The Seeds of Peaceful Resistance
Cultivating community action
The strike grows powerful
Maintaining the moral high ground
A final threat
The fruits of labor
 

 Under the leadership of César Chávez, the Chicano movement in the 1960's used economic pressure rather than violence to pursue civil rights for Mexican-Americans.  Chicanos were politically active members of the Mexican-American community who wanted Mexican-Americans to be proud of their distinct cultural heritage.  Chicanos wanted a chance to achieve economic and political equality with Anglos, without having to culturally blend into the Anglo population.  The obstacles to this goal were enormous.  César Chávez was inspired by Ghandi to find non-violent methods, including strikes by farm workers and a general boycott of grapes, by which to obtain economic and political power.  By avoiding violent protest, the Chicano movement gained the sympathy and cooperation of a broad cross-section of people whose only connection to the Mexican-American community was their purchase of farm produce harvested by Mexican-Americans.  Because they had more broad-based support, Chicanos also received the help of powerful political allies.  The choice to pursue non-violent means of protest required prolonged self-sacrifice, especially of Chávez and his family, but the results were finally better living conditions for the Mexican-American community.

The Seeds of Peaceful Resistance

     Remarkably, César Chávez’s non-violent approach emerged from a history of violence in the Chicano community where he grew up.  During the 1940's, rebellious young Chicanos formed themselves into a group called  pachucos.  Pachucos were highly visible because of their clothing, their way of speaking, and their fighting.  They distinguished themselves from other Chicanos by wearing Zoot Suits--suits with high-waisted pants and knee-length jackets, typically worn several sizes too large.   Pachucos spoke their own dialect, which mixed native Náhuatl with Spanish and English slang.  Their rebelliousness often turned to violence.  When he was a teenager, César Chávez was a pachuco.  He would later conclude that violence on the part of Chicanos made it more likely that Anglos would act on their racial prejudices, and further made it more likely that Anglos would consider racial discrimination to be acceptable, or even necessary.
     An event that followed this pattern of violence followed by discrimination occurred on August 1, 1942.  On the outskirts of Los Angeles, pachucos fought another group of Zoot Suiters at the Williams Ranch.  The following morning José Díaz was found bleeding and unconscious.  He died later that day.  Los Angeles police gathered 300 pachucos and arrested twenty-three of them for the murder of José Díaz.  His autopsy found that he was drunk at the time of his death.  A doctor pronounced that the cause of death was head trauma; the doctor said it was likely that Mr. Díaz had been hit by a car.  Twenty-three people were charged with murder without any evidence to back the police’s claim.  Police Lieutenant Edward Duran Ayres testified in court, contending that “people of Mexican descent are biologically prone to violence and crime due to their “‘oriental’ Aztec ancestry” (Sharp).  Twelve Chicanos were found guilty on Lieutenant Ayres’ “evidence” alone.
     Pachucos were most famous for the “Zoot Suit Riots,” which are now known as the “sailor riots.”  In Los Angeles, on June 3, 1943, eleven sailors reported that they had been attacked by a group of pachucos.  Infuriated, two hundred sailors stormed into the Mexican-American neighborhoods.  The sailors stripped pachucos of their Zoot Suits and many pachucos were pictured on front pages of newspapers the following morning, completely naked.  The next night, the two hundred sailors had the support of L.A. police.  Anglos ripped through the Mexican-American community, arresting six hundred Mexican-Americans (not just pachucos).  They justified the arrests by claiming that they were preventing future violence (Sharp).  The brutal response of the Anglo community to the rebellious pride of the pachucos illustrates the state of race relations during the time that César Chávez was growing up.
     Chávez had first-hand experience with the terrible working and living conditions of migrant farm workers.  Chávez’s parents lost their farm during the Great Depression and were forced to become migrant workers.  The Chávez family barely made enough money to feed and clothe themselves, even though both parents and all the children worked in the fields.  Housing consisted of shacks, and sanitation was often non-existent.  Farmers could cheat the workers out of the pay that was due them, and there was no one who could enforce the claims of the workers.  Chávez grew up knowing the hardships and injustices that occurred in the fields.
     Chávez personally encountered discrimination, even in his schools.  He was ridiculed for his Spanish accent and was punished for speaking his native tongue in school.  “They would make you run laps around the track if they caught you speaking Spanish, or a teacher in a classroom would make you write ‘I won’t speak Spanish’ on the board three hundred times, or I remember once a teacher hung a sign on me that said ‘I am a clown, I speak Spanish’” (Chávez quoted in Griswold del Castillo and Garcia, 13).  Living through constant discrimination in childhood motivated Chávez to became a leader in the Chicano movement.
 

Cultivating community action
     Chávez began his career as a civil rights advocate by joining the Community Service Organization (CSO).  While working in CSO, Chávez met Dolores Huerta, who was to become another very important leader in the Delano Grape Strike, a nationwide boycott of California grapes.  Chávez became dissatisfied with CSO because the organization focused on helping middle-class Chicanos, rather than the lower-income Chicanos.  Chávez suggested that they focus their attention on the farm workers, but CSO refused.  Chávez and Dolores Huerta left the CSO in 1962 so they could help the people who were in the greatest need, the Mexican-American farm workers (Gonzales).
      Chávez and Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).  Organizing the NFWA required long hours of hard work.  Chávez and Huerta went from home to home and asked people if they would join the NFWA.  Dedication to the NFWA also required  substantial financial sacrifice.  Chávez turned down job offers from the Peace Corps, which would have increased the Chávez household income eightfold.  A private foundation offered Chávez $50,000 for the NFWA’s membership list and organizational efforts, but Chávez turned down the money.  He thought that the NFWA should not be influenced by a foundation external to the people who desired change.  He believed that if all the money came from the members, the members’ pride in their own organization would cause NFWA to be stronger.
     Chávez and the NFWA are most famous for their efforts in the Delano Grape Strike.  The strike began in 1965 because of differences in wages among races.  The California growers paid braceros  (Mexican contract workers) to harvest for $1.40 an hour, while Filipino workers were paid $1.25, and Mexican-Americans were paid only $1.10 per hour  (Griswold del Castillo and Garcia, 3-160).  Workers had difficulty feeding themselves and their families for a week on these wages.  Sometimes landowners cheated workers out of even these small wages, taking advantage of the fact that many workers did not know English.
     Chávez was apprehensive about having the NFWA enter the Delano Grape strike because he knew how powerful the growers were.  He decided that becoming part of the strike, even with the possibility of defeat, was better than losing without a fight.  The DiGiorgio Corporation was a fierce opponent of the strikers, with vast funds and many links to other large wealthy corporations.  For example, the DiGiorgio Corporation made more than $231 million in 1965, which would be $1.32 billion in today’s dollars.  Robert DiGiorgio himself, and other directors of the DiGiorgio Corporation, were also directors of the Bank of America (Levy, 222).

The strike grows powerful
     Chávez was successful in part because he found a role for many people within the movement.   The people Chávez was trying to help had little money, and could not spare much cash to help the union.  Chávez knew that they could not outspend the companies.  Instead of money, he used the time and effort of people.   NFWA remained non-violent to keep the public sympathetic to their cause.  Volunteers and leaders of the NFWA preached about the boycott everywhere.  Chávez won nationwide attention for the strike because he asked Americans to abstain from buying California grapes to show support of the strike.  Activists picketed grocery stores, holding posters that read: “Don’t buy California Grapes” and “Every Grape you buy keeps a Child Hungry”  (Ferriss and Sandoval).
     As the Delano grape strike gained popularity, it also gained political support.  Senator Robert Kennedy visited Delano, and, although he had not been looking forward to the trip, his heart went out to the workers when he saw their living and working conditions.  He asked the sheriff why he had arrested the Mexican-Americans when they had done nothing illegal.  The sheriff replied that he had been instructed to prevent violence.  Kennedy remarked,  “I suggest that during the luncheon period the sheriff and the district attorney read the Constitution of the United States” (Kennedy quoted in Thomas, 320).  Kennedy and Chávez became “instant soulmates” according to Evan Thomas, author of Kennedy’s biography.  Chávez said he had never seen such genuine anger in a white man.  When he returned to Washington D.C., Kennedy pushed for legislation to protect farm workers.  Support from influential leaders such as Senator Kennedy caused the public to take the strike more seriously.
     Cooperation with the strike spread to Europe.  In February 1969, workers in London, England, refused to unload approximately 70,000 pounds of grapes.  Powerful European unions endorsed the boycott, including the European Transport Union, the General Workers Union, and the Swedish Transport Workers.

Maintaining the moral high ground
     The NFWA marched three hundred miles across California, from Delano to Sacramento, to draw attention to the union’s contract negotiations with the Schenley Corporation and the DiGiorgio ranch.   The marchers brought NFWA flags, as well as banners that pictured the Virgin of Guadalupe with an inscription that read “Don’t Eat the Grapes.”  The Virgin of Guadalupe was a common sight when the Chicanos were picketing.  Chávez linked the Catholicism of Mexican-Americans to the strike as a way of reminding the activists of the morality of their cause.   “If we have a lot of religious people with us, it is more difficult for us to go crooked.  Because, you know, we have the priests and the reverends whose very lives are involved in ethics” (“Our Best Hope”).
     The Delano Grape strike required sacrifice of Chávez, his family, and other strikers.   While the strike was underway, Chávez was not working.  His wife, Helen, continued to work in the fields to support the family.  When I interviewed Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Chávez’s granddaughter, about her grandmother’s role in the Delano Grape Strike, she replied that Helen gets little credit for her efforts.  Julie Rodriguez believes that Chávez’s achievements would not have been possible without the efforts of many people, especially Helen.  Helen supported her husband financially and backed his decisions.  She also helped him through the nearly month-long fast that he imposed on himself during the strike.  Inspired by Ghandi, Chávez began a twenty-five day fast when people in the union became frustrated with the strike and were turning to violence.  Helen Chávez helped her husband remain optimistic even when he was discouraged by the union’s slow progress.
 The Chávez children also paid a price for the strike.  At the school they attended, a group of mothers formed a club called “Mothers against Chávez.”  The mothers united in hatred of Chávez and his strike.  Most of the members were wives of the growers the NFWA was fighting.  Club members sent their children to school wearing pins that read “Mothers against Chávez.”  Anglos also picked fights with the eight Chávez children.  The Chávezes followed their father’s example and would not fight back, but simply wore buttons that read “Boycott Grapes.”  The Chávez children also had to work in the fields to help support the ten-person family because Chávez received only $5 a week as “subsistence pay” from the union (Rodriguez).

     Against all odds, the strike was crippling the California growers, although the growers refused to admit it.  Growers lost money as fewer people agreed to work at their farms.  When people did work, they refused to work to their full potential.  In a fit of frustration, Jack Pandol, a Delano Grape grower, called the strike “unmoral [sic], illegal, unChristian and un-American” (Day, 38).  Growers eventually stopped trying to hide their losses and joined forces with each other to fight the NFWA.   Growers launched a multimillion dollar campaign against Chávez and the union.
     The growers had responded to the picketing with violence and many of the strikers wanted to fight back.  The growers attacked and shot at strikers, but were never arrested.   Many strikers, including Chávez, were arrested on several occasions--even though the growers were the ones who initiated the fights.  Union leaders realized that the growers were determined to resist economic pressure–even at great cost, and that laws were not going to be enforced evenly.  Some activists began to call for a violent response to the growers’ tactics.  But instead of resorting to violence, Chávez again used Ghandi as a model and began to fast.  When asked about her grandfather’s strictly non-violent strikes, Julie Chávez Rodriguez recalled him saying: “How bad would it look to have a hundred non-violent strikers and fifty national guardsmen there to control them?  What kind of image would that give not just to the farm workers, but the general public, too?” As the leader of a group of farm workers who were barely able to pay their monthly union dues, Chávez effectively inspired a non-violent assault against companies that were worth several million dollars.  Chávez’s own sacrifice united and inspired people to adhere to nonviolence (Ferriss and Sandoval).
     By the end of Chávez’s fast, he was so weakened he could not stand, or speak above a whisper.  The twenty-five day fast was ended on doctor’s orders because Chávez was causing permanent damage to his kidneys.  Senator Robert Kennedy was one of the ten thousand people who attended the breaking of Chávez’s fast (Johansen).

A final threat
     Just when NFWA was gaining strength, the Teamsters invaded the fields urging farm workers to support them rather than the NFWA.  The Teamsters were the largest and wealthiest labor union in the United States.  They were detrimental to smaller unions because the Teamsters would make deals with growers and send Teamster members to work when other unions had called a strike.  The Teamsters had broken a strike five years earlier when the world’s largest lettuce grower, Bud Antle, signed a contract with the Teamsters.  Many of the strikers working alongside Chávez knew nothing of this incident, so Chávez published an article in El Malcriado, a Spanish-language newspaper,  informing Chicanos of the Teamsters’ power (Levy, 223).
     Not only were the Teamsters a threat to the strike, the DiGiorgio Corporation growers sought non-union affiliated farm workers, called scabs, so they would have workers during the strike.  But everywhere DiGiorgio looked for scabs, NFWA followed and picketed, convincing workers not to work for DiGiorgio (Levy, 224).  The DiGiorgio Corporation finally tried to end the strike by holding an election in which the farm workers would vote for one of the following options: NFWA, Teamsters, or no union.  The election results were announced and DiGiorgio Corporation told workers that the Teamsters had won.  However, it was learned that some ballot boxes had been destroyed, and workers’ ballots had been removed from others.  NFWA realized that the election was rigged against them and demanded another election.  This second time, both unions watched the ballot boxes.  NFWA won the second election despite the fact that DiGiorgio fired 190 Mexican workers the day before the election, in an attempt to influence the outcome.

The fruits of labor
     After the big win at the DiGiorgio Corporation, the NFWA gradually signed contracts and won elections at other farms.  César Chávez continued to pursue better working conditions and fair pay for Chicanos until his death in 1993.  His commitment to non-violence brought to light the goals of the union.  Chávez showed people that the Chicano movement was not about one side winning and the other losing.  His goal was to look after his fellow Chicanos and to have their rights respected.
     The Delano Grape Strike was a ground-breaking victory.  Not only was Chávez able to win the workers better conditions and better pay, but the growers and corporations recognized the union as a powerful force for the Mexican-American people.
 There are vivid memories from my childhood – what we had to go through because of low wages and the conditions...I suppose if I wanted to be fair I could say that I’m trying to settle a personal score.  I could dramatize it by saying that I want to bring social justice to farm workers.  But the truth is that I went through a lot of hell, and a lot of people did.  If we can even the score a little for the workers then we are doing something.  (Johansen)

César Chávez’s dedication to improving conditions and pay for farm workers is the fuel for the ongoing Chicano movement.
 
 
 
 

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