The Strikers Of Coachella

The past decades have borne witness to the United Farm Workers' (UFW) tenacious hold on the country's imagination. Since 2008, the UFW has lent its rallying cry to a presidential campaign and been the subject of no less than nine books, two documentaries, and one motion picture. Yet the full story of the women, men, and children who powered this social movement has not yet been told. Based on more than 200 hours of original oral history interviews conducted with Coachella Valley residents who participated in the UFW and Chicana/o movements, as well as previously unused oral history collections of Filipino farm workers, bracero workers, and UFW volunteers throughout the United States, this stirring history spans from the 1960s and 1970s through the union's decline in the early 1980s. Christian O. Paiz refocuses attention on the struggle inherent in organizing a particularly vulnerable labor force, especially during a period that saw the hollowing out of virtually all of the country's most powerful labor unions. He emphasizes that telling this history requires us to wrestle with the radical contingency of rank-and-file agency—an agency that often overflowed the boundaries of individual intentions. By drawing on the voices of ordinary farmworkers and volunteers, Paiz reveals that the sometimes heroic, sometimes tragic story of the UFW movement is less about individual leaders and more the result of a collision between the larger anti-union currents of the era and the aspirations of the rank-and-file.

Labor leader, social justice advocate, Chicano leader, and humanitarian are only some of the multifaceted renderings of César Chávez. Ilan Stavans has compiled essays and first-person narratives that capture the multiple dimensions of this storied figure. To that end, Stavans's collection of timely articles separates fact from fiction, or as he puts it the "objective is the opposite of hagiography." Broken into two sections, César Chávez explores a variety of topics central to understanding the actual person instead of a shadowy apparition. The first part, "Considerations" offers critical assessments of Chávez's life that utilize different approaches to understanding his life, including cultural studies critiques, historical narrative that provide invaluable context, and even eulogies following his untimely death. The second section, "Voices" includes personal reflections on Chávez's life that explore his religiosity, his role as an "everyman," and the decline of the United Farm Workers union. The title is certain to assist readers in better comprehending this groundbreaking labor leader.

In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City, while Chavez lived in the Central Valley farm town of Delano, where the grape strike was unfolding. This book is Matthiessen’s panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent working and traveling with Chavez, including to Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where Chavez began his organizing. Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence. Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. In its pages a whole era comes alive: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez’s fasts; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, tens of thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was and how important his life had been. A new foreword by Marc Grossman considers the significance of Chavez’s legacy for our time. As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez’s life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.

Collection of remembrances by those who knew Cesar Chavez best the famous, members of the Chavez family, UFW staff and farmworkers themselves.

During the last three years of his life, Modesto E. Ellano, Jr. (Mo) wrote this inspiring story of a troubled youth who eventually became a productive and fulfilled man as a university professor, instructing others in the subject and ethics of social work. Growing up in the Depression at a time when Filipinos and other ethnic groups were often oppressed, he found his way without his blood family, educating himself on the streets of the Logan Heights barrio. Mo wrote this book for others who may also want to make a connection with their past, when the time is right for them. They will see how he came to know himself and his heritage through images from the past presented in this work derived from his experiences, studies and observations. This book provides a study of the history of life during the depression, the cultural world of Filipinos in the 20th century U.S., the world of farm labor, and development of cultural identity. It can be read as a memoir and is appropriate for cultural and historical studies learning. This book will motivate young people to dig deep to find their own inner strength, to make wiser choices about with whom they keep company, and how they spend their idle hours , to reach for the top rung of the ladder, even if they are the only ones to believe they can get there.

In 1971, Bruce Neuburger—young, out of work, and radicalized by the 60s counterculture in Berkeley—took a job as a farmworker on a whim. He could have hardly anticipated that he would spend the next decade laboring up and down the agricultural valleys of California, alongside the anonymous and largely immigrant workforce that feeds the nation. This account of his journey begins at a remarkable moment, after the birth of the United Farm Workers union and the ensuing uptick in worker militancy. As a participant in organizing efforts, strikes, and boycotts, Neuburger saw first-hand the struggles of farmworkers for better wages and working conditions, and the lengths the growers would go to suppress worker unity. Part memoir, part informed commentary on farm labor, the U.S. labor movement, and the political economy of agriculture, Lettuce Wars is a lively account written from the perspective of the fields. Neuburger portrays the people he encountered—immigrant workers, fellow radicals, company bosses, cops and goons—vividly and indelibly, lending a human aspect to the conflict between capital and labor as it played out in the fields of California.