By Juan MontoyaAs a former agricultural migrant, I know what Chavez must have felt as a kid when he looked at the unending rows in the fields and felt his body ache after a day of good labor in the soil.
He was born in Sal Si Puedes, Arizona on March 31, 1927, and worked in the fields as a youngster. In 1944 he joined the Navy and was honorably discharged two years later.
From there on, he led his life organizing farmworkers with the help of Saul Alinsky's Community Services Organization. Over the course of his lifetime he helped organize the United Farmworkers Union, led boycotts against grape and lettuce farmers in California, and eventually led to the adoption of legislation guaranteeing better wages for farmworkers there.
His activism also helped to protect farmworkers in Texas, Ohio, and all over the Midwest and Southeast.
But he didn't stop there. Recognizing that pesticides in the fields ended on consumer dinner tables, he organized across the country to limit the amount of pesticides and other poisons that the agricultural industry used on fruits and vegetables.
I met Cesar Chavez when he made a stop in Saginaw, Mich., where I worked as a reporter for the Saginaw News. His stop was sponsored by the local UAW and he spoke passionately (but softly) about the dangers of pesticides on everyone, not just farmworkers.
Dressed in jeans, a flannel warm-up and a down jacket, he exuded a messianic air not lost on his listeners. You knew he wasn't going to blow you over with his rhetoric, but at the same time one felt the force and strength of the man who almost single-handedly proved those wrong who said farmworkers could not be organized.
Saginaw, a labor union town, embraced the farmworker leader warmly and the rank-and-file members, many of them resettled Mexican-Americans who had transitioned from the field to the factory floor, greeted him like a brother.
We have a day dedicated to a bunny, one to a turkey, and others to black rights leaders like Martin Luther King, and presidents dead long ago. Today we honor someone who not only embraced the same principles that King and Gandhi did to bring about positive social change to their respective countries, but that also dedicated his life to making this nation better for all of us.
Si se pudo, Cesar!
11 comments:
Marxists of a feather, flock together.
I met Cesar in 1976 at the state Democrat mid-term convention also known as the nuts and bolts" convention where work on the next terms platform was the major topic. Cesar Chavez was there speaking specifically to the banning of the short handled hoe (El Cortito). He was quite the gentleman in the face of some nasty opposition. Several of us from Brownsville were seated next to a group of Hill County farmers who were vocally opposed to what he had to say. I am no fan of Alinsky and his motives but were it not for the UAW farm workers kives would still be short lived and miserable and the American dinner table would be laden with pesticide
What's Jerry Seinfeld doing in that picture with Cesar Chavez?
Sal Si Puedes is a BARRIO in San Jose, CA.
Cesar Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona.
As a child, I remember my two aunts, an uncle and my mom talking about "El movimiento". My aunts and my uncle would tell me stories about walking to Sacramento, California in the 1960's, about sitting in a room filled with labor workers and listening to a soft spoken Cesar Chavez It was another time, a different era that today's Mexican-
American youth DO NOT identify with.
That's awesome. Much better than a photo with a celebrity.
I thought it was Seinfeld in the picture !!
Dammed Tea-bagger from 10:58 yesterday doesn't know the difference between a Marxist and a Socialist. Pendejo!
I thought it was Seinfeld in the picture !!
Mejor mamasela, dude.
It clearly says it's Montoya , read much?
El movimiento is a shadow of itself these days. Cesar was the REAL DEAL!
While La Unión Del Pueblo Entero in San Juan puts Mr. Chavez's picture out front to draw attention, they falsely claim to have thousands of members and do all of this community work. Call them up and ask them to get you some farmerworkers wiling to work for ANY amount of money! LUPE has become whores to the Catholic Church, big foundation money and government funding when they can get it! They are only helping themselves!
Behind the curtain the puppeteers are spending the cash! Puro pedo, LUPE! Cesar is rolling over in his grave.
I remember mom and dad not buying grapes for a long time during the late sixties early seventies. As a little boy didnt understand why. Just loved grapes.
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