La Causa Y La Cruza
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newUniversityVOL. 4/NO. 13/NOVEMBER 12, 1971 To large numbers of laymenand clergy in California and across the nation the nameChrisHartmire has California Migrant Ministry become a household word. He is rarelydiscussed passively.To agri- business owners and the more con servative religious organizations in California. Hartmire is one of the most hated men in the church. But to many in the church today,both y cruza Catholic, to la and causa Protestant and la thousands of poverty-stricken farm workers, the California Migrant Ministry and the man who by marc grossman leads it representshopefor a better — "I've been making friends with the veteran of community projects in ganizing feeling the pressure future and signifies a new direction courageous to clergy for sixteenyears, especially Harlem and the Civil Rights Move- from some of the most they feel the church will have in CMM projects to keep touch with the the Migrant Ministry. ..Thechurch ment in the South where he was farm workers take if it is in pushed the Migrant Ministry to social realities of the 20th century. is the onegroup that isn't expecting arrested during the "Freedom Hartmire,director anythingfrom us. Allthe others, the Rides." Like all newly arrived prepare lor aneventual confronta- TheRev. Chris tion with theow nersof theagri-busi- of the California Migrant Ministry unions, the civil rights groups, they CMM personnel, Hartmire spent one of Cesar all want something in return for his first twomonths inthe state with ness establishment. and for. a decade Hartmire and his stalllearned that Chavez's closest friends and asso- their support. Not the church." Chavez co-workers Dolores Huerta Comparative In the late fifties the CMM, with and Gilbert Padilla in Stockton or- whenever farm workers wanted to ciates, will address a really important changes in class on farm labor at UCI grants from such groups as the ganizing for CSO. make Culture Foundation, lives they came up against on Tuesday.November 16 at 2 p.m. Schwartzhaupt began The Bracero Program contro- their the to become involved in organizing versy that raged through the state their employers. "It always came in SSL-119. After the class power imbalance Migrant Ministry meet activities with the Community and the churches' participation in down to the basic head_will repeal between the employers and the more informally with~interested Service Organization under the fight that ended in the of Chavez's guidance. Prior to that P.L. 78 beganto losesupport for the workers. And their power was students and others in the Inter- always overwhelming. library the second time the CMM programs had CMM. especially from agri-busi- So we were faith Office on happy to alignmore andmoreofour floor of the Irvine Town Center. consisted primarily of the welfare ness sources. Hartmire recalled. The California Migrant Ministry type, conscience-saving activities and the farm workers' union share that had characterized the Migrant such a close relationship that it is Ministries of America for fifty often difficult tosee whereone ends years, and the other begins. The CMM But what came out of those com- aided Cesar Chavez when he munity organizing activities was a worked in the Community Service beginning commitment by the Organization, a community action churchmen inCMM tothe ideaof re- oriented group that,underChavez's distributing the power in rural Cal- leadership, became what was ifornia. The Migrant Ministry probably the most prominent followed up its activities in several Chicano organization in the South- ways. It led the churches in oppo- west in the late 1950s. When he left sition to the mass importation of the CSO in 1961 to found the farm foreign labor into the United States workers' union, the Migrant Minis- under Public Law 78 (the infamous try, under Hartmire's direction, Bracero Program). CMM staff per- became the first groupto work with sonnel maintained the close the infant association. To this day personal relationship they had es- the CMM remains what might be tablished with Cesar Chavez and referred to as the union's most others in CSO and some ministers trusted and valued ally in its started to talk in terms of the need struggle to unionize America's for a union of farm workers. The special farm workers. CMM also developed many Not longago Chavez remarked, "I programs to aid farm workers in don't see Chris asan outsider.Ifeel rural California. as though he is more a part of the In September of 1961 Chris union than the Migrant Ministry. Hartmire came to California to And Ifeel as though Iam more a assume directorship of the CMM. part of the Migrant Ministry than The son of a Philadelphia painter. his under- the union." On many public occa- Hartmire received HEAD, Hartmire, confers at CALIFORNIA MIGRANT MINISTRY Chris sions the farm workers' leader has graduate education Princeton Ministry the farm workers University and his ecumenical with Cesar Chavez. The Migrant has been referred tothe support his union has union's closest ally for nearly a decade. received from the church and the training at the Union Theological May. 1967 Saturday SeminaryinNew York.An ordained CMM. In a organizing efforts with the Na- EveningPost article, Chavez said. Presbyterian minister, he was a "We were goingthrough the whole Bracero struggleand losinga lot of tional Farm Workers Association" friends learning how to live with (Chavez's group) as it grew conflict and learning how to live Hartmire and Chavez saw the with people not liking you and in (arm workers' plight as the resultof fact, learning how to live with a basic power imbalance in rural people disliking you intensely and America. Growers control and still stopping giving you money and make the most important decisions— things like that. All that was very in farm workers' lives the helpful." decisions over wages, working con- ditions and hiring and firing prac- In its "specialministry" projects tices. And grower paternalism financed by member denomina- aside, these crucial economic deci- tions of the National and California sions are made as a rule not on the Councils of Churches, of which the basis of the human interests of the CMM isstillanagency, the Migrant workers, but rather on principles Ministry tried to convince the related to economic self-interests church that if it was to be at all and the maximization of profit. relevant to the farm workers' Moreover, this structural de struggle it would have to become ficiency in the economic foundation involved in issues that farm of rural California and America workers were interested in and in carries over into the socio-political programs farm workers initiated. affairs of agri-business com- But despite this self-deterministic munities where growers dominate approach, theCMM was very reluc- local school boards, city councils, tant totie itself tothe pirmary issue county boards of supervisors and in farm labor relations issue, the rural law enforcement agencies. employer-employee relationship. The goal of Cesar Chavez. Chris The Migrant Ministry saw no Hartmire andthefarm workers was chance of success in this area. and stillis tocounter this force with— But gradually all the contacts the their ownorganizationalstrength CMM peoplehad been maintaining the strength of workers coming to- with Cesar Chavez plus its own ex- periences in community or- continued on page 3 Page NEW UNIVERSITY Friday, November 12, 1971 THIS WEEKEND campus qu ickies CAMPUS CLUBS "Buckminster Fuller on Attention registered clubs late add-drops \si ( I Spaceship Earth," a film bj chased ;»t the gale. The Razor- andorganizations: Ikis Robert Snyder will be shown Orange County's STATE SCHOLARSHIPS If you turnedin an Add-Drop been awarded approximately backs are space, in I'CIrvine's Science Lecture new semi-pro team. State Scho- card alter Monday,October 18 2000 sq. feel of trailer a football The California been Mall tomorrow night at 7 p.m. They are members of the larship and Loan Commission and did not pay the S3 latefee, portion of which has and again at 9:30 p.m. The Western Football League.The reminds high school seniors your card has not been pro- designated for use by clubs film, part of which was aired Santa is at Ninth college that the cessed andisbeingheld bythe and organizations for office /»na Bowl and students is nationallyas a television spe- and Flower in Santa Ana. postmark deadline date for Registrar'soffice. That office space.If your organization cial, is described as being the the filing of California State will process the card upon looking for a placeto "hangits "definitive synthesized EDUCATION Scholarship applications is payment of*****the $3. hat" and would be interested lecture of one of the great 19, in obtaining rent-free office November 1971. Nine Handy teachers and minds of our FOR KIDS thousand six hundred new refunds space, please contact time." Fuller, considered the Anyone interested in helping scholarships Lewis, Assistant Dean of Stu- for under- If you of universal man of modern en- lo a graduate college wereone the few who dents in the Student Activities start student-run TUI- students are attending Billy is gineering,is the inventor of TION "FREE" be by Com- plannedon the office (833-6920). Space FREE to awarded the Preston or be delegat- the geodesic dome,a sell-con in Costa Mesa call mission in April 1972.Students Concert the limited and it will house, SCHOQL Orientation Week Beach ed on a shared basis, but this tained modular athree 675-1417, evenings.***** whobelieve they are inneedof wheeled automobile which has financial assistance for tui- Picnic, and bought advance can provide an excellent been recognizedas a rational openings colleges tickets, you have a refund opportunity to lend some There arestill a few tion and fees at the of coming.