Research Paper Final Version

 Nancy Huerta

Professor Knapp

 English 1A

             

March 8^th 2012 

         “Happy are those who dream dreams and a                                                                                    re ready to pay the price to make them come true” - Joseph Suenens.

“When the world says, "Give up," Hope                                             whispers,"Try it one more time"   - Unknown

            Throughout history there have always been people that were willing to pay any price to see their dream come true. We look at many of them with great admiration because they were determined to fight for justice, rights, and freedom. Martin Luther King is a great example. He fought for the rights of African Americans, but he also paid a really high cost for it, his life.   Although there are people that always want to keep everyone on the bottom there’s always someone from the bottom that is always willing to step up and take a risk for change. Cesar Chávez was one of these people. He was willing to step up and put an end to the suffering of the migrant farm workers. Of course this had to be paid and done through suffering, sacrifice, perseverance, and unity. Thanks to Chavez, now billions of people in this country, specially farm workers, have equal rights and are able to have a decent life.

            Cesar Chavez had a tough life since he was a child. He was born on March 31, 1927, near Yuma, Arizona.  Two years after he was born, the great depression started in the U.S. and also the hard times began for the Chavez family. When Cesar Chavez was eleven years old, he experienced an injustice when his family lost their own farm. Chavez’s dad agreed to clear part of the land and in return he was going to get paid half of the revenue obtained. But the agreement was violated and broken when the land was sold. Chavez’s dad tried to look for help and went to a lawyer who advised him to borrow money and buy the land. Later when Cesar's father could not pay the interest on the loan the lawyer bought back the land and sold it to the original owner. Cesar learned a lesson about injustice that he would never forget. Later, he would say, “The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our being but it is also the most true to our nature” (“United Farm Workers”). This caused the Chavez family to become migrant farm workers looking for a job. They moved to Oxnard, California, but then moved back to Arizona and after a few months came back to California. This time to northern California, they moved to San Jose in a barrio called Sal Si Puedes (get out if you can). In his early life he did not like school. According to “United Farm Workers” Chavez remembered how the teacher -most of them Anglos- would punish the kids that would speak Spanish since it was forbidden by the school to speak other languages. He also remembered racism and segregated schools. Chavez attended thirty seven schools up to 8^th grade. After he graduated from eighth grade he started working in the field because his father had had an accident and he didn’t want his mother to be working on the field so he just became a migrant farm worker (“United Farm Workers”).

            When he was nineteen years he joined the U.S. Army, still segregated at that time, and served for two years. When he came back he married Helen Fabela. In San Jose, Chavez met father Donald McDonnell and Fred Ross, with whom later Chavez would be working with. Ross trained and recruited Chavez to his Community Service Organization “the most prominent and militant Latino civil rights group of its time” (“Cesar Chavez Foundation”). But Chavez still had the farm workers on his mind, so he told the CSO’s members if they would agree to a project for farm workers, but his salary would be paid by workers themselves. They thought that the timing was perfect and that the CSO board would agree. But when they proposed it at the convention it was turned down. Most of the members wanted to keep the focus on the ones that had left the fields behind, it was then when Chavez resigned the CSO. He worked as the CSO’s executive director for ten years and that was the only stable job that he had throughout his life. Cesar was scared and nervous because he did not know what was coming ahead, but if he was sure of one thing, it was that he had to help the farm workers. Cesar and his wife Helen knew that leaving SCO meant even more sacrifice. Chavez and his wife only had a thousand dollars saved, but neither of them had an idea of how to support their eight children other that working in the fields, so they moved to Delano.

Chavez knew that the farm workers wanted change, but he also was aware of the past attempts that had failed. Chavez himself had and heard a lot of discouraging and negative comments. One time a Chicano farm worker remembered how previous attempts of making a change for farm workers had ended tragically, all of them had failed, so he warned Chavez “They come and they go good organizers and would-be-organizers. But one thing they all have in common, is that all of them have failed and all will fail” (Ferriss and Sandoval 66) but Chávez wouldn’t listen, he was persistence and he kept on trying and trying. While Helen, his wife, was at work he would drive miles and miles while babysitting his kids to organize and inform people by handing out fliers with questions because  “Chavez wanted to build his union from the fields themselves, rather than listen to what some remote labor chief thought was best” (Ferriss and Sandoval 70).  Later on, Dolores Huerta joined Chavez after finding union organizers from the AWOC chatting amiably with contractors. They announced a meeting on Sunday September 30, in Fresno. They gathered on a theater and hold the first convention with about two hundred farm workers and their families. There Chavez and Huerta read a proposed plan of action. The farmworkers that assisted the reunion accepted, approved and supported the ideas with their votes (72).

 Chavez, his wife, his kids and many of his family and friends had to sacrifice themselves in order for the union to stay alive. One time Helen had won a hundred dollars at Safeway, and she was so happy because finally their kids were going to have enough food, but César said that it was more important to pay for the credit card bill that they used for the gas while driving up and down the valley, trying to recruit members. Also, his brother Richard owned a house that was worth three thousand and seven hundred dollars. César convinced Richard to let him borrowed the money his house was worth, putting the house as collateral for the money they borrowed. They suffered a lot financially, since the only one supporting the eight kids was Helen, and she was also working in the fields. Also Chavez’ kids were threatened by kids at their school -mostly Anglos- because of what their dad was doing. Cesar said that they didn’t even know what the other kids were telling them, but they knew it was something bad. (Ferris and Sandoval 74-76) Even with all they suffered, they never gave up. They would be more close to each other, his brother, his wife and kids, all supporting the cause.

Although it was hard for Chavez to organize the union from just farm workers, because most of them did not want to join the union, he persevered until he made them understand that everything was finally going to change, but only if they were united. Chávez had a hard time keeping the workers from competing against each other for work. Although the majority were Mexicans and Chicanos, they were the ones who heard the most. Cesar wanted them to be united and to not have any kind of rivalry or competition for work within the farm workers, but instead to be organized, to support each other and to show that it was time for change and that they all needed to stay together and help each other out.

 One of the reasons the AWOC was fighting for was for the salary to be raised as well as to have the right for a break time and lunch time. They were also trying to have the farm owner provide them with clean water, not dirty water that ran through the field that the workers usually drank from. In addition, Fusco and Horwitz, state that they also wanted to stop child labor and stop the use of pesticides and chemical growth stimulants and have fair working hours. Along with this they were also trying to protect the people- mainly the women that barely started working on the fields, because most of the time they were raped by the farm owner. They were also asking to be provided with adequate toilet facilities. These were just the main issues for them going on a strike.

Although Chávez had the support of the labor unions, he was not happy with just their support. According to Ferriss and Sandoval, Chávez began to go to the universities and churches and talking to students and worshipers that were curious and wanted to know more about the movement and the strike. Chavez asked them for support like food, money, and clothing, and for one more thing, to go to Delano and see for themselves how the life of the farm workers was and the conditions they were living in. César got a lot of support from public figures like the president J F Kennedy and a lot of celebrities that joined the cause.

The Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee and the National Farm workers Association joined together to make a stronger impact. Together they went on Guelga-“strike”. The farm workers and their supporters would go outside the stores and hold banners that would say “Do Not Buy California Grapes, Help Farmworkers help themselves” (Ferriss and Sandoval 125). The majority of the time they would go up to the people that were buying grapes or another fruit they were buying, and tell them not to buy it. Farmworkers would explain to them the cause of their strike, and would tell them how the farm workers were living, and how they suffer in order to have those fruits in the store. Many people supported them after knowing the reasons of the strike. According to Ferriss and Sandoval, to César it wasn’t enough all that they had done, he wanted to do more to catch more attention, so he decided to fast for twenty five days, from February 15 to March 10. He wanted to get his message of nonviolence across. Like this fasting there was a second one, and also a third, but this last one lasted thirty one days. In the spring of 1969 Chavez declared a boycott to Safeway, which was who they sold twenty percent of the grapes to.  Not enough with the strikes, boycotts, and fastings; Chávez and the farmworkers, along with other unions fighting for the same cause “needed to do something really public and dramatic to show the world the farm workers were far from dead” (192) so they decided to marched to Modesto which they called The Gallo March where the largest wine company was based. They also marched from Delano to Sacramento on March of 1966 “The marchers wanted the state government to pass laws which would permit farm workers to organize into a union and allow collective bargaining agreements” (“United Farm Workers”).

After their fight for justice and rights, the farm workers started seeing change. After all the fight and the attention that César Chavez and the farm workers got, they then saw the door of equality open and they could see their rights rising. Contracts from land owners began to appear, and little by little the farm workers started having rights. They had breaks and lunch time, and access to clean water and many more benefits, but mainly they had the UFW to look and fight for them. They were not alone anymore, they were now all united.

Nowadays, thanks to Chavez and the courageous farm workers that fought together with this brave man to build a better future for us, now many people can enjoy freedom and equal rights, therefore we all have the opportunity to enjoy what before was all a dream. Currently, we all have the same privileges and rights. All kids have the right for an education and can go to school, and all workers get paid a decent amount. All this thanks to the courage and perseverance of César Chávez. Without the dreaming of this man and the desire of helping his people, the life of many in America wouldn’t be the way it is right now. This man had a tremendous impact in the lives of many. Chávez was a great man who taught many people that with unity, perseverance, sacrifice and suffering, we can all fight together and make our dreams come true.

Work Cited

Ferriss, Susan, Ricardo Sandoval, and Diana Hembree. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1998. Print.

Fusco, Paul, and George D. Horwitz. La Causa; the California Grape Strike. New York: Collier, 1970. Print.

 "UFW: The Official Web Page of the United Farm Workers of America." UFW: The Official Web        Page of the United Farm Workers of America. Web. 18 May 2012. <http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?inc=history/07.html>.  

"CESAR CHAVEZ FOUNDATION." CESAR CHAVEZ FOUNDATION. Web. 18 May 2012. <http://www.cesarechavezfoundation.org/_page.php?code=00100100

                Bibliography

1-            Ferriss, Susan, Ricardo Sandoval, and Diana Hembree. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1998. Print.

The book “The fight in the fields” I think it’s a great resource to do my research on because it tells and describes Cesar Chavez life, of course, the book gives a lot of details of his life since he was young, but also it gives a lot of details when he started organizing all the movements that would lead to a change. The book also talks about when Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta got united and how they started the movements that inspired the farmworkers to organize themselves and make a change in their lives

2-            Fusco, Paul, and George D. Horwitz. La Causa; the California Grape Strike. New York: Collier, 1970. Print.

My second resource is the book called “La Causa, The California Grape Strike” is a great documentary that shows a lot of different pictures and it describes each one of it. The book also describes   the labor day of the farm workers and the way of living they were having. I think this is a great way to show the suffering of the farmworkers and the necessity they had for a change in their lives.

How to tame a wild tongue...

The readying “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua it was a little difficult for me to read, there was a lot of Mexican sayings, most of them were in Spanish, but even if I speak Spanish sometimes it was hard for me to understand some of the sayings. For instance “Ahogadas, escupimos al oscuro. Peleando con nuestra propia sombra el silencio nos sepulta” (103). After Anzaldua writes the saying and then in the paragraph that follows the saying explains a little how that saying relates to her or her life. It took me a while to figure out the meaning of this saying. At first I was readying over and over those same lines, but I just could not understand, then I just when ahead and start readying the paragraph. I finished the whole story and then I came back to read that same saying. Then I read the following paragraph again then that was when my bulb turned on. When I saw the subtitle that said “The Tradition Of Silence”(103) gave me the entire understanding of the saying. There, in the saying she’s talking about the women, that when they can’t take it anymore, that they feel that that’s all they can take and that they need to explode, that’s when they feel ahogadas which means drowned and escupimos al oscuro means we spit to the dark, which is referring that they just say what they have all inside without realizing to how they are saying it or who is around them.  Peleando con nuestra propia sombra el silencio nos sepulta is fighting with our own shadow the silence bury us, meaning that if they stay quiet and they just keep it to themselves then that of course we know that little by little would start making a negative impact in their lives. Although some saying I could not understand nor interpret them the story gave me an understanding of the point Anzaldua wanted to get across. There was many things in the story that I didn’t understood at once, so it required me to go for a second read. One of the things that required me to go and read it again was that Chicanos speak many languages “and the languages we speak are:  1. Standard English, 2. Working class and slang English, 3. Standard Mexican Spanish, 5. North Mexican Spanish dialect, 6. Chicano Spanish…,  7. Tex-Mex, 8. Pachuco(called calo)” (105).this really attracted me the first time I read it, although I did not clearly understood what was really saying or all those tipes of languages Anzaldua was talking about but in some way I knew it was true and therefore important. As I was reading through it the second time, it made think that all those languages as she calls it are true. This reading made me realize many things that I as a Mexican American are part of my identity and who I am. And me, like many others, I think we can relate somewhat to Anzaldua story.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

The Gender Roles In My Family...

My family is composed by five daughters, so in the house the dominant gender is us, the girls. Of course since little girls we were always taught that since we were girls we had to be more quiet, but my dad always said that just because we are girls that doesn’t mean that we cannot express our minds. In fact, he always encouraged us to speak up our minds and to not be looked down by anyone just because we’re girls. Of course I was always hearing things like “get down of that tree, you’re not  a boy”  or “only boys do that, girls don’t” or “if you were a boy, it would be a different thing”. All this things that I would hear from the elders, sometimes made me wish to be a boy. One time my dad told me that when my mom was pregnant of me everyone wish for me to be a boy, since my parents had had two little girls now they wanted a boy, a boy to take over my dad in the future when he grow older. When I was little I always wondered: what can guys do that we girls can’t? As I grew up, I saw that we were treated in some way different that guys. Even if in my family always were trying to educate my cousins and all of us the same, they could not help making some exceptions. When my cousins, the guys, wanted to go somewhere they would always give them permission to go, but when us the girls ask for permission to go, they were always denied permission. They would say that we cannot go alone, that we needed someone else to go with us. To me that was really unfair, that was one of the reasons why I didn’t like family reunions or vacations with my mom’s or dad’s family. Since my parents only had girls, they always treated us equally and they would always tell us to do what we wanted to do, that gender did not had to be a barrier for us, that we always had to follow our dreams. All this differences on gender helped on shaping my identity. Now I know there is some differences, guys can be a little stronger and therefore can do some things that girls can’t, but us girls, can also do thighs that guys can’t and that is where we complement. We all need from everyone, so there is no reason why we have to be treated differently. I believe that we can all do whatever we want only if we try. We just have to believe in ourselves and go for whatever we want to go for and we will get it with faith and support from the ones that are always there by our side, like our parents.

Revised...

While analyzing scene one, the first part of the story, it introduces a man about thirty five years of age standing on a bridge in northern Alabama. He had his hands behind him tied. He was standing in that bridge about to be hung. Everything was ready for the lynching they were only waiting for “a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties” (p 32).  His face was not cover nor his eyes not were bandaged, so he was clearly aware and could see what was happening around him, so he closed his eyes in order to focus and “fix his last thoughts on his wife and children” (p 32). Now, Farquhar was thinking of his family. Something that before he might have not thought about, like if something happened to him what was his wife and children were going to do without him. Having his thoughts on his family, a really loud noise on the background  distracted him from his thoughts, he wondered what it was, the sound was similar to a blacksmith’s hammer hitting on to the anvil. Every time he heard that noise he was became more and more impatience and he did not know why. The silence grew longer which this allowed the noise to be heard more clearly and louder to his ears. The noise was hurting his ears already of how loud it was, but in reality what he was really hearing “was the ticking of his watch” (p 33). That noise that the book says was the ticking of his watch was because he didn’t have any more time left. He was living his last moments and he was running out of time. He opened his eyes and faced the reality; he was still in the bridge waiting for the signal to be hung. Bierce gives a lot of details that leaves a clear picture of the scene, and I think this is very important so we, all the readers, could understand the thoughts of Farquhar and what happens in the next scenes. I think this scene is very important for the whole story because it is where the author sets the story. He has to plot the scenario in a really good way, so the readers can have a better understanding of the story and how it develops.