Library Guides: Farmworker Awareness: César Chávez

A mural by Roy Villalobo, depicting César Chávez emerging from a corn stalk, and his arm has become a cob of corn.

image from: http://citedatthecrossroads.net/chst332/2014/02/21/the-many-faces-of-corn/

Who was César Chávez?

"Mexican-American César Chávez (1927-1993) was a prominent union leader and labor organizer. Hardened by his early experience as a migrant worker, Chávez founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. His union joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee in its first strike against grape growers in California, and the two organizations later merged to become the United Farm Workers. Stressing nonviolent methods, Chávez drew attention for his causes via boycotts, marches and hunger strikes. Despite conflicts with the Teamsters union and legal barriers, he was able to secure raises and improve conditions for farm workers in California, Texas, Arizona and Florida." (From César Chávez Facts & Summary)

César Chávez - Facts & Summary
From the History Channel.

César Chávez: Autobiography of La Causa. by Jacques E. Levy; César Chávez
Call Number: HD6509 C48 L48 2007
Publication Date: 2007

Chicano! PBS Documentary The Struggle in the Fields (video)
21:20 minutes. This is about César Chávez, UFW, Senate Migratory Sub Committee Hearings

The Crusades of Cesar Chavez by Miriam Pawel
Call Number: HD6509 C48 P39x 2014
Publication Date: 2014
Drawing on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, Pawel traces Chávez's remarkable career as he conceived strategies that empowered the poor and vanquished California's powerful agriculture industry, and his later shift from inspirational leadership to a cult of personality, with tragic consequences for the union he had built.
Encyclopedia of César Chávez by Roger A. Bruns
Call Number: HD6509 C48 B79 2013
Publication Date: 2013
This book offers original source material on the life, accomplishments, disappointments, and lasting legacy of César Chávez. It presents a narrative of the events in the life of Chávez and the Farm Workers Movement, as well as original documents and entries on people and events.
From the Jaws of Victory by Matthew Garcia
Call Number: HD6509 C48 G37 2012
Publication Date: 2012
This book is available in both hard copy and electronic versions. It "is the most comprehensive history ever written on the meteoric rise and precipitous decline of the United Farm Workers, the most successful farm labor union in United States history. Based on little-known sources and one-of-a-kind oral histories with many veterans of the farm worker movement, this book revises much of what we know about the UFW."
La Causa: the Migrant Farmworkers' Story by Dana C. De Ruiz; Richard Larios
Call Number: PZ121 D449c
Publication Date: 1993
Describes the efforts in the 1960s of César Chávez and Dolores Huerta to organize migrant workers in California into a union which became the United Farm Workers.