Thank Cesar Chavez for your strawberries Elise Hsu Strawberries, grapes, and blueberries are all important parts of a balanced diet. But beyond the supermarket, most people don’t consider how their fruit goes from the plant to the plate. The migrant farmworkers who spend hours facilitating this transfer are often overlooked, even on Cesar Chavez Day, which falls on Chavez’s birthday of March 31 and commemorates the leader that helped migrant farmworkers fight for their rights. According to History.com, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962. Three years later, the NFWA joined forces with
the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a collaboration that would eventually result in the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Together, they started the Delano Grape Strike, which blossomed into a boycott of California grapes across the nation, lasted five years, and was ultimately successful. A migrant farmworker himself, Chavez fought hard to ensure produce companies treated their workers fairly, even if it meant risking his own life for La Causa (the cause). According to the UFW, the nonviolent teachings of Gandhi inspired him to found the NFWA with his life savings. He also went on three separate hunger strikes
to promote nonviolent resistance, the longest of them occurring in 1988 for 36 days. In a sense, he even gave his life to La Causa; some of his last hours were spent in court defending the UFW’s right to boycott a vegetable producer, and he passed away in his sleep that night. Cesar Chavez proudly lived and breathed La Causa right until he died; to honor him, you can localize La Causa by buying produce from your local farmers’ market or volunteering at a community garden near you. And next time you eat a piece of fruit, think about the workers who put fresh food on your table and thank Cesar Chavez for standing up for their equitable treatment.
Rebecca Von Tersch
MARCH 2022 HIGHLANDER 35
