César Chávez was born on March 31, 1927, in the San Luis Valley near Yuma, Arizona, and died on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, Arizona. He worked as a union organizer, labor activist, Mexican-American civil rights leader, and leader in the farm workers movement in the United States from 1962 to 1993. He was the second of five surviving children: Rita, César, Richard, Librado, and Eduvigis (Vicky). His name was changed from Cesario to César when he started attending public school. His parents, Librado and Juana Estrada, were born in Chihuahua, Mexico, but lived in the United States for most of their lives.
After his parents lost their small farm and adobe farmhouse in 1938, César and his family became migrant farm workers in California. They picked beans, cherries, carrots, onions, broccoli, melons, and other fruits and vegetables. The children attended Mexican-only schools and on the weekends worked up to ten hours a day in the fields. César faced discrimination at diners and cafés in central California that would not serve Mexicans, who were forced to eat outside. They also were segregated in movie theaters in the San Joaquin Valley. In one instance Chávez was asked to leave a section of a theater; when he refused, the police took him to jail, where they kept him for an hour as a warning. He lived in a one-room shack without running water. It was often bitterly cold because the family had only a kerosene camping stove for heat. Chavez served in the U.S. Navy for two years, starting in 1944, and traveled extensively. He married Helen Fabela in 1948, and they had eight children.
Father Donald McDonnell encouraged Chavez to read about the nonviolent strategies for social change of Saint Francis of Assisi and Mohandas Gandhi. In 1952 Chavez met Fred Ross, who persuaded him to join the Community Service Organization (CSO). He worked full time for the CSO until 1958. Chávez used his CSO membership to document the abuse of Mexican farm workers throughout California. After failing to persuade the CSO to organize farm workers into a labor union, he resigned and moved to Delano, California. On September 30, 1962, he created the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). The NFWA provided its members with burial insurance, an auto-repair cooperative, a credit union, a newspaper, and social activities.
On September 16, 1965, Chávez called a strike with the Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). The NFWA and the AWOC merged into an organization called the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) with Chavez as its leader. Chavez led a grape boycott in Delano and other parts of California that lasted five years.
Chávez's nonviolent philosophy and approach to social changed were shaped by his Catholic faith. He also worked closely with mainline Protestants, Pentecostals, and Jews as well as many secular leaders. His philosophy was influenced by the Christian notion of serving the poor, Francis of Assisi's insistence that it is not possible to feel the pain of the poor unless a person is one of them, Pope Leo XIII's Catholic social teachings about the rights of labor, Mohandas Gandhi's notion of satyagraha (nonviolent resistance), Martin Luther King Jr.'s, Montgomery bus boycott, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, who served as a rallying point and source of faith for people of Mexican ancestry.
Chávez embraced a number of strategies for nonviolent social change. He led boycotts, pickets, marches, and spiritual fasts for better wages, the right to organize unions, better housing conditions, and social change. He also fought against the use of dangerous pesticides on behalf of both farm workers and consumers. He and Luis Valdez created The Plan of Delano (1965) to highlight the farm workers' struggle. This became the Magna Carta of the United Farm Workers (UFW) and the Mexican-American civil rights movement. In 1966 Chavez led a twenty-five-day, 340-mile pilgrimage march from Delano to Sacramento to attract media attention to the struggle of farm workers. In 1968 he began a twenty-five-day fast as a nonviolent protest that he ended after Senator Robert Kennedy of Massachusetts took communion with him, an event covered by the national media. He also began nonviolent meetings with a prayer, used the Catholic Cursillo song “De Colores” as the UFW theme song, and led pickets and pilgrimage marches behind the colorful banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. His pilgrimage, fasts, and picketing led to an end of the five-year grape boycott in 1970. In 1972 he changed the name of his organization to the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Chavez continued his struggles on behalf of farm workers until his death; over 50,000 people attended his funeral.
Citation: Espinosa, Gastón. "Chávez, César 1927–1993." Encyclopedia of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, edited by J. Baird Callicott and Robert Frodeman, vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2009, pp. 137-138. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3234100059/GVRL?u=txshracd2904&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=0b52ab3d.
