other parts of the labor movement were critical of his use of Catholic elements.[450] Chavez abhorred poverty,[453] regarding it as dehumanizing,[454] and wanted to ensure a better standard of living for the poor.[453] He was frustrated that most farmworkers appeared more interested in money and did not appreciate the values that he espoused.[417] He was concerned that, as he had seen with the CSO, individuals moving out of poverty often adopted middle-class values; he viewed the middle classes with contempt.[453] He recognized that union activity was not a long-term solution to poverty across society and suggested that forming co-operatives therefore might be the best solution.[453] In Chavez's view, workers' cooperatives offered a middle ground economic choice between the failed system of capitalism and the state socialism of Marxist-Leninist countries.[455] His son Paul recalls "My father's basic premise was that capitalism was not going to work because it was too harsh and always took advantage of those least able to defend themselves".[456] He also embraced ideals about communal living, and saw the La Paz commune he established in California as a model for others to follow.[457] Chavez kept a large portrait of Gandhi in his office,[458] alongside another of Martin Luther King and busts of both John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.[159] Influenced by the ideas of Gandhi and King, Chavez emphasized non-violent confrontation as a tactic.[459] He repeatedly referred to himself as the leader of the "non-violent Viet Cong", a reference to the Vietnamese Marxist-Leninist militia that the U.S. was combating in the Vietnam War.[222] He was interested not only in Gandhi's ideas on non-violence but also in the Indian's voluntary embrace of poverty, his use of fasting, and his ideas about community.[121] Fasting was important for Chavez.[460] He saw it not as a tactic to pressure his opponents, but rather to motivate his supporters, keeping them focused on the cause and on avoiding violence.[461] He also saw it as a sign of solidarity with the suffering of the people.[462] Chavez was also interested in Gandhi's ideas about sacrifice, noting that "I like the idea of sacrifice to do things. If they are done that way they are more lasting. If they cost more, then you will value them more."[121] Many of the UFW's protests have been interpreted as representing not only farmworkers but the Mexican-American community more broadly, making a statement that Anglo-Americans must recognize Mexican-Americans as "legitimate players in American life".[463] Chavez saw parallels in the way that African Americans were treated in the United States to the way that he and his fellow Mexican Americans were treated.[464] He absorbed many of the tactics that African American civil rights activists had employed throughout the 1960s, applying them to his own movement.[464] He was willing to take risks.[465] Chavez recognized the impact that his farm-worker campaigns had had on the Chicano Movement during the early 1970s, although he kept his distance from the latter movement and many of its leaders.[466] He condemned the violence that some figures in the Chicano Movement espoused.[466] On organization and leadership Chavez placed the success of the movement above all else;[252] Pawel described him as "the ultimate pragmatist".[163] He felt that he had to be both the leader and the organizer-in-chief of his movement because only he had the necessary commitment to the cause.[467] He was interested in power and how to use it; although his role model in this was Gandhi, he also studied the ideas about power by Niccolò Machiavelli, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong, drawing ideas from each.[121] His use of purges to expel people from his movement was influenced by Mao's Cultural Revolution,[288] and he opened a June 1978 board meeting by reciting a poem by Mao.[328] Chavez repeatedly referred to himself as a community organizer rather than as a labor leader and underscored that distinction.[99] He wanted his organization to represent not just a union but a larger social movement.[468] He was ambivalent about the national labor movement.[99] He personally disliked many of the prominent figures within the American labor movement but, as a pragmatist, recognized the value of working with organized labor groups.[128] He opposed the idea of paying wages to those who worked for the union, believing that it would destroy the spirit of the movement.[469] He rarely fired people from their positions, but instead made their working situation uncomfortable so that they would resign.[470] Chavez's leadership style was authoritarian;[471] he stated that when he launched his movement, he initially had "total, absolute power" over it.[472] Bruns characterized the UFW under Chavez as an "autocratic regime".[468] Ex-members of the group, such as Bustamante and Padilla described Chavez as a dictator within the union.[473] Chavez felt unable to share the responsibilities of running his movement with others.[474] In 1968, Fred Hirsch noted that "one thing which characterizes Cesar's leadership is that he takes full responsibility for as much of the operation as he is physically capable of. All decisions are made by him."[475] Itliong noted that "Cesar is afraid that if he shares the authority with the people[…] they might run away from him."[475] Pawel noted that Chavez wanted "yes-men" around him.[476] He divided members of movements such as his into three groups: those that achieved what they set out to do, those that worked hard but failed what they set out to do, and those that were lazy. He thought that the latter needed to be expelled from the movement.[477] He highly valued individuals who were loyal, efficient, and took the initiative.[478] Explaining his attitudes toward activism, he told his volunteers that "nice guys throughout the ages have done very little for humanity. It isn't the nice guy who gets things done. It's the hardheaded guy."[477] He admitted that he could be "a real bastard" when dealing with movement members;[479] Chavez told UFW volunteers that "I'm a son of a bitch to work with".[286] He would play different people against each other to get what he wanted, particularly to break apart allies who might form an independent power bloc that would threaten his domination of the movement.[480] Reception and legacy [Chavez's] dream was to found a labor union of farmworkers. He had no money, no political connections, and no experience. He was not a particularly dynamic personality and had no special talent as a public speaker. The dream, he knew, was almost fanciful. Nevertheless, through determination, grit, and a dogged will to win, he forged a movement that successfully challenged powerful entrenched economic and political interests and helped thousands of Mexican Americans to new cultural self-awareness. — Roger Bruns, 2005[424] In the popular imagination, Chavez and the movement he led became largely synonymous,[481] although throughout his career, Chavez prompted strong reactions from others.[431] Since his death, there has been a struggle to define his legacy.[482] During his lifetime, many of Chavez's supporters idolized him, engaging in a form of hero worship.[418] Bruns noted that many of his supporters "nearly worshipped him as a folk hero".[468] In 1982, the American country music singer Kris Kristofferson called Chavez "the only true hero we have walking on this Earth today".[359] These supporters were known as "Chavistas";[163] many of them, especially those living at the La Paz commune, emulated his vegetarian diet.[481] By the 1970s, he was increasingly referred to as a "saint" among those who supported him.[483] In response to these claims, Chavez insisted that "There is a big difference between being a saint and being an angel[…] Saints are known for being tough and stubborn."[483] In 1972, John Zerzan described Chavez as presenting himself as "a Christ-figure sacrificing all for his flock" through his fasts,[484] adding that Chavez took the form of a "messianic leader".[485] The scholar of Latino studies Lilia Soto called him and Huerta "freedom fighters".[486] He received a range of awards and accolades, which he claimed to hate.[483] For these supporters, his visions for the future were regarded as inspirational.[483] Bruns noted that he had "a mesmerizing effect on the lives of thousands. They saw in him nobility, sacrifice, and the grit of the underdog who refuses to give up."[487] Throughout his career as an activist, he received strong ecumenical support.[78] The UFW gained the support of mainline Protestant groups in a way that previous farmworker movements never had.[488] Chavez was despised by many growers.[489] John Giumarra Jr, of the Giumarra company, called Chavez a "New Left guerrilla", someone who wanted to topple "the established structure of American democracy".[446] The FBI monitored him and many other senior figures in his movement, concerned that they were subversive.[490] Having monitored him for over a decade, the FBI's dossier on Chavez grew to over 1,500 pages in length.[491] They ultimately found no evidence suggesting he had communist leanings.[492] During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he received a series of death threats,[493] and—according to Bruns—he often faced "spiteful mobs and scurrilous race-bating".[494] Within Chavez's movement itself, there was concern and criticism of his methods. It the early 1970s, for instance, Chavez-supporter George Higgins wrote a private memo arguing that Chavez "appealed very crassly" to feelings of guilt among many "Protestant social actionists" and threatened them "with the enmity of the poor" if they failed to meet with Chavez's demands.[466] Many ex-members of the UFW took the view that Chavez had been a poor administrator.[495] Other labor unions had long been wary of Chavez's movement, with the UFW gaining a reputation for always wanting money but doing little to assist others.[496] In the U.S. union movement, many skeptics believed that Chavez's idealism detracted from his effectiveness as a union leader.[483] Paul Hall of the Seafarers International Union of North America met him in Washington DC during the 1970s, at which he criticized Chavez for acting like a saint rather than a union leader, stating that he had become "a fad - the poor man others can support to expiate their sins".[481] Some Mexican-Americans were critical of Chavez, believing him an agitator and trouble-maker who was insufficiently patriotic in his views of the United States.[431] Some critics believed that Chavez's activism was mobilized largely by the desire for personal gain and ambition.[497] A campaigner for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign holding up a "Sí se puede" plaque. The slogan was first developed by Chavez's UFW in the early 1970s. Bruns noted that Chavez's movement was "part of the fervor of change [in the United States] of the late 1960s", alongside the civil rights movement and the campaign against the Vietnam War.[498] The historian Ronald A. Wells described Chavez as "one of the most important Christian activists in our time,"[482] while the theologian Hosffman Ospino called him "one of the most influential social leaders in the history of the United States".[499] Pawel referred to Chavez as "an improbable idol in an era of telegenic leaders and charismatic speakers".[423] The historian Nelson Lichtenstein commented that Chavez's UFW oversaw "the largest and most effective boycott [in the United States] since the colonists threw tea into Boston Harbor".[500] Lichtenstein also stated that Chavez had become "an iconic, foundational figure in the political, cultural, and moral history" of the Latino American community.[501] Many Latinos drew inspiration from his movement.[502] He has been described as a "folk saint" of the Mexican-American community.[503] A poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times in 1983 found that Chavez was the Latino that the Latinos of California most admired.[502] The scholar Steven Lloyd-Moffett argued that after Chavez's death, the "liberal intelligentsia and Chicano activists" came to dominate attempts to define his legacy and that they downplayed his firm commitment to Christianity so as to portray him as being motivated by "a secular ideology of justice and non-violence".[504] When the Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama was campaigning for the presidency in 2008, he used Sí se puede—translated into English as "Yes we can"—as one of his main campaign slogans.[505] When Obama was seeking re-election in 2012, he visited Chavez's grave and placed a rose upon it, also declaring his Union Headquarters to be a national monument.[505] Chavez's work has continued to exert influence on later activists. For instance, in his 2012 article in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Kevin J. O'Brien argued that Chavez could be "a vital resource for contemporary Christian ecological ethics".[506] O'Brien argued that it was both Chavez's focus on "the moral centrality of human dignity" as well as his emphasis on sacrifice that could be of use by Christians wanting to engage in environmentalist activism.[507] The theologian Carlos R. Piar similarly stated that Hispanic people should look to Chavez as an exemplar for "a way of being Christian in the United States".[508] Orders, decorations, monuments, and honors Main article: List of places named after Cesar Chavez Chavez received a range of awards, both during his lifetime and posthumously. In 1973, he received the Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged,[509] and in 1992 the Pacem in Terris Award, a Catholic award meant to honor "achievements in peace and justice".[510] In August 1994, Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest honor for non-military personnel, by Democratic President Bill Clinton. Chavez's widow collected it from the White House.[511] Clinton stated that Chavez had been a "remarkable man" and that "he was for his own people a Moses figure".[511] In 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted Chavez into the California Hall of Fame.[512] Asteroid 6982 Cesarchavez, discovered by Eleanor Helin at Palomar Observatory in 1993, was named in his memory;[513] the official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on August 27, 2019 (M.P.C. 115893).[514] In March 2013, Google celebrated his 86th birthday with a Google Doodle.[515] The Reuther-Chavez Award was created in 2002 by Americans for Democratic Action "to recognize important activist, scholarly and journalistic contributions on behalf of workers' rights, especially the right to unionize and bargain collectively".[516] Colegio Cesar Chavez, named after Chavez while he was still alive, was a four-year "college without walls" in Mount Angel, Oregon, intended for the education of Mexican-Americans, that ran from 1973 to 1983.[517] On May 18, 2011, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced that the Navy would be naming the last of 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships after Cesar Chavez.[518] The USNS Cesar Chavez was launched on May 5, 2012.[519] The National Chavez Center, Keene, California In 2004, the National Chavez Center was opened on the UFW national headquarters campus in Keene by the César E. Chávez Foundation. It currently consists of a visitor center, memorial garden and his grave site. When it is fully completed, the 187-acre (0.76 km2) site will include a museum and conference center to explore and share Chavez's work.[520] On September 14, 2011, the U.S. Department of the Interior added the 187 acres (76 ha) Nuestra Senora Reina de La Paz ranch to the National Register of Historic Places.[521] On October 8, 2012, President Barack Obama designated the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument within the National Park system.[522] California State University San Marcos's Chavez Plaza includes a statue to Chavez. In 2007, The University of Texas at Austin unveiled its own Cesar Chavez statue[523] on campus. The Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 authorized the National Park Service to conduct a special resource study of sites that are significant to the life of Cesar Chavez and the farm labor movement in the western United States. The study evaluated the significance and suitability of sites significant to Cesar Chavez and the farm labor movement, and the feasibility and appropriateness of a National Park Service role in the management of any of these sites.[524] Cesar Chavez's birthday, March 31, is a holiday in California,[525] Denver (Colorado),[526] and Texas.[527] It is intended to promote community service in honor of Chavez's life and work. Many, but not all, state government offices, community colleges, and libraries are closed. Many public schools in the three states are also closed. Chavez Day is an optional holiday in Arizona. Although it is not a federal holiday, President Barack Obama proclaimed March 31 "Cesar Chavez Day" in the United States, with Americans being urged to "observe this day with appropriate service, community, and educational programs to honor César Chávez's enduring legacy".[528] The heavily Hispanic city of Laredo, Texas, observes "Cesar Chavez Month" during March. Organized by the local League of United Latin American Citizens, a citizens' march is held in downtown Laredo on the last Saturday morning of March to commemorate Chavez. Among those attending are local politicians and students.[529] In the Mission District, San Francisco a "Cesar Chavez Holiday Parade" is held on the second weekend of April, in honor of Cesar Chavez. The parade includes traditional Native American dances, union visibility, local music groups, and stalls selling Latino products.[530] Chavez was referenced by Stevie Wonder in the song "Black Man" from the 1976 album Songs in the Key of Life.[531] The 2014 American film César Chávez, starring Michael Peña as Chavez, covered Chavez's life in the 1960s and early 1970s.[532] That same year, a documentary film, titled Cesar's Last Fast, was released. He received belated full military honors from the US Navy at his graveside on April 23, 2015, the 22nd anniversary of his death.[533] In 2015, statues of Chavez and Huerta were erected above a pizzeria in Downtown Napa, financed by a wealthy private citizen, Michael Holcomb, rather than the city authorities.[534] There is a portrait of Chavez in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.[535] In 2003, the United States Postal Service honored Chavez with a postage stamp.[536] A three-dimensional mural by artist Johanna Poethig, Tiene la lumbre por dentro (He Has the Fire Within Him) (2000) at Sonoma State University, honors Chavez and the Farm Workers Movement.[537][538] The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) nominated him three times for the Nobel Peace Prize.[539] At the start of the presidency of Joe Biden, a bust of Chavez was placed on a table directly behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.[540] The story of Cesar Estrada Chavez begins near Yuma, Arizona. Cesar was born on March 31, 1927. He was named after his grandfather, Cesario. Regrettably, the story of Cesar Estrada Chavez also ends near Yuma, Arizona. He passed away on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, a small village near Yuma, Arizona. He learned about justice or rather injustice early in his life. Cesar grew up in Arizona; the small adobe home, where Cesar was born was swindled from them by dishonest Anglos. Cesar's father agreed to clear eighty acres of land and in exchange he would receive the deed to forty acres of land that adjoined the home. The agreement was broken and the land sold to a man named Justus Jackson. Cesar's dad went to a lawyer who advised him to borrow money and buy the land. Later when Cesar's father could not pay the interest on the loan the lawyer bought back the land and sold it to the original owner. Cesar learned a lesson about injustice that he would never forget. Later, he would say, The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature. In 1938 he and his family moved to California. He lived in La Colonia Barrio in Oxnard for a short period, returning to Arizona several months later. They returned to California in June 1939 and this time settled in San Jose. They lived in the barrio called Sal Si Puedes -"Get Out If You Can." Cesar thought the only way to get out of the circle of poverty was to work his way up and send the kids to college. He and his family worked in the fields of California from Brawley to Oxnard, Atascadero, Gonzales, King City, Salinas, McFarland, Delano, Wasco, Selma, Kingsburg, and Mendota. He did not like school as a child, probably because he spoke only Spanish at home. The teachers were mostly Anglo and only spoke English. Spanish was forbidden in school. He remembers being punished with a ruler to his knuckles for violating the rule. He also remembers that some schools were segregated and he felt that in the integrated schools he was like a monkey in a cage. He remembers having to listen to a lot of racist remarks. He remembers seeing signs that read whites only. He and his brother, Richard, attended thirty-seven schools. He felt that education had nothing to do with his farm worker/migrant way of life. In 1942 he graduated from the eighth grade. Because his father, Librado, had been in an accident and because he did not want his mother, Juana, to work in the fields, he could not to go to high school, and instead became a migrant farm worker. While his childhood school education was not the best, later in life, education was his passion. The walls of his office in La Paz (United Farm Worker Headquarters ) are lined with hundreds of books ranging from philosophy, economics, cooperatives, and unions, to biographies on Gandhi and the Kennedys'. He believed that, "The end of all education should surely be service to others," a belief that he practiced until his untimely death. He joined the U.S. Navy, which was then segregated, in 1946, at the age of 19, and served for two years. In 1948 Cesar married Helen Fabela. They honeymooned in California by visiting all the California Missions from Sonoma to San Diego (again the influence of education). They settled in Delano and started their family. First Fernando, then Sylvia, then Linda, and five more children were to follow. Cesar returned to San Jose where he met and was influenced by Father Donald McDonnell. They talked about farm workers and strikes. Cesar began reading about St. Francis and Gandhi and nonviolence. After Father McDonnell came another very influential person, Fred Ross. Cesar became an organizer for Ross' organization, the Community Service Organization - CSO. His first task was voter registration. THE UNITED FARM WORKERS IS BORN In 1962 Cesar founded the National Farm Workers Association, later to become the United Farm Workers - the UFW. He was joined by Dolores Huerta and the union was born. That same year Richard Chavez designed the UFW Eagle and Cesar chose the black and red colors. Cesar told the story of the birth of the eagle. He asked Richard to design the flag, but Richard could not make an eagle that he liked. Finally he sketched one on a piece of brown wrapping paper. He then squared off the wing edges so that the eagle would be easier for union members to draw on the handmade red flags that would give courage to the farm workers with their own powerful symbol. Cesar made reference to the flag by stating, "A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride . . . When people see it they know it means dignity." For a long time in 1962, there were very few union dues paying members. By 1970 the UFW got grape growers to accept union contracts and had effectively organized most of that industry, at one point in time claiming 50,000 dues paying members. The reason was Cesar Chavez's tireless leadership and nonviolent tactics that included the Delano grape strike, his fasts that focused national attention on farm workers problems, and the 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966. The farm workers and supporters carried banners with the black eagle with HUELGA (strike) and VIVA LA CAUSA (Long live our cause). The marchers wanted the state government to pass laws which would permit farm workers to organize into a union and allow collective bargaining agreements. Cesar made people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. He succeeded through nonviolent tactics (boycotts, pickets, and strikes). Cesar Chavez and the union sought recognition of the importance and dignity of all farm workers. It was the beginning of La Causa a cause that was supported by organized labor, religious groups, minorities, and students. Cesar Chavez had the foresight to train his union workers and then to send many of them into the cities where they were to use the boycott and picket as their weapon. Cesar was willing to sacrifice his own life so that the union would continue and that violence was not used. Cesar fasted many times. In 1968 Cesar went on a water only, 25 day fast. He repeated the fast in 1972 for 24 days, and again in 1988, this time for 36 days. What motivated him to do this? He said, Farm workers everywhere are angry and worried that we cannot win without violence. We have proved it before through persistence, hard work, faith and willingness to sacrifice. We can win and keep our own self-respect and build a great union that will secure the spirit of all people if we do it through a rededication and recommitment to the struggle for justice through nonviolence. THE FAST Many events precipitated the fast, especially the terrible suffering of the farm workers and their children, the crushing of farm worker rights, the dangers of pesticides, and the denial of fair and free elections. Cesar said about the fast, " A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is alsoan act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more. The fast is finally a declaration of non-cooperation with supermarkets who promote and sell and profit fromCalifornia table grapes. During the past few years I have been studying the plague of pesticides on our land and our food," Cesar continued "The evil is far greater than even I had thought it to be, it threatens to choke out the life of our people and also the life system that supports us all. This solution to this deadly crisis will not be found in the arrogance of the powerful, but in solidarity with the weak and helpless. I pray to God that this fast will be a preparation for a multitude of simple deeds for justice. Carried out by men and women whose hearts are focused on the suffering of the poor and who yearn, with us, for a better world. Together, all things are possible." Cesar Chavez completed his 36-day Fast for Life on August 21, 1988. The Reverend Jesse Jackson took up where Cesar left off, fasting on water for three days before passing on the fast to celebrities and leaders. The fast was passed to Martin Sheen, actor; the Reverend J. Lowery, President SCLC; Edward Olmos, actor; Emilio Estevez, actor; Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy, Peter Chacon, legislator, Julie Carmen, actress; Danny Glover, actor; Carly Simon, singer; and Whoopi Goldberg, actress. THE DEATH OF CESAR CHAVEZ Cesar Estrada Chavez died peacefully in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona, a short distance from the small family farm in the Gila River Valley where he was born more than 66 years before. The founder and president of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO was in Yuma helping UFW attorneys defend the union against a lawsuit brought by Bruce Church Inc., a giant Salinas, Calif.-based lettuce and vegetable producer. Church demanded that the farm workers pay millions of dollars in damages resulting from a UFW boycott of its lettuce during the 1980's. Rather than bring the legal action in a state where the boycott actually took place, such as California or New York, Church "shopped around" for a friendly court in conservative, agribusiness-dominated Arizona-where there had been no boycott activity. "Cesar gave his last ounce of strength defending the farm workers in this case," stated his successor, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, who was with him in Arizona during the trial. He died standing up for their First Amendment right to speak out for themselves. He believed in his heart that the farm workers were right in boycotting Bruce Church Inc. lettuce during the l980's and he was determined to prove that in court." (When the second multimillion dollar judgement for Church was later thrown out by an appeal's court, the company signed a UFW contract in May 1996. After the trial recessed at about 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, Cesar spent part of the afternoon driving through Latino neighborhoods in Yuma that he knew as a child. Many Chavezes still live in the area. He arrived about 6 p.m. in San Luis, Arizona-about 20 miles from Yuma, at the modest concrete-block home of Dofla Maria Hau, a former farm worker and longtime friend. Cesar and eight other UFW leaders and staff were staying at her house in a poor farm worker neighborhood not far from the Mexican border. Cesar ate dinner at around 9 p.m. and presided over a brief meeting to review the day's events. He had just finished two days of often grueling examination by attorneys for Bruce Church Inc. He talked to his colleagues about taking care of themselves-a recent recurring theme with Cesar because he was well aware of the long hours required from him and other union officers and staff. Still, he was in good spirits despite being exhausted after prolonged questioning on the witness stand; he complained about feeling some weakness when doing his evening exercises. The UFW founder went to bed at about 10 or 10:30 p.m. A union staff member said he later saw a reading light shining from Cesar's room. The light was still on at 6 a.m. the next morning. That was not seen as unusual. Cesar usually woke up in the early hours of the morning well before dawn to read, write or meditate. When he had not come out by 9 a.m., his colleagues entered his bedroom found that Cesar had died apparently, according to authorities, at night in his sleep. He was found lying on his back with his head turned to the left. His shoes were off and he still wore his clothes from the day before. In his right hand was a book on Native American crafts. There was a peaceful smile on his face. THE LAST MARCH WITH CESAR CHAVEZ On April 29, 1993, Cesar Estrada Chavez was honored in death by those he led in life. More than 50,000 mourners came to honor the charismatic labor leader at the site of his first public fast in 1968 and his last in 1988, the United Farm Workers Delano Field Office at "Forty Acres." It was the largest funeral of any labor leader in the history of the U.S. They came in caravans from Florida to California to pay respect to a man whose strength was in his simplicity. Farm workers, family members, friends and union staff took turns standing vigil over the plain pine coffin which held the body of Cesar Chavez. Among the honor guard were many celebrities who had supported Chavez throughout his years of struggle to better the lot of farmworkers throughout America. Many of the mourners had marched side by side with Chavez during his tumultuous years in the vineyards and farms of America. For the last time, they came to march by the side of the man who had taught them to stand up for their rights, through nonviolent protest and collective bargaining. Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who celebrated the funeral mass, called Chavez "a special prophet for the worlds' farm workers." Pall bearers, including crews of these workers, Chavez children and grandchildren, then carried their fallen leader, resting at last, from the Memorial Park to Forty Acres. The death of Chavez marked an era of dramatic changes in American agriculture. His contributions would be eroded, and others would have to shoulder the burden of his work. But, Cesar Chavez, who insisted that those who labor in the earth were entitled to share fairly in the rewards of their toil, would never be forgotten. As Luis Valdez said, "Cesar, we have come to plant your heart like a seed . . . the farm workers shall harvest in the seed of your memory." FINAL RESTING PLACE/FINAL RECOGNITION The body of Cesar Chavez was taken to La Paz, the UFW's California headquarters, by his family and UFW leadership. He was laid to rest near a bed of roses, in front of his office. On August 8, 1994, at a White House ceremony, Helen Chavez, Cesar's widow, accepted the Medal of Freedom for her late husband from President Clinton. In the citation accompanying America's highest civilian honor which was awarded posthumously, the President lauded Chavez for having "faced formidable, often violent opposition with dignity and nonviolence. And he was victorious. Cesar Chavez left our world better than he found it, and his legacy inspires us still. He was for his own people a Moses figure," the President declared. "The farm workers who labored in the fields and yearned for respect and self-sufficiency pinned their hopes on this remarkable man who, with faith and discipline, soft spoken humility and amazing inner strength, led a very courageous life" The citation accompanying the award noted how Chavez was a farm worker from childhood who "possessed a deep personal understanding of the plight of migrant workers, and he labored all his years to lift their lives." During his lifetime, Chavez never earned more than $5,000 a year. The late Senator Robert Kennedy called him "one of the heroic figures of our time." Chavez's successor, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, thanked the president on behalf of the United Farm Workers and said, "Every day in California and in other states where farm workers are organizing, Cesar Chavez lives in their hearts. Cesar lives wherever Americans' he inspired work nonviolently for social change."   1927, March 31 -- Césario Estrada Chávez is born on the small farm near Yuma, Ariz. that his grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s. 1937 -- After César's father, Librado, is forced from his farm, the Chávez family becomes migrant workers first working in Oxnard, California. 1942 -- César quits school after the eighth grade and works in the fields full time to help support his family. 1944 -- He joins the U.S. Navy during World War II and serves in the western Pacific. Just before shipping out to the Pacific, César is arrested in a segregated Delano, Calif. movie theater for sitting in the "whites only"section. 1948 -- César marries Helen Fabela. They eventually have eight children. Late 1940s -- He begins studying the social teachings of the Catholic Church. 1952 -- Community organizer Fred Ross discovers the young farm worker laboring in apricot orchards outside San Jose, Calif., and recruits him into the Community Service Organization (CSO). 1952-1962 -- Together with Fred Ross, César organizers 22 CSO chapters across California in the 1950s. Under César's leadership, CSO becomes the most militant and effective Latino civil rights group of its day. It helps Latinos become citizens, registers them to vote, battles police brutality and presses for paved streets and other barrio improvements. 1962, March 31 -- On his birthday, César resigns from CSO, moves his wife and eight small children to Delano and dedicates himself full-time to organizing farm workers. 1962, Sept. 30 -- The first convention of César's National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) is convened in Fresno, Calif. 1962-1965 - -Often baby-sitting his youngest children as he drives to dozens of farm worker towns, César painstakingly builds up the membership of his infant union. 1965, Sept. 16 - -On Mexican Independence Day, César's NFWA, with 1,200-member families, votes to join a strike against Delano-area grape growers already begun that month by the mostly Filipino American members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (AWOC). Thus begins the five-year Delano Grape Strike. March-April 1966 -- César and a band of strikers embark upon a 340-mile Peregrinacion (or Pilgrimage) from Delano to the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento to draw national attention to the suffering of farm workers. During the march and after a four-month boycott, Schenley Vineyards negotiates an agreement with NFWA--the first genuine union contract between a grower and farm workers' union in U.S. history. Spring-summer 1966 -- A boycott of the struck DiGiorgio Fruit Corp. forces the giant grape grower to agree to an election among its workers. The company brings in the Teamsters Union to oppose César's NFWA. The NFWA and the Filipino American AWOC merge to form the United Farm Workers and the union affiliates with the AFL-CIO, the national labor federation. DiGiorgio workers vote for the UFW. 1967 -- The UFW strikes the Giumarra Vineyards Corp., California's largest table grape grower. In response to a UFW boycott, other grape growers allow Giumarra to use their labels. So the UFW begins a boycott of all California table grapes. Meanwhile, strikes continue against grape growers in the state. 1967-1970 -- Hundreds of grape strikers fan out across North America to organize an international grape boycott. Millions of Americans rally to La Causa, the farm workers' cause. February-March 1968 -- César fasts for 25 days to rededicate his movement to nonviolence. U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy joins 8,000 farm workers and supporters at a mass where César breaks his fast, calling the weakened farm labor leader "one of the heroic figures of our time." Spring-summer 1970 -- As the boycott continues picking up steam, most California table grape growers sign UFW contracts. Summer 1970 -- To keep the UFW out of California lettuce and vegetable fields, most Salinas Valley growers signed contracts with the Teamsters Union. Some 10,000 Central Coast farm workers respond by walking out on strike. César calls for a nationwide boycott of lettuce. 1970, Dec. 10-24 -- César is jailed in Salinas, Calif. for refusing to obey a court order to stop the boycott against Bud Antle lettuce. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visit César in jail. 1971 -- The UFW moves from Delano to its new headquarters at La Paz in Keene, Calif., southeast of Bakersfield. With table and wine grape contracts, and some agreements covering vegetable workers, UFW membership grows to around 80,000. 1972 -- The UFW is chartered as an independent affiliate by the AFL-CIO; it becomes the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW). 1972, May 11-June 4 -- César fasts for 25 days in Phoenix over a just-passed Arizona law banning the right of farm workers to strike or boycott. Spring-summer 1973 -- When the UFW's three-year table grape contracts came up for renewal, the growers instead signed contracts with the Teamsters without an election or any representation procedure. That sparks a bitter three-month strike by grape workers in California's Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. Thousands of strikers are arrested for violating anti-picketing injunctions, hundreds are beaten, dozens are shot and two are murdered. In response to the violence, César calls off the strike and begins a second grape boycott. 1973-1975 -- According to a nationwide 1975 Louis Harris poll, 17 million Americans are boycotting grapes. Many are also boycotting lettuce and Gallo wine after winery workers strike the mammoth Modesto, Calif.-based producer. June 1975 -- After Jerry Brown becomes governor, the boycott convinces growers to agree to a state law guaranteeing California farm workers the right to organize and bargain with their employers. César gets the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act through the state Legislature. September 1975-January 1976 -- Hundreds of elections are held. The UFW wins the majority of the elections in which it participates. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB), which enforces the law, briefly shuts down after running out of money and pro-grower lawmakers refuse to approve an emergency appropriation. Mid-to-late 1970s -- The UFW continues winning elections and signing contracts with growers. In 1977, the Teamsters Union signs a "jurisdictional" agreement with the UFW and agrees to leave the fields. In 1978, the UFW calls off its boycotts of grapes, lettuce and Gallo wine. January-October 1979 - -In a bid to win decent wages and benefits, the UFW strikes several major lettuce and vegetable growers up and down the state. Rufino Contreras, 27-year old striker, is shot to death in an Imperial Valley lettuce field by grower foremen. September 1979 -- After a strike and boycott, the UFW wins its demands for a significant pay raise and other contract improvements from Sun Harvest, the nation's largest lettuce producer. Other growers also soon settle. Early 1980s -- With election victories and contract negotiations, the number of farm workers protected by UFW contracts grows to about 45,000. 1982 -- Republican George Deukmejian is elected California governor with $1 million in grower campaign contributions. 1983-1990 -- Deukmejian begins shutting down enforcement of the state's historic farm labor law. Thousands of farm workers lose their UFW contracts. Many are fired and blacklisted. Fresno-area dairy worker Rene Lopez, 19, is shot to death by grower agents after voting in a 1983 union election. César declares a third grape boycott in 1984. 1986 -- César kicks off the "Wrath of Grapes" campaign to draw public attention to the pesticide poisoning of grape workers and their children. July-August 1988 -- At age 61, Chávez conducts his last--and longest--public fast for 36 days in Delano to call attention to farm workers and their children stricken by pesticides. Late 1980s-early 1990s -- After recovering from his fast, César continues pressing the grape boycott and aiding farm workers who wish to organize. Spring-Summer 1992 -- Working with UFW First Vice President Arturo Rodriguez, César leads vineyard walkouts in the Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. As a result, grape workers win their first industry-wide pay hike in eight years. 1993, April 23 -- César Chávez dies peacefully in his sleep at the modest home of a retired San Luis, Ariz. farm worker while defending the UFW against a multi-million dollar lawsuit brought against the union by a large vegetable grower. 1993, April 29 -- 40,000 mourners march behind César's plain pine casket during funeral services in Delano. May 1993 -- Veteran UFW organizer Arturo Rodriguez succeeds César as union president. March-April 1994 -- On the first anniversary of César's passing, Arturo Rodriguez leads a 343-mile march retracing César's historic 1966 trek from Delano to Sacramento. Some 17,000 farm workers and supporters gather on the state Capitol steps to help kick off a new UFW field organizing and contract negotiating campaign. 1994, August 8 -- President Bill Clinton posthumously presents the Medal of Freedom--America's highest civilian honor--to César Chávez. His widow, Helen, receives the medal during a White House ceremony. 1994-2000 -- Since the new UFW organizing drive began in 1994, farm workers vote for the UFW in 18 straight union elections and the UFW signs 24 new--or first-time--agreements with growers. UFW membership rises from around 20,000 in 1993 to more than 27,000. The César Chávez-founded union organizes and bargains on behalf of major rose, mushroom, strawberry, wine grape and lettuce and vegetable workers in California, Florida and Washington state. 2003 -- The U.S. Postal Service issues a commemorative stamp with César Chávez's image. La Cronología de César Chávez (Spanish) 1927, 31 de marzo -- Césareo Estrada Chávez nace en la granja pequeña cerca de Yuma, Ariz.,que habia heredado su abuelo en la década de 1880 a 1890. 1937 -- Después de que Librado, el padre de César, es forzado a abandonar su granja, los Chávez se hacen campesinos migratorios trabajando primero en Oxnard, California. 1942 -- César deja de ir a la escuela después del octavo grado y trabaja tiempo completo en los campos para ayudar a mantener a su familia. 1944 -- César ingresa en las Fuerzas Navales Estadounidenses durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial y sirve en el Pácifico occidental.  Antes de ser enviado al Pácifico, César es arrestado en un cine segregado de Delano, Calif. por sentarse en la sección de "Whites Only" (solamente para los blancos). 1948 -- César se casa con Helen Fabela.  Llegan a tener ocho hijos. Ultimos años de los 1940 -- Empieza a estudiar las enseñanzas sociales de la Iglesia Católica. 1952 -- El organizador de comunidad, Fred Ross, descubre al joven campesino laborando en la huerta de albaricoque fuera de San José, Calif., y lo recluta en la Organización de Servicio de Comunidad (CSO). 1952-1962 -- Junto con Fred Ross, César organiza 22 capítulos de CSO por todo California en los años cincuenta.  Bajo el liderazgo de César, el CSO se convierte en el grupo más militante y eficaz de ese tiempo para los derechos civiles de Latinos. Ayuda a los Latinos hacerse ciudadanos, registrarse para votar, la brutalidad policíaca y luchar para las calles pavimentadas y otras mejoras del barrio. 1962-31 de marzo -- En su cupleaños, César renuncia a el CSO, se lleva a su esposa y sus ocho hijos pequeños a Delano y se dedica completamente a organizar a los campesinos. 1962, 30 de septiembre -- La primera convención de la Asociación de Campesinos Nacional (NFWA) de César se emplaza en Fresno, Calif. 1962-1965 -- A menudo, cuida a sus hijos menores, mientras conduce a docenas de pueblos campesinos, César con mucho esfuerzo aumenta la membrecía de su unión infantil. 1965, 16 de septiembre -- En el Día de la Independencia Mexicana, el NFWA de César, con las familias de 1,200-miembros, vota para unirse en una huelga contra los cultivadores de uva en el área de Delano ya empezada ese mes por los miembros filipinoamericanos del Comité de Organización de Obreros Agrícolas, AFL-CIO (AWOC). Así empieza la Huelga de Uva quinquenal de Delano. Marzo-abril 1966 -- César y un grupo de huelgistas embarcan en una peregrinación de 340 millas desde Delano hasta los escalones del Capitolio de Sacramento para atraer la atención nacional al sufrimiento de los campesinos.  Durante la marcha y después de un boicot de cuatro meses, las viñas Schenley negocian un acuerdo con el NFWA-el primer contrato genuino de unión en la historia estadounidense entre un cultivador y una unión de campesinos. Primavera-verano 1966 -- Un boicot de DiGiorgio Fruit Corp., ya en huelga, obliga al gigante cultivador de uva a aceptar una elección entre sus obreros.  La compañía trae a la unión de los Teamsters para oponerse al NFWA de César.  El NFWA y el AWOC filipinoamericano se unen para formar Los Campesinos Unidos (UFW) y la unión empieza la afiliación con el AFL-CIO, la federación nacional obrera.  Obreros de DiGiorgio votan por el UFW. 1967 -- El UFW declara una huelga contra las viñedos de Giumarra, el mayor cultivador en California de uva de mesa.  En la contestación a un boicot del UFW, otros cultivadores de uva permiten a Giumarra usar sus etiquetas.  Así que el UFW empieza un boicot de todas las uvas de mesa en California.  Entretanto, las huelgas continúan contra los cultivadores de uva en el estado. 1967-1970 -- Cientos de huelgistas de uva se despliegan por todo Norte América para organizar un boicot de uva internacional.  Millones de americanos se reunen por "La Causa", la de los campesinos. Febrero-marzo 1968 -- César ayuna durante 25 días para rededicar su movimiento a nonviolencia.  El senador Americano, Robert F. Kennedy, June con 8,000 campesinos y partidarios en una misa dónde César termina su ayuno, llamando al débil líder de los campesinos "una de las figuras heroicas de nuestro tiempo." Primavera-verano 1970 -- Mientras el boicot continúa acrecentando, más cultivadores de uvas de California firman los contratos de UFW. Verano 1970 -- Para impedir la entrada del UFW a los campos de lechuga y verduras, la mayoría de los cultivadores del valle de Salinas firman los contratos con la unión de los Teamsters.  Unos 10,000 campesinos de la costa central responden declarandóse en huelga.  César exige un boicot nacional de lechuga. 1970, 10-24 de diciembre -- César es encarcelado en Salinas, Calif. por negarse a obedecer una orden judicial para terminar el boicot contra la lechuga de Bud Antle.  Coretta Scott King, la viuda de Dr. Martin Luther King, y Ethel Kennedy, la viuda de Robert Kennedy, visitan a César en la cárcel. 1971 -- El UFW se traslada de Delano a su nueva matriz en La Paz en Keene, Calif., en el sudeste de Bakersfield.  Con contratos de uvas y de vino, y algunos otros acuerdos que cubren a los campesinos de verdura, la membrecía de UFW crece alrededor de 80,000. 1972 -- El UFW se fleta como un afiliado independiente por el AFL-CIO; se convierte en Los Campesinos Unidos de América, AFL-CIO (UFW). 1972 11 de mayo a 4 de junio -- César ayuna durante 25 días en Phoenix sobre una ley recientemente pasada en Arizona que prohibe a los campesinos el derecho de ponerse en huelga o boicotear. Primavera - verano 1973 -- Cuando los contratos de tres-años de uvas de mesa del UFW surgen para renovarse los cultivadores, en cambio, firman los contratos con los Teamsters sin una elección o sin cualquier procedimiento de la representación.  Eso enciende una huelga amarga de tres meses por obreros de uva en los valles de Coachella y San Joaquín en California.  Se arrestan miles de huelguistas por violar las órdenes del anti-estar de huelga, centenares son golpeados multiples son balaceados y se asesinan dos.  Como respuesta a la violencia, César cancela la huelga y empieza un segundo boicot de la uva. 1973-1975 -- Según una votación nacional Louis Harris en 1975, 17 millones de americanos boicotean las uvas.  Muchos también están boicoteando la lechuga y el vino Gallo después de que los campesinos se ponen de huelga contra el productor gigantesco basado en Modesto, Calif. Junio 1975 -- Después de que Jerry Brown se hace gobernador, el boicot convence a los cultivadores aceptar una ley estatal que garantiza a los campesinos de California el derecho de organizar y negociar con sus patrones.  César logra pasar el notable Acto de Relaciones de Obreros Agrícolas por la Legislatura estatal. Septiembre 1975-enero 1976 -- Cientos de elecciones se llevan a cabo.  El UFW gana la mayoría de las elecciones en que participa.  El consejo de Relaciones Obrera Agrícola (ALRB) que da fuerza a la ley, brevemente cierra después de correr corto de fondos y los legisladores pro-cultivador se niegan a aprobar una apropiación de emergencia. A mediados - a fines de los 70 -- El UFW continúa ganando elecciones y firmando contratos con los cultivadores.  En 1977, la unión de los Teamsters firma un acuerdo "jurisdiccional" con el UFW y está de acuerdo en dejar los campos.  En 1978, el UFW cancela sus boicotes de uvas, lechuga y el vino Gallo. Enero-octubre 1979 -- En un esfuerzo para ganar sueldos y beneficios decentes, el UFW se pone en huelga contra cultivadores mayores de lechuga y verduras arriba y abajo del estado.  Rufino Contreras, un huelgista de 27 años, es balaceado por los capataces de un campo de lechuga en el valle Imperial. Septiembre 1979 -- Después de una huelga y boicot, el UFW gana sus demandas para un aumento de sueldos significante y otras mejoras del contrato de SunHarvest, el productor más grande de lechuga de la nación.  También Otros cultivadores se ponen pronto de acuerdo. A principios de 1980 -- Con las victorias de la elección y negociaciones del contrato, el número de campesinos protegidos por los contratos de UFW crece a aproximadamente 45,000. 1982 -- El republicano George Deukmejian es elegido gobernador de California con $1 millón en contribuciones para su campaña dado por los cultivadores. 1983-1990 -- Deukmejian empieza a parar la ejecución de la ley estatal histórica de obra de granja.  Miles de campesinos pierden sus contratos de UFW.  Muchos son despedidos y son puestos en "lista negra".  René López, de 19 años de edad, obrero de lechería en el área de Fresno es balaceado por agentes de los cultivadores después de votar en una elección de la unión en 1983.  César declara un tercer boicot de la uva en 1984. 1986 -- César empieza la campaña "Ira de Uvas" para atraer la atención pública a los pesticidas que envenenan a los obreros de uva y sus niños. Julio-agosto 1988 -- A la edad de 61, Chávez dirige su último ayuno público, y el más largo, durante 36 días en Delano para llamar la atención a los campesinos y sus niños afectados por los pesticidas. A fines de 1980 -- principios de 1990 - Después de recuperar de su ayuno, César continúa presionando el boicot de uva y ayudando a los campesinos que desean organizar. Privamera-verano 1992 -- Trabajando con el primer vicepresidente Arturo Rodríguez, César dirige la huelga de los viñeros en los valles de Coachella y San Joaquín.  Como resultado, los campesinos ganan su primer aumento de sueldo en ocho años. 1993, 23 de abril -- César Chávez muere tranquilamente mientras dormía en la casa modesta de un campesino retirado en San Luis, Ariz. Mientras defendiendo al UFW contra un pleito de millones de dólares traido contra la unión por un grande cultivador de verduras. 1993, 29 de abril -- 40,000 personas en luto marchan detrás del ataúd sencillo de pino, durante los servicios del entierro en Delano. 1993 de mayo -- Veterano organizador del UFW, Arturo Rodríguez, sucede a César como presidente de la unión. Marzo-abril, 1994 -- En el primer aniversario de la muerte de César, Arturo Rodríguez lleva una marcha de 343-millas que traza el viaje histórico de 1966 de César desde Delano a Sacramento.  Unos 17,000 campesinos y partidarios se juntan en los escalones del Capitolio estatal para el lanzamiento de una nueva campaña del UFW de organización y negociación de contratos. 1994 8 de agost -- El Presidente Bill Clinton póstumamente presenta la Medalla de Libertad - el honor civil más alto en América- a César Chávez.  Su viuda, Helen, recibe la medalla durante una ceremonia en la Casa Blanca. 1994-2000 -- Desde que la nueva campaña de organización del UFW empezó en 1994, campesinos votan por el UFW en 18 elecciones de la unión consecutivamente y el UFW firma 24 nuevos o primerizos acuerdos con los cultivadores.  La membrecía de UFW sube alrededor de 20,000 en 1993 a más de 27,000.  La unión fundada por César Chávez organiza y negocía en nombre de obreros de rosas, hongos, fresas, uvas de vino, lechuga y verduras en California, Florida y el estado de Washington. 2003 -- El Correo de los Estados Unidos imprime  una estampilla conmemorativa con la imagen de César Chávez.
  • Condition: Used

PicClick Insights - Rare Letter Mexican American Labor Leader Afl-Cio Cesar Chavez Great Content PicClick Exclusive

  •  Popularity - 0 watchers, 0.0 new watchers per day, 6 days for sale on eBay. 0 sold, 1 available.
  •  Best Price -
  •  Seller - 808+ items sold. 0% negative feedback. Great seller with very good positive feedback and over 50 ratings.

People Also Loved PicClick Exclusive