Dick Meister, former Labor Editor of SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. He’s co-author of “A Long Time Coming: The Struggle To Unionize America’s Farm Workers.” Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

The birth date of Cesar Chavez, the late farm workers’ leader, will be celebrated next month, and rightly so.  But it’s well past time we also celebrated the life of probably the most important of the other leaders who played a major role in winning union rights for farm workers and otherwise helping them combat serious exploitation.

That’s Larry Itliong. He died 35 years ago this month at age 63. Itliong got involved in the farm workers’ struggle very early in life, not long after he arrived as a 15-year-old immigrant from the Philippine Islands. He was among some 31,000 Filipino men who came to California in the late 1920s.

They migrated throughout the state doing low-paying farm work, isolated from the rest of society and discriminated against because of their race.  They were prohibited from marrying Caucasians, from buying land and otherwise integrating into the community at large.

The Filipinos were perhaps the most isolated of the groups of penniless workers that growers imported from abroad. That, however, caused the Filipinos to band closely together. They formed extremely efficient work crews to travel the state under the direction of their own leaders, at times even forming their own unions.

They actually struck – a rarity for farm workers at the time – when grape growers in Southern California’s Coachella Valley rejected their pay demands in 1965. The strike was led by Itliong, who was then working for the AFL-CIO’s recently-formed Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. The strikers got what they wanted in just ten days.

Elsewhere, however, the Filipinos were forced to accept growers’ terms, initially after brief strikes at several vineyards to the north.  But their fortunes changed after they struck grape growers in the Delano area of Kern County, where many Filipinos lived.

Again, they called on Itliong to lead them.  He clearly understood the deep anger and frustration that motivated his fellow Filipinos – an understanding based on his own long experience. Soon after he came to California from the Philippines, he turned to farm work and, while still in his teens, was involved in an unsuccessful tomato pickers strike in Washington State.

After that, Itliong traveled up and down California, trying, as he said,  “to get a job I could make money on . . . Whatever money I made from one job was not enough for me to live on until I got to the next job.” He barely made enough to pay for food and the cigars he seemed to be endlessly chomping. School was out of the question. But Itliong did learn plenty.

Like Chavez, he said he learned that farm workers could not improve their wretched working and living conditions, could not win any rights, if they did not band together to demand decent treatment.

Itliong did not have the intellectual and philosophical bent of Chavez. Nor did he share Chavez’ deep distrust of outside unions and their orthodox tactics. But Itliong was as convinced as Chavez of the need for unionization. And the depth of his conviction made Itliong a natural leader among the Filipinos.

He was readily hired as a full-time organizer by the AFL-CIO’s Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, eventually leading the strike against Delano grape growers that drew worldwide attention, much of it focused on Chavez.

The vineyard strikers were seeking no more than a pay raise of 15 to 20 cents an hour. But growers refused to negotiate with Itliong and meanwhile evicted strikers from the grower-owned camps where they lived.

Growers relied on animosity between Mexican-American and Filipino workers, caused in large part by the growers’ practice of setting up separate camps and work crews for various racial and ethnic groups.

But Chavez, who was then forming a union in Delano for Mexican American workers, did not hesitate when Itliong asked him for help.  Chavez felt that his group, then called the National Farm Workers Association, wasn’t ready to strike itself, but would honor the picket lines of the striking Filipinos.

Yet if they were to honor the picket lines of Itliong’s group, Chavez’ members asked, Why not strike themselves? Why not? And so they did.

That became the grape strike of 1965 that drew worldwide attention and support and ultimately led to the unionization, at long last, of California’s farm workers. It was Larry Itliong and his Filipino members who started it all, and who played an indispensable role throughout the struggle.

Without them there could not have been a strike. Without them, there could not have been the victory of unionization, without them no right for the incredibly oppressed farm workers to bargain with their employers

Within a year of the strike’s launching, Chavez and Itliong’s organizations merged to form what became the widely acclaimed United Farm Workers union – the UFW. Chavez was president, Itliong vice president. Chavez and the UFW’s far more numerous Mexican American members were in firm control.

Itliong never really accepted this situation. He finally resigned from the UFW’s executive board in 1971. He complained that the union’s outnumbered Filipinos “were getting the short end of the stick” from the Anglo lawyers, clergymen and other activists who were Chavez’ chief advisors.

Itliong preferred the more orthodox tactics of the AFL-CIO organizing committee, apparently not realizing it was the unorthodox tactics of Chavez’ group that finally led to unionization – boycotts, non-violence, use of religious and student groups and all manner of other help from outside the labor movement.

But this is not to detract from the extremely important role Itliong played in bringing farm workers a union of their own. He may not have clearly understood the need for new tactics, but he most certainly understood the paramount need of farm workers for unionization, and the great needs of Filipino Americans generally.

Larry Itliong devoted most of his life to seeing that they got much of what they badly needed.

After resigning from the UFW’s executive board, Itliong joined a project to develop desperately needed low-cost housing for the union’s retired Filipino members. Most of them were aging bachelors who had been unable to save much from the pittance growers had paid them for their years of sweating in the fields of California.

Few had families to shelter them now that they could no longer work and so were no longer welcome in the grower-owned labor camps that had been their only homes for decades. They faced living in squalid little rooms on Skid Row, lucky if they got enough to eat, far away from the fellow farm workers who had been their only family.

Itliong was determined that they would have decent housing and helped them get it by playing a key role in construction of a retirement village on union-owned land in Delano. Here they could live among their friends in clean, comfortable rooms, with plenty of food, recreational facilities and medical care.

Dick Meister, former Labor Editor of SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for more than a half-century. He’s co-author of “A Long Time Coming: The Struggle To Unionize America’s Farm Workers.” Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 350 of his columns.

Source: SFBG.com, “Dick Meister: Celebrating the Farmworkers’ Filipino American Champion” by Dick Meister, 20 Feb 2012.

SACRAMENTO CA: Alfredo Zamora, a 52-year-old unionized mushroom picker at the California Mushroom Farm in Ventura, took two unpaid weeks off work so that he could walk 200 miles up the Central Valley in triple-digit heat.

There was a day, struggling in the heat to carry a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, he became nauseous with heat sickness. There were nights when his sore legs failed him after camping down at the end of a 22-mile day.

On Sunday, as about 5,000 farm workers and supporters from around the state joined the 25 marchers for the final leg of the pilgrimage to the state Capitol, Zamora tapped his chest and smiled from the heart.

“I’m very happy today,” he said, speaking through a translator. “I did it because it’s very good for all of the other farmworkers to get the same benefits I have.”

The march that began as a protest to seek fair treatment for farmworkers ended as something of a celebration, as Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate President Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, on Thursday reached agreement on compromise legislation that will strengthen the Agricultural Labor Relations Act to require speedier decisions on union-election disputes and enable regulators to certify a union victory in some cases in which an employer has been found to have engaged in unfair labor practices.

Legislators are expected to vote on the bill before their 2011 lawmaking session ends on Friday.

The compromise falls short of legislation the United Farm Workers sought earlier this summer, which would have allowed for certification of a farmworker union once a majority of workers had signed petitions, eliminating the need for workplace elections. That measure was vetoed by Brown.

UFW President Arturo Rodriguez called the compromise a significant victory.

“We’ve walked a lot of steps over the last 13 days,” he said. “What Brown and Steinberg decided to do takes a big step for farmworkers to gain fair treatment. If the governor implements the law, we certainly expect farmworkers to improve their conditions.”

Lauro Barajas, the UFW’s spokesman in Ventura County, said the legislation will put workers on more equal footing in union elections. “We’ve been losing some elections where it’s clear that growers violated the law, and nothing happened,” he said. “This remedy that they’re proposing, that’s going to be huge.”

The march to the Capitol was the fourth since 1966, when founder Cesar Chavez led a historic pilgrimage.

Rudy Salvio, a postal worker from Oxnard, was among several hundred supporters from Ventura County who rode on eight chartered buses overnight on Saturday. He proudly recalls that as a toddler, alongside his farmworker mother, he marched with Chavez.

Salvio said the children and grandchildren of immigrant farmworkers must honor their roots by speaking out to improve the working conditions of those who toil in the fields.

“I believe it’s a torch we need to pass on to the next generation,” he said. “We need to go into the high schools and colleges to get younger people involved.”

UC Davis agricultural economist Philip Martin estimates that there are about 400,000 agricultural workers in California, including those employed in fishing and forestry. About 75 percent are foreign-born. In Ventura County, he estimates that about 10,000 workers are employed in the strawberry industry, earning an average of $359 per week. The vast majority do not have union contracts.

Guillermo Lecera, a 50-year-old unionized strawberry picker from Oxnard, said conditions have improved since he has been represented by the UFW. “When we have problems, we can go straight to the manager,” he said through a translator. “We make more money and have more dignity and respect.”

On Tuesday, Zamora said he intends to return to work at the mushroom farm. It’s hard work, but this week it might seem a little easier. He might think back on the days over the last two weeks when the temperature topped 100 and the marchers needed to cover more than 22 miles. “Those days,” he said, “it was harder than picking mushrooms.”

Source: VCStar.com, Ventura County Star, “UFW marchers reach Capitol, celebrate proposed labor reforms” by Timm Herdt, 4 Sept 2011.

San Joaquin Valley CA — In 1962 Carolina Holguin marched along the leader Cesar Chavez through the streets of San Joaquin County. Every step of a long journey was to demand better working conditions for farm workers. Today, 30-years later, Holguin steps` are slower but move with the same objective towards the State’s Capitol in Sacramento.

Along with Holguin and the United Farm Workers (UFW) are many others walking in a 13-day march which they intent to use to illustrate their widening frustration and the frustration of many farm workers towards laws in California. The march started in Madera, its journey includes many stops but on Monday, August, 29th their steps reached Stockton, CA.

The 200 mile walk comes with a call for a basic worker`s right —paid overtime after eight hours. They are asking Governor Jerry Brown to sign a revised “Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act.” Specifically, the march is looking for a signature on Assembly Bill (AB) 1313 as it relates to employment: agricultural workers. On June 28, 2011 Brown Vetoed AB 104 a bill with a similar request.

At her 80-years of age Holguin spent many years of her life working in the fields of Delano. “I worked in everything from cotton, beets, onions, tomatoes and grapes,” she shared her firsthand experiences on how difficult these jobs are and she highlighted on the tough job conditions she and her friends lived.

As the march gets closer to Sacramento, Holguin reminiscent, “today as before we were fighting for the same cause.” However, “before we had to sleep in parks, and we struggled to find enough food, now we have plenty of food for everyone,” she shared. Although Chavez achieved to get better conditions for workers “this fight has never ended.”

While in Stockton, Jose Rodriguez, president of the Council for the Spanish Speaking, joined the march as they spent a moment of silence in front of the San Joaquin County Court House in memory of Maria Isabel Vasquez Jimenez. A 17-year old grape worker who died in 2008 in Lodi, CA after a labor contractor violated California’s heat regulation.

“We are looking to implement a law to protect us,” said Doroteo Jimenez, uncle of the late Vasquez, “Yes! There are bathrooms and water and shade but we do not know if people have the opportunity to go or not, sometimes the supervisors don’t allow them to.” Jimenez hopes, “this struggle is for the people to lose the fear and really talk about what is happening,” said Jimenez, while carrying a picture of his niece.

According to the United Farm Workers what the law states is not always follow in the fields. California has more than 35,000 farms and is estimated that there are fewer than 200 inspectors to check for violations. “What we do not see is that workers often cannot drink water, they cannot use the shades, most of the tools are just a show,” said Armando Elenes, UFW National Vice President. “If they go to drink water they fall behind and if you [a farm worker] fall behind you are out,” Elenes explained, “they don’t tell you ‘you are fired because you went to drink water’ — you are fired because you fall behind on the work.”

“We are only asking Jerry Brown to give us the tools and weapons to defend ourselves,” said Elenes.

Source: BWNews.us, “The Fight Continues: Farm workers walk asking better working conditions” by Mayra Barrios, Bilingual Weekly, 4 Sept 2011.

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, center, poses with Richard Chavez, right, brother of labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, poses during the unveiling of the mosaic mural portrait ceremony commemorating Cesar Chavez Day, in this March 31, 2010 file photo taken in Washington. Chavez, who helped his brother Cesar Chavez build the United Farmworkers of America, passed away at a Bakersfield hospital Wednesday July 27, 2011 of complications from surgery, union spokeswoman Maria Machuca said.Manuel Balce Ceneta, File AP Photo

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Richard Chavez, who helped brother Cesar Chavez build the United Farmworkers of America, has died at the age of 81.

He died Wednesday at a Bakersfield hospital of complications from surgery, union spokeswoman Maria Machuca said.

“Richard understood that the struggle for a more perfect union and a better life for all America’s workers didn’t end with any particular victory or defeat, but instead required a commitment to getting up every single day to keep at it,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack praised Chavez’s dedication to ensuring that workers were treated with dignity and respect.

“Richard spent his life fighting for the rights of farmworkers – some of the most vulnerable and hard working people in our society,” Vilsack said in a written statement.

Born on the family homestead near Yuma, Ariz., the two brothers left farm work in 1949, spending a year working together in lumber mills in Northern California, Machuca said.

Eventually dedicating himself to union work, Richard Chavez organized the farmworkers’ boycotts of California table grapes and other products in New York and Detroit during the 1960s and ’70s. He was in charge of administrating union contracts in 1970, and later negotiated UFW agreements and oversaw union bargaining, Machuca said.

Chavez also designed the black Aztec eagle, the union’s flag, and oversaw construction and helped build most of the major structures on the farmworkers’ “Forty Acres” complex outside Delano, Calif., which became the union’s headquarters and where Chavez joined his brother in the Delano Grape Strike.

Chavez is survived by his long-time partner Dolores Huerta – also a labor activist and farmworkers organizer – and his estranged wife, Sally. He also leaves behind nine adult children and more than a dozen grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“He knew how to deal with all kinds of people,” said son Federico Chavez. “I don’t think there was ever a person he didn’t like.”

Source: FresnoBee.com, “Richard Chavez, Farmworker Union Head, Dies at 81″ by The Associated Press, 28 Jul 2011.

In California, once a national model of farmworker organizing and progressive labor laws, things have fallen far since the heyday of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Of the more than 400,000 workers on 40,000 California farms, the union represents only a tiny share. It listed just 5,219 members in a report to the federal Department of Labor last year. Conditions in the fields and camps are as bad as ever, but the union is adrift and torn by a squalid battle over the movement’s future.

Source: NYTimes.com, “Another Blow to Farmworkers” Editorial, 5 Jul 2011.

Cesar Chavez

I first learned about Cesar Chavez in my 6th grade social studies class as part of a series on leaders who advocated for human and civil rights through non-violent resistance.  I still remember that feeling of pride to hear a name like Chavez being the subject of focus for Mr. Cotter’s lesson.  Retrospectively, I marvel at the value of having had the privilege of experiencing Cesar Chavez in a textbook that also taught me about Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.  In fact, for a young child who grew up in the Bronx, it was so inspiring to benefit from a textbook and a class that showcased the diversity that I lived.  Unfortunately,  today in Texas, school boards work to remove his name from textbooks, in Arizona legislators work to eliminate his legacy from curricula and in San Antonio lawyers work to block a street from bearing his name.

Victor Paredes

The most relevant aspect of that inspiring 6th grade lesson featuring Chavez was the context in which he was introduced: a Non-violent advocacy for Civil Rights.  His name and accomplishments were brought to life in the same context as Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi.

Nearly three decades after Mr. Cotter’s lesson, the US Navy announced this month that it will name a ship after our revered advocate for farm worker and human rights Cesar Chavez.  In light of this event, the Latino community should consider two important questions: would this non-violent activist want his name associated with an instrument of war?  And, is this the best way to honor his legacy?

Cesar Chavez described his time in the Navy as the “worst years” of his life.  He took no pride in having been a part of the military and in fact modeled his life and activism after Gandhi and King.  He dedicated his life to non-violent resistance to injustice.  His most notable acts of protests were fasts, such as the one for Justice that lasted 25 days  in 1972.  In the context of the Vietnam war, in his famous 1971 speech at a Veterans memorial rally, Chavez questioned why “do poor brown and black farm workers” take up arms to go “kill poor farm workers in Southeast Asia.”  He also questioned our culture of weapons and violence and its association with perceived “manhood.”

Chavez joined the military likely for the same reason many Latino youth (poor and/or from inner cities) do so today: lack of access to an affordable quality education makes the military appear as a stable career alternative.  Today, Latino youth continues to struggle more than ever with education.  Over 50% of the adult Latino population has not graduated high school and is ill equipped to survive and thrive in this recessionary depression.  Chavez cared deeply about the conditions of Latino youth. Thus the greatest honor he may have received during his lifetime was the opening of the Colegio Cesar Chavez in Oregon.

The plight and conditions of undocumented immigrant workers were also of paramount importance to Chavez.  Through the United Farm Workers, UFW, Chavez organized and protected the unalienable rights of undocumented workers.  He fought against all injustice to the undocumented and sought equal recognition and protection for them as human beings in the United States. Chavez was directly involved in the immigration reform resulting in amnesty for many undocumented people in the 80′s.

As the man who denounced the Bracero program and advocated for equal respect for all humans, Chavez would loudly denounce many of the actions of today’s US military.  He would question why once again poor people of color are out killing poor people of color in  Iraq and Afghanistan.  He would advocate for equal recognition for immigrant soldiers.  He would challenge our detention and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo.

In short my answer to the first question is that Cesar Chavez would certainly not welcome the attribution of his name to instruments and institutions of war, because they run counter to his unshakable defense of peaceful non-violent advocacy for change, and his defense of humans no matter their immigration status, religion or country of origin.

Cesar Chavez was also a man of action and sacrifice.  The progress made by the UFW under his leadership was due to targeted and effective action.  Boycotts, fasts and rallies not only brought attention to the plight of farm workers, but specific improvements and reforms as well.  What will naming a ship in Cesar Chavez honor accomplish for the Latino community today?  Will it improve the economic conditions of the Latino community?  Will it lead to greater investment and advancement of the education of Latino youth?  Will it drive Washington to action on comprehensive immigration reform?  Will it stop the spread of discriminatory and fundamentally illegal laws such as SB1070 from spreading across America?

Cesar Chavez would not want idle honors.  He would want us to be part of actually succeeding at improving the conditions of our people.  He would want us to teach our children to sacrifice for justice and focus their skills towards pulling their communities out of poverty.

Therefore, in order to properly honor Cesar Chavez and his legacy of disciplined sacrifice, lets work to re-open “El Colegio Cesar Chavez” and establish a network of “Colegios Cesar Chavez” across the US to improve the education and future of our Latino Community.  Lets engage our successful Latinos to secure the funding necessary for such an endeavor.  Lets recruit the Latinos who currently indeed are graduating from High School and college to be the educators of the Latinos of tomorrow.  Lets institute our own curriculums so that no politician can threaten Latino Studies and erase from textbooks the contributions of Latinos to the United States that Mr. Cotter so skillfully taught me.  Lets train and eventually elect the community leaders we need so that we control our own fate on issues such as Immigration reform.

Now that is a “Dream Act” that Cesar Chavez would love to associate his name with.  When that ship sails, put his name and face on the front of it with his signature call to action: “Si Se Puede.”

For the poor it is a terrible irony that they should rise out of their misery to do battle against other poor people when the same sacrifices could be turned against the causes of their poverty.  Cesar Chavez

Source: HispanicLA.com, “The USS Non-Violence: Truly honoring Cesar Chavez” by Victor Paredes, 26 May 2011.

[CA] — On Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk is a bill that will change the way farm workers in California decide whether they want union representation.

Given Brown’s pro-union history and fierce support for the rights of farmworkers, he is likely to sign into law Senate Bill 104 — the so-called Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act.

But before he does, the governor should reflect mightily on his strong ties and passionate work on behalf of “los campesinos.” Brown was governor in 1975 when he signed the state’s groundbreaking Agriculture Labor Relations Law. Back then, he was not averse to showing his support by marching alongside farm labor and Chicano civil rights leader Cesar Chavez. Led by Chavez, the United Farm Workers and their supporters in Sacramento and around the state, the ALRA was passed, creating the right of farm laborers to determine their representation. It was a proud moment for farm labor — even the National Labor Relations Act still has no provisions for the rights of farmworkers.

Now, by signing SB 104, Brown essentially will dismantle nearly all he, Chavez and the farmworkers fought for.

SB 104 would create a “card check” system in which employers must recognize a union if a simple majority of workers sign an authorization card. It would allow workers to establish a collective bargaining unit if a majority of workers sign on petitions submitted to the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.

The current process of holding an election at a polling place for union representation also remains an option, but it’s clear that the UFW wants to change the rules of the game with SB 104.

The card check system skips the secret ballot election created by the ALRA. The card check amounts to a short cut for unions, leaving farmworkers, once again, vulnerable to pressure from both sides.

The UFW claims that card check will protect workers against intimidation. That will be a neat trick to prove. According to the bill, the name and address of every worker signing a card will be on file with the state as a matter of public record. Both union and non-union advocates will have access to them. So where’s the worker protection in the card check system? SB 104 also would tighten penalties for employers who interfere with farm-labor organizing efforts. Yet it provides no penalties for unions that might coerce or intimidate workers into signing the cards.

As they are doing today with SB 104, growers and shippers in years past growled that allowing farmworkers to unionize would send their costs soaring. However, the political and economic pressure placed on them to raise the pay for farm work and sign union contracts guaranteeing employee benefits and improvements of working conditions in the fields didn’t deter the growth of agriculture in regions such as the Salinas Valley where their business evolved into a multibillion-dollar industry.

Times change. Though farmworkers remain among the lowest paid of American wage earners, some of them are paid higher in this state. And some employers now provide health and pension benefits.

Meanwhile, the UFW admittedly has had problems building its membership. A Wall Street Journal editorial cites U.S. Department of Labor figures which show UFW rolls down to 5,219 in 2010 from 5,638 in 2004. No doubt that outsourcing of U.S. farm jobs and importing farm products, fueled by the North American Free Trade Agreement launched during the Clinton Administration, have played a role in frustrating union membership drives.

In fact, national figures show that in the private sector, union membership in general is down significantly.

In response, the UFW and its Democratic friends in Sacramento introduce card check. It smacks of a desperate move on the side of labor to make it easier to increase membership when secret ballot elections don’t seem to be doing the job.

Maybe it’s not the state’s farm-labor relations system that’s broken but the union’s approach to organizing workers or acting in their best interests.

From presidential elections to voting for school board members to deciding whether to join a union, Americans have relied on the secret ballot to vote their conscience without fear or repercussion.

By signing SB 104, the governor will end that protection for California farmworkers.

Source: TheCalifornian.com, “Editorial: Card check no friend of farmworkers” 18 May 2011.

The U.S. Navy’s plan to name a cargo ship after the late farmworker activist Cesar Chavez received sharp criticism from a California Republican congressman who on Tuesday said the decision was unfair to military war heroes.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he learned of the matter from Navy officials, who have not made their plans public yet. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is expected to announce the decision on Wednesday when he visits the facilities of General Dynamic NASSCO in San Diego’s mostly Hispanic neighborhood, Barrio Logan.

“Naming a ship after Cesar Chavez goes right along with other recent decisions by the Navy that appear to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy’s history and tradition,” said Hunter, a former Marine.

Chavez, himself, joined the Navy in 1946 and served two years before being honorably discharged, and two of his cousins were killed fighting in WWII, Grossman said. Two of his cousins were killed fighting in WWII.

Hunter was among five dozen House lawmakers who criticized the Navy over a recent decision that would have allowed chaplains to perform same sex-unions in states where gay marriage is legal. The Navy abruptly reversed that decision.

Hunter said a better choice for the last of the 14 Lewis and Clark-class cargo ships would be Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, who was nominated for the Medal of Honor for action in Iraq — or WWII Medal of Honor recipient John Finn, a lifelong San Diego resident.

The other 13 cargo ships built by NASSCO for the Navy have been named after such notable Americans as explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and famed aviator Amelia Earhart. Chavez would be the first Mexican-American in that group.

The boat builder’s spokesman, James Gill, said NASSCO suggested the name to the Navy because it wanted to honor its mostly Hispanic workforce and the neighborhood where it is located. Navy officials declined to comment Tuesday on Hunter’s remarks.

Chavez, who died in 1993 at the age of 66, is credited with helping to secure a U.S. law that recognized farmworkers’ rights to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining.

Marc Grossman, a spokesman for the Cesar Chavez Foundation, knew Chavez for 24 years and said he was a humble man who would never have wanted the spotlight.

“He was always uncomfortable being singled out for praise because he knew there were many Cesar Chavezes — farmworkers who made great sacrifices and accomplished great things but who were unknown,” he said. “So the Chavez family today acknowledges this honor in the name of all Latinos who have built this country and served this country in the armed services.”

Barrio Logan on San Diego’s waterfront near the Coronado Bridge came about in 1871 when Congressman John A. Logan wrote legislation to provide federal land grants for a transcontinental railroad ending in San Diego. Logan’s project never happened but a street in the area was named after him, and later the zone became known as Barrio Logan when an influx of Mexicans moved into the area after that country’s 1910 Revolution.

Source: SFExaminer.com, The San Francisco Examiner, “Lawmaker criticizes naming ship for Cesar Chavez” by Julie Watson, The Associated Press, 17 May 2011.

James Gill, a spokesman for General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego, said Monday the company suggested the name to honor its mostly Hispanic work force and the mostly Hispanic neighborhood, Barrio Logan, where the boat builder is located.

The other 13 cargo ships built by NASSCO for the Navy have been named after such notable Americans as explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, and famed aviator Amelia Earhart.

Chavez would be the first Mexican American in that group. He is credited with helping to secure a U.S. law that recognized farmworkers’ rights to organize unions and engage in collective bargaining. Chavez died in 1993 at the age of 66.

Source: SanLuisObispo.com, The Tribune, “Navy Considers Naming Ship after Cesar Chavez” by The Associated Press, 16 May 2011.

Frank P. Barajas is associate professor of history at CSU Channel Islands. He wrote this piece for the History News Service.

Fifty years ago, a single mother from the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico migrated to Southern California with four young daughters. The family traveled up and down the state working the agricultural migrant circuit. That young mother was my grandmother, my abuelita.

My abuelita’s stories about those early years came flooding back as I read about the National Park Service’s call for public input to identify sites associated with César Chávez that are worthy of federal recognition.

The history of Chávez and the farm worker movement is important for all Americans, not just those with a personal connection. Designating significant sites as national landmarks and building educational resources around them helps insure that this labor and civil rights history is collected, debated and passed on.

Shortly before she died, I interviewed my monolingual Spanish-speaking grandmother. The word duro (hard) arose frequently in abuelita’s testimony: la vida era dura (life was hard), el trabajo era muy duro (the work was very hard).

Like John Steinbeck’s Joad family, my abuelos loaded old Chevys and Fords with luggage, kids and family dogs. In my fractured Spanish, I asked abuelita if she had ever met Chávez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union. She said yes. She joined Chávez’s union and became an organizer. Why, I asked? For respect, she responded. At times, she said, farm workers were treated like animals. La unión gave them the strength to demand better wages — and respect.

My father and paternal grandparents told me their own stories about farm work in the Great Depression. And, as I grew up at the height of the Farm Workers Movement in the 1970s, I cheered as cars paraded through my hometown of Oxnard waving red, white, and black banners with the UFW eagle.

But this history is not monolithic. At home, my parents talked about a different union: the Teamsters. The Teamsters represented the chilería (chili factory) canners, where my mom worked.

Because they had signed sweetheart contracts with growers that provided cannery workers with minimal wage increases and benefits, the Teamsters union was the nemesis of my abuelita’s UFW. My parents talked about the union’s pension plan, pay and the union rep — not about strikes and boycotts.

In the early 1970s, I reluctantly crossed a UFW boycott line outside a neighborhood mom-and-pop grocery store, sent on an errand by my mother. In the faces of those farm workers, I saw grandma, grandpa and abuelita.

With a sense of betraying la causa, I carried out mom’s command. My mother was equally adamant that I was not to work in Oxnard’s citrus packinghouses, even in the summer. College was her dream for her children.

Today, I teach the history that my parents and abuelos lived. My students at CSU Channel Islands, many of them the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of farm workers and growers, arrive with little knowledge of their past. They learn how farm workers of various national origins struggled against wage cuts and fought for such basic rights as drinking water and portable lavatories.

I teach about the successes and failures in the fields, the organizing efforts of the Industrial Workers of the World, the Japanese Mexican Labor Association, the Cannery and Agricultural Workers Industrial union, and the Ventura County “Six Month Strike” of 1941, when my father’s family was evicted from the Rancho Sespe labor camp because grandpa joined citrus workers who asked for a 10-cent-an-hour raise.

We study the battles of the 1970s on the Oxnard Plain between strawberry growers and the United Farm Workers.

The history of the farm worker movement in the United States is long and varied. Farm workers who were treated fairly labored loyally for their employers; those who were not, like grandpa and abuelita, protested or left. The oral histories of farm worker families need to be made more widely known to promote a fuller and more nuanced appreciation of the nation’s agricultural history.

This is why it is important that residents of Ventura County, Arizona, California, and other states with roots in the farm worker movement attend the special resource study events of the National Park Service this month.

The National Park Service plans to use the input gathered at these hearings (one to be held Friday at the Café on A, The Rudy F. Acuña Gallery and Cultural Arts Center from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.) to help it decide which sites are worthy of federal recognition and preservation.

It will also use the suggestions of the community to evaluate how best to promote the public’s visitation of these landmarks and to educate the young and old on the history of farm labor in America. For more information on the upcoming hearings, visit the National Park Service’s website at http://www.nps.gov/pwro/chavez/index.htm.

Source: VCStar.com, Ventura County Star, “Barajas: Park service explores the history of farm labor” by Frank P. Barajas, 7 May 2011.