Understanding Cesar ChavezRandy Shawbyline‚ Mar. 31‚ 2008Today is Cesar Chavez Day in California. Chavez is the nation’s most honored Latino, and momentum is growing for a national holiday in his honor. In the fall of 2005, I began planning a book that would portray how Chavez, and the ideas and staff of the farmworkers movement of the 1960’s and 70’s, still shape today’s progressive movements. The book, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century, will be released by the University of California Press in September. In researching Chavez, I was struck how the perception of him as a larger than life, almost symbolic figure has obscured the traits that enabled him to build a farmworkers movement. For example, many are not aware that Cesar Chavez was a great grassroots organizer, a brilliant strategist, and a profoundly religious man. In honor of Cesar Chavez Day, here are some lesser known and appreciated qualities about the man whose rallying cry of “Si Se Puede!” still animates today’s progressive struggles. |