Cesar ChavezLa Causa & La Huelga

http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/CesarChavez.htm

Presentation created by Robert L. MartinezPrimary Content Source: The History of US by Joy HakimImages as cited.

• California’s biggest industry is agriculture, and grapes are the biggest money crop (wine). Before La Causa, those who picked the crops got little benefit from the riches they created.

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• Cesar Chavez was a well-known leader of the Farm Workers Association.

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• “…big growers … do not care about the safety of the workers and who expose them to grave dangers when they transport them

in wheeled coffins to the field…”

http://chavez.cde.ca.gov/ModelCurriculum/Teachers/Lessons/Resources/Biographies/Biographical_Sketch_4thGrd.aspx

• “…The fields are sprayed with poisons...How long will it be before we take

seriously the importance of the workers who harvest the food we eat?”

– Cesar Chavez

http://www.congressionalgoldmedal.com/CesarChavez.htm

• Chavez knew all about harvesting food. He had been a migrant worker himself, traveling from bean fields to walnut groves to grape orchards, following the harvest of the seasons.

Cesar Chavez pictured with his sister.www.medaloffreedom.com/CesarChavezTimeline.htm

Cesar Chavez and his sister.http://chavez.cde.ca.gov/ModelCurriculum/Teachers/Lessons/Resources/Biographies/Middle_Level_Biography_ES.aspx

• That meant living in a tent, or whatever room could be found. When he was a boy, it

meant changing schools as often as he changed picking fields. It meant not

sometimes having shoes or a bathroom to use.

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• By the time Cesar graduated from eighth grade he had attended 38 different schools.

A young Cesar Chavezwww.medaloffreedom.com/CesarChavezTimeline.htm

• Fred Ross, an organizer who came to California to try to help the farm workers,

heard about the dependable and trustworthy Chavez and gave him a job

with the Community Service Organization, which helped poor people.

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• Chavez was soon helping people find housing, medical care, food, and , if they

needed legal aid, a lawyer.

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• Chavez got them to register to vote, and he made them realize the power of the vote. Then he began to think about starting a

labor union for farm workers.

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• A labor union is an organization of people, who get together to try to make life better

for themselves in the workplace.

www.medaloffreedom.com/CesarChavezTimeline.htm

• Getting agricultural workers organized isn’t easy at all. In California, farm workers

labored on thousands of farms that stretched the length of the state.

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• Chavez knew that many growers took advantage of workers. They paid them little,

they ignored unsafe conditions, they got their children to work even though that was

against the law, and sometimes they cheated them on their pay.

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• By themselves the workers had no power, but if Chavez could organize them into a union, they could demand fair wages and safe conditions.

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• It was 1962, and Cesar Chavez started going from farm to farm, talking to workers.

Three years later, his Farm Workers Association voted to strike against the

grape growers.

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• Then the growers hired other pickers. Union members marched near the grape fields with signs that said Huelga! which

means strike in Spanish.

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• The workers refused to pick grapes until they got better pay and better working

conditions.

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• Chavez convinced some of the new pickers to stop work and strike with them. Grapes began rotting because no one was picking

them.

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• The growers were furious; union members were attacked and beaten. The police

helped out the growers.

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• Cesar Chavez had been inspired by Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and his

own religious beliefs. He insisted that the farm workers fight with peaceful marches

and prayers.

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• Nonviolence, Chavez told them, took more courage than violence. He also believed it

achieved more. It appealed to the conscience of good people everywhere.

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• Chavez needed to draw attention to La Causa. He decided that a 300-mile march across much of California might just do it. Chavez’s feet became blistered and his legs swollen.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/romance/spanish/219/13eeuu/chavez.html

• He could hardly walk, but he kept going. Television cameras followed him

everywhere. Suddenly everyone knew about La Causa.

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Finally, a few growers signed contracts with the union, but most still would not do it.

Bobby Kennedy and Cesar Chavezwww.medaloffreedom.com/CesarChavez.htm

• Chavez announced a boycott. He was going to ask people across the United

States not to buy grapes grown in California.

http://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryapril.htm

• But boycotts work slowly, and some of his union members were impatient. They

wanted to use violent methods. Chavez had to do something to control them and to

make the growers pay fair wages.

http://www.tcla.gseis.ucla.edu/reportcard/features/4/chavez/castro.html

• He did what Gandhi did. He went on a fast. For 25 days he ate no food. Finally, 26

growers signed contracts with the union. Cesar Chavez started eating again.

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