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philosophy that would inspire him to develop his own crusade to help farm workers.8
The Philosophy behind Cesar Chavez
Chavez’s intellectual and moral basis for organizing farm workers came from not only from Father McDonnell but from studying a variety of subjects who were great leaders in history. However, he was particularly influenced by Mohandas Gandhi. It was through Gandhi that Chavez was inspired to introduce his own philosophy of nonviolence.9 After gaining vital experience from working as an organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), Chavez decided to move to Delano, California in 1962 to start his own union devoted to farm workers.
His first step in organizing was to learn the physical makeup of Delano and get acquainted with the farmers. Then, he mapped out towns between Arvin and Stockton and visited each one of them over the course of six months. When he saw workers in the fields, he approached them to see if they were interested in joining a union. In 1962, Chavez convinced enough farmers to form a union known as the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA). The group would change its name several times, finally settling on the United Farm Workers (UFW).10 However, it was not an easy task forming an organization. In 1965, he delivered a speech at a
meeting of the California Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Fresno talking about how difficult it was to establish the NFWA. He spoke about the importance of the number of people in the union and the importance of outside help.11
Chavez found it useful to promote his newly established union to a nonviolent committee such as the SNCC to prove to the nation that this farmers union was a nonviolent one. However, nonviolence tactics did not attract all the support he needed, especially when the opposition resulted in violence. In 1966, two thousand Filipino farmers of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) protested over receiving lower salaries than braceros. Braceros are temporary workers from Mexico that are recruited by the grower industries. Larry Itiong, the head of the AWOC asked Chavez and the UFW to strike against grape growers. Chavez agreed to strike but the moment they began to hit the picket lines, the growers fired guns at the strikers. Chavez recalled: “in a period of seven days we had fourteen incidents where they actually fired a gun at the strikers.” 12
Chavez quickly realized the importance of outside help after the grape strike. Chavez thought that the strike would be only against the growers but he was wrong. He later recalled:
Within twenty-four hours from the movement that we had hit the picket lines, the City Council had passed a resolution condemning the Red ties. The High School Board and the Elementary School Board had done the same thing. And the Chamber of Commerce did it also with the exception that their statement was a lot more wordy. And three days later when everything seemed to be against us the Church had not yet acted…At that point we were cut off completely. We had no friends in Delano except for the workers. We had no money…Things looked very bad for us.13
Using Religion
Chavez knew that if he wanted to rebound from this negativity, he would need support from the Catholic Church. Since most of his UFW was composed of Mexican Catholics, the blessings of the Church would legitimize the union and unite their followers.14 However, the Catholic Church was not really helping his cause at first, but he was getting help from the California Migrant Ministry (CMM). At first Cesar was suspicious of the CMM because they were Protest
