April cover story: One reporter’s view of a 20th-century icon

by Amigos805.com • April 1, 2015 • Comments Off

Coverage of march from Santa Paula to Cabrillo Village in Saticoy opened up the world of reporting on local, national events

By Frank X. Moraga / Amigos805

Was it really more than a quarter of century ago when I first laid eyes on an individual who had become synonymous with self-sacrifice, determination and the willingness to do what it takes to elevate the working conditions of his fellow human beings?

It was a typical spring day in Ventura County. The April showers threatened to arrive a few days early on Saturday, March 27, 1982.

And there he was, wearing his traditional black nylon jacket and dark t-shirt with that look of determination as he walked the final steps that late afternoon from Santa Paula to the farmworker-owned housing at Cabrillo Village in Saticoy.

César E. Chávez had begun his march the day before in Piru, with the end point to be his old community organizing stomping grounds in Oxnard, a 40-plus-mile journey.

For Chávez, and the intimidating body guards walking nearby, it just seemed like a typical stroll, not that day’s 11-mile trudge that would have had many of us journalists hanging our tongues and counting our blisters.

Along with the several hundred striking farmworkers and supporters in attendance, Chávez was soon surrounded by the media horde, including yours truly, as we struggled to take photographs and ask questions of the man who had long since become a cultural legend, lauded by individuals such as the late Robert F. Kennedy and Coretta Scott King, wife of the late Martin Luther King, Jr.

For Chávez, it was all about getting another union contract signed with local growers.

“The two big issues are wages and the duration of the contract,” Chávez was quoted in a Ventura College Press article about the strike against citrus growers ~ Coastal Growers Association in Oxnard, L & O Growers and Limoneira Co. of Santa Paula (1,200 strikers) and mushroom grower West Foods Inc. in Ventura (1,450 strikers).

Chávez, who had marched with farmworkers in the lettuce fields of Salinas and the vineyards of Northern California, felt the demonstrations were an effective way to gain public attention and support.

“It (the march) is going to have a definite impact,” he said. “The march is an effort to document our struggle…. If we don’t settle the strike soon, we will try to get between 20,000 and 25,000 supporters to protest in Oxnard.”

Chávez was joined that day by Mario Obledo, the former California Secretary of Health and Welfare, who was waging a long-shot candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor. Obledo would eventually lose that nomination to Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who would lose that fall to Republican George Deukmejian.

But on that late March afternoon, the mood was celebratory, with plenty of speeches by UFW union members and supporters. For Chávez himself came the realization that he had yet another day to go before ending this particular march in Oxnard, adding to the hundreds of miles he had already marched throughout California and elsewhere.

“These marches are always very difficult and painful, especially when walking on blisters,” he said that day. “I feel tired like most of the people who have marched today, but I also do feel pretty good.”

As reported that day, Chávez waved to the crowd of people as he approached the village. “Muchas gracias,” he said as he passed a throng of well-wishers.

I recall seeing Chávez one more time, probably a year or so before he passed away on April 23, 1993. He was speaking in Spanish to a crowd packed into the cafeteria at the old Juanita Elementary School in La Colonia neighborhood of Oxnard, a school that would be renamed for him on Sept. 24, 1993. It just amazed me that such a soft-spoken individual could still command such a huge following, audience members who hung on his every word. But they did just that, as people continued to remember the impact this man from Yuma had on the American labor movement.