The Importance of Cesar Chavez

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Cesar Estrada Chavez (March 31, 1927 - April 23, 1993) was a Mexican-American labor leader who used non-violent methods to fight for the rights of migrant farm workers in the southwestern USA. Migrant farm workers are people who do farm labor, moving from farm to farm and from town to town as their work is needed - it is difficult work that pays very little and can be dangerous due to the use of pesticides. Chavez founded a group that supported the rights of farm workers, acting to increase wages and improve the working conditions and safety of farm workers. He also organized strikes (when workers refuse to work until improved working conditions and salary demands are met) and nation-wide boycotts of agricultural products in order to help workers (a boycott is a protest in which the public is asked not to buy certain products). Chavez went on many hunger strikes, refusing to eat until violence against strikers ended and until legislators (law makers) voted to make laws improving the lives of farm workers. He was also jailed many times during his fight against terrible migrant worker conditions. In 1962, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla started a union (a workers' rights group), called the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), to fight for "La Causa" (Spanish for "The Cause"). The NFWA organized "huelgas" (the Spanish word for "strikes"). There were many bitter and violent fights between the grape growers and the workers; Chavez and many union people were jailed in the struggle. Some agreements were eventually made between the farm workers union and the growers. In order to force growers to further improve farm worker conditions, Chavez organized a nation-wide lettuce boycott. In 1968, Chavez organized a five-year "grape boycott," a movement that urged people to stop buying California grapes until farm workers had contracts insuring better pay and

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