César Chávez (1927-1993) was a Mexican-American labor leader and social activist who organized the first effective union of farm workers in the history of California agriculture. Chávez captured the nation's attention in 1965 when he organized the largest agricultural strike on record, the great California table-grape strike. As a civil rights leader, Chávez spoke out for economic and social justice and was an outspoken advocate of social change through nonviolent means. We celebrate César Chávez Day but the celebration is about much more than one man. The Farmworkers' Movement not only established workers' right to organize but was instrumental in achieving improved wages and working conditions for agricultural workers throughout the United States. More
Photo Credit: National Hispanic Heritage Month César Chávez by Joel Levine/Wilkimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
The United Farm Workers (UFW) is a predominantly Mexican farm labor union that first emerged in 1965 under the leadership of César Chávez. More Photo Credit: United Farm Workers 3 Mile March by Steve Rhodes (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
A five-year-long confrontation between farm workers and grape growers that involved walkouts, marches, and consumer boycotts. More Photo Credit: Steve Allen with Grape Boycott Pickets (CC BY 4.0)
Larry Itliong was a farm worker and union organizer who was instrumental in the founding and development of the United Farm Workers (UFW) in California. More Photo Credit: Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong by Timothy Biley (CC BY 2.0)
Cofounder and first vice president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), Dolores Huerta is the most prominent Chicana labor leader in the United States. More Photo Credit: Dolores Huerta by Tom Hilton (CC BY 2.0)
Philip Vera Cruz was an farm worker who became a labor leader and eventually a vice president of the United Farm Workers (UFW). More Photo Credit: Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong by Timothy Biley (CC BY 2.0)
El Teatro Campesino, or Farmworkers Theater, was launched in 1965 during the Delano grape strike. More Photo Credit: Cesar Chavez 9 ok by James Rojas (CC BY NC ND 2.0)
Dolores Huerta Stands Strong by 
Curious Unions by
César E. Chávez came to Oxnard, California, in 1958, twenty years after he lived briefly in the city as a child with his migrant farmworker family during the Great Depression. This time Chávez returned as the organizer of the Community Service Organization to support the unionization campaign of the United Packinghouse Workers of America. Together the two groups challenged the agricultural industry's use of braceros (imported contract laborers) who displaced resident farmworkers. The Mexican and Mexican American populations in Oxnard were involved in cultural struggles and negotiations long before Chávez led them in marches and active protests. Curious Unions explores the ways in which the Mexican community forged intriguing partnerships with other ethnic groups within Oxnard in the first half of the twentieth century and the resulting economic exchanges, cultural practices, and labor and community activism. Frank P. Barajas examines how the Oxnard ethnic Mexican population exercised its agency in alliance with other groups and organizations to meet their needs before large-scale protests and labor unions were engaged. Curious Unions charts how the cultural negotiations that took place in the Oxnard ethnic Mexican community helped shape and empower farm labor organizing.
Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Movement by 
Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History of Filipino Immigrants and the Farmworkers Movement (eBook) by
Filipino farmworkers sat down in the grape fields of Delano, California, in 1965 and began the strike that brought about a dramatic turn in the long history of farm labor struggles in California. Their efforts led to the creation of the United Farm Workers union under Cesar Chavez, with Philip Vera Cruz as its vice-president and highest-ranking Filipino officer. Philip Vera Cruz (1904–1994) embodied the experiences of the manong generation, an enormous wave of Filipino immigrants who came to the United States between 1910 and 1930. Instead of better opportunities, they found racial discrimination, deplorable living conditions, and oppressive labor practices. In his deeply reflective and thought-provoking oral memoir, Vera Cruz explores the toll these conditions took on both families and individuals. Craig Scharlin and Lilia V. Villanueva met Philip Vera Cruz in 1974 as volunteers in the construction of Agbayani Village, the United Farm Workers retirement complex in Delano, California. This oral history, first published in 1992, is the product of hundreds of hours of interviews. Elaine H. Kim teaches Asian American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Asian American Literature: An Introduction to the Writings and Their Social Context.
The marches and protests generated sufficient public and political pressure to culminate in the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. More Photo Credit: César Chávez, Migrant Workers Union Leader by National Archives and Records Administration (PDM 1.0)
This article demonstrates how Filipinos and Mexicans resolved deeply rooted racial division and that doing so built a path to successful farm labor mobilization. More Photo Credit: Philip Vera Cruz and Larry Itliong by Timothy Biley (CC BY 2.0)
Dolores Huerta as a woman, organizer and a symbol of what Gloria Anzaldúa has called the New Mestiza, 'sin fronteras' - without boundaries or borders. More Photo Credit: Dolores Huerta by Garrett Ziegler (CC BY NC ND 2.0)
An article by César Chávez discussing the farms workers' struggle for an effective farm labor law in California (originally published in the Los Angeles Times, 8 April 1976). More Photo Credit: Cesar Chavez 9 ok by James Rojas (CC BY NC ND 2.0)
This article documents 10 years of FBI surveillance of César Chávez under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, and his efforts to pin a Communist conspiracy on the farmworker movement. More Photo Credit: Interview with César Chávez by Library of Congress (PDM 1.0)
In the 1960's off-Broadway theatre became less a vehicle for entertainment and more a platform for social and political issues. More Photo Credit: Luis Valdez by dignidadrebelde (CC BY 2.0)
