Cesar Chavez

Caser Chavez: Leader or Migrant Worker?

"Non-violence really rest on the reservoir that you have to create in yourself of patience, not of being patient with the problems, but being patient with yourself to do the hard work."

Cesar Chavez

What makes a society look at a man as a leader? Is it the

work that he does to help his community or is it the struggle

they endure during their lifetime? Cesar Chavez was born into a

migrant family and became one of the most recognized leaders for

migrant workers. From his early days of working in the fields to

his days in the US Navy and to his early days as a rights

activist, Cesar Chavez has fought to have equal rights for

Mexican-American migrant field workers.

One night in the 1880's, a man named Cesario Chavez

crossed the border from Chihuahua, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas. He

was fleeing the hardships of his homeland to make a better life

in the United States for his family. Decades later, his grandson,

Cesar Chavez, would make a stand in the fields of California to

fight for a better life for all farm workers. Cesario and his

wife Dorotea worked very hard. Their children married and had

children. The whole family lived in the Arizona desert near the

town of Yuma and worked as farmers. One of Cesario's sons,

Librado, married Juana Estrada, a woman who had also come from

Chihuahua. Together they had six children. Cesar, was born in

1927, he was their second child and the eldest son. Librado

Chavez was a hardworking man, and he prospered. In addition to

farming, he operated a general store and was elected the local

postmaster. "I had more happy moments as a child than unhappy

moments," Chavez later recalled. Librado was good to his

children, he even made their toys, but he was too busy to spend

much time with them. "My mom kept the family together," Chavez

had said.

When Cesar was ten years old, disaster struck. Librado made

a business deal with a neighbor who did not keep his part of the

bargain. In the end, the Chavez family lost their farm and all

their belongings. It was 1937, the period following the Stock

Market crash, the country had not yet recovered from the Great

Depression. There were very few jobs, and many people were

homeless. To make matters worse, the Southwest was experiencing

severe droughts at this time. By 1938, the Chavez family had

joined some 300,000 migrant workers who followed the crops to

California. Migrant workers would travel all over the state,

picking whatever was in season for the farm owners. The migrant

workers had no permanent homes. They lived in dingy overcrowded

family, most of them were of Mexican descent. quarters, without

bathrooms, electricity, or running water. Sometimes, they lived

in the pickup trucks in which they traveled. Like Chavez, going

to school wasn't easy for the children of the migrant workers,

since they were always on the move. Cesar and his siblings

attended more than thirty schools. Many times, their teachers

were neither friendly or helpful. The teachers of migrant

children often felt that since these children would soon move on

to other farms in other towns, teaching them wasn't worth the

effort. Some of these teachers were even prejudiced against

Spanish-speaking students. "When we spoke Spanish," Chavez

remembers, "the teacher swooped down on us. I remember the ruler

whistling through the air as its edge came down sharply across my

knuckles. It really hurt. Even out in the playground, speaking

Spanish brought punishment." He remembers hating school. "It

wasn't the learning I hated, but the conflicts," he recalls.

Despite all his difficulties in school, Cesar managed to graduate

from the eighth grade. For migrant children in those days,

graduation was an unusual occurrence.

Chavez had worked part-time in the fields while he was in

school. After graduation he began to work full-time. He preferred

working in the vineyards because grape pickers generally stayed

in the same place for a longer time. He kept noticing that the

labor contractors and the landowners exploited the workers. He

tried reasoning with the farm owners about higher pay and better

working conditions. But most of his fellow workers would not

support him for fear of losing their jobs. As a solitary voice,