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1
Fasting for La Causa
 
 
Cesar Chavez opened the passenger door of Jerry Cohen’s car with a grunt. After twelve days without food, Cesar was so weak that even pulling on the door handle took a great deal of energy. The thought of the next task, climbing the courthouse steps, seemed overwhelming. But both Cohen, Cesar’s attorney, and Leroy Chatfield, a staff member for the United Farm Workers, jumped out and raced to Cesar’s side to help him.
 
With a deep breath Cesar lifted himself from the car. He felt dizzy as he stretched himself out to his full five feet six inches. Normally, his black hair and eyes glistened in the brilliant California sunshine. Now his face was drawn, and the dark skin that covered his high, flat cheek bones looked pale and drooped, as if he had just awakened from a deep, feverish sleep. He paused for a moment and looked up, squinting against the bright sun. What he saw caused him to smile and gave him a slight rush of energy—enough to climb the courthouse steps with his head up.
 
Cesar Chavez had started a hunger strike on February 14, 1968, nearly six years after he had founded the United Farm Workers Union (UFW). For the last three years, the union had been on strike against grape growers in Delano, California. Chavez had decided to fast for two reasons: to inspire members of the United Farm Workers to commit themselves to nonviolence in their struggle to win recognition and justice; and to focus the world’s attention on the suffering that migrant farm workers had endured for many generations.
 
As the son of Mexican-American migrant farm workers, and a migrant worker himself in his youth, Cesar knew firsthand the miserable conditions under which his people worked. Long hours, horrible wages, a lack of decent housing, dangerous pesticides, racial discrimination, verbal and physical abuse, and a lack of justice when they were cheated—all these weighed heavily on Cesar Chavez’s heart and made him angry.
 
He and the union had taken some small steps to eliminate these conditions, but so far the lives of poor migrant workers had changed little. Cesar wanted to do more. On Valentine’s Day, 1968, he simply stopped eating.
 
Twelve days later, Chavez had to go to court to defend the union he had founded. The California Superior Court had placed restrictions on the types of pickets the union could use against Giumarra Vineyards, a large agricultural business that was the primary target of the farm worker’s strike. The union had defied the court-ordered restrictions. Since he was the leader, Cesar had been summoned to Bakersfield, California, to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court.
 
Now, as Chavez faced the courthouse weak from hunger, two rows of kneeling migrant farm workers lined the steps, and the line continued through the main doors into the courtroom. Nearly a thousand of them waited, absolutely silent, as Cesar slowly climbed the steps. Many bowed their heads in prayer. Others watched him with actual reverence, while still more followed his progress with looks of grave concern. It was clear that he was in great pain. There were rumors that he would be seriously ill if he did not eat soon, or worse, that he might die.
 
A few days earlier, one concerned migrant worker had heard these rumors and tried to do something about them. He had driven to the small farming town of Delano, California, where Chavez had been conducting his fast, to pay his respects. When they were alone the migrant worker jumped on top of Cesar as he lay in bed, pinning Cesar’s arms with his knees. The worker held the union leader’s head with one hand and tried to jam a taco into his mouth with the other. Hearing Chavez’s muffled cries, several UFW employees rushed into the room and freed him.
 
The workers were not the only ones concerned about Cesar’s health. Naturally, his family was worried too. From the outset, Cesar’s wife Helen thought the fast was crazy and that no one would appreciate it. “You’re not taking our children’s needs into consideration,” she told him. “I’m afraid. I know you’re just stubborn enough to starve yourself to death. What would happen to the family then?”
 
The staff of the United Farm Workers was also concerned. They wanted to know what would happen to la Causa—“the cause,” as the migrant farm workers movement had become known—if Cesar Chavez died. Was there not a better way to focus the unions’ energies?
 
Despite the constant pressure, Cesar resisted all requests to end his hunger strike. As he made his way up an escalator inside the courthouse, he was asked by television and newspaper reporters when he planned to start eating again. He refused to answer. The reporters persisted. Why was he risking his life for something as idealistic as justice and democracy for farm workers? How could he, a man with only an eighth-grade education, inspire such admiration and loyalty among migrant workers and such hatred and distrust among the growers who owned the huge farms where the migrant workers toiled in the fields?
 
“he answer was Cesar’s absolute commitment to the people he represented. He was willing to sacrifice everything, to put, in fact, his life on the line. And unlike some union leaders, he could not be corrupted. His hunger strike was more than a matter of strategy, although it was that too. It represented his fundamental belief in the justness of the farm workers’ cause.
 
Ironically, many of the qualities that made Cesar Chavez an effective leader in public did not necessarily make him an easy person to work with, or even a good husband and father to his eight children. For instance, while Chavez stressed the importance of family values in his role as leader of la Causa, he often neglected his own family because of the long hours he worked. And while he frequently made speeches about individual respect and personal empowerment for farm workers, in the heat of battle Chavez sometimes made work difficult for his own staff and fiercely protected his power within the union.
 
Jim Drake, another important UFW staff member who worked closely with Cesar Chavez, said, “The fast forced Cesar to become a guru, almost a god instead of a general. The expectations placed on Cesar were extraordinary.”
 
Because Cesar Chavez was human, he could not possibly live up to all of these expectations. It was hard for many to see this, and sometimes when the union failed to reach its goals, supporters were disappointed.
 
Once he made his way past newspaper and television reporters at the courthouse in Bakersfield, Cesar entered the courtroom and sat down behind the defense table with an enormous sense of relief. He had made it. And he was very proud of the discipline the workers on the steps of the courthouse had shown. The lawyers for Giumarra Vineyards noticed it too. As soon as court was in session, the Giumarra attorneys began to argue that the presence of the farm workers put undue pressure on the court, and that they should be barred from the hearing.
 
Judge Walter Osborne surprised everyone. He said, “If I kick these workers out of the courtroom that will be just another example of gringo justice. I can’t do it.”
 
This was a huge victory for the union. On every previous occasion the union had been in court, it had felt like enemy territory. “To hear a Superior Court judge talk about gringo justice,” said Jerry Cohen, shaking his head. “That was really something. The workers made all the difference.”
 
This was an example of just how far the workers had come under Cesar Chavez’s leadership and of the power they had begun to wield. A few minutes later, the judge postponed Cesar’s contempt hearing for two months. Chavez was in no condition for a trial.”
 
With that Cesar Chavez rose slowly to his feet. He had absolutely no idea where he would be in two months, but he knew exactly where he wanted to be now—in his bed, asleep at Forty Acres in Delano.
 
Forty Acres was a plot of table-flat, scrub-covered land that the United Farm Workers had purchased on the outskirts of Delano. The union hoped to build a migrant farm workers’ community center there. In a small storage room in the largest building on the property Chavez had unfolded a cot, from which he conducted his fast. Outside, tents had been set up by supporters who were camping out. As more and more workers arrived at Delano, extra tents were pitched to accommodate them. By the end of the fast, thousands would come to see Chavez.
 
Many came almost as if they were devotees on a sacred pilgrimage, bringing with them offerings—crucifixes of every imaginable shape and size, images of Christ, a picture of John F. Kennedy, and a drawing of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of the Mexican people. To his most ardent supporters, Cesar was a messenger from God, sent to deliver the poor farm workers from their misery.
 
While Cesar vigorously discouraged these notions, he did not deny the religious basis of his hunger strike. Fasting on certain days of the week, usually Wednesday and Friday, and on holy days, was as much a part of the Roman Catholic faith as it was practiced in Mexican culture as going to confession or receiving communion.
 
But there was also criticism, even within the farm workers’ movement. Some union volunteers objected strongly to the religious nature of the fast, and some left the union because of it. But Cesar Chavez would not let this discourage him, nor dampen his conviction that he was doing the right thing. Chavez was proud of being Mexican and felt that many who criticized him simply did not understand the fast’s cultural basis.
 
Accepting the membership losses, those who stayed began to work with greater unity on the strike against the grape growers. Even Forty Acres itself was transformed. Its construction had been lagging for some time, but since Cesar Chavez had chosen that sight for his hunger strike, people wanted it to be presentable. The building where he stayed was painted and decorated, and more construction began when the another union, the United Auto Workers, donated $50,000.
 
Despite the new unity that evolved around Cesar’s fast, the pressure on Chavez to end it grew as each day passed. His wife Helen continued to urge the union staff to do as much as they could to persuade Cesar to stop. Delegation after delegation of workers, staff, and family came to Cesar’s bedside each day, begging him to eat again. By March 7, twenty-one days after the fast had begun, Cesar’s weight had dropped from 175 pounds to 140. Blood tests showed that uric acid levels were dangerously high, and that if he did not end it soon he could do serious damage to his kidneys.
 
Chavez did not know how much longer he could last without food. He agreed that he would end his fast four days later, on March 11, 1968. He also agreed to begin to include small amounts of beef boullion and grape-fruit juice with his daily allotment of water.