April cover story: The legacy of César E. Chávez continues

Community marches, forums, service-learning projects and film screenings to be presented in the region

By Frank X. Moraga / Amigos805

It’s hard to imagine that César E. Chávez, who was born in the desert lands near Yuma, Arizona, was a big fan of that vast Pacific Ocean as he looked toward it from the beaches of Oxnard. He was often quoted as saying his time in the U.S. Navy at the tail end of World War II was “the two worst years of my life.”

Oxnard School District Trustee Denis O’Leary previously wrote in Amigos805 that Chávez first came to Oxnard as a child with his farmworker parents, slept on the local beaches and went to local schools.

But Chávez would return to Oxnard. He and his wife, Helen, arrived in the city in 1958 at the behest of community organizer Fred Ross, who asked Chávez to recruit farmworkers to his Community Service Organization (CSO).

Ross, who also trained a young Dolores Huerta, wrote about this time in Oxnard of the late 1950s in the book “Conquering Goliath.”

After a couple of years, Chávez would use the skills he learned in La Colonia and elsewhere in Ventura County to launch the United Farm Workers of America union in Delano with Huerta. And he would return to Oxnard again and again.

So as the region honors Chávez with a variety of celebrations, marches, community service projects and other events, it’s important to remember the close connection the local community had to the union leader.

 

A growing number of events

In celebration of César E. Chávez Day on March 31, Oxnard College presented a program at its Performing Arts Center, which featured the short documentary “Going Green: Cesar Chavez.”

The celebration of his life has increasingly grown to include much of the month of April. Events this month include:

• Distinguished UCSB Professor of History and President of the American Historical Association Vicki L. Ruiz presented the lecture “The Right to Remember: Latina Labor Leaders in California Agriculture, 1939-1961” on April 1 at CSU Channel Islands.

• The university will also present the “Farmworker Immersion Project with VC CLUE” from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, April 10. The program places students in the community to learn about farmworker rights and immigration issues. Students will visit farmworkers, their families, homes and local farms. Students will work in the field and have a group reflection. Must RSVP to pilar.pacheco@csuci.edu

• The “20th Annual César E. Chávez Memorial Celebration — March for Justice” will begin with a gathering at 9 a.m. Sunday, April 12 at Oxnard Southwinds Park, 300 W. Clara St., Oxnard. The march is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., arriving at 12:30 p.m. at the Oxnard College Performing Arts Center, 4000 S. Rose Ave., Oxnard. The free event includes a health and legal fair with information on the Dream Act and AB60 Drivers Licenses. It will include immigration attorneys with keynote speakers from the Oxnard College President’s Forum. Contact the César E. Chávez Memorial Celebration March Committee at 805-486-9674 or send an email to horozco@ufw.org for more information.

• Dolores Huerta will be the keynote speaker at the CAUSE Action Fund annual dinner and silent auction from 4 to 7 p.m. Sunday, April 19 at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center, 1118 E. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara. The event is  $60 per person after April 1. Click here to register or call 805-658-0810, ext. 210 for more information.

• The UCSB Multicultural Center will present the film screening of “Cesar’s Last Fight” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 29 at the MCC Theater. In 1988, César Chávez embarked on what would be the final act of protest in his remarkable life, event organizers reported in a media release. Driven by penance for feeling he had not done enough, Chavez began his “Fast for Life,” a 36-day water-only hunger strike, to draw attention to the horrific effects of unfettered pesticide use on farmworkers, their families and their communities. Using never-before-seen footage of Chavez and testimonies from those closest to him, directors Richard Ray Perez and Lorena Parlee weave together the larger story of Chavez’s life, vision and legacy. 100 min., English, 2014, U.S. Visit http://mcc.sa.ucsb.edu/Calendar/index.aspx for more information.

 

Achieving dignity for farm workers

If there is something that ties all these events together it’s the single-minded goal of lifting up and giving voice to those who had none in the past.

“A central objective of César, the UFW, and his supporters from all walks of life was the achievement of dignity for the farmworker,” Frank P. Barajas, professor of history at CSU Channel Islands, wrote about the life and legacy of Chávez.

“Dignity was paramount because César and his supporters witnessed or experienced directly the indignities dispensed by the agricultural industrial complex. This entailed sexual harassment, shanty-like company housing owned and operated by the industry, verbal abuse, the lack of port-a-sans at fields and orchards, and a system of wage-slavery that made it nearly impossible for families to sustain themselves much less provide their children with enrichment opportunities for them to flourish.

“To ensure the dignity of the farmworker (that consisted of men, women, and, habitually, adolescents and children) César’s union battled, non-violently, for contracts,” Barajas said. “Much of the existing literature on César’s movement features the struggle for contracts but fails to describe the causation behind it. So here is a brief account of the realities of farmworkers in Ventura County during the early 1970s.

“First, the agricultural industry recruited an excessive supply of workers from Texas and Mexico to preserve a depressed wage rate. This systematically pitted local workers against the migrant, many who would also become locals over time.

“Second, the Max Mont Papers at CSU Northridge and reports within the Ventura County Star-Free Press document how many growers associations utilized bait-and-switch strategies. Migrant workers and their families were recruited with the promise of satisfactory housing and an agreed-upon wage rate only to live in overcrowded substandard dwellings and have their pay decreased after a week or two. If workers protested, employers gave them the choice to quit and have their families face eviction.

“Third, in 1974 two hundred Santa Paula citrus pickers walked off their jobs because they did not know the wage-rate until after the end of the day. Strawberry workers also went on strike this same year for improved conditions enjoyed by their counterparts in Salinas. The wage rate in Ventura County citrus orchards and strawberry fields was also arbitrarily set from one phase of a harvest to the next. Hence, farmworkers suffered the humiliation of reduced paychecks to cover fixed, if not growing, household cost.

“So César’s definition of dignity was both economic and human.”