Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta (Week 11)

1. Explain why Cesar Chavez and/or Dolores Huerta had such a great impact on farm labor rights. Who influences them and how did they garner national support and international media attention?

Cesar Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 during a difficult time period of the Great Depression. He grew up with a difficult childhood experience because he had to work  full time as a farmworker when he was an eight grader since his parents were not able to support their family. Since his earlier years he has influenced by his father Librado when he attempted to form unions for farmworkers. Later on as he was growing up he learned the hard reality of being a farmworker and how many people were suffering. Most farmworkers were struggling with providing a stable life for their family because they were getting paid low wages and they were also working under bad working conditions. The farmworkers life was definitely not a good one to dream of and Chavez was a strong believer of this. Later on he met Fred Ross who was the founder of the Community Service Organization. He dedicated much of his time to helping farmworkers receive more rights. Ross was a main influence in Chavez life because he was there from the start and was the one that got him into the action to joining the movement. Cesar Chavez had a great impact on farm labor rights because he was the leader of the United Farm Workers (UFW). He was going to represent the community as a great leader because farmworkers had more confidence in him because he was part of them. He had experienced the same issues firsthand therefore he would be able to explain their problems and help convince other farmworkers to join the union. Many farmworkers did not want to join the union because they feared that they would lose their jobs because their employers would be mad at the fact that they were striking against them. Luckily, Chavez proved that with his confidence and how he did not give up, gave him the ability to inform farmworkers about the discrimination that was being put upon them .Slowly but steadily, Chavez was to form the UFW union that helped many farmworkers earn their basic rights that they all needed. If it was for a leader like Chavez, there would have been more years of injustice since not many are willing to take initiative and make changes.