César Estrada Chávez was born on March 31, 1927 on a small family farm outside of Yuma, Arizona (United States). Over the next six decades, he went from back-breaking labor in the California fields to nationwide fame, fighting for the rights of millions of farmworkers.
Although she became an icon for Mexican-Americans, she understood and lived the power to unite people of all races. Drawing inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Chávez preached nonviolence and resorted to strikes, boycotts, and fasting to achieve farmworker goals.
Today, his life is celebrated with a federal holiday in the United States to commemorate his birthday, March 31. He is so beloved in California and in the Arizona cities of Phoenix and Tucson that offices and schools close on the holiday. The union he founded, the United Farm Workers (UFW), continues his work, advocating for the regulation of heat during working hours, the right to vote and the fight against discrimination.
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Chávez, a first-generation Mexican-American, was greatly influenced by his family’s values. His father donated much of the family income to help others, while his mother vowed never to turn anyone away for food. Chávez’s grandmother, Mama Tella, also instilled in him a strong sense of the Catholic faith.
When he was 10 years old, he and his family were evicted from their Arizona home. They traveled to California, where they became part of the 250,000 immigrant workers of the state. The work was grueling and required long days in the sun for minimum wage.
As a teenager, he lived in migrant camps that often had no indoor plumbing, little electricity, and little protection from the elements. Workers often also had to pay their employers large fees for room, board and other supplies.
Like many other Mexican-American men seeking a different life, Chávez enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and served two years in World War II before joining his family in the fields. In 1948 he married Helen Fabela, with whom he had eight children.
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From 1952 to 1962, Chávez worked with the Community Service Organization (OSC), whose mission was to train Latino community leaders. In 1958, the group organized a sit-down strike in the fields of Oxnard (California), west of Los Angeles. Chávez coordinated boycotts and encouraged workers to keep careful records and file formal complaints with the government. They were two crucial years in which he learned to organize himself.
At the OSC, she also met Dolores Huerta, who became her lifelong friend and ally in her fight for workers’ rights. During the 30 years they worked together, she became a behind-the-scenes force as well as an outspoken leader and organizer. She was involved in everything from legislative action and speech writing to managing the day-to-day operations of the union. Huerta also coined the slogan most associated with Chávez and the UFW: “If possible“.
In 1962, Chávez and Huerta created the National Association of Farm Workers, now known as the United Farm Workers (UFW).
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The organization rose to national prominence in 1965 with the Delano grape strike. Thousands of workers in the farm town northwest of Bakersfield went on strike to demand a 15-cent raise per hour ($1.25 to $1.40), and a 15-cent raise earned for each case of canned grapes. ($0.10 to $0.25).
To break up the strikes, the companies tried to intimidate the protesters by spraying them with chemicals and threatening them with guns and dogs. Inspired by Gandhi and King, Chávez urged his supporters not to retaliate.
The attention paid to the strike multiplied and a national television special, The Harvest of Shame, brought to light the conditions to which the workers were subjected. Soon, journalists flocked to Delano to speak with Chávez. But an agreement would not yet be reached between the growers and the union.
In March 1966, Chávez began a march from Delano to Sacramento to rally the governor’s support. He considered her a pilgrimage, and celebrated mass every morning during the journey. The striking workers passed through more than 50 towns and cities, gathering supporters along the way. The crowd numbered in the thousands. Before reaching his destination, the head of a growers’ association called to give in to the union’s demands. It was the first union contract between growers and a farmworker union in US history.
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Despite the success of the march, many growers still refused to negotiate with the union. As frustration grew among its members, rumors of violence surfaced. In February 1968, Chávez announced that he would fast to rededicate the movement to nonviolence.
Inspired by Gandhi, Chávez saw fasting as a powerful, nonviolent way to overcome personal weakness and gain support. so during 25 days only drank water. Chávez lost 15 kilos during the fast, and doctors feared for his life, but hundreds, and then thousands, came to visit him and offer his support. Martin Luther King Jr. sent a letter of encouragement and Robert Kennedy attended the mass marking the end of the fast.
By 1969, grapes had become a symbol of the exploitation of farm workers, and Chávez was at the center of the story, even appearing on the cover of Time in July of that year. The boycotts extended so much that millions of kilos of grapes were left unpurchased. In 1970the UFW got winegrowers to accept union contracts, effectively organizing most of the industry.
The UFW made progress in the decades that followed, banning the short-handled hoe, which broke workers’ backs, and denouncing the effects of pesticides on workers’ health.
Chávez was still fighting against the use of pesticides when he died of natural causes in April 1993, at age 66, not far from where he was born, in Arizona. 50,000 people turned out for his funeral in Delano, California, and in 1994 his wife accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in his name.