Cesar Chavez

[Creative Destruction]

this looks pretty interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtDUTt8ggeA

[ckaihatsu]

Review of the movie 'Cesar Chavez'

By Carlos Montes

http://www.fightbacknews.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/article-lead-photo/Cesar_Chavez_2014_film.jpg

Los Angeles, CA - The movie Cesar Chavez by Mexican actor/producer Diego Luna again puts the public eye on the injustices and harsh working conditions of the mostly Mexicano farm workers in the U.S. It also covers the early history of the United Farm Workers Union (UFW) and its first strike and the successful grape boycott against the growers. The movie was funded by mostly Mexican investors and shot entirely in Sonora, Mexico, as it was not a priority for U.S. film makers.

The movie mainly covers the first 10 years of the UFW farmworkers struggles, beginning with the grape strike in 1965. The boycott that followed gained national support and helped to win the first UFW union contracts in 1970. The movie goes on to show the role of Cesar Chavez, his family and Dolores Huerta working with others to start the UFW. It does point out the important role of Filipino farmworkers who started the famous strike in August of 1965. In one short scene it shows Chavez talking with farm workers at a house meeting, asking questions about the work conditions and asking them what they want to do. He was known for his one-on-one organizing skills. It does show briefly his start with the Community Service Organization (CSO), an early Mexican-American civil rights group.

One thing I enjoyed about the movie was seeing Chicano and Latino actors and actresses playing important Chicano historical figures in our fight against racist injustice. Chavez is played by Michael Peña, who I met on the set of Walkout where he played teacher Sal Castro. America Ferrera plays Chavez’s wife, Helen, and Rosario Dawson is the vocal UFW leader Dolores Huerta. The movie does point out the important role of the women in the founding and actions of the UFW.

Overall, Cesar Chavez was a good movie, especially for those who know very little of this period of struggle in our Chicano history. The movie shows the brutality of the police and large ranch owners toward the Mexicano and Chicano farmworkers. It shows the oppressive working and living conditions of farmworkers in the fields and crowded living conditions in the farm camps with very low pay. When the farm workers organized with the UFW they faced the power of the state, including court injunctions, police brutality and mass arrests.

On a personal note, I met Cesar twice, once at a grocery market boycott activity and later at Talpa Church in Boyle Heights for a 75-year birthday event for Fred Ross, who had worked for Saul Alinsky and had helped to recruit Chavez to the movement. Chavez always appeared a quite unassuming person.

What the movie did not show was the support and solidarity the boycott received from the Chicano movement, with many organizations supporting the UFW, especially in the large cities. We saw the UFW as part of the Chicano movement and our struggle for equality. The Brown Berets joined the UFW picketing at the Los Angeles produce market to protest the delivery of grapes. Also the Chicano student group La Vida Nueva - The New Life - at East L.A. College protested and demanded that grapes be taken out of the student cafeteria.

As a short movie it lacked the total story of Chavez and the UFW and did not show the later leadership weaknesses and the decline of the union, which has recently been documented in various new books.

¡Viva la Huelga, Viva la Union!

Carlos Montes is a longtime activist in the Chicano community in Los Angeles and was a leading member of the Brown Berets in the 1960s.

Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]






This email was sent to [email protected]
why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list update subscription preferences
Fight Back! News · P.O. Box 582564 · Minneapolis, MN 55440 · USA

[Per Levy]

does that movie also covers the anti-immigration stance of chavez and the ufw? also what is up with that flag of the ufw, looks like whoever designed that got inspirations by nazi germany flags and symbols.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

Or perhaps that he supported the Marcos regime out of a weak minded attempt to win support from the Philippines that anyone with an ounce of brain cells would know wouldn't work

[Creative Destruction]

does that movie also covers the anti-immigration stance of chavez and the ufw?

This was a bit of a complex position that rested on representing their American members. At least one incident involved farmers using immigrants to cross a UFW picket line. Also, Chavez was instrumental in getting amnesty for immigrants in the 80s. His and Dolores Huerta's position was different in character, concern and substance than that of white nativists.

It sucks, but that's the way it was. Things like this are complicated and messy. Would've been awesome if he had a more internationalist outlook. It doesn't mean he wasn't an important figure in organizing farm workers and deserves to be recognized as such.

ETA. I just found this article that give a good, if brief, outline: http://fusion.net/justice/story/cesar-chavezs-complex-history-immigration-15322

As immigration politics evolved, so did major figures in the Mexican-American civil rights movement, thanks to Chicano activists. Dolores Huertes has a more immigrant supportive position these days and there's nothing to say that Chavez wouldn't have gone on the same trajectory, as well, since it seemed he was heading that way, if a bit later than most.


also what is up with that flag of the ufw, looks like whoever designed that got inspirations by nazi germany flags and symbols.

Maybe you could google it before making such stupid and disgusting insinuations?


The Symbolism of the Flag:

The black eagle signifies the dark situation of the farm worker. The Aztec eagle is an historic symbol for the people of Mexico. The UFW incorporated the Aztec eagle into its design in order to show the connection the union had to migrant workers of Mexican-American descent, though not all UFW workers were Mexican-American.

The white circle signified hope and aspirations.

The red background stood for the hard work and sacrifice that the union members would have to give.

The UFW also adopted an official motto, “Viva la Causa” (Long Live Our Cause).

http://www.cesarlegacy.org/ceclef-in-the-news/ufw-flag/

[Zukunftsmusik]

This was a bit of a complex position that rested on representing their American members. At least one incident involved farmers using immigrants to cross a UFW picket line. Also, Chavez was instrumental in getting amnesty for immigrants in the 80s. His and Dolores Huerta's position was different in character, concern and substance than that of white nativists.

This wavering about the situation being "complicated" is really weak tbh.


Maybe you could google it before making such stupid and disgusting insinuations?

I don't think Per Levy is trying to compare UFW/Chavez with nazism, and maybe this was a somewhat low blow from Per, but either way the design of that flag is rather... unfortunate.

[Per Levy]

This was a bit of a complex position that rested on representing their American members. At least one incident involved farmers using immigrants to cross a UFW picket line. Also, Chavez was instrumental in getting amnesty for immigrants in the 80s. His and Dolores Huerta's position was different in character, concern and substance than that of white nativists.

It sucks, but that's the way it was. Things like this are complicated and messy. Would've been awesome if he had a more internationalist outlook. It doesn't mean he wasn't an important figure in organizing farm workers and deserves to be recognized as such.

is it also true that the ufw ratted out "illegal" immigrants to the state wich then deported them?


Maybe you could google it before making such stupid and disgusting insinuations?

stupid and disgusting, my my. let me tell you something if youd run around with that flag in germany i can guarantee you that the police and antifacists alike would be on your heels very quickly. i mean when was this flag designed? in the 60s? 2 decades after ww2 and they couldnt come up with an other design than a flag that looks almost completly like a nazi flag? even the eagle looks almost like a third reich eagle symbol.

[Creative Destruction]

This wavering about the situation being "complicated" is really weak tbh.

Maybe you could explain why you think it is "really weak"? There's no wavering going on my part. Many major Mexican-American activists back in the 50s - 60s held similar views, including Chavez. While unfortunate, that's how the cookie crumbled. They were responding to the way immigrants were being used, as a labor-movement-breaking force. The shift in perspective, with Chavez included, in the 70s is a sign of the impact of the Chicano movement, including the Brown Berets.

[Creative Destruction]

is it also true that the ufw ratted out "illegal" immigrants to the state wich then deported them?

Cesar Chavez admitted to doing that, yes.


stupid and disgusting, my my. let me tell you something if youd run around with that flag in germany i can guarantee you that the police and antifacists alike would be on your heels very quickly. i mean when was this flag designed? in the 60s? 2 decades after ww2 and they couldnt come up with an other design than a flag that looks almost completly like a nazi flag? even the eagle looks almost like a third reich eagle symbol.

It'd be nice if you made note to have some self-awareness about calling an indigenous symbol "almost like a third reich eagle symbol." You know the history and reasons behind it now, there's no reason, other than to be shitty about it, to say such moronic things. You're starting to sound like a right-wing shithead claiming that the UFW took inspiration from the nazis (http://www.westernjournalism.com/ufw-flag-copied-from-nazis/).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I really don't see what the flag has to do with anything. I mean, obviously it wasn't meant as a Nazi symbol; it just looks like one (so do a lot of flags, for that matter, including the Albanian one). If the flag really would be banned in Germany, that is an excellent example of the German state's neurotic obsession with banning the symbols of Nazism, while continuing on in its role as the successor, via the Bonn regime, of Nazi Germany.

As for Chavez, Workers' Vanguard had an excellent article on him, detailing his support for Marcos, his red-baiting and his opposition to immigration. UFW Boss Hails Marcos' Dictatorship - Chavez: Farm Workers' George Meany (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/workersvanguard/1977/0172_09_09_1977.pdf) (the article starts on page 4).

[Bala Perdida]

The flag, mostly the "huelga bird", is mostly used by a street gang here in the Bay Area. I would not go waving it around here for that reason.
Seeing it used by pro-immigrant activists is very Ironic. As well as seeing the worshiping of Chavez so much, by pro-immigrant activists and the hispanic community.
Also, I feel that to much credit is taken/given to hispanics/chicanos. I'm not sure why either, chicano nationalism is almost unseen where I live. I'm not saying they don't deserve it either, but the Philippinoes who started the movement have been almost completely discredited. It's probably one of those ugly ethnic rivalries now that I think of it.
I give him credit for the labor movement, but I can't honor a guy who treated immigrants as badly as he did and betrayed the community that started the movement. He was okay I guess. He was also endorsed by one of the bourgeois Kennedy's in a populist scheme.

[Red Shaker]

Chavez's right wing line was opposed by many farm workers. Epifanio Camacho who was one of the original organizers of the farm workers movement was expelled from the organization and attacked as a communist because he opposed Chavez's pacifism, red baiting, lack of militancy and reliance on the Democratic Party. Frank Bardacke's book on Chavez has a little bit about this struggle.

[Prometeo liberado]

let me tell you something if youd run around with that flag in germany i can guarantee you that the police and antifacists alike would be on your heels very quickly
And if I painted stripes on a horse it would be a zebra. WTF is the point? So its one symbol and a white circle away from pleasing you and the German people. And that's what you're taking away from the movie or UFW or Cesar, Delores and the movement?

Is this still April 1st?

[Jimmie Higgins]

This wavering about the situation being "complicated" is really weak tbh.

Chavez should be criticized on this basis - and a general liberal-labor outlook - though I don't think Latinos or unionists today who have a more or less favorable view should be shit on. And it is a bit more complicated from a labor standpoint because of specific circumstances.

As I understood it, Chavez was against the Bracero program because it allowed employers to bring in workers who could then, because they had no connecting to local organizing and conditions, be used as strike-breakers. Later the UFW protested migrants crossing the border, but again this was not to generally "stop" migrants, but to specifically stop migrants who would get hired during a specific struggle with growers near the border. I think they also tried to make a cross border coalition to try and argue for people not to take the jobs during the struggle.

At any rate, while it's bad politics, I think it comes more out of a narrow view of labor actions and organizing than anything that could be called "anti-immigrant" in the current context and implication of that title.

As far as the flag... do people really have to shit on one of the few union flags in the US that is actually red:lol: Most of the time people use it today, as more of a cultrual symbol than a union one anyway, there's no white circle on the flag. But symbols are funny things. Many black-bloc people look like the NAZI gangs in my town when I was growing up; and fascists and ad-men are always taking any of our memorable symbols and designs anyway. so what can you do?

[Skyhilist]

http://greatmomentsinleftism.blogspot.com/2014/03/cesar-chavez.html