Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Miriam Pawel The Crusades Of Cesar Chavez 20240712

Introduce myself first. So you know not who to complain to later. My name is gregg barrios. Former book editor of the express news, worked for many years and los angeles for the Los Angeles Times. Ive written for the new york times, currently i write for the los angeles review of books. I am on the board of directors for the National Book critics circle. Im also the author of the book of poetry that deals with cute its called look house. This time i would like to introduce iowa miriam pawel. She is the former Pulitzer Prize winner and spent 25 years working at news day and the Los Angeles Times. Her book, the crusades of Caesar Chavez, a biography is the First Comprehensive biography of the iconic leader. She is also written the union of their dreams, a widely acclaimed and nuanced history of Caesar Chavez united form workers move. She recently received the National Endowment for the fellowship to support her work in the chavez biography. Please welcome miriam pawel. applause thank you. Thanks gregg. Hi miriam. Hi gregg. Can you hear me . I want to ask you something that is really important, what got you through writing about Caesar Chavez . I know a lot of people here in texas know who he is, but i was very surprised to learn that recently plus the mexican filmmaker was having the premiere of this on Caesar Chavez in austin, south by southwest. Took a long stroll down Caesar Chavez boulevard and asked people if they knew who cesar chavez was. Some people most of them said they felt he was a mexican boxer. Or he was a julio Caesar Chavez junior who was also a boxer. Another answered, isnt he the venezuelan leader, hugo chavez . Several others said they thought he had something to do with the chicano movement. It really surprised the filmmaker i want to ask you, why did you decide to write a full length book after writing what is it the long series in the Los Angeles Times about the unions and your recent book, the union of their dreams . Thanks for asking that question. The answer is very toes closely to what you said about lula and the fact there was no biography and thats a reason why i wrote it. You all are here today because you have heard of i Caesar Chavez know something about him. Hes virtually unknown these days. You get outside of california and the southwest, people have no idea who he is. I was in the missile in this valley which was one of the heart of the agricultural industry, an english teacher got up and said her students had no idea who Caesar Chavez was. Its not only in austin. I believe a part of the reason that he has this from our collective memory and not gotten the attention that he deserves his because there has been until recently so little serious knowledge about him. Theres been a lot of repetition of some very stories that make him into a one dimensional figure. A lot of people have known he was a much more complicated person, but theres been a reluctance to tackle this subject. I also knew from my earlier work that there was a tremendous amount of a material available and he was saying everything. He saved documents, hundreds of audiotapes of conversations and conferences. I knew it was this rich material that had not really been fully rewind. I think that he such an important figure in history and should be. A biography would go it would be an important step to exploring him to that position that he deserves. Earlier works about the union and chavez, like John Gregory Dunn and peter matheson. I feel there was a couple of others. How helpful were those earlier biographies . They were really helpful, all three of those books, in different ways. For folks who do not know about them. The first two bucks you mentioned, John Gregory Dunn and peter matheson, were written at the height of the struggle in the real glory days of the movement and the boycott. People probably still remember the boycott. They were both written in 67, 68, 69, that time period. They are both really wonderful writers. Each of them captured a lot about the spirit of the time. Dunn was much more leery about where the movement would end up, and in some ways was more accurate with his prediction. Peter matheson, who i interviewed for my book, was much more optimistic about where it would end up and was disappointed. And jack levy, he was the official biographer of cesar chavez in the early years. His book was published in 1974. There is obviously a big gap after that, but because he was authorized, he was allowed this incredible access to Chavez Chavez and the union knew they would have the right to review the manuscript beforehand. So he taped everything and transcribed his tapes. He had a falling out with chavez is areas insult his collection to yale university. He was present at an igg oceans and inner see girl circle meetings. He even went with chavez two a trip to europe where, among other things, cesar and he had a audience with the pope. On the flight back, he tapes cesar talking about the trip and what it meant to him to meet the pope. It was just this wonderful resource for me. Do you repeat any of those stories for us recent readers of chavez . Absolutely. I repeat these stories and then try to separate the facts and the ways these stories have gotten embellished over the years, some of them. Chavez created to some degree, his own mythology. He did that because he was a great organizer, and he did it to sort of help with the cause. But in the end, 21 years after his death, i think its time to sort of separate out and the ways he created the mythology. I understand that you did not have access to most of the family. Could you tell us the reasons that they felt perhaps they didnt want to cooperate with another book . I think i should basically let the families speak for themselves about the reasons, but they did not cooperate. They felt, it was transmitted to me through third parties, that they felt only a member of the family should write this story, essentially. They have always retained great control over the story. The movie, which we will get two together, the movie is the family movie. They were very involved in the movie. So they did not feel that i would be person who should be riding the story. I knew that going in. I knew i would not have cooperation and i knew that there was so much material available, that i didnt need it. I understand that they did respond to your first articles that appeared in the l. A. Times. They actually filed some kind of lawsuit with the attorney general. What was the result of that . Well, the articles in the Los Angeles Times were really much more about what they had become. The fact that the union was really not in the fields anymore and had not been for many years. So these stories focused mostly on the present and on the problems that farmworkers still suffer from and the exploitation and terrible Housing Conditions that go on. While the ufw has moved on and done other types of entrepreneurship. I sort of look back at the past. I came to the past and ultimately did this book through the present and writing about farmworkers conditions today. The union did not like the stories. They filed a notice saying they were preserving their right to sue the paper for libel, but ultimately never filed a suit. They issued 100page report alleging all sorts of things and we never ran any corrections. There is a famous line in a film by jon ford. And they are having the joan ford panel next door. Its a scene at the end when James Stewart goes to a newspaper editor and tells him, hes the man hes not the man who shot liberty ballads. The newspaper editor wont hear anything about it. He says, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend. I think that i would like to start there by asking you how caesar got started as a labor organizer . Then we will have to connect that to the legends, im thinking of how to do that. Yes. Okay, you have a plan. His beginning as an organizer is really a fascinating part of the story, and its really important to understanding his later years and decisions. He was a farmworker. He became part of the migrant stream in 1939 when he was 12 years old and his family lost their farm in yuma, arizona. He was a farmworker, was in the navy, he came out and worked his way out of the fields and working at a lumber yard. In 1952, when a man named fred ross, no ones heard about fred ross which is too bad, with a couple of notable exceptions. Fred ross was in a extremely Important Community organizer and ran a group called the Community Service organization. It was almost exclusively in california and really the first part of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. In 1952, he went to san jose. He would hold house meetings when he got to a new place. Invite people over and talk to them about their concerns in needs and try to get people engaged in collective community organizing. He meets cesar chavez at a meeting at the chavez house. This is where it ties into the legend quite nicely. Part of the legend has always been that fred ross wrote in his journal that night, i think i have found the guy i am looking for. You can find that quote in lots of books and lots of scholarly works even. But in fact, that is made up. I found the actual entry in fred ross is journal from that night. In which he says something very positive. He says chavez showed Great Potential and energy. Something very positive about cesar, but not exactly the quote as the legend has become. So that is how he gets his start. Hes 25 years old. Hes really smart. He stuck in a dead end job and along comes fred ross. He says we will do a Voter Registration drive. He becomes the chair of the Voter Registration drive in san jose. By 1954, he clearly impresses ross and the founder of the Community Service organization. By 1954, cesar is on the payroll of the iaaf. So he has a ten year apprenticeship as an organizer working for ross between 1952 and 1962. Thats before he goes off into the part of the story that more people are familiar with when you organizes farmworkers. Lets go back to his name. When i first got a copy of your book, i was startled in a way because the accent marks in his name were not there and it red cesar chavez. I wondered, i looked it up when i found several newspapers who use the accent marks. I also found her second brain, wikipedia. The accent marks for their and his original name was a eo. Can you tell me why he change the name or used the accent marks are not. His name was his reo and he was named after his grandfather and growing up outside of lima when you went to school his name was changed to cesar and his mother was never happy and called him desiderio. He spoke english at home to his parents and he became caesar when he went to school and he was always if you listen to the tapes or you talk to people at the time and theres some covid revisionist history he was always called caesar i saw an interview with america who was in a movie and asked why you call them caesar in a movie and she said helen calls him cesar so thats good enough for me. He never use the accent. He was always caesar and in recent years its always more been used. He was refers as cesario now but wasnt back in the day. At the time that he became organized with the cso, i think he disenchanted with the way things were being run. I was also upset with the fact that once the Union Members were put in the circuit, they often wanted to talk about money, very little else. With that support, the work that need to be done to be later on. Thats a really key point and it goes back to the cso days. Hes an organizer of the cso, hes hoping to empower Mexican Americans who have not been part of the voting public to some degree. And its not a political power. As he works with them and as they move into the middle class, they adopt middle class values and he is really upset by this. In the late 19 fifties, in see him writing in his journal more and more with fred ross in saying, the way this is going and this is not going in a direction that i want. He really believed that it was important to empower people and for them to not have a sense of dignity and a sense of poverty and to be comfortable and not forget where they came from and to help people who are still living in poverty and to help the cause. That is a lot of the reason why he was with the and goes on to organized farmworkers. I think that really strong feeling that i have empowered these people and now using that power towards goals that i dont support becomes a very significant later on when youre trying to understand some of the decisions that he makes and the degree to which he wanted to be gained control cause he never wanted to be in that situation again. He talks about that quite a lot. Later on, the cso was just a Membership Organization and hes running a labor union, a lot of people hated labor unions because they wanted more money and they wanted better conditions. Not everyone joins a labor union because they believe in bettering the lives of other people with sacrifice. He felt very strongly that you needed to educate workers in order to share this philosophy we had and that was a tough issue. At this time, it was the beginning of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. There were other leaders in the mix, there was rain as he had gina and there was cork egan salas and crusade for justice. And also in crystal city with texas. And yet, Caesar Chavez never reached out to connect with them. It seemed very focused only on california. I think this goes back to the control issue to some degree, he wanted to be is own person in control. We made some efforts and we can talk about this later perhaps in texas, that he ultimately would undermine efforts by other people to organize in texas because he didnt want to be in that kind of position to share in power. He also had a very strong commitment to nonviolence and that was not necessarily shared by the other World Leaders of the chicago movement, that was a huge difference. Ironically, he emerges at the end of his life as the symbol of the Movement Even though he did not really embrace that in his earlier years. Was he the appearance during the passing of Robert Kennedy that catapulted the union and his crusade to a more National Audience . I think absolutely. It takes place in march of 1968, this is two and a half years before the great strike and hes begun to become a more of a nationally known figure, particularly the march to sacramento in other events. It is a tremendous organizing opportunity and passed for 29 days. The place where he passed was at the headquarters which begins to be a shrine and there are people that are on their knees to the path of the 40 acres. It attracted tremendous Media Attention at that time. Bobby kennedy coming was an iconic picture that more people have seen. Its still gets used a lot today and the kennedy name was known at that point in time. It also comes a week before because they announced he was running for president. It also ties them into their First Political campaign. The union go out and do doortodoor campaigning in los angeles and help him win the primaries in the hotel where he gets shot. It was important for those political reasons i see it as a real turning point in history of the movement. , i always quote jim drag who was this top advisor i did minister. He said that after the fast, cesar was too saintly to make any mistakes and i think its important concept. This was thrust on him and he certainly embraced the suffering and that was part of the marching as well. We believe when you sacrifice its a powerful force that forces other people to want to help you. I think it did. Well see a very religious man, or was it the fact that they appropriated a lot of the religious choreography . I think it was both. It was a tactic certainly. Obviously it was a real faith who grew up in a catholic home, his mother was quite were ledges. In the sense of mexican it has its own cultural president s for people. It was important to him, but he also used a tremendously effective. This strike starts in 1965, the Catholic Church being in california is not supporting the farmers working union. The churches are on their side but the financial pillars of the church for the growers. They were load to do anything and there were great files that fresno kept that showed all of the letters that the growers are writing to the bishops saying get these people out of here, whats going on and so on. Lacking support from the church and knowing how important youre trying to convince very poor mexican farm workers who are scared of speaking out of the union because youre risking their jobs in their homes. Their livelihoods. Its sort of embracing of the church and having the support was really important. He does that and does this brilliant thing of using the manner of him everywhere especially in the march. The march of sacramento you have people who are not familiar with california but they walk up the spine of the st. Queen valley, through all those farmworker towns and everywhere they go every night theres a rally in the town where the casino performs and the church has to open their doors to these workers. These two are during lent, it was brilliant and ultimately the church comes around and the bishops support them but it took a while. At the same time that this is happening, there was a lot of discussion as to the non violence that he uses in the strikes and the boycotts. New mentioned that there was violence at times among the field workers. There was the acts of sabotage amongst the growers. I a relative of Caesar Chavez was quite relentless and perhaps im reading too much into this but my sense of the emotional violence that many volunteers must of felt when they were dismissed from the movement, most of caused a lot of emotional violence. Ruthlessness was not a foreign concept at the same rate. I think that manifested itself in different ways. One of the reasons Caesar Chavez was so effective was a single minded focus and intensity and i think that communicated to his followers and people interpreted that in different ways. People who have been part or read about them identified, if you believe that you are led to believe that is a tremendous force for you, anything goes in the interest of getting this. This victory sometimes people think in the name in the movement or be half of the movement were not being sanctioned and they just look the other way. When i talk to growers who live through this era that makes them the most angry in the first thing they always say is that this is not a nonviolent move and they are right to a degree. There is a lot of understanding that violence against property was okay, violence against people wasnt. If you are a grower and your life is your vineyard and someone comes and takes a machete and chops down vines youre pretty angry about that. There was a degree of difference. During this time, i lived in bristol city texas as part of russell nita. We were privileged at that time to have a performance at the casino and miss valdez came and brought the group of actors and were very proud of that. Chavez had distance himself from them and we told that the theatrical came second not first and were dismissed. In reading your book i discovered this bit of information and i wonder if you would clarify some of that for us. The relationship that caesar had with people that were all for the new union and yet were in a sense similarly dismissed. Luis valdez was a really interesting and important figure in the movement in its early years, for people that might not know his name, he was actually a farmworker born in delay no but whose family moved to san jose from great personal sacrifice making sure that their kids went to high school and college. He came out, he was a farm worker as a kid, goes to san jose state and becomes a promising playwright. Was working with the San Francisco line troop in 1965 when the strike starts and part of the radical groups in the San Francisco bay area. Thats an important part of the story too i think because things didnt happen in a vacuum and it was the Civil Rights Movement that was very strong and a lot of early support that may have been seen as successful came out of that particularly San Francisco area. So, Louise Valdez has to decide is play is about to be produced on broadway, will he go to new york oh go back to help the farm workers. He goes back and tells he caesar wants to start aseater for farmworkers and we dont have any money, we dont have any actors but go ahead if you want. He begins what becomes the theater of the casino. Its a wonderful website that the university of california and santa barbarous put together that has video where you can see him online and its really terrific. He starts his farm worker theater where they improvise and do skits. Hes teaching theater to people that maybe are not little it but they can for profit perform and they are naturals. The theater becomes immensely popular, both as entertainment and also for education. Hes teaching basic concepts with the contract of how does this work, whats the union. It becomes more popular and he as forced Caesar Chavez not because he wants to run the label union but its an incredible voice for farmworkers. They are more heretical element and not in terms of their politics interfering but of their independence. If any of you know or have dealt with people that are active and have strong opinions, there comes a period in time in 1967 where those opinions are not really welcome. Chavez never believed in the democratic organization, he did a good invitation in the early years of being a democracy. But in 1967 they are the first priorities. Valdez did a great session with me at the Los Angeles Public Library Earlier this week which is also online. He talks publicly for the first time in that video of being purged. I found all the records where he told me the story but and i found the written minutes of the meeting and who said what and what the votes were and so on that helps me tell that story and in a way from documents. Its pretty significant, you never talks about it. The people that were purged in general did not talk about it because that was the ethos that you didnt want to do anything that would hurt the union. He supported dfw and the impact of him being thrown out, i think it took something that took a long time to work through as well. Another thing that strikes me as interesting is the fact that many of the workers at some point we are no longer farmworkers, they were working in the positions of the ruling board, etc. It seemed to go against his original idea that it should be made up of form workers, deciding for themselves and ruling for themselves. It seems like at some point he decided like he did earlier on, in the cso days that isnt what anyone telling him about something. Is that an accurate . Thats really accurate. He talks on the tapes at some points about saying what becomes a very frustrating with the battles that hes having in the board rumors, i feel like im back exactly where i was in the cso. That was exactly what he did not want. It was the farmworker participation goes back to that idiot that if you give power they may make decisions that are not the ones that you want. It becomes a real struggle and movement in the union that leads to the demise of the labor union. At some point, chavez becomes a National Figure partly due to the boycotts of National Boycotts that are held all across the country. Can you tell us more about how that really became a symbol of his successes . Sure, i think we need room for questions so ill do a very short story. Because again, to me, this shows the brilliance and him at his best what. He did for the great boycott to make it so effective is to stand workers across the country who had never been on planes, didnt have many support or other than the names of a few supporters. Which on its face you think is insane idea and yet, the smart creative ones were able to tap into communities of support and build networks and put enough pressure on the supermarket chains so that in 1970, that is what ends the strike and that the supermarket goes back to the growers and say, we just cant deal with this boycott anymore, you need to solve your labor labor problems. It is the height of creativity and it creates the problems that come up later because you have this contract and have to win them. Okay. I think we have time now for some questions from the audience. Perhaps you can bring up the issues that we have an address so far. He has . The role of the filipino americans, you havent mention that. Her question is the role of the filipinos are in the strikes. I think they originally had started the filipinos had their own union and the filipinos start to strike the,. Filipino union walks out on strike and goes to chavez and they play a really important role. The two unions merge in 66 and the filipinos felt like second class citizens in a mexican union. Theres a bridge of those differences but their leadership is very happy, larry was the most prominent and strongest of delay know and in great frustration i write about some of his comments in his remarks and his unhappiness when he felt that chavez could not delegate and that. The filipinos become marginalized and then chavez in an effort to do something, a very misguided effort in 1977 goes to the philippines as a guest and that becomes a tremendously polarizing act as well. He praises martial law and theres quite a bit about that though we havent talked about but its an important part of the story. I believe the meetings in filipino were all for the most part the filipino Cameron Community has denounced part of the film because the filipinos were shown in the forefront and if growers sign the contract to veracruz. They were sitting next to chavez and they signed and yet in the philippines, you show it in the background. Miriam, you worked at the agricultural reporter for the Los Angeles Times and two questions. The first is, how much did you physically retrace the past of when chavez youre doing a research . Did you spend time in san jose, in libraries in bakersfield sacramento, los angeles. If you got to lake isa ballot to talk to his brother but apparently not. The second question is, in your extensive research, is there one nugget you found about Caesar Chavez life that the public doesnt know what should. Two questions. Yes, i went everywhere. I went on the ruins of that house that is crumbled walls where he was a child, his grandfathers estate. I went to different places that is important to do when youre writing and still that have places that exist and was able to retrace all of that. The nuggets that i like is that in 1969, he was flat on his back and couldnt move, he was in tremendous pain. He couldnt sit up in bed and theres a picture a really cool picture of a book that i found in the archives. You see him flat on his back and theres a bar because you have to lift himself up under the bar. The Kennedy Family doctor who had treated president kennedy for his back, comes to delay know to try to help and she watches him walk and sees right away that hes crooked and has this extreme case of asymmetry and hes so relieved and its a simple solution and also tells them you have the foot because a second toe is longer and the reason we know all of this is because he taped it. The fact to me that heres a man that is flat on his back in tremendous pain and has the presence of mind in terms of preserving history, his own history to turn on the tape recorder and 40 years later im sitting in the library listening to this tape. That was for me summed up a lot of the remarkable moments about a man in the book. Yes. Did your the role that san antonio played in the Farmworkers Movement . To a limited degree. I talked to the head of the texas farmworker, some information about him in the book and we dealt with the degree in which arizona and texas was a depend an organization and tried to function as unions and chavez later cut them in a lot of ways, making sure they didnt get funding. It was a battle over turf because he wanted to be the sole voice for farmworkers. Ultimately, the idea was the International Union was the goal but they can never effectively run california to expand. And pat it down for people that grew up in texas. I the texas farmworkers had a Hunger Strike at the capital back in 1978. They also had to march to washington which i believe youre familiar with. At the time, i remember speaking to antonio and he said that they wanted to represent all Foreign Workers both u. S. Citizens and mexican workers and caesar did not want it. He only wanted u. S. American farm workers to be represented. That was the philosophical difference between those two groups. I excuse me. My question has to do with the unions, the act in the late forties was a very poor act when you strike an alternative for managers to come in to do the job. Im wondering if that was evident after striking and therefore they strategize to do the boycott. Or is it more complicated than that . The workers are excluded from the Relations Board and because they were excluded from the act they were able to do separate boycotts. They were perceived by them as being an advantage and it turned out to be to the farmworkers benefit. Thats a complicated story. As a nurse im interested in pesticides will. With these farmworkers, in close proximity they were to the crops. I consider the pioneer in organics in many ways. Its part of his visionary nature way before people were talking about organic food, he was doing his own composting. He became a vegetarian and you fight against pesticides and both out of conviction had that as a tactic, i think were done. I would just like to ask one more question of miriam. When what is chavez legacy . His legacy is not in the field but its a generation of activists to learn from him and taking that knowledge and gone elsewhere. For the workers who are in power by his union, that was also a tremendous experience. He was there as a hero throughout the country and they call for an important legacy. Thank you very much. applause up next, cspan cities to highlights Americas National parks. It will feature a mixture of Natural Beauty and history in a different parts around the history including Mount Rushmore National Memorial and the Gateway Arch National park. Enjoy american history