Remembering César Chávez
Today, nearly a dozen states are observing the birth and legacy of César Chávez, the civil rights and labor rights leader who, along with Dolores Huerta, founded the United Farm Workers union to promote and defend the fair treatment of farm workers:
Chavez, an advocate of nonviolence, is remembered for spearheading a grape boycott in 1965 that went nationwide in 1968 and lasted until 1978, resulting in higher wages for farm workers and focusing national attention on their plight.
Born March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help support his family by joining them in the fields as a migrant farm worker, witnessing the many adversities migrant workers faced daily.
Chavez and the UFW played an instrumental role in the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, which made California the first state to give farm workers the right to seek union representation and bargain collectively within an established legal framework.
While Chávez’s messages have continued to inspire generations of Americans—former President Barack Obama’s “Yes, we can” slogan was an English-language translation of Chávez and Huerta’s “Si, se puede,” created in 1972—they are perhaps more important today than ever, in light of this anti-immigrant administration.
Undocumented immigrant farmworkers make up as much as 1.75 million of the 2.5 million farmworker population. Their hands put food on our tables, their labor keeps the economy and farming industry alive, but they remain under attack. Chávez’s march for justice and dignity has gone far but remains incomplete, and the best way for us to honor him is to keep on fighting for them, including supporting pro-immigrant legislation like the California Values Act.
All through the weekend, farm workers will also be holding marches “in 16 mostly rural communities—most of which backed Trump—across California, Texas, Washington state, Arizona and Nevada,” with the UFW noting that “these marches are more urgent than ever with the Trump anti-immigrant agenda.”