Cesar Estrada Chavez Accomplishments

Cesar Estrada Chavez was an American farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist. He is the best known Latino civil rights activist. He was born on March 31, 1927 in Yuma, Arizona to a poor Mexican American family. He grew up in an adobe home with four other siblings. His family owned a grocery store and a ranch, but their land got taken away during the Great Depression in 1938. His family's home was taken away too after his father had agreed to eighty acres of land in exchange for the deed to the house, an agreement which was later broken. Later, when his father attempted to buy back the house, he could not pay the interest on the loan and the house was sold back to its original owner. His family then moved to California to become migrant farm workers. They suffered a lot in California. They would pick peas and lettuce in the winter, cherries and beans in the spring, corn and
One reason is his efforts to gain better working conditions for the thousands of workers who labored on farms for low wages and under severe conditions. Cesar and his United Farm Workers union battled California grape growers by holding nonviolent protests. Cesar got the idea for nonviolent actions from Martin Luther King Jr., who was a leader in the struggle for civil rights for African Americans. He also went on hunger strikes, protesting by refusing to eat for long periods of time like I wrote before. In 1968 he fasted for 25 days in support of the UFW commitment to nonviolence. He was inspired to fast by M.K. Gandhi of India. He is also remembered today for his peaceful tactics and public support for the union, he and the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee were able to negotiate contracts for higher wages and better treatment of agricultural workers with California grape producers. He is remembered the best for gaining farm worker rights, using nonviolence to gain farm worker rights and for fasting to show his