Cesar Chavez - United States

Cesar Chavez - A National Hero

by Dick Meister

www.zmag.org, March 29, 2007

March 31 will be a special day in nine states and dozens of cities -- Cesar Chavez Day, honoring the late founder of the United Farm Workers union on the 80th anniversary of his birth. That's important, but it's way past time that a national holiday was declared in his honor.

Like Martin Luther King Jr., who's rightly honored with a national holiday, Chavez inspired millions of people to seek -- and to win -- basic human rights that had long been denied them and inspired millions of others to join the struggle.

Chavez himself was very much inspired by Dr. King. He adopted King's non-violent tactics, as he did those of another of his role models, Mohandas Gandhi.

A national Cesar Chavez Day would be a well-deserved tribute to Latinos and organized labor. But even more than that, it would be a special opportunity to remind Americans of the profound lessons Chavez' extraordinary life taught us.

He showed, above all, that the poor and oppressed can prevail against even the most powerful opponents -- if they can organize themselves and adopt non-violence as their principal tactic.

"We have our bodies and spirits and the justice of our cause as our weapons," Chavez explained.

The cause, of course, was that of the highly exploited farmworker. As a farmworker himself, Chavez carefully put together a grass-roots organization that enabled the workers to form their own union, the United Farm Workers.

Then they won the essential support of millions of outsiders who heeded the UFW's call to boycott the produce of growers who refused to grant them union contracts.

It took five years, but in 1970 the UFW finally won the first farm union contracts in history. Five years after that, the union won passage of the California law that's still the only law anywhere requiring growers to bargain with farmworkers who vote for unionization.

The struggle was extremely difficult for the impoverished farmworkers, and Chavez risked his health -- if not his life -- to provide them extreme examples of the sacrifices necessary for victory. Most notably, he engaged in lengthy, highly-publicized fasts that helped rally the public to the farmworkers' cause and that may very well have contributed to his untimely death at 66 in 1993.

Despite the UFW's successes, the vast majority of farmworkers are still mired in poverty, their pay and working and living conditions a national disgrace.

They average less than $10,000 a year and have few -- if any - fringe benefits. They suffer chronic unemployment. Job security is virtually unknown. Child labor is rampant. Most hiring and firing is done at the whim of employers, many of them wealthy corporate growers who unilaterally set pay and working conditions and otherwise act arbitrarily.

Many of the workers are desperately poor immigrants who must take whatever is offered or be replaced by other desperate workers from the endless stream of immigrants.

Although exposed to heavy doses of pesticides and other dangers that make theirs one of the country's most hazardous occupations, the workers are not covered by the job safety laws. They are fortunate to even have drinking water and field toilets on the job. And they are almost invariably forced to live in overcrowded, seriously substandard housing.

A national Cesar Chavez Day would remind us of that, too, and of the continuing necessity to take forceful legal steps and other action to finally provide a decent life for all those who do the hard, dirty and dangerous work that puts food on our tables.

The need, in short, is to carry forward what Cesar Chavez began, to do what he would want us to do.

Dick Meister, co-author of "A Long Time Coming: The Struggle to Unionize America's Farm Workers" (Macmillan). Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com.

*****

Cesar Chavez

http://www.chavezfoundation.org/

THE BEGINNING

The story of Cesar Estrada Chavez begins near Yuma, Arizona. Cesar was born on March 31, 1927. He was named after his grandfather, Cesario. Regrettably, the story of Cesar Estrada Chavez also ends near Yuma, Arizona. He passed away on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, a small village near Yuma, Arizona.

He learned about justice or rather injustice early in his life. Cesar grew up in Arizona; the small adobe home, where Cesar was born was swindled from them by dishonest Anglos. Cesar's father agreed to clear eighty acres of land and in exchange he would receive the deed to forty acres of land that adjoined the home. The agreement was broken and the land sold to a man named Justus Jackson. Cesar's dad went to a lawyer who advised him to borrow money and buy the land. Later when Cesar's father could not pay the interest on the loan the lawyer bought back the land and sold it to the original owner. Cesar learned a lesson about injustice that he would never forget. Later, he would say, The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature.

In 1938 he and his family moved to California. He lived in La Colonia Barrio in Oxnard for a short period, returning to Arizona several months later. They returned to California in June 1939 and this time settled in San Jose. They lived in the barrio called Sal Si Puedes "Get Out If You Can." Cesar thought the only way to get out of the circle of poverty was to work his way up and send the kids to college. He and his family worked in the fields of California from Brawley to Oxnard, Atascadero, Gonzales, King City, Salinas, McFarland, Delano, Wasco, Selma, Kingsburg, and Mendota.

He did not like school as a child, probably because he spoke only Spanish at home. The teachers were mostly Anglo and only spoke English. Spanish was forbidden in school. He remembers being punished with a ruler to his knuckles for violating the rule. He also remembers that some schools were segregated and he felt that in the integrated schools he was like a monkey in a cage. He remembers having to listen to a lot of racist remarks. He remembers seeing signs that read whites only. He and his brother, Richard, attended thirty seven schools. He felt that education had nothing to do with his farm worker/migrant way of life. In 1942 he graduated from the eighth grade. Because his father, Librado, had been in an accident and because he did not want his mother, Juana, to work in the fields, he could not to go to high school, and instead became a migrant farm worker.

While his childhood school education was not the best, later in life, education was his passion. The walls of his office in La Paz (United Farm Worker Headquarters ) are lined with hundreds of books ranging from philosophy, economics, cooperatives, and unions, to biographies on Gandhi and the Kennedys'. He believed that, "The end of all education should surely be service to others," a belief that he practiced until his untimely death.

In 1944 he joined the Navy at the age of seventeen. He served two years and in addition to discrimination, he experienced strict regimentation.

In 1948 Cesar married Helen Fabela. They honeymooned in California by visiting all the California Missions from Sonoma to San Diego (again the influence of education). They settled in Delano and started their family. First Fernando, then Sylvia, then Linda, and five more children were to follow.

Cesar returned to San Jose where he met and was influenced by Father Donald McDonnell. They talked about farm workers and strikes. Cesar began reading about St. Francis and Gandhi and nonviolence. After Father McDonnell came another very influential person, Fred Ross.

Cesar became an organizer for Ross' organization, the Community Service Organization CSO. His first task was voter registration.

THE UNITED FARM WORKERS IS BORN

In 1962 Cesar founded the National Farm Workers Association, later to become the United Farm Workers the UFW. He was joined by Dolores Huerta and the union was born. That same year Richard Chavez designed the UFW Eagle and Cesar chose the black and red colors. Cesar told the story of the birth of the eagle. He asked Richard to design the flag, but Richard could not make an eagle that he liked. Finally he sketched one on a piece of brown wrapping paper. He then squared off the wing edges so that the eagle would be easier for union members to draw on the handmade red flags that would give courage to the farm workers with their own powerful symbol. Cesar made reference to the flag by stating, "A symbol is an important thing. That is why we chose an Aztec eagle. It gives pride . . . When people see it they know it means dignity."

For a long time in 1962, there were very few union dues paying members. By 1970 the UFW got grape growers to accept union contracts and had effectively organized most of that industry, at one point in time claiming 50,000 dues paying members. The reason was Cesar Chavez's tireless leadership and nonviolent tactics that included the Delano grape strike, his fasts that focused national attention on farm workers problems, and the 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966. The farm workers and supporters carried banners with the black eagle with HUELGA (strike) and VIVA LA CAUSA (Long live our cause). The marchers wanted the state government to pass laws which would permit farm workers to organize into a union and allow collective bargaining agreements. Cesar made people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. He succeeded through nonviolent tactics (boycotts, pickets, and strikes). Cesar Chavez and the union sought recognition of the importance and dignity of all farm workers.

It was the beginning of La Causa a cause that was supported by organized labor, religious groups, minorities, and students. Cesar Chavez had the foresight to train his union workers and then to send many of them into the cities where they were to use the boycott and picket as their weapon.

Cesar was willing to sacrifice his own life so that the union would continue and that violence was not used. Cesar fasted many times. In 1968 Cesar went on a water only, 25 day fast. He repeated the fast in 1972 for 24 days, and again in 1988, this time for 36 days. What motivated him to do this? He said, Farm workers everywhere are angry and worried that we cannot win without violence. We have proved it before through persistence, hard work, faith and willingness to sacrifice. We can win and keep our own self?respect and build a great union that will secure the spirit of all people if we do it through a rededication and recommitment to the struggle for justice through nonviolence.

THE FAST

Many events precipitated the fast, especially the terrible suffering of the farm workers and their children, the crushing of farm worker rights, the dangers of pesticides, and the denial of fair and free elections.

Cesar said about the fast, " A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is alsoan act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more. The fast is finally a declaration of non cooperation with supermarkets who promote and sell and profit fromCalifornia table grapes. During the past few years I have been studying the plague of pesticides on our land and our food," Cesar continued "The evil is far greater than even I had thought it to be, it threatens to choke out the life of our people and also the life system that supports us all. This solution to this deadly crisis will not be found in the arrogance of the powerful, but in solidarity with the weak and helpless. I pray to God that this fast will be a preparation for a multitude of simple deeds for justice. Carried out by men and women whose hearts are focused on the suffering of the poor and who yearn, with us, for a better world. Together, all things are possible."

Cesar Chavez completed his 36-day Fast for Life on August 21, 1988. The Reverend Jesse Jackson took up where Cesar left off, fasting on water for three days before passing on the fast to celebrities and leaders. The fast was passed to Martin Sheen, actor; the Reverend J. Lowery, President SCLC; Edward Olmos, actor; Emilio Estevez, actor; Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy, Peter Chacon, legislator, Julie Carmen, actress; Danny Glover, actor; Carly Simon, singer; and Whoopi Goldberg, actress.

THE DEATH OF CESAR CHAVEZ

Cesar Estrada Chavez died peacefully in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona, a short distance from the small family farm in the Gila River Valley where he was born more than 66 years before.

The founder and president of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL CIO was in Yuma helping UFW attorneys defend the union against a lawsuit brought by Bruce Church Inc., a giant Salinas, Calif. based lettuce and vegetable producer. Church demanded that the farm workers pay millions of dollars in damages resulting from a UFW boycott of its lettuce during the 1980's. Rather than bring the legal action in a state where the boycott actually took place, such as California or New York, Church "shopped around" for a friendly court in conservative, agribusiness dominated Arizona where there had been no boycott activity.

"Cesar gave his last ounce of strength defending the farm workers in this case," stated his successor, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, who was with him in Arizona during the trial. He died standing up for their First Amendment right to speak out for themselves. He believed in his heart that the farm workers were right in boycotting Bruce Church Inc. lettuce during the l980's and he was determined to prove that in court." (When the second multimillion dollar judgement for Church was later thrown out by an appeal's court, the company signed a UFW contract in May 1996.

After the trial recessed at about 3 p.m. on Thursday, April 22, Cesar spent part of the afternoon driving through Latino neighborhoods in Yuma that he knew as a child. Many Chavezes still live in the area.

He arrived about 6 p.m. in San Luis, Arizona about 20 miles from Yuma, at the modest concrete block home of Dofla Maria Hau, a former farm worker and longtime friend. Cesar and eight other UFW leaders and staff were staying at her house in a poor farm worker neighborhood not far from the Mexican border.

Cesar ate dinner at around 9 p.m. and presided over a brief meeting to review the day's events. He had just finished two days of often grueling examination by attorneys for Bruce Church Inc.

He talked to his colleagues about taking care of themselves a recent recurring theme with Cesar because he was well aware of the long hours required from him and other union officers and staff. Still, he was in good spirits despite being exhausted after prolonged questioning on the witness stand; he complained about feeling some weakness when doing his evening exercises.

The UFW founder went to bed at about 10 or 10:30 p.m. A union staff member said he later saw a reading light shining from Cesar's room.

The light was still on at 6 a.m. the next morning. That was not seen as unusual. Cesar usually woke up in the early hours of the morning well before dawn to read, write or meditate.

When he had not come out by 9 a.m., his colleagues entered his bedroom found that Cesar had died apparently, according to authorities, at night in his sleep.

He was found lying on his back with his head turned to the left. His shoes were off and he still wore his clothes from the day before. In his right hand was a book on Native American crafts. There was a peaceful smile on his face.

THE LAST MARCH WITH CESAR CHAVEZ

On April 29, 1993, Cesar Estrada Chavez was honored in death by those he led in life. More than 50,000 mourners came to honor the charismatic labor leader at the site of his first public fast in 1968 and his last in 1988, the United Farm Workers Delano Field Office at "Forty Acres."

It was the largest funeral of any labor leader in the history of the U.S. They came in caravans from Florida to California to pay respect to a man whose strength was in his simplicity.

Farm workers, family members, friends and union staff took turns standing vigil over the plain pine coffin which held the body of Cesar Chavez. Among the honor guard were many celebrities who had supported Chavez throughout his years of struggle to better the lot of farmworkers throughout America.

Many of the mourners had marched side by side with Chavez during his tumultuous years in the vineyards and farms of America. For the last time, they came to march by the side of the man who had taught them to stand up for their rights, through nonviolent protest and collective bargaining.

Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, who celebrated the funeral mass, called Chavez "a special prophet for the worlds' farm workers." Pall bearers, including crews of these workers, Chavez children and grandchildren, then carried their fallen leader, resting at last, from the Memorial Park to Forty Acres.

The death of Chavez marked an era of dramatic changes in American agriculture. His contributions would be eroded, and others would have to shoulder the burden of his work. But, Cesar Chavez, who insisted that those who labor in the earth were entitled to share fairly in the rewards of their toil, would never be forgotten.

As Luis Valdez said, "Cesar, we have come to plant your heart like a seed . . . the farm workers shall harvest in the seed of your memory."

FINAL RESTING PLACE/FINAL RECOGNITION

The body of Cesar Chavez was taken to La Paz, the UFW's California headquarters, by his family and UFW leadership. He was laid to rest near a bed of roses, in front of his office.

On August 8, 1994, at a White House ceremony, Helen Chavez, Cesar's widow, accepted the Medal of Freedom for her late husband from President Clinton. In the citation accompanying America's highest civilian honor which was awarded posthumously, the President lauded Chavez for having "faced formidable, often violent opposition with dignity and nonviolence.

And he was victorious. Cesar Chavez left our world better than he found it, and his legacy inspires us still. He was for his own people a Moses figure," the President declared. "The farm workers who labored in the fields and yearned for respect and self sufficiency pinned their hopes on this remarkable man who, with faith and discipline, soft spoken humility and amazing inner strength, led a very courageous life"

The citation accompanying the award noted how Chavez was a farm worker from childhood who "possessed a deep personal understanding of the plight of migrant workers, and he labored all his years to lift their lives." During his lifetime, Chavez never earned more than $5,000 a year. The late Senator Robert Kennedy called him "one of the heroic figures of our time."

Chavez's successor, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, thanked the president on behalf of the United Farm Workers and said, "Every day in California and in other states where farm workers are organizing, Cesar Chavez lives in their hearts. Cesar lives wherever Americans' he inspired work nonviolently for social change."

http://www.ufw.org/cecstory.htm

*****

Cesar Chavez - An American Hero

Cesar Estrada Chavez, Senator Robert F. Kennedy noted, was "one of the heroic figures of our time."

A true American hero, Cesar was a civil rights, Latino, farm worker, and labor leader; a religious and spiritual figure; a community servant and social entrepreneur; a crusader for nonviolent social change; and an environmentalist and consumer advocate.

A second-generation American, Cesar was born on March 31, 1927, near his family's farm in Yuma, Arizona. At age 10, his family became migrant farm workers after losing their farm in the Great Depression. Throughout his youth and into his adulthood, Cesar migrated across the southwest laboring in the fields and vineyards, where he was exposed to the hardships and injustices of farm worker life.

After achieving only an eighth-grade education, Cesar left school to work in the fields full-time to support his family. He attended more than 30 elementary and middle schools. Although his formal education ended then, he possessed an insatiable intellectual curiosity, and was self-taught in many fields and well read throughout his life.

Cesar joined the US Navy in 1946, and served in the Western Pacific in the aftermath of World War II. He returned from service to marry Helen Fabela, whom he had met working in the vineyards of central California. The Chavez family settled in the East San Jose barrio of Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can), and would eventually have eight children and thirty-one grandchildren.

Cesar's life as a community organizer began in 1952 when he joined the Community Service Organization (CSO), a prominent Latino civil rights group. While with the CSO, Cesar coordinated voter registration drives and conducted campaigns against racial and economic discrimination primarily in urban areas. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Cesar served as CSO's national director.

Cesar's dream, however, was to create an organization to protect and serve farm workers, whose poverty and disenfranchisement he had shared. In 1962, Cesar resigned from the CSO, leaving the security of a regular paycheck to found the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America.

For more than three decades Cesar led the first successful farm workers union in American history, achieving dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, and humane living conditions, as well as countless other rights and protections for hundreds of thousands of farm workers. Against previously insurmountable odds, he led successful strikes and boycotts that resulted in the first industry-wide labor contracts in the history of American agriculture. His union's efforts brought about the passage of the groundbreaking 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act to protect farm workers. Today, it remains the only law in the nation that protects the farm workers' right to unionize.

The significance and impact of Cesar's life transcends any one cause or struggle. He was a unique and humble leader, in addition to being a great humanitarian and communicator who influenced and inspired millions of Americans to seek social justice and civil rights for the poor and disenfranchised in our society. Cesar forged a diverse and extraordinary national coalition of students, middle class consumers, trade unionists, religious groups, and minorities.

A strong believer in the principles of nonviolence practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar effectively employed peaceful tactics such as fasts, boycotts, strikes, and pilgrimages. In 1968 he fasted for 25 days to affirm his personal commitment and that of the farm labor movement to non-violence. He fasted again for 25 days in 1972, and in 1988, at the age of 61, he endured a 36-day "Fast for Life" to highlight the harmful impact of pesticides on farm workers and their children.

Cesar passed away in his sleep on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, Arizona, only miles from his birthplace of 66 years earlier. More than 50,000 people attended his funeral services in the small town of Delano, California, the same community in which he had planted his seed for social justice only decades before.

Cesar's life cannot be measured in material terms. He never earned more than $6,000 a year. He never owned a house. When Cesar passed, he had no savings to leave to his family.

His motto in life-"sí se puede" (it can be done)-embodies the uncommon and invaluable legacy he left for the world's benefit. Since his death, dozens of communities across the nation have renamed schools, parks, streets, libraries, other public facilities, awards and scholarships in his honor, as well as enacting holidays on his birthday, March 31. In 1994 he was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in America.

Cesar Chavez-a common man with an uncommon vision for humankind-stood for equality, justice, and dignity for all Americans. His ecumenical principles remain relevant and inspiring today for all people.

In 1993, his family and friends established the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation to educate people about the life and work of this great American civil rights leader, and to engage all, particularly youth, to carry on his values and timeless vision for a better world.

Cesar E. Chavez Chronology

1927, March 31 ­ Cesario Estrada Chavez was born in Yuma, Arizona near the small farm his grandfather homesteaded in the 1880s. 

1937 ­ Cesar's family lost their farm in the Great Depression. The Chavez family migrated across the southwest laboring in the fields and vineyards, finally settling in California. 

1942 ­ Cesar quit school after the eighth grade to work in the fields full-time to help support his family.

1946 ­ He joined the U.S. Navy during the aftermath of World War II and served in the Western Pacific.   Just before shipping out to the Pacific, Cesar was arrested in a segregated Delano, California movie theater for sitting in the "whites only" section.

1948 ­ Cesar returned home from the Navy and married Helen Fabela whom he had met working in the vineyards of San Jose, California.  They settled in the East San Jose barrio of Sal Si Puedes (Get Out if You Can) and would eventually have eight children and thirty-one grandchildren.  

1948-1949 ­ He began studying the social teachings of the Catholic Church.

1952 ­ Community organizer Fred Ross met Cesar, then a young farm worker laboring in apricot orchards outside San Jose, and recruited him to work for the Community Service Organization (CSO), a prominent Latino Civil Rights Group.

1952-1962 ­ Cesar and Fred Ross, organized 22 CSO chapters throughout California.  Under Cesar's leadership, the CSO became the most effective Latino civil rights group of its day. It helped Latinos become citizens, registered them to vote, battled police brutality and pressed for paved streets and other barrio improvements.

1962, March 31 ­ On his birthday, Cesar resigned from the CSO and moved his wife and eight small children to Delano where he founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and dedicated himself to organizing farm workers full-time. 

1962, September 30 ­ The first NFWA convention was convened in Fresno, California. 

1962-1965 ­ Cesar often took his youngest children to dozens of farm worker towns as he painstakingly built up NFWA membership. 

1965, September 16 ­ On Mexican Independence Day, Cesar's NFWA, with 1,200-member families, voted to join a strike against Delano-area grape growers that was initiated by the mostly Filipino American members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO (AWOC). This began the five-year Delano Grape Strike.

1966, March­April ­ Cesar and a small group of strikers embarked upon a 340-mile Peregrinacion (or Pilgrimage) from Delano to the steps of the state Capitol in Sacramento to draw national attention to the suffering of farm workers. During the march and after a four-month boycott, growers negotiated an agreement with NFWA, which was the first genuine union contract between a grower and farm workers in U.S. history.

1966, Spring-Summer ­ The NFWA and the Filipino American AWOC merge to form the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO (UFW).  

1967 ­ The UFW began a boycott of all California table grapes.
1967-1970 ­ Hundreds of grape strikers fanned out across North America to organize an international grape boycott. Millions of Americans rallied to support the farm workers' cause known as "La Causa."

1968, February-March ­ Cesar fasted for 25 days to rededicate his movement to nonviolence.  U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy joined Cesar, and more than 8,000 farm workers and supporters at a mass where Cesar broke his fast.  Senator Kennedy called Cesar "one of the heroic figures of our time."

1970, Summer ­ Cesar called for a nationwide boycott of lettuce.

1970, December 10-24 ­ Cesar was jailed in Salinas, California for refusing to obey a court order to stop the boycott against Bud Antle lettuce. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ethel Kennedy, widow of Robert Kennedy, visited Cesar in jail.

1971 ­ The UFW moved from Delano to La Paz in Keene, California, which is Southeast of Bakersfield. With table and wine grape contracts, and some agreements covering vegetable workers, UFW membership grew to nearly 80,000.

1972, May 11-June 4 ­ Cesar fasted a second time for 25 days in Phoenix, Arizona, in protest of a law that denied farm workers the right to strike and/or boycott for better working conditions.   

1973, Spring-Summer ­ A bitter three-month strike by grape workers in California's Coachella and San Joaquin valleys began.  Thousands of strikers were arrested for violating anti-picketing injunctions, hundreds were beaten, dozens were shot, and two were murdered. In response to the violence, Cesar called off the strike and began a second grape boycott.

1973-1975 ­ A nationwide Louis Harris poll, documented that 17 million Americans were boycotting grapes. Many were also boycotting lettuce and Gallo wine in support of UFW campaigns.  

1975, June ­ Jerry Brown became governor and signed a state law that guaranteed California farm workers the right to organize and bargain with their employers. Cesar's efforts pushed the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act through the state Legislature.

1979 January-October ­ The UFW began strikes against several major lettuce and vegetable growers throughout the state.  Rufino Contreras, a 27 year-old striker, was shot and killed in an Imperial
Valley lettuce field by a grower/foremen.

1980s ­ The number of farm workers protected by UFW contracts grew to nearly 45,000.

1984 ­ Cesar declared a third grape boycott. 
 
1986--Cesar kicked off the "Wrath of Grapes" campaign to draw public attention to the pesticide poisoning of grape workers and their children.

1988 ­ At the age of 61, Chavez conducted his last and longest public fast for 36 days in Delano to call attention to farm workers and their children stricken by pesticides.

1988- 1993 ­ Cesar recovered from his fast and continued pressing the grape boycott and leading farm worker organizing efforts.   

1992, Spring-Summer ­ Cesar worked with then UFW First Vice President Arturo Rodriguez to lead vineyard walkouts in the Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. As a result, grape workers won their first industry-wide pay hike in eight years.

1993, April 23 ­ Cesar died peacefully in his sleep at the modest home of a retired San Luis, Arizona farm worker.  Cesar was in Arizona conducting UFW work at the time of his death. 

Heroes

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