Farm workers argue on César Chávez’s previous day: ‘You can only judge a living person’

The lights went up in the backyard of a Highland Park home, where three farm workers had gathered to find the platform for the first Farm Workers Day: a newly renamed holiday that enhanced all César Chávez Day celebrations in the state.

The gruesome event Tuesday night was one of several gatherings focused on agricultural workers in the Los Angeles area, following an investigation by the New York Times, which exposed allegations that Labor leader César Chávez sexually assaulted two teenage girls in the 1970s, along with another founder of the United Farm Workers of America, Dolores Huerta.

“I’m still processing it,” said Flor Martinez Zaragoza, CEO and founder of Celebration Nation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the Latino community throughout California and hosting the event. “I stand with the survivors.”

After the New York Times report, many government and city officials sought to distance themselves from Chávez’s recently tarnished legacy. They started by renaming César Chávez Day; held annually on March 31, it was approved by President Obama as a US national holiday in 2014.

The public rose up to remove Chávez templates from a the foundation in San Fernando, painting murals in his memory throughout Los Angeles and voting unanimously to strip him of his name from traffic signs in Fresno.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass signed the declaration on March 19 to change César Chávez Day to Farm Workers Day in the city. And on Thursday, the California Legislature followed that, with the aim of thanking the extensive contributions of agricultural workers. The change was immediately approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Still, Martinez Zaragoza worries that the rush to dismantle Chávez’s legacy could quickly erase the history of the United Farm Workers movement, which has helped protect workers’ rights and better protect the safety of agricultural workers since it was founded in 1962.

“If they take down the statues, who makes people answer to ensure that they put up pictures of farm workers?” asked Martinez Zaragoza. “If they take certain documents out of the history books, who makes sure that they don’t remove the entire farm workers’ meeting?”

As the host of the night, Martinez Zaragoza wanted to focus the voices of the farm workers and how they felt about the collective movement of the community to wash Chávez in history. As it turns out, hiding from the once popular labor leader is not easy for some.

“It’s sad to see what’s happening. I respect Dolores Huerta. As a woman, we should support her, right?” said Xochitl Nuñez, a community leader from Orosi, Calif., and a member of the UFW. “I respect you, but you can’t judge a dead person, you can only judge a living person.

As a survivor of sexual assault, Nuñez sympathizes with the women involved, but worries that painting over Chávez’s image washes away the impact of his nonviolent, direct protests that in 1970 helped the UFW secure the contracts of more than 10,000 grape harvesters.

“It saddens me to hear a person from the city complaining or spewing violence, what do people from the city know if they have never been to the fields? Nuñez exclaimed to the group. “They have never been to the fields where I work below 116 degrees. I need water, I need shade, a bathroom – and because of his fight, we have those things.”

The swift action of renaming César Chávez Day also made Nuñez wonder why other bills in the state, such as Health Act for Women Working on Rural Farms — aimed at providing free menstrual products to female agricultural workers in California — has not been quickly approved by lawmakers, despite being introduced by David Tangipa and Juan Alanis in February.

“We are not in front of pharmacies, sometimes we walk for an hour,” said Nuñez, when it comes to finding menstrual products.

While most of the headlines focused on Chávez’s allegations of sexual abuse, these farm workers felt compelled to focus on current issues – such as the workplace injuries and deaths endured by farm workers. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Healthbetween 2021 and 2022, there were 21,020 injuries in agricultural production that required days off work; Underreported injuries are also common.

Nuñez described how the metal once pierced his shoe and leg while picking cherries, leading to two surgeries that threatened to amputate his leg.

“It was so traumatic that they told me I needed the same treatment for PTSD as people returning from the war,” Nuñez said. “Most of us are mutilated, but not only our bodies, our souls are mutilated, we are left with such a disease, I wish there would be a feature that would not disappear everything we go through in the field.”

A woman walks past the Watts/Century Latino Organization as muralist MisterAlek replaces a portrait of Chávez with a portrait of Dolores Huerta in Los Angeles on March 20.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

His son Alejandro Martinez, 22, who is a veteran and works in the farm, also spoke about the injuries that attacked his body: “Part of my spine is now tilted.

Carmen Obeso has had vision problems for years, saying she was exposed to chemical pesticides while working in strawberry fields in Ventura County.

Whatever they give you as compensation, it is not something that just ends,” said Obeso.

When he first arrived in Oxnard, Obeso didn’t know much about Chávez’s legacy, other than a 1989 song dedicated to him by Los Tigres del Norte. But after an incident that changed his life, he became very depressed. Learning about the United Farm Workers organization gave him the strength to get through it.

“I met a lot of people who knew César Chávez, and a lot of people were hurt by what he did,” Obeso said. “But I’m not the one to judge.”