Over the years, I have written many op-ed pieces about César Chávez. This is one I wish I didn’t have to write.
The recent revelations about him are as shocking as they are painful. I was his Texas lawyer for 18 years before he died and am stunned. When I heard the news, I would wake up at night, hoping it had been a bad dream. But it wasn’t. I grieve and pray for the victims. My heart goes out to them.
Those of us who joined the farm worker movement and gave much of our lives to it must come out of this nightmare with the resolve to keep the movement going. We must move beyond our sense of betrayal to remember that what we worked for, and continue to work for, is the cause of justice, the cause of justice for farm workers and all those whom our American system oppresses. The disclosures about César will not deter us a bit, but will add a heavy burden to our shoulders.
The movement is about people. The farm workers’ victory in Texas of changing the laws that denied them workers’ compensation, unemployment benefits, and the right to know about dangerous pesticides in the fields—and their success in banning the backbreaking short-handled hoe, bringing access to toilets and drinking water in the fields, and organizing politically — was the struggle of poor people who joined together and shouted, “This is enough! It is time to change! ¡Ya basta!”
History recognizes César’s organizing skills and his dedication to workers’ rights. But we must acknowledge him as a flawed person. We must keep firm in our minds that, even though he was the leader of a movement for justice that brought enormous change and inspired people worldwide to join the struggle, that the movement was by the people and for the people, and remains by the people and for the people.
The red-and-white United Farm Workers flag with its black Aztec eagle will always be a symbol of respect for those who lost their lives, the four martyrs of the movement, and the hundreds of thousands of workers and supporters who shored up the struggle and were its bedrock.
The picture of the struggle for me is that of Genoveva Puga, whose son was crushed to death by a forklift malfunction in an orange grove, standing next to Governor Mark White, holding her UFW flag at the la Virgen de San Juan shrine in 1984, as he signed the law extending workers compensation to injured farm laborers who had been denied that benefit, which all other workers had for 70 years.
Genoveva Puga gave her heart to changing the law so that nobody else had to suffer the pain that her son’s family and his two children had to endure. Genoveva was one of so many like her with whom I was honored to work. That is the struggle we need to treasure, all the while admitting the defects of our leaders, who, like all humans, can be flawed.
When we marched with César, when we fasted with him, when we applauded his words, we were not doing it for him, but for all those who have suffered and still suffer. We will not stop that struggle, God help us.
We will continue the struggle against the country’s powers of darkness that strive to diminish workers’ rights and undercut people’s fierce struggle for justice. They try to distract us from their own complicity in the evil of injustice. The fight continues. We shall overcome!
I write this to honor and lift up all who have participated in the fight for justice, all those who have made life better for farm workers, and all those who have taken inspiration from their movement, in all walks of life, for the benefit of our larger society. ¡Adelante!
(Jim Harrington is the retired founder of the Texas Civil Rights Project).
