césar estrada chávez was the female chicano leader who worked to unionize agricultural workers.
césar estrada chávez was the female chicano leader who worked to unionize agricultural workers.
who was the female chicano leader who worked to unionize agricultural workers?
césar estrada chávez
césar chávez (march 31, 1927 – april 23, 1993) was a hugely influential labor rights activist. he, along with dolores huerta, created the united farm workers, which would become one of the most important organizations in the fight for labour rights of farmworkers. chávez sometimes struggled with his connection to both the chicano movement and the labor movement. he believed the labor movement should transcend racial boundaries but his fight revolved around agricultural workers and mexican-americans made up a huge amount of that particular group. this made it impossible for him to forgo ties to the movement and the public viewed him as a chicano hero. he constantly gained national attention through protests, boycotts, marches, and many hunger strikes. even more notable than these acts however, was the large organized boycott that the chávez led ufw imposed on california grape growers. the result was the 1975 agricultural labor relations act, which greatly improved the conditions and protections of agricultural labourers. whether he was comfortable with the dynamic or not, chávez had a direct tie to the chicano movement solely off the sheer number of workers that identified as such. he came to understand this and would employ symbolic imagery in order to garner support for his movements. he would champion ancestral ties and religious icons as well as plan protests and boycotts on specific days that were symbolic in the minds of mexican-americans and their fight for justice. he was known for his use of non-violent tactics and is still viewed today as one of the most important human rights activists of the 20th century in the u.s.
chicanismo
the agricultural workers organization, a subsidiary of the industrial workers of the world, as part of its continuing nationwide push to unionize agricultural workers, took up the workers' cause through the local 20221 in san joaquin county. local 20221 was chartered through the american federation of labor in may 1936 and in march 1937 was authorized by the stockton central labor council to start organizing cannery workers, a move not sanctioned by the state federation, but nevertheless undertook to head off both the international longshoremen's association which they considered too radical and their rival, the congress of industrial organizations. this left a bitterly divided, partially organized, labor movement at odds with a militant business association, the california producers and growers, determined to block unionization at any cost. all parties viewed stockton as the key battleground for control of california's multimillion-dollar agricultural industry.
stockton cannery strike of 1937