In memory of Cesar Chavez “That dream was born in my youth. It was nurtured in my early days of organizing. It has flourished. It has been attacked.” said by Cesar Chavez in the time of a big money crisis. Cesar Chavez was a role model to many people from the 1970’s and still is to this day. His importance is remembered for his hard work and leadership that everyone looked up to. So why was he important? He helped change the way people lived so they won’t be in poverty. Cesar Chavez helped the way of prosperity by helping the lives of farmers, inspiring non-violence, and impacting lives such as me. Cesar Chavez helped many farmers in many ways and that’s how people looked up to him. Farm workers only got paid about $1.00 a day. They could barely afford shelter and food which caused their children to reduce their education time and work in the fields to support their parents with finances. This caused lots of farmers to go on strike. Cesar Chavez didn’t like the paying methods as much as the farmers did, so he helped them fight for equality. He formed peace treaties and helped people go on strike. He had helped with benefits for …show more content…
Cesar Chavez wanted a stop to violent ways and has said “Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak. Nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.”. Cesar Chavez inspired people through nonviolence by showing farmers a better way. Cesar Chavez helped farm workers achieve huge gains by contracts requiring rest periods, toilets in the fields, clean drinking water, hand-washing facilities, banning discrimination in employment and sexual harassment of women workers, requiring protective clothing against pesticide exposure, prohibiting pesticide spraying while workers are in the fields and outlawing DDT and other dangerous
After having read and watched the video about Cesar Chavez’s union, I gained an understanding about his long struggle to gain rights for field workers. But after having attended the event “What I learned about Cesar Chavez” I even gained a better understanding about how Cesar Chavez accomplished what he did. Throughout Grossman's lecture I was able to form several connections to what I learned from the book. Grossman spoke about Cesar Chavez’s determination and ability to inspire others. These characteristics inspired me to fight for what I believe in.
Cesar admired heroes like Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr for their nonviolent methods. He followed Gandhi and Dr. King’s practice of nonviolence for the protest against grapes. Some young male strikers started talking about acts of violence. They wanted to fight back at the owners who have treated them poorly. They wanted to fight back to show that they were tough and manly. Some of the strikers viewed nonviolence as very inactive and even cowardly. However, Cesar did not believe in violence at all. He believed nonviolence showed more manliness than violence and that it supports you if you’re doing it for the right reason. He thought nonviolence made you to be creative and that it lets you keep the offensive, which is important in any contest. Following his role model Ghandi, “Chavez would go on hunger strikes” (Cesar Chavez 2). This showed that he would starve for his cause and that he was very motivated. It also showed that he was a very peaceful and nonviolent protester. Chavez was fasting to rededicate the movement to nonviolence. He fasted for 25 days, drinking only water and eating no food. This act was an act of penitence for those who wanted violence and also a way of taking responsibility as leader of his movement. This fast split up the UFW staff. Some of the people could not understand why Cesar was doing the fast. Others worried for his health and safety. However the farmworkers
Ferriss, Susan, Ricardo Sandoval, and Diana Hembree. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. Print.
Cesar Chavez was an effective leader for many reasons, but mostly it was because he never gave up. Chavez was born on his grandfather’s farm during the Great Depression. When he was still young, his family lost their farm and became migrant workers meaning they had to move many times. Chavez attended 36 schools up until eighth grade when he dropped out of school to help his family out with the farming. While he worked in the farms, he was exposed to the hardships of farm life. Since then, Chavez decided that he did not want anyone else that was a farm worker to experience the same things he did. He wanted to follow in the steps of Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi to protest in a nonviolent way.
Both of the speeches, Martin Luther King's and Cesar Chavez', are powerful peices and communicate one vision: equality. King and Chavez have two very different styles of writing but the message from both is simmilar. for example both king and chavez discuss how their people are discriminated against because of their skin color, and how their people have neither the right to vote in the the south, nor the will to vote in the north , and in Chavez' situation, to have their vote counted. however similar their message's may be, their writing styles are different. Chavez talks about statistics, about why and how his people are treated. king held that the atrocitys commited against his people were self evident and as such did not need to be proved to anyone. kings message was meant to encompass the entire Uninted States while Chavez' was directed primarily at California.
Cesar chavez (1927-1993) was a civil rights leader. He is most famous for creating the National Farm Workers Association. Chavez grew up in Arizona on his family’s farm. When the depression hit, Chavez was 11 years old, and his family lost their farm and were forced to become migrant workers. The working conditions on the farms Chavez and his family worked on were horrible. This later inspired him to make a union for farm workers, the National Farm Workers Association. He is known for being an activist of civil rights for Latinos, rights for farm workers, and also for animal rights.
...on helped pass the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in California, the only law in the nation that protects the rights of farm laborers to unionize. But more than anything, I believe, his contribution to society has been his legacy of service to others and the commitment to social justice for communities fighting against inequalities.
With pure intension the people understood a bit more what Cesar Chavez was trying to do. They saw that he was not only fighting for equality but for other things as well. They also saw that he would do almost anything to be able to reach that goal. Cesar Chavez proved that he would do almost anything when they protested with the 250 mile
... These people, among many other politicians and Hollywood stars, showed their support of Cesar Chavez’s Civil Rights Movement by fasting. His leadership skills and commitment to the people allowed him to obtain the support of influential people during the time of his Civil Rights Movement. Cesar Chavez was able to win the Civil Rights Battle by being dedicated and committed to his goal, having confidence that his strategic plans would work, and by influencing important and famous people to give him their support. Through his boycotts, marches, and strikes Cesar Chavez achieved what he wanted for the people, which was better working conditions, better pay, and better treatment of workers.
Through the years, individuals have shown that a single man can make a difference. Men who, when committed to a cause, will rise up with honor, integrity, and courage. Cesar Chavez was such a man. He represented the people and rose above his self concerns to meet the needs of the people. Cesar Chavez showed us that, “The highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline.” He lived by this standard and fought freedom with the highest form of dignity and character.
The truth about the freedom we have now comes from the years people fought in order to be able to get it. We can go back and see people such as Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King where each one fought in a different way, but all of them tried to accomplish freedom or at least the right to be treated equally. One man that fought for the people to be equally, more specific farmers, was Cesar Chavez. He was a civil rights activist and also a labor leader, who fought hard, so that farmers could be treated equally. His life is remarkable because of his complicated years when he was young, the hardships he had to endure as he got older and finally he got the recognition he deserved after his death.
Senator Robert F. Kennedy described him as “one of the heroic figures of our time” (Cesar Chavez Foundation). This shows that Cesar Chavez made a difference in people’s lives, including Senator Robert’s. Some people may say that immigrants are bad people but Cesar Chavez was an immigrant himself yet, also a hero to the country. Experts say he was an American farm worker, labor leader, and a civil rights activist. This shows that he fought for what he believed in. Being a farm worker wasn’t something he planned on doing but he had no choice because he was an immigrant. He saw how cruel Americans were treating immigrants so he fought for their rights. He spoke for all the immigrants everywhere. The Cesar Chavez Foundation mentioned that at age 11, his family lost their farm during the great depression and became migrant farm workers. This shows how and why Cesar Chavez fought for farmworkers rights. He grew up not having the best childhood but he took others lives into consideration and fought for them to have a better and brighter
One of the greatest civil rights activists of our time; one who believed the ways of Gandhi and Martin Luther King that “violence can only hurt us and our cause” (Cesar Chavez); a quiet, devoted, small catholic man who had nothing just like those he help fight for; “one of America's most influential labor leaders of the late twentieth century” (Griswold del Castillo); and one “who became the most important Mexican-American leader in the history of the United States” (Ender). Cesar Chavez; an American farm worker, who would soon become the labor leader that led to numerous improvements for union workers; it is recorded that Chavez was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927 and died on April 23, 1993 in San Luis, Arizona. (Wikipedia) His life affected many others as his unselfish deeds changed the labor union force forever. This essay will discuss the reasons Cesar Chavez became involved in Union rights, the immediate impact he had, and also the legacy he left behind with his actions that influenced American society.
In conclusion, Dr. Martin Luther King is part of the reason why America is significantly more equal today than it was when he fought. He is still respected and honored today because of the large footprint he let in our history. In a time where standing up and going against the grain was frowned upon, he had the audacity to challenge authority and normalcy.
Cesar Chavez urged Latinos to register and vote, He traveled throughout california and made speeches to support the workers rights he later became cso director in 1958. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Chavez )