Celebrating Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta -Defend The Immigrants Among US

Duane Campbell and Cesar Chavez, 1972

Celebrating Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta  -Defend Immigrants Rights
 
















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​March 31  ,2025 is Cesar Chavez’s birthday and Cesar Chavez Day – a state holiday in California,  one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.    Hundreds marched in  Sacramento and dozens of other cities held commemorative marches on Saturday with an emphasis on protecting the immigrants among us. Thousands are mobilized today in the California Central Valley for the difficult and current battles to protect the immigrant families.   The California and the U.S. economy are  dependent upon the labor of migrants. 
 
Celebrating Chavez became a national commemorative holiday in 2014 based upon the decision of Barack Obama. ( that means you don’t get the day off )
 
In the planning document for NS we say,
 
DSA and the broader Left must join forces to confront the international rise of authoritarianism and the electoral victory of the Trump/MAGA forces.  Together we will work to build a center-left coalition in defense of democracy. DSA must jettison a growing tendency towards a  “go it alone” approach that devalues coalition work and glosses over the importance – indeed, the necessity – of a center-left coalition to defend democracy from neo-fascism.
Given the above, North Star understands its role in DSA as:

• Developing organizational clarity on the imminent danger of a neo-fascist seizure of political power, and the concomitant loss of U.S. democracy, as the defining feature of the political moment;
• Urging DSA to play a constructive role, as the primary focus of its work, in organizing a broad progressive coalition that can expand towards the political center to oppose that neo-fascist danger.

 
Certainly the broad coalition we need to build to oppose fascism  must include the immigrants among us. 
DSA conventions in 2021 and 2023 passed resolutions on immigrants rights, but little was achieved until now. 
 
DSA’s new International Migrants Rights working group has a good updated analysis of this work.  They say, 
 
https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/dsa-defend-migrants-rights
With the start of Donald Trump’s second term, we face once again widespread dehumanization of migrants, mainstream calls for mass deportations, and rising racism and nativism. In just the first week of his administration, Trump has issued executive orders declaring a national emergency and sending over a thousand troops to the US-Mexico border, reinstituting the “remain in Mexico” policy blocking legal asylum claims, and seeking to end birthright citizenship. Under his direction, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has started to conduct raids across the country. 
Though fear and worry are spreading, it is important to remember that this is not the first time we have faced this threat. DSA’s newly formed International Migrant Rights Working Group (IMRWG) builds on a legacy of socialists supporting international and anticapitalist migrant struggles and fighting against organized border imperialism and mass deportation
To consider the needed participation of popular working class organizations and unity see here. 
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-and-resistance-all-of-us-or-none/?
 
 
The UFW was founded in the early 1960’s of the United Farm Workers (UFW) by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz and others. The UFW joined the AFL-CIO.
 
NAFTA,  The North American Free Trade Agreement passed by the U.S. Congress in  1994,  has produced  massive migrations of exploited workers, refugees, displaced farmers, and  agricultural workers, as a result of an  unjust global political and economic system ( neo liberalism) that works for the benefit of transnational corporations and at the expense of working people. Most of the jobs created in Mexico come without benefits and without a written contract.  
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Much of the current wave of migration to the United States from
Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean can be traced to NAFTA , and the 2017 updated CAFTA, and other unjust “free trade” agreements that enabled subsidized U.S. agribusiness to flood these societies with cheap produce, destroying the livelihoods of millions of small farmers and other rural workers. 
            NAFTA created a loss of over 680,000  jobs in the U.S. and over a million jobs in Mexico. People who lost their jobs moved to the cities or to the U.S. producing immigration.  NAFTA was a trade agreement for the corporations.  U.S. owned transnational corporations, including  Ford, Chrysler, Apple, and more eliminated jobs in the U.S. and moved these jobs to other nations where labor was cheaper. 
            Economic change forced by NAFTA made a small group of people in Mexico much richer, and a group of people in the U.S. much richer, but it made the vast majorities in both countries poorer.  
 
         A  goal of trade agreements is to make it profitable  for U.S. corporations to relocate their manufacturing  to Mexico and other developing countries. This has the effect of putting U.S. manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world.  This eliminate manufacturing jobs in the U.S.  and it pressures U.S. workers and unions to accept concessionary bargaining to keep jobs here. 
For more on the role of immigration see
https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/steps-toward-a-labor-informed-position-on-immigration
and here:
https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/dsa-defend-migrants-rights
 
The UFW was the  first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history. There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers’ union.   Each of the prior attempts was destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez and Huerta chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing and allied itself  with churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S. The UFW showed unions that immigrants can and must be organized.    
 
Both Chavez and ( former  DSA Honorary) Chair Dolores Huerta have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and have been recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor and in the California Hall of Fame for their work. 
 
Dolores Huerta remains active as a staunch advocate for women’s rights and reproductive freedom.  She was an honorary DSA chair, a founding board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation and a member of the board of Ms. Magazine.  She is active in Democratic Party conventions and campaigns and frequently speaks at universities and organizational forums and union halls  on issues of social justice and public policy. Huerta  continues to develop community leaders and to advocate for the working poor, immigrants, women and youth as president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
 
César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial union. Mexican, Mexican-American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW.  This cross-racial organizing  was necessary in order to combat the  prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines, as well as immigration status,  always left the corporations the winners.
 
In the 60's, Chávez and Huerta became the pre-eminent civil rights leaders for Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation.  They worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to their skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture, including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party, then led by  Ronald Reagan.   Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non-union  farm workers today  continue to live on  sub-poverty wages while producing abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state, in the richest nation in the world.  
 
In response to corporate power, Chavez developed new strategies such as the boycott, based upon  his personal   commitment to  non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and  Martin Luther King Jr.  César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona. 
 
Today Mexican, Mexican-American and Latino  union leadership is common  in our major cities and in several  industries and Latino union leaders increasingly play an important role in local, state, and national elections.  For example, the mobilization of Latino families and voters was critical to the re-election of Barack Obama.  The UFW was a school for organizing.  Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience.    Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits for the unionized workers, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.
 
The UFW is also known for helping to create the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, under then-Governor Jerry Brown, which gives farm workers collective bargaining rights.  The law was made necessary by a 1972 Teamsters Union raid on UFW contracts.  Sadly, the victory was only partial. While farm workers are often able to win elections under the ALRB, they seldom can win a contract.  Growers stall and delay until the workers leave the area. 
 
Today, only about 5,000  farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. Wages and benefits in non union  farm labor have again been reduced to the pre-union levels.  
Thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops, often indigenous Zapotec and Mixtec people from the south of Mexico, and only a small percent are in unions.  The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’s name nor the UFW’s contributions. Yet, in other regions immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors and Unite/Here by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.
 
Chavez taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. Many curriculum packages for schools stress his emphasis on service to others.  The union experienced both external and internal conflicts. But building popular organizations, while messy, builds people's power and democracy. In creating the UFW, Chavez and Huerta organized thousands into a union and inspired millions. 
 
The organizing side of the UFW legacy changed the Southwest and organized labor.      The movement led by Chavez and Huerta reduced the oppression of farm workers. Many people, descendents of earlier generations of farm workers, learned to take a stand for justice.  They learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay, or unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable.  Rather, these are social creations which can be changed through organizing for economic and political power.    
 
Today, thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops, often indigenous Zapotec and Mixtec people from the south of Mexico, and only a small percent are in unions.  The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’s name nor the UFW’s contributions. Yet, in other regions immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors and Unite/Here by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.
 
The generation that created the UFW is passing. A new generation of political activists, mostly within the Democratic Party, has emerged since the Chavez generation.  Organizing the May Day 2006 massive immigrant rights demonstrations was significantly assisted by persons trained within the UFW.  A new, significant Latino union and political base has been created in the nation. 
 
Chavez's and Huerta’s legacy is significant for popular struggles, Chicano/Mexicano self-determination and immigrant workers’ unions.  The UFW taught us how to organize for power and for justice.  Chavez is present in all of our work.  You can find out more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org; http://www.chavezfoundation.org/;
http://www.farmworkermovement.org/ 
 
Duane Campbell is professor emeritus of bilingual/multicultural education at California State University-Sacramento; author of Choosing Democracy: A Practical Guide to Multicultural Education, 4th Edition, (Allyn and Bacon,2010); and former chair of Sacramento DSA.
He currently serves on the steering committee of the North Star Caucus.,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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