hey toiled in the fields under the most oppressive conditions-endless
hours in the heat of an unrelenting California sun, breathing air
ripe with cancer-causing pesticides, all of it for pay so low they
were unable to afford the very food they were harvesting to market.
Their employers provided no fresh water for them, no bathrooms,
no care for their health problems, no breaks in the seven-day week-nothing,
in short, to abate the hellish conditions. In some ways, it was
a virtual slavery for the migrant workers of the American West,
who roamed the countryside from job to job, struggling to keep ahead
of an overwhelming, crushing, and relentless poverty.
It would take passion, courage, and uncommon leadership to change
the migrant workers' desperate condition. One of them who possessed
these traits stood up, organized them, and in so doing, finally
said, "Enough." His name was César Chávez.
In his time, no one believed that you could organize farm workers-they
were just too poor, too powerless, too weary, too frightened, and
too oppressed. But he led and lived by a single precept in Spanish-"Si
se puede!" It means, "Yes, it can be done!"
In the beginning, Chávez organized two or three workers at a time,
moving from farm to farm like a talented planter. From these initial
memberships, he cultivated a collective that would become a powerful
economic force-a labor union called the United Farm Workers....
