1965 Cesar Chavez
1 media/cesar_FL_SMALL_thumb.jpg 2021-12-02T22:03:06+00:00 Gina Leon f0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49 1 5 Delano Grape Strike begins September 8, 1965 marks the beginning of one of the most important strikes in American history. As over 2,000 Filipino-American farm workers refused to go to work picking grapes in the valley north of Bakersfield, California, they set into motion a chain of events that would extend over the next five years. We know it as the Delano Grape Strike. READ MORE: When Millions of Americans Stopped Eating Grapes in Support of Farm Workers Filipino and Mexican immigrants had worked for decades along the West Coast, moving with the seasons to harvest the region's crops. The Filipino contingent in particular was growing restless, as many of the workers were aging and anxious for decent medical care and retirement funds. When one of their number, labor organizer Larry Itliong, declared a strike on September 8, he asked for the support of the National Farm Workers Association and its Mexican-American founders, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Although Chavez had reservations about his union's capacity to pull off the strike, he put the issue to the workers, who enthusiastically joined. The strike lasted five years and went through a number of phases. From the outset, the already poor farm workers faced opposition from law enforcement and cruel attempts at sabotage by the growers—some reported that farmers shut off the water supply to their meager dormitories. As frustration grew and workers increasingly spoke of violence three years into the strike, Chavez decided to go on a hunger strike, emulating his hero Mahatma Gandhi. In addition to ending the calls for violence, the hunger strike drew further attention to the movement, earning praise from figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. plain 2022-10-07T23:48:55+00:00 September 1965 20080725 071600 cesar_LL, 7/25/08, 7:16 AM, 8C, 9000x12000 (0+0), 150%, Repro 2.2 v2, 1/30 s, R91.8, G67.5, B83.9 Gina Leon f0ac362b4453e23ee8a94b1a49fbeeafde2a0a49Contents of this path:
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2021-12-02T22:09:31+00:00
1965 Delano Grape Strike
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September 8, 1965
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2022-01-07T03:50:35+00:00
See https://ufw.org/1965-1970-delano-grape-strike-boycott/
September 8, 1965 marks the beginning of one of the most important strikes in American history. As over 2,000 Filipino-American farm workers refused to go to work picking grapes in the valley north of Bakersfield, California, they set into motion a chain of events that would extend over the next five years. We know it as the Delano Grape Strike. Filipino and Mexican immigrants had worked for decades along the West Coast, moving with the seasons to harvest the region's crops. The Filipino contingent in particular was growing restless, as many of the workers were aging and anxious for decent medical care and retirement funds.
When one of their number, labor organizer Larry Itliong, declared a strike on September 8, he asked for the support of the National Farm Workers Association and its Mexican-American founders, Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta. Although Chavez had reservations about his union's capacity to pull off the strike, he put the issue to the workers, who enthusiastically joined.The strike lasted five years and went through a number of phases. From the outset, the already poor farm workers faced opposition from law enforcement and cruel attempts at sabotage by the growers—some reported that farmers shut off the water supply to their meager dormitories. As frustration grew and workers increasingly spoke of violence three years into the strike, Chavez decided to go on a hunger strike, emulating his hero Mahatma Gandhi.
In addition to ending the calls for violence, the hunger strike drew further attention to the movement, earning praise from figures like Martin Luther King, Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. -
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2021-12-02T01:17:29+00:00
Chicano Movement
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1960 - 1985
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2022-03-01T00:07:44+00:00
HISTORY Article:
https://www.history.com/news/chicano-movement
In the 1960s, a radicalized Mexican-American movement began pushing for a new identification. The Chicano Movement, aka El Movimiento, advocated social and political empowerment through a chicanismo or cultural nationalism.As the activist Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales declared in a 1967 poem, “La raza! / Méjicano! / Español! / Latino! / Chicano! / Or whatever I call myself, / I look the same.”
Leading up to the 1960s, Mexican-Americans had endured decades of discrimination in the U.S. West and Southwest. After the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo put an end to the Mexican-American War in 1848, Mexicans who chose to remain on territory ceded to the United States were promised citizenship and “the right to their property, language and culture.”
But in most cases, Mexicans in America––those who later immigrated and those who lived in regions where the U.S. border shifted over––found themselves living as second-class citizens. Land grants promised after the Mexican-American War were denied by the U.S. government, impoverishing many land-grant descendants in the area.
Not White, But ‘Chicano’
Throughout the early 20th century, many Mexican-Americans attempted to assimilate and even filed legal cases to push for their community to be recognized as a class of white Americans, so they could gain civil rights. But by the late 1960s, those in the Chicano Movement abandoned efforts to blend in and actively embraced their full heritage.
By adopting “Chicano” or “Xicano,” activists took on a name that had long been a racial slur—and wore it with pride. And instead of only recognizing their Spanish or European background, Chicanos now also celebrated their Indigenous and African roots.
Leaders in the movement pushed for change in multiple parts of American society, from labor rights to education reform to land reclamation. As University of Minnesota Chicano & Latino Studies professor Jimmy C. Patino Jr. says, the Chicano Movement became known as “a movement of movements.” “There were lots of different issues,” he says, “and the farmworker issue probably was the beginning.”
Chávez Leads Fight for Farmworkers’ Rights
César Chávez and Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became United Farm Workers (UFW) in California to fight for improved social and economic conditions. Chavez, who was born into a Mexican-American migrant farmworker family, had experienced the grueling conditions of the farmworker first-hand.