Cesar Chavez: life and labor activism

Cesar Chavez is one of the most historically significant figures associated with the civil rights movement. His name incurs pride among the people he helped and the institutions he helped build and defend. (Rosales xv) Some even go as far as to compare him to Martin Luther King Jr., in his level of influence and demand for change in the way the Chicano Farm Worker was treated. Chavez was a contemporary of King and considered him to be one of his greatest influences. www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97908030" (Rosales xvi)

In the early spring of 1962, Cesar Chavez moved from San Jose to Delano, California, to begin organizing farmworkers into an effective union, a task that most other labor leaders considered impossible. California farmworkers typically had been illiterate, indigent, and migratory, and growers had easily broken all farmworkers' unions since 1903. (Hammerback and Jensen 55)

Given this environment and coming from this same history Chavez would have been dismissed by any in charge had he not been so effective a leader.

Further diminishing Chavez's chances of success, he initially lacked coworkers, personal wealth, political power, or formal education past the seventh grade. He appeared to be no match for the wealth and power of California agribusiness, yet through preparation, perseverance, public address, and perhaps prayer, the quiet and unassuming Chavez would succeed where others had failed. (Hammerback and Jensen 55)

The Latino farm worker was a quiet voice in the wilderness of the American market economy. Many migrant workers were mistreated and worked for slave like wages that rarely kept their family fed and helped them live almost exclusively in squalor. They were given little for the backbreaking work they did, while they attempted to feed clothe and educate themselves and their children. Yet, as loud a voice as the name, Cesar Chaves implies his tactics were often as quiet as the meek voices of those he attempted to help. It was with this quiet perseverance that Chavez created a legacy of change and awareness.

One influential member of the movement remembered and aptly described her amazement at how adept Cesar was at getting things done, despite his unremarkable presence and quiet demeanor.

Fred kept talking about Cesar this and Cesar that and what a great organizer Cesar Chavez was. Finally he took me up to DeCoto to see him, and you know afterward I couldn't even remember what he looked like. I was very unimpressed. Fred had talked so much about this great organizer, and I found Cesar was very shy. The first two or three years I knew him it was difficult to have a conversation with him. He didn't speak up at meetings....cso...wherever there was a chapter, the president was on the executive board.

Cesar was a staff person. The only people who had any say-so were these presidents of these chapters, so Cesar never spoke or said much. It was strange. Everyone knew that wherever he was, things happened..." (Taylor 88)

The example Dolores gave of how Chaves' tactics worked is a poignant expression of his character and his abilities to motivate people and create change with little or no conflict. Issues that had been subverted for years, at the hands of growers and officials were brought to the forefront and dealt with, rather than continuing to be pushed aside for the sake of higher yields and profits.

A cso got some money, so we were going to put Cesar to... Gilbert Lopez insisted Cesar would have to give daily reports and Lopez put a lot of strings on him.

Cesar never objected. He sat there and took all this stuff. The effect was that it made a lot of other people get up and defend what Cesar was doing... And it worked." The fact that Dolores remembered how Cesar finessed Gilbert Lopez after 20 years is also a comment on the man's impact on people. The tactic also demonstrates something of Chavez's approach to organizing _ he is frequently obtuse.

Taylor 88)

Chaves made changes to a system and gave a voice to people who had been historically ignored but were in many ways the backbone of the agricultural economy in which they worked, and he did so with the style of a gentle giant. Chavez held positions that were not synonymous with influence and still managed to have great influence through his own awareness of the problem and his ability to be non-threatening even to those who would have liked for thing to remain the same as the less they paid the workers and the less they had to provide for them the more profit was made in the industry. The growers and the industry to maintain the status quo of the deprived worker used many business tactics.

A growers...followed the policy of systematic overrecruitment of seasonal workers, especially it the harvest peak...the costs of recruitment are negligible, and a general oversupply of labor holds down wages. This gives the growers protection against crop loss and increases their flexibility in marketing. It also intensifies competition among workers, reinforcing labor discipline and holding wages down. As a result, farm workers have been kept at the bottom of the national income hierarchy... (Jenkins 74)

Chavez, a man from the barrio recognized this and went against the trend to leave the barrio as soon as he could. Instead he addressed the problem head on and moved to an equally challenged environment and quietly built his career around ensuring change.

Chavez, whose grandfather was a "pioneer" in Arizona in the 1880s, was born near Yuma in 1927. "Our family farm was started three years before Arizona became a state," Chavez once remarked. "Yet, sometimes I get crank letters.... telling me to 'go back' to Mexico!" As a result of the depression the family's land was lost in 1939 because of unpaid taxes, and the Chavezes migrated to California where they became farm workers. After years of such work and a period in the navy, Cesar Chavez joined the Community Service Organization...(Chavez 134)

Chavez demonstrated uncompromising courage under duress and his origins both held him down and helped him grow. His family was among those who were forced to live the lives of migrant farm workers through strife and was not unlike many majority families who were challenged by the depression.

Yet, despite Chavez's obvious intelligence and potential he was determined to make changes at home rather than follow the path of others out of the barrio and into success in the city.

Like any deprived group, most farm workers lack the economic margin to support a prolonged strike. The more ambitious, talented workers are always on the watch for opportunities to escape. As the barrio from which Cesar Chavez hailed was named, the popular motto was " Sal Si Puedes!" ("Get Out if You Can"). This drains the farm worker community of indigenous leaders and undermines commitment to farm work as an occupation.

Jenkins 74)

Chavez is clearly and exception of this rule. He not only came back to his roots he sacrificed much to make sure those who came after him would have better opportunities and a stronger voice. Though even today there are still many problems and the wages are still far to low for the workers Chavez worked for awareness is there and demands on growers are far greater than they were before he and his contemporaries stepped in.