Cesar Chavez On His Life’s Work

At Choosing Democracy, Duane Campbell has a Labor Day tribute to Cesar Chavez, reproducing a 1984 speech of the great Chicano trade unionist and civil rights leader. In light of this recent controversy, it is interesting to read Chavez’s own description of his life’s work:

All my life, I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision: to overthrow a farm labor system in this nation which treats farm workers as if they were not important human beings.

Farm workers are not agricultural implements. They are not beasts of burden — to be used and discarded…

The union’s survival — its very existence — sent out a signal to all Hispanics that we were fighting for our dignity, that we were challenging and overcoming injustice, that we were empowering the least educated among us, the poorest among us. The message was clear: If it could happen in the fields, it could happen anywhere — in the cities, in the courts, in the city councils, in the state legislatures.

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