AP

GRAPE STRIKERS MARCHING FROM DELANO TO SACRAMENTO PICKETS OUTSIDE MARKET IN BROOKLYN THE LITTLE STRIKE THAT GREW TO LA CAUSA ITEM: At a dinner party in New prominent Mexican-American leader is As the workers and their sympathizers York's Westchester County, the dessert Cesar Estrada Chavez, 42, a onetime march, supermarket chains, middle-class includes grapes. The hostess notices that grape picker who combines a mystical consumers, and even the grape growers her fellow suburbanites fall to with gus­ mien with peasant earthiness. La causa are choosing sides. Some supermarkets to; the guests from Manhattan unan­ is Chavez's whole life; for it, he has im­ are leaving the choice to the shopper. imously abstain. poverished himself and endangered his Others sell only grapes imported from ITEM: At St. Paul's, a fashionable health by fasting. In soft, slow speech, Africa or Israel, and make a point of ad­ New Hampshire prep school, grapes are he urges his people-nearly 5,000,000 vertising that they do not carry the Cal­ the only part of the meal invariably of them in the U.S.-to rescue them­ ifornia product. On Capitol Hill, diners left untouched. selves from society's cellar. As he sees in the House restaurants have not seen ITEM: In , a Safeway it, the first step is to win the battle of a grape for months, while the Senate re­ official observes: "We have customers the grapes. fectory has been using 15 lbs. to 20 who come to the store for no other rea­ Magnified Movement lbs. a week. When one Con­ son than to buy grapes. They'll load up gressman sent large bags of grapes to their car with grapes and nothing else." To enter the public consciousness, a each of his colleagues, many of the re­ ITEM: In Oakland, a conscience-rid­ labor conflict must ordinarily threaten cipients returned them. Within a few den housewife explains apologetically the supply of essential goods and ser­ hours, the corridor outside the Con­ to her dinner companions: "I really vices, like steel or transportation. Pol- ­ gressman's office was asquish with trod- wanted to have this dessert, and I just de­ iticians and the public take notice only upon fruit. . cided that one little bunch of grapes when there is great impact on the econ­ Governor calls the wouldn't make that much difference." omy, when spectacular bloodshed occurs strike and boycott "immoral" and "at­ ITEM: In Honolulu, the Young or when well-recognized issues are at tempted blackmaiL" Senator George Americans for Freedom organizes an stake. The grape strike seems to meet Murphy, like Reagan an old Hollywood ."emergency grape lift" by jet from the none of these criteria. Americans could union man-turned-conservative, terms mainland, inviting "all of those starved easily live without the table grape if the movement "dishonest." The Nixon for the sight of a California grape to they had to, and even that minor sac­ Administration has seemed ambivalent, come to the airport." rifice has been unnecessary. The dis­ putting forward legislati.on that would pute has been relatively free of vio­ ostensibly give farm workers organi­ HY all the excitement about this lence. Neither great numbers of men zation rights but would also limit their W smooth, sweet and innocent fruit? nor billions of dollars are involved. The use of strikes and boycotts. The Pen­ The answer is that the table grape, welfare of agricultural workers has rare­ tagon has substantially increased its Vitis vinifera, has become the symbol ly captured U.S. attention in the past, grape orders for mess-hall tables, a move of the four-year-old strike of California's but the grape strike-Ia huelga-and that Chavez and his followers countered predominantly Mexican-American farm the boycott accompanying it have clear­ last week by preparing a lawsuit to pre­ workers. For more than a year now, ly engaged a large part of the nation. vent such purchases on the ground that table grapes have been the object of a na­ The issue has divided husband and grapes are the subject of a labor dis­ tional boycott that has won the sym­ wife, inspired countless heated argu­ pute. Some auto-bumper stickers read: pathy and support of many Americans ments at social occasions and engendered NIXON EATS GRAPES. The growers' an­ -and the ire of many others. The strike public controversy from coast to coast. swering slogan: EAT CALIFORNIA GRAPES, is widely known as la causa, which has As if on a holy crusade, the strikers THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT. come to represent not only a protest stage marches that resemble religious pil­ Edward and , following against working conditions among Cal­ grimages, bearing aloft their own styl­ the late Robert Kennedy's example, have ifornia grape pickers but the wider as­ ized black Aztec eagle on a red field embraced as a brother. pirations of the nation's Mexican-Amer­ along with images of the Virgin of Gua­ The so-called Beautiful People, from ican minority as well. La causa's mag­ dalupe, patroness of Mexicans and par­ Peter, Paul and Mary to the Ford sis­ netic champion and the country's most ticularly of those who work the soil. ters, Anne Uzielli and Charlotte Ni-

16 TIME, JULY -4, 1969 archos, are helping to raise funds for zation, Cesar began to act on Alinsky's ganize farm workers. Ineffective efforts the strikers. That support is one of the precept that concerted action is the only to found agricultural unions date back few issues that find Chicago Mayor Rich­ means through which the poor can gain to the turn of the century. But only in ard Daley, iconoclastic Writer Gloria political and economic power. Chavez, Hawaii, where Harry Bridges' tough Steinem, and liberal Senators Jacob Ja­ a Roman Catholic, has delved deeply longshoremen's union used its muscle vits and George McGovern in total into the papal social encyclicals, es­ to win the first farm-labor contract for agreement. Ralph Abernathy lends black pecially Rerum Novarum and Quadra­ sugar-cane workers in 1945, did union­ help to what is becoming the Brown gesimo Anno. ':' "What Cesar wanted to ization take hold. Agriculture is outside Power movement. reform was the way he was treated as the jurisdiction of the National Labor The fact that it is a movement has a man," recalls his brother Richard. Relations Board, which has provided magnified la huelga far beyond its eco­ "We always talked about change, but federal ground rules for industrial work­ nomic and geographic confines. At stake how could we go about it?" Cesar Cha­ ers' unions since 1935; on a national are not only the interests of 384,100 ag­ vez went about it by working with the level, there is no similar mechanism ricultural workers in California but po­ c.s.O. among for for farm workers. In May the Nixon Ad­ tentially those of more than 4,000,000 ten years. Then, in 1962, he left to ministration proposed an independent in the U.S. Such workers have never form a farm workers' union. Farm Labor Relations Board, but won collective bargaining rights, par­ The conditions under which farm la­ chances for passage of such a law this tially because they have not been high­ borers toil have improved somewhat year are small. Without NLRB protection, ly motivated to organize and partially since the squalid Depression era so well and with farm labor normally transient because their often itinerant lives have evoked by John Steinbeck in The Grapes and seasonal, the difficulties of orga­ made them difficult to weld into a group of Wrath and In Dubious Battle; yet nizing are enormous. that would have the clout of an in­ field work remains one of the most un­ dustrial union. By trying to organize pleasant of human occupations. It de­ Rose Grafts and Table Grapes the grape pickers, Chavez hopes to in­ mands long hours of back-breaking Undeterred by these obstacles, Chavez spire militancy among all farm laborers. labor, often in choking dust amid in­ took his $1,200 in savings and started Because most of the grape pickers are sects and under a flaming sun. The har­ the National Farm Workers' Association Mexican Americans, he also believes vest-time wage for grape pickers av­ seven years ago, setting up its head­ that he is fighting a battle on behalf of erages $1.65 an hour, plus a 25¢ bonus quarters in the ag­ the entire Mexican-American commu­ for each box picked, while the current ricultural town of Delano. He clicked nity, which as a group constitutes the na­ federal minimum wage is $1.60. off 300,000 miles in a battered 1953 tion's second biggest deprived minority. Despite this, the seasonal and spo­ Mercury station wagon, crisscrossing the radic nature of the work keeps total in­ San Joaquin and talking to more than Unlettered and Unshod come far below the poverty level. Av­ 50,000 workers in the first six months. Like the blacks, Mexican Americans, erage family income is less than $1,600 His money was soon gone, but he found who are known as , are a var­ a year. There is no job security, and people who were willing to give him ied and diverse people. Only recently fringe benefits are few. If they are mi­ food. The N.F.W.A. had its first formal have they emerged from a : grants, the workers must frequently live meeting in Fresno in September 1962; the lazy, placid peasant lost in a cen­ in fetid shacks without light or plumb­ 287 people showed up. Chavez soon turies-long siesta under a sombrero. Un­ ing (though housing, bad as it is, is fre­ started a death-benefits plan for his like the blacks, who were brought to quently free or very cheap.) As a re­ members, a curious echo of the burial so­ the U.S. involuntarily, the Chicanos sult, many have moved to the cities, cieties organized decades ago by East­ have flocked to the U.S. over the past where even unskilled labor can find ern European immigrants on their ar­ 30 years, legally and illegally, in an at­ work at decent wages. rival in the U.S. He also set up a tempt to escape the poverty of their na­ Chavez was not the first to try to 01'- credit union with $35 in assets (it now tive and find a better life. What­ has more than $50,000). By August ever their present condition may be. ':' Rerum Noval'llm, published by Leo XITI 1964, he had 1,000 members, each pay­ many obviously find it better than their in 1891, contended that the rich had in effect en­ ing $3.50 a month in dues-no small former one, as evidenced by the fact slaved the poor, and that every man has a sum for a farm worker's family. Soon that relatives have often followed fam­ right to a decent wage and reasonable com­ fort. Pius X1, in Quadragesil1lo Anno (1931), he began publishing a union newspaper ilies into the U.S. The Chicanos do criticized the economic despotism that results called (The Misfit), whose not speak in one voice but many, fol­ from "limitless free competition" and reiterated circulation is 18,000. low no one leader or strategy. Their the principle of a just wage. At last the union felt strong enough level of ambition and militance varies greatly from barrio to barrio between and California. No man, however, personifies the Chi­ canos' bleak past, restless present and possible future in quite the manner of Cesar Chavez. He was the unshod, un­ lettered child of migrant workers. He at­ tended dozens of schools but never got to the eighth grade. He was a street-cor­ ner tough who now claims as his mod­ els , Gandhi, Nehru and Martin Luther King. He tells his people: "We make a solemn promise: to enjoy our rightful part of the riches of this land, to throw off the yoke of being considered as agricultural imple­ ments or slaves. We are free men and we demand justice." The dawning of Chavez's social awareness came in a seamy San Jose, '00 25% to 50% Calif., barrio called Sal Si Puedes 5% to 25% -"Get out if you can." Through Fred 247,000 { Population i Ross, a tall, quiet organizer for Saul 150/0 having Spa Alinsky's Community Service Organi-

TIME, JULY 4, 1969 17 to tackle the growers on a substantive put the key in her purse. The incident il­ uct requires continual attention through issue. In 1964, the N.F.W.A. took one em­ lustrated the charge that Chavez and much of the year. Since the appearance ployer to court for paying less than the his aides sometimes coerce those who of the fruit affects its value-unlike the then minimum wage of $1.25 per hour, would rather work than strike. After case of wine grapes-the bunches must and after months of wrangling, won only four days of the strike, the grower be carefully picked by hand. Because the case. The amounts of money gained agreed to give the workers a 120% of their vulnerability, Chavez picked were small but the point was made: a wage increase. the table-grape growers as his first tar­ boss could be beaten. Then the associ­ That same spring, in the Coachella get. In 1966, after a strike, he got his ation sued the Tulare County housing Valley east of , the largely first contract when Schenley Industries authority over the rents and conditions Filipino grape pickers of the A.F.L.­ capitulated because it had a nationally at two labor camps, built in the late c.I.O.'s fledgling Agricultural Workers known name at stake. Later that year 1930s and intended to be used for only Organizing Committee won a brief strike he won the right to represent workers a few years. The camps were a hideous for pay equal to that given field hands at the mammoth Di Giorgio ranch in collection of 9-ft. by II-ft. tin shacks, imported from Mexico. When the work­ an election monitored by the American boiling in the summer sun and lacking ers moved north to Delano at the end Arbitration Association. Both Di Giorgio both indoor plumbing and heat for the of the summer, grape growers there re­ and Schenley have since sold their table­ chill nights. Tulare officials subsequently fused to make a similar agreement, and grape holdings, however, and Chavez's built modern accommodations. A.W.O.C. once more went on strike. On only contracts now are with wine pro­ In May 1965, Chavez signed up a Sept. 16, which just happened to be ducers: Gallo, Christian Brothers, Mas­ group of rose grafters and won a strike Mexican Independence Day, Chavez's son, Almaden, Franzia Brothers and vote for higher wages. Everyone pledged group held a tumultuous meeting and Novitiate. not to go to work, but just to make voted unanimously to join the walkout. sure that no one did, Chavez and Do­ The hall of the Roman Boycott and Breakthrough lores Huerta, his tiny, tough assistant, on Delano's west side resounded with Chavez has never been able to get made the rounds early on the strike's cries of "Viva la huelga!" "Viva la large numbers of laborers to join the first morning. Mrs. Huerta saw a light causa! Viva la union!" The N.F.W.A. strike. Many of those who do follow in one house where four of the work­ and the A.W.O.C. merged two years lat­ him are fanatic in their loyalty, but a ers lived. She reminded them of their er to form the Or­ large segment of the shifting, transient pledge, but they had changed their ganizing Committee, headed by Chavez. work force continues to be indifferent minds. Mrs. Huerta moved her truck Table-grape growers are particularly to unionism. Wages have been rising so that it blocked their driveway and vulnerable to strikes because their prod- even in the absence of contracts, and few farm workers can afford to go un­ paid for long. Although federal regu­ lations theoretically prohibit the hiring An Anglo- Lexicon of aliens, or "green-carders," as strike breakers, the owners have nevertheless As with other minority groups, of the U.S. Used chiefly in New Mex­ continued to use imported workers of there is a special vocabulary used ico and Colorado to distinguish such Mexican citizenship. by and about Mexican Americans. Spanish-speaking Americans from Chavez decided to resort to the boy­ The words, naturally, are mainly later immigrants of Indian descent. cott to keep pressure on the table­ Spanish. Among them: La Huelga: the strike. grape growers. He applied it first in Malinchista: traitor to the Mex­ 1967 to the Giumarra Vineyards Corp., Anglo: white, non-Mexican Amer­ ican-American cause. From Mal­ the largest U.S. table-grape producer. ican. Though normally used simply inche, the daughter of a Mexican Giumarra started using the labels of in a neutral, descriptive manner, the nobleman, who became Cortes' mis­ other growers-in violation of Food term sometimes has pejorative over­ tress and aided the Spanish in their and Drug Administration rules-to cir­ tones. It has to some extent replaced conquest of Mexico. cumvent the boycott. In retaliation, the gringo. Agringada describes a Mex­ Mestizo: person of mixed Spanish Chavez people began to appeal to stores ican American who has gone com­ and Indian blood, as are most Mex­ and consumers not to buy any Cali­ pletely Anglo in his way of life. ican Americans. Gueros have rel­ fornia table grapes at all. The boycott Barrio: literally "district," the atively light skins; triguefios are some­ has been extended overseas to Britain Spanish-speaking quarter of a U.S. what darker. and Scandinavia. city; also, colonia. : tough guy. Used of teen­ Chavez has now finally achieved a Bracero: Mexican citizen brought age Mexican-American boys in gangs. breakthrough: nationwide grape sales " into the U.S. temporarily and usu­ During World War II, dressed in were off 12% in 1968, and prices for ally in groups to add to the existing gaudy zoot suits, they were the tar­ this year's first California grapes are labor force at times of peak activity. get of racial violence in Los Angeles down as much as 15%. Last month The program, begun during World and elsewhere. ten growers representing about 12% of War II to relieve manpower short­ : the race, meaning all the state's table-grape production an­ ages, was ended-over farmers' pro­ Mexicans and Mexican Americans, nounced that they would sit down with tests-in 1964. However. individuals and derived from the mystical the­ Chavez to write a contract. If negoti­ known as "green-carders" (for the ory of the 19th century philosopher, ations with Chavez succeed, some other permits they hold) can work as aliens. Jose Vasconcelos. that people of vineyards may also sign contracts, but La Causa: literally, "the cause." mixed race will inherit the earth. At a determined majority still barely ac­ Cesar Chavez's farm-labor move­ best, it is a rallying cry betokening a knowledge his existence and remain ad­ ment; also, more broadly, the ad­ mild form of cultural nationalism; at amantly opposed to union recognition. vancement of Mexican Americans. worst, it connotes outright racism. If the union does begin to win con­ Chicano: Mexican American. A Tio Taco: literally "Uncle Taco," tracts with an increasing number of shortened, corrupted form of Mex­ the Mexican-American equivalent of growers, a new difficulty could arise: icano, with the first syllable dropped an Uncle Tom. An equally contemp­ How is the consumer to tell the dif­ and the "x" pronounced like ch in tuous synonym is vendido, sellout. ference between union and nonunion cheese, in the fashion of Mexico's Wetback: illegal immigrant from grapes? Boxes can be labeled easily, Indians. Mexico, so called because a common but not loose bunches of grapes in a mar­ Hispano: descendant of the original means of entry was to swim the Rio ket. The union claims that existing boy­ Spanish settlers of areas now part Grande. cott machinery can be turned around to promote the produce of those who

18 TIME, JULY 4, 1969 enough capital to practice the grape­ sisted that his decision was essentially growing arts they learned in Europe. a private one, the fast took on a cer­ Most of the Delano spreads are family tain circus aura and raised suspicions enterprises, and many of them have that its motivation was more theatrical had rough going. Costs have risen sharp­ than theological. During the fast, Cha­ ly over the past decade, and grape prices vez had to make a court appearance in have now begun to decline. Bakersfield, on charges of improper pick­ The California growers also pay the eting, in a case that has yet to come to second highest agricultural wages in the trial. As he did so, 2,000 farm workers U.S. (after Hawaii, where unionized knelt outside in prayer. One woman sol­ workers average $3 an hour). emnly asked him if he were indeed a While they generally belittle the ex­ saint. When the fast ended, Senator Rob­ tent of his support, however, the grow­ ert Kennedy knelt next to him to re­ ers have gone to some lengths to coun­ ceive Communion. Some 8,000 others ter Chavez's moves. The anti-U.F.W.O.C. joined them in Delano's Memorial campaign even included for a time a Park for a bread-breaking ceremony. group called Mothers Against Chavez. The fast, and Chavez's years of 12­ The growers are using the J. Walter to 16-hour days, took their toll. Last Sep­ Thompson agency to place $400,000 tember he suffered a muscular break­ worth of ads extolling the benefits of down in his back-he had been in pain table grapes. The California public re­ for years before that-and found his lations firm of Whitaker & Baxter has legs nearly paralyzed. After spending been retained to advise the growers about more than two months in traction, he how to counter the boycott. Whitaker has now substantially recovered, but is & Baxter helped to manage Richard Nix­ still bedridden much of the time. In­ on's unsuccessful campaign for governor stead of spending long hours driving of California in 1962, and masterminded around the state, he receives a constant the American Medical Association's at­ stream of subordinates at his bedside. tempt to defeat Medicare. Chavez's religious conviction mingles with the exigencies of the movement. On $10 a Week He opposes birth control for his peo­ One reason for the lack of com­ ple, but only partly out of conventional prehension between Chavez and the Catholicism; he argues that smaller fam­ growers is that each has different con­ ilies would diminish the numerical power CHAVEZ UNDER PHOTO OF GANDHI cepts of the fundamental issue. The of the poor. A priest brings him Com­ Also Zapata, Nehru and King. growers see themselves as management munion daily. To Correspondent Anson in a classic labor dispute, while Chavez he explained: "God prepares those who have signed; they could be marketed and his followers believe that the cause have to suffer and take punishment. Oth­ through the chain stores that have re­ of all Mexican Americans is at stake. erwise, how could we exist? How could fused to handle the produce of struck That is what inspires Chavez's de­ the black man exist? There must be growers. However, any such confusing votion to /a causa. For years he and something special. I really think that procedure is bound to dilute the boy­ his wife and eight children have lived He looks after us." cott's effectiveness. jammed into a tiny two-bedroom house Cesar Chavez came to his mission Most of the growers bitterly dispute in Delano, subsisting on $10 a week from a background of poverty and prej­ Chavez's contentions. His claim to rep­ from the union and on food from the udice that is a paradigm of that of resent the workers is false, they say; communal kitchen in nearby union head­ many Chicanos. Like most Mexican only 3% of California's grape pickers quarters. Chavez has grown increasingly have joined his union. Chavez has not ascetic. He has given up casual so­ been able to strip the fields of workers cializing as well as liquor and ciga­ and, they argue, even if he personally rettes; his idea of a real treat is an preaches , his followers do eclectic meal of Chinese food, matzohs not practice it. Packing sheds have been and diet soda. The fight has become set afire, foremen threatened, tires his life. "The days and weeks and months slashed. Chavez also has outside help. run together," he told TrME Correspon­ Long-haired pickets came down from dent Robert Anson. "I can't think back Berkeley in the early days of /a hue/ga, to a time when we were not on strike." and the union gets $14,500 a month in Nor does he contemplate surrender to grants from the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and Wal­ the growers. "Either the union will be de­ ter Reuther's United Automobile Work­ stroyed," he says, "or they will sign a ers. By insisting that all workers join contract. There's no other alternative." his union, moreover, Chavez wants what The use of only peaceful means has amounts to a closed shop (which is il­ been central to his thinking since a legal under the Taft-Hartley Act, but 1953 showdown in the San Joaquin Val­ the act does not apply to agricultural ley between his Mexican-American workers). This means that, for now at C.S.O. pickets and a public official. Sud­ least, Chavez's goal, however unpalat­ denly, he realized that if there were able, is a legal one. Chavez opposes plac­ any violence or serious disorder it would ing farm workers under the National be his responsibility. He began reading Labor Relations Board precisely because Gandhi, and he says now: "If the strike that would make the closed shop he means the blood of one grower or one seeks unlawful. grower's son, or one worker or one work­ The growers of Delano are difficult er's son, then it isn't worth it." to cast as . Many are self-made In February 1968, Chavez began a 25­ men, Yugoslavs and Italians who came day fast "as an act of penance, re­ CHAVEZ ENDING FAST AT MASS to the valley between 1900 and 1940 calling workers to the nonviolent roots Ideas mainly from the encyclicals. with nothing and worked hard to amass of their movement." Although he in-

TIME, JULY 4, 1969 19 J.R. EYERMAN Because of his own experience of pov­ erty and acquaintance with prejudice, Cesar Chavez has made la caasa more than a labor movement. He is deter­ mined to better the lot of all Mexican Americans. There is much room for im­ provement. There have never been Jim Crow laws against them, like those against blacks, but overt discrimination undeniably exists. Chicanos still find it hard to get into the barbershops and pub­ lic swimming pools of south Texas. Still, though the Chicano is set apart by lan­ guage, assimilation is often easier for him than for the Negro. For this rea­ son, and because most of the Chicano population lives in relative obscurity in the barrios or rural areas, the Mexican­ American community has been slow to develop aggressive leadership. Now, because they have seen that or­ ganized black action gets results, the Chi­ canos have begun to stir with a new militancy. They have formed the , modeled on the Black Panthers, and set up a $2,200,000 Mexican-Amer­ ican Legal Defense and Educational Fund, financed by the Ford Foundation. GRAPE WORKERS NEAR DElANO "We are about ten years behind the Ne­ Among the most unpleasant of human occupations. groes, and we must catch up," says Dr. Daniel Valdes, a behavioral sci­ Americans, he is of mixed Spanish and cuit familiar to every migrant worker entist. "But I think we will do it with­ Indian blood, with liquid brown eyes, in California. Starting in the Imperial out extreme violence." Lawyer Donald deeply bronze skin and thick, jet-black and Coachella valleys of the south, Pacheco puts the plight of the Mexican hair. He was born on an 80-acre farm through the state's bulging middle, the American more bluntly: "We're the 'nig­ in 's Gila Valley near Yuma, San Joaquin Valley, on up north of ger' of ten years ago." where his parents tried to scratch a liv­ San Francisco and into the Napa Val­ If he is a migrant farm worker, the ing from the arid desert earth. Chavez ley, they worked each crop in its turn: as­ Mexican American has a life expectancy met racial hostility early in daily rock paragus, grapes, beets, potatoes, beans, of about 48 years v. 70 for the average fights between Anglo and Chicano kids plums, apricots-anything that needed U.S. resident. The Chicano birth rate at the village school. picking, hoeing, thinning, leafing, tip­ is double the U.S. average-but so is The farm failed in the Depression, ping, girdling, digging or pruning. the rate of infant mortality. More than and when Chavez was ten, the family In 1941, the family moved to Del­ one-third live below the $3,000-a-year packed everything it owned into a de­ ano, where Chavez met his future wife, level of family income that federal stat­ crepit automobile and headed across Helen Fabela. At the movies with her isticians define as poverty. Eighty per­ the Colorado River into California. In one night, he had a jarring brush with cent of the Mexican-American popu­ Oxnard, Chavez's father found work discrimination. He refused to stay on lation is now urban, and most live in threshing lima beans; when all the beans the right side of the theater, which was the barrio. were harvested, the family took off, look­ reserved for Mexicans, and sat instead ing for other jobs and often turning up with the Anglos on the left. "The as­ Forbidden Language just a few days after a crop was in. sistant manager came," Chavez recalls. The overwhelming majority work as "The girl who sold the popcorn came. unskilled or semiskilled labor in factories Anglos on the Left And the girl with the tickets came. and packing plants, or in service jobs as '. That first winter back in Oxnard, Then the manager came. They tried to maids, waitresses, yard boys and deliv­ with the little money earned in the pull me up, and I said, 'No, you have erymen. Particularly in Texas, Mexican fields already gone, was the family's to break my arms before I get up.' " Cha­ Americans sometimes get less pay than worst time. Cesar's brother Richard re­ vez, then 16, was hustled off to the sta­ others for the same work. Even the few members: "There was this nice lady tion house for a lecture from the chief who have some education do not escape there, and she had a vacant lot that of police, but he would not promise discrimination. Chicano women find that she let us use. So we put up a tent. It not to do the same thing again. jobs as public contacts at airline ticket was a very small tent-I guess about 8 Like many other teen-age Mexican counters are rarely open; they are wel­ by 10. That's all we had. All the fam­ Americans, Chavez became a pachaco, come as switchboard operators out of the ily stayed there. And it rained that win­ affecting a with pegged pants, public eye. Mexican-American men who ter. Oh, it rained. Rain, rain, rain. We a broad fiat hat and a ducktail haircut. work in banks are assigned to the less had to go to school barefoot. We had Some sociologists now see the pachaco fashionable branches. Promotions come no shoes. I can't forget it." movement as the first example of mil­ slowly, responsibility hardly ever. The family lived that winter on beans, itant separatism among Chicanos, an as­ One major impediment to the Mex­ tortillas and an occasional potato. Cha­ sertion of a distinct identity hostile to ican American is his , vez's father sometimes picked peas for Anglo culture. The Anglos took it that because it holds him back in U.S. 50¢ a day, half of which went to the con­ way, in any case, and reacted violently: schools. Mexican Americans average tractor who drove the workers to the during a series of riots in the South­ eight years of schooling, two years less fields in the back of a flatbed truck. west during the summer of 1943, sev­ than Negroes and a full four years less There was nothing else to do. By the eral thousand soldiers, sailors and Ma­ than whites. Often they are forced to next spring, the family had learned more rines beat up hundreds of Chicano learn English from scratch in the first of the harvest schedule, and it set off youths. Police promptly arrested some grade, and the frequent result is that for the first of many years on the cir- of the victims. they become not bilingual but nearly 20 TIME, JULY 4, 1969 nonlingual. In Texas, 40% of Chicanos Guzman, who helped carry out a four­ THE PRESIDENCY are considered functionally illiterate. In year Ford Foundation study of Mexican Los Angeles, only an estimated 25% Americans, warns that the barrio is po­ Sporting Life can speak English fluently. Chicano chil­ tentially as explosive as the black ghet­ Americans are one of the world's dren in some rural areas are still pun­ to. He argues for a new pluralism in most sports-conscious people, yet for ished for speaking Spanish in school. the U.S. that means something other years they have not had a President Only this year, Chicano students at Bow­ than forcing minorities into the estab­ who shared that enthusiasm. President ie High School in El Paso-in a pre­ lished Anglo-Saxon mold; each group Eisenhower's interest was largely con­ dominantly Mexican-American section should be free to develop its own cul­ fined to golf and John Kennedy's to -managed to get a rule abolished that ture while contributing to the whole. swimming and sailing. In the Johnson forbade the speaking of Spanish on Yet there is no real consensus in the years, the principal sport was hunting the school grounds. barrio. The forces for assimilation are ranch deer from a Lincoln Continental. The Chicano is as vulnerable to mis­ powerful. A young Tucson militant, Sal­ Richard Nixon, by contrast, is an all­ treatment at the hands of the law as the omon Baldenegro, contends: "Our val­ round sports enthusiast who not only fol­ black. Seven Mexicans were beaten by ues are just like any Manhattan exec­ lows the sports pages with the attention drunken policemen at a Los Angeles po­ utive's, but we have a ceiling on our of a Monday morning quarterback, but lice station on Christmas Eve, 1952; six social mobility." While federal programs has learned to relax by attending sports of the officers were eventually given jail for bilingual instruction in Mexican­ events and by participating in sports as terms. During an 18-month period end­ American areas are still inadequate, that well. ing last April, the American Civil Liber­ kind of approach-if made readily avail­ Nixon has already watched the Wash­ ties Union received 174 complaints of able to all who want it-leaves the ington Senators lose three times this police abuses from Los Angeles Mexican choice between separatism and assim­ year, which sets some kind of atten­ Americans. Two of the recent landmark ilation ultimately to the individual Chi­ dance record for modern Presidents. Supreme Court decisions limiting police cano himself. He learns in his father's He enjoys chatting with the players, questioning of suspects involved Mexi­ tongue, but he also learns in English which has led a few wags to the con­ can Americans-Escobedo v. Illinois well enough so that language is no long­ clusion that the has bet­ and Miranda v. Arizona. Many Mexi­ er a barrier; he retains his own culture, ter relations with Senators on the field cans still look on the Texas Rangers and but he also knows enough of the ma­ than with Senators on the Hill. Bob U.S. border patrols with terror. jority's rules and ways to compete suc­ Short, owner of the Senators, marvels cessfully if he chooses to. that Nixon "knows more about baseball Pluralism v. the Melting Pot Cesar Chavez has made the Chicano's than I do. I was amazed to hear him That Chavez has dramatized the prob­ cause well enough known to make that say he'd been following the Senators lems of Mexican Americans in the city goal possible. While La hueLga is in on his trip to Midway." Nixon and as well as on the farm seems beyond dis­ some respects a limited battle, it is also David Eisenhower attend games together pute. Father Bernardo Kenny, a Sac­ symbolic of the Mexican-American's and frequently talk baseball. One re­ ramento priest with a sizable Mexican­ quest for a full role in U.S. society. cent evening, the duo sped out to the sta­ American congregation, believes that What happens to Chavez's farm work­ dium, Nixon rushing away from a press even if Chavez never wins his strike he ers will be an omen, for good or ill, of conference, David forsaking his bride. will have made a "tremendous con­ the Mexican-American's future. For the The Senators lost, but Nixon was still op­ tribution." Says Kenny: "He focused at­ short term, Chavez's most tangible as­ timistic about their future. tention on the problem of the farm piration is to win the fight with the No Dumb Questions. As Vice Pres­ workers, and he made the Mexican grape growers. If he can succeed in ident, Nixon once said: "Baseball is a di­ Americans proud to be Mexican Amer­ that difficult and uncertain battle, he version that both stimulates and clears icans. Chavez must be given credit, I will doubtless try to expand the move­ the mind." Yet his interest in the arena think, for really starting the Mexican­ ment beyond the vineyards into the en­ does not fade when the World Series American civil rights movement." Iron­ tire Mexican-American community. ends. He likes hockey, and is the kind ically, mechanization hastened by union­ PICTOR IAL PARADE ization may eventually diminish Cha­ vez's farm-labor base-but it will not slow the momentum of la causa. The new Mexican-American militan­ cy has turned up a mixed pinata of lead­ ers, some of them significantly more strident than Chavez. In Los Angeles, 20­ year-old David Sanchez is "prime min­ ister" of the well-disciplined Brown Be­ rets, who help keep intramural peace in the barrio and are setting up a free medical clinic. Some of them also car­ ry machetes and talk tough about the Anglo. Reies Lopez Tijerina, 45, is try­ ing to establish a "Free City State of San Joaquin" for Chicanos on historic Spanish land grants in New Mexico; at the moment, while his appeal on an as­ sault conviction is being adjudicated, he is in jail for burning a sign in the Car­ son National Forest. Denver's Rudolfo ("Corky") Gonzales, 40, an ex-prize­ fighter, has started a "Crusade for Jus­ tice" to make the city's 85,000 Mex­ ican Americans la causa-conscious. As with the blacks, the question for those who lead the Chicanos is wheth­ er progress means separatism or as­ NiXON AT GAME WITH SON·iN·LAW & SHORT similation. Cal State Professor Rafael Stimulating and clears the mind. TIME, JULY 4, 1969 21