the little strike that grew to la causa

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to tackle the growers on a substantiveissue. In 1964, the N.F.W.A. took one employerto court for paying less than thethen minimum wage of $1.25 per hour,and after months of wrangling, wonthe case. The amounts of money gainedwere small but the point was made: aboss could be beaten. Then the associationsued the Tulare County housingauthority over the rents and conditionsat two labor camps, built in the late1930s and intended to be used for onlya few years. The camps were a hideouscollection of 9-ft. by II-ft. tin shacks,boiling in the summer sun and lackingboth indoor plumbing and heat for thechill nights. Tulare officials subsequentlybuilt modern accommodations.In May 1965, Chavez signed up agroup of rose grafters and won a strikevote for higher wages. Everyone pledgednot to go to work, but just to makesure that no one did, Chavez and DoloresHuerta, his tiny, tough assistant,made the rounds early on the strike'sfirst morning. Mrs. Huerta saw a lightin one house where four of the workerslived. She reminded them of theirpledge, but they had changed theirminds. Mrs. Huerta moved her truckso that it blocked their driveway andAn Anglo-Chicano LexiconAs with other minority groups,there is a special vocabulary usedby and about Mexican Americans.The words, naturally, are mainlySpanish. Among them:Anglo: white, non-Mexican American.Though normally used simplyin a neutral, descriptive manner, theterm sometimes has pejorative overtones.It has to some extent replacedgringo. Agringada describes a MexicanAmerican who has gone completelyAnglo in his way of life.Barrio: literally "district," theSpanish-speaking quarter of a U.S.city; also, colonia.Bracero: Mexican citizen brought" into the U.S. temporarily and usuallyin groups to add to the existinglabor force at times of peak activity.The program, begun during WorldWar II to relieve manpower shortages,was ended-over farmers' protests-in1964. However. individualsknown as "green-carders" (for thepermits they hold) can work as aliens.La Causa: literally, "the cause."Cesar Chavez's farm-labor movement;also, more broadly, the advancementof Mexican Americans.Chicano: Mexican American. Ashortened, corrupted form of Mexicano,with the first syllable droppedand the "x" pronounced like ch incheese, in the fashion of Mexico'sChihuahua Indians.Hispano: descendant of the originalSpanish settlers of areas now part18put the key in her purse. The incident illustratedthe charge that Chavez andhis aides sometimes coerce those whowould rather work than strike. Afteronly four days of the strike, the groweragreed to give the workers a 120%wage increase.That same spring, in the CoachellaValley east of Los Angeles, the largelyFilipino grape pickers of the A.F.L.c.I.O.'s fledgling Agricultural WorkersOrganizing Committee won a brief strikefor pay equal to that given field handsimported from Mexico. When the workersmoved north to Delano at the endof the summer, grape growers there refusedto make a similar agreement, andA.W.O.C. once more went on strike. OnSept. 16, which just happened to beMexican Independence Day, Chavez'sgroup held a tumultuous meeting andvoted unanimously to join the walkout.The hall of the Roman Catholic churchon Delano's west side resounded withcries of "Viva la huelga!" "Viva lacausa! Viva la union!" The N.F.W.A.and the A.W.O.C. merged two years laterto form the United Farm Workers OrganizingCommittee, headed by Chavez.Table-grape growers are particularlyvulnerable to strikes because their prodofthe U.S. Used chiefly in New Mexicoand Colorado to distinguish suchSpanish-speaking Americans fromlater immigrants of Indian descent.La Huelga: the strike.Malinchista: traitor to the Mexican-Americancause. From Malinche,the daughter of a Mexicannobleman, who became Cortes' mistressand aided the Spanish in theirconquest of Mexico.Mestizo: person of mixed Spanishand Indian blood, as are most MexicanAmericans. Gueros have relativelylight skins; triguefios are somewhatdarker.Pachuco: tough guy. Used of teenageMexican-American boys in gangs.During World War II, dressed ingaudy zoot suits, they were the targetof racial violence in Los Angelesand elsewhere.La Raza: the race, meaning allMexicans and Mexican Americans,and derived from the mystical theoryof the 19th century philosopher,Jose Vasconcelos. that people ofmixed race will inherit the earth. Atbest, it is a rallying cry betokening amild form of cultural nationalism; atworst, it connotes outright racism.Tio Taco: literally "Uncle Taco,"the Mexican-American equivalent ofan Uncle Tom. An equally contemptuoussynonym is vendido, sellout.Wetback: illegal immigrant fromMexico, so called because a commonmeans of entry was to swim the RioGrande.uct requires continual attention throughmuch of the year. Since the appearanceof the fruit affects its value-unlike thecase of wine grapes-the bunches mustbe carefully picked by hand. Becauseof their vulnerability, Chavez pickedthe table-grape growers as his first target.In 1966, after a strike, he got hisfirst contract when Schenley Industriescapitulated because it had a nationallyknown name at stake. Later that yearhe won the right to represent workersat the mammoth Di Giorgio ranch inan election monitored by the AmericanArbitration Association. Both Di Giorgioand Schenley have since sold their tablegrapeholdings, however, and Chavez'sonly contracts now are with wine producers:Gallo, Christian Brothers, Masson,Almaden, Franzia Brothers andNovitiate.Boycott and BreakthroughChavez has never been able to getlarge numbers of laborers to join thestrike. Many of those who do followhim are fanatic in their loyalty, but alarge segment of the shifting, transientwork force continues to be indifferentto unionism. Wages have been risingeven in the absence of contracts, andfew farm workers can afford to go unpaidfor long. Although federal regulationstheoretically prohibit the hiringof aliens, or "green-carders," as strikebreakers, the owners have neverthelesscontinued to use imported workers ofMexican citizenship.Chavez decided to resort to the boycottto keep pressure on the tablegrapegrowers. He applied it first in1967 to the Giumarra Vineyards Corp.,the largest U.S. table-grape producer.Giumarra started using the labels ofother growers-in violation of Foodand Drug Administration rules-to circumventthe boycott. In retaliation, theChavez people began to appeal to storesand consumers not to buy any Californiatable grapes at all. The boycotthas been extended overseas to Britainand Scandinavia.Chavez has now finally achieved abreakthrough: nationwide grape saleswere off 12% in 1968, and prices forthis year's first California grapes aredown as much as 15%. Last monthten growers representing about 12% ofthe state's table-grape production announcedthat they would sit down withChavez to write a contract. If negotiationswith Chavez succeed, some othervineyards may also sign contracts, buta determined majority still barely acknowledgehis existence and remain adamantlyopposed to union recognition.If the union does begin to win contractswith an increasing number ofgrowers, a new difficulty could arise:How is the consumer to tell the differencebetween union and nonuniongrapes? Boxes can be labeled easily,but not loose bunches of grapes in a market.The union claims that existing boycottmachinery can be turned aroundto promote the produce of those whoTIME, JULY 4, 1969
CHAVEZ UNDER PHOTO OF GANDHIAlso Zapata, Nehru and King.have signed; they could be marketedthrough the chain stores that have refusedto handle the produce of struckgrowers. However, any such confusingprocedure is bound to dilute the boycott'seffectiveness.Most of the growers bitterly disputeChavez's contentions. His claim to representthe workers is false, they say;only 3% of California's grape pickershave joined his union. Chavez has notbeen able to strip the fields of workersand, they argue, even if he personallypreaches nonviolence, his followers donot practice it. Packing sheds have beenset afire, foremen threatened, tiresslashed. Chavez also has outside help.Long-haired pickets came down fromBerkeley in the early days of /a hue/ga,and the union gets $14,500 a month ingrants from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and WalterReuther's United Automobile Workers.By insisting that all workers joinhis union, moreover, Chavez wants whatamounts to a closed shop (which is illegalunder the Taft-Hartley Act, butthe act does not apply to agriculturalworkers). This means that, for now atleast, Chavez's goal, however unpalatable,is a legal one. Chavez opposes placingfarm workers under the NationalLabor Relations Board precisely becausethat would make the closed shop heseeks unlawful.The growers of Delano are difficultto cast as villains. Many are self-mademen, Yugoslavs and Italians who cameto the valley between 1900 and 1940with nothing and worked hard to amassTIME, JULY 4, 1969enough capital to practice the grapegrowingarts they learned in Europe.Most of the Delano spreads are familyenterprises, and many of them havehad rough going. Costs have risen sharplyover the past decade, and grape priceshave now begun to decline.The California growers also pay thesecond highest agricultural wages in theU.S. (after Hawaii, where unionizedworkers average $3 an hour).While they generally belittle the extentof his support, however, the growershave gone to some lengths to counterChavez's moves. The anti-U.F.W.O.C.campaign even included for a time agroup called Mothers Against Chavez.The growers are using the J. WalterThompson agency to place $400,000worth of ads extolling the benefits oftable grapes. The California public relationsfirm of Whitaker & Baxter hasbeen retained to advise the growers abouthow to counter the boycott. Whitaker& Baxter helped to manage Richard Nixon'sunsuccessful campaign for governorof California in 1962, and mastermindedthe American Medical Association's attemptto defeat Medicare.On $10 a WeekOne reason for the lack of comprehensionbetween Chavez and thegrowers is that each has different conceptsof the fundamental issue. Thegrowers see themselves as managementin a classic labor dispute, while Chavezand his followers believe that the causeof all Mexican Americans is at stake.That is what inspires Chavez's devotionto /a causa. For years he andhis wife and eight children have livedjammed into a tiny two-bedroom housein Delano, subsisting on $10 a weekfrom the union and on food from thecommunal kitchen in nearby union headquarters.Chavez has grown increasinglyascetic. He has given up casual socializingas well as liquor and cigarettes;his idea of a real treat is aneclectic meal of Chinese food, matzohsand diet soda. The fight has becomehis life. "The days and weeks and monthsrun together," he told TrME CorrespondentRobert Anson. "I can't think backto a time when we were not on strike."Nor does he contemplate surrender tothe growers. "Either the union will be destroyed,"he says, "or they will sign acontract. There's no other alternative."The use of only peaceful means hasbeen central to his thinking since a1953 showdown in the San Joaquin Valleybetween his Mexican-AmericanC.S.O. pickets and a public official. Suddenly,he realized that if there wereany violence or serious disorder it wouldbe his responsibility. He began readingGandhi, and he says now: "If the strikemeans the blood of one grower or onegrower's son, or one worker or one worker'sson, then it isn't worth it."In February 1968, Chavez began a 25day fast "as an act of penance, recallingworkers to the nonviolent rootsof their movement." Although he insistedthat his decision was essentiallya private one, the fast took on a certaincircus aura and raised suspicionsthat its motivation was more theatricalthan theological. During the fast, Chavezhad to make a court appearance inBakersfield, on charges of improper picketing,in a case that has yet to come totrial. As he did so, 2,000 farm workersknelt outside in prayer. One woman solemnlyasked him if he were indeed asaint. When the fast ended, Senator RobertKennedy knelt next to him to receiveCommunion. Some 8,000 othersjoined them in Delano's MemorialPark for a bread-breaking ceremony.The fast, and Chavez's years of 12to 16-hour days, took their toll. Last Septemberhe suffered a muscular breakdownin his back-he had been in painfor years before that-and found hislegs nearly paralyzed. After spendingmore than two months in traction, hehas now substantially recovered, but isstill bedridden much of the time. Insteadof spending long hours drivingaround the state, he receives a constantstream of subordinates at his bedside.Chavez's religious conviction mingleswith the exigencies of the movement.He opposes birth control for his people,but only partly out of conventionalCatholicism; he argues that smaller familieswould diminish the numerical powerof the poor. A priest brings him Communiondaily. To Correspondent Ansonhe explained: "God prepares those whohave to suffer and take punishment. Otherwise,how could we exist? How couldthe black man exist? There must besomething special. I really think thatHe looks after us."Cesar Chavez came to his missionfrom a background of poverty and prejudicethat is a paradigm of that ofmany Chicanos. Like most MexicanCHAVEZ ENDING FAST AT MASSIdeas mainly from the encyclicals.19
Page 2 and 3: APGRAPE STRIKERS MARCHING FROM DELA
Page 6 and 7: GRAPE WORKERS NEAR DElANOAmong the

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