Listen to the PodcastCésar Chávez has won natinal attention for his efforts to organize farm workers who toil in West Coast vineyards.
Chávez, whom the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy called "one of the heroic figures of our time," was born on his grandfather's farm in Yuma, Arizona. He attended 67 different schools while his family moved with seasons and the crops before finally dropping out in junior high.
He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with activist Dolores Huerta and, in an attempt to organize grape pickers, coordinated the nationwide boycott of grapes. The boycott has had a modest effect on growers; in response, the federal government has markedly increased its purchase of grapes.
Chávez uses the attention brought on by the grape boycott to discuss dicrimination, high rates of farm-worker mortality, unsufficient and unsafe housing, inadequate education, and other inequalities that affect laborers.
