I will be leading vineyard walkouts in Coachella and San Joaquin valleys. The goal of these walkouts is to have an industry-wide pay increase for all grape workers. If these walkouts are successful, it will be the first industry-wide pay increase in eight years.
After years of boycotting lettuce and grapes, I have finally decided to end this boycott. The United Farmworkers and the Teamsters have signed a long-lasting jurisdictional agreement for a labor law reform. Thanks to the dramatic success of the Modesto March, which really energized the farm labor movement here in California, and Governor Jerry Brown for pushing for a labor law reform. Overall, the boycott was a success.
Good news – el cortito (a short handled garden hoe), was banned today. It is only twenty four inches long which resulted in terrible back injuries for farmers that used this tool. Farmers in other states had long switched to longer hoes, so it’s about time that California banned el cortito.
Since the march to Sacramento was such a success, I will lead another march through the Imperial and San Joaquin Valleys to promote upcoming union elections. However, this march is a bit longer than the 300 mile pilgrimage to Sacramento. 700 miles longer.
Progress has been made. The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act has been passed. The goal of this act is to “ensure peace in the agricultural fields by guaranteeing justice for all agricultural workers and stability in labor relations.” Finally, the farm workers have full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing. Also, they can negotiate the terms and conditions of their employment. The state government has heard our demands.
Nationwide boycott of California grapes begins: We, The United Farm Workers Association, are starting a boycott, a boycott of the California grapes. We are hoping this leads to a contract with these growers. Our protests will always be nonviolent. Civil rights leaders Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., are the inspirations of my non-violent protests. These two men proved that you can make yourself heard without resorting to violence. I plan on embarking on a 300 mile pilgrimage to Sacramento to let the state government hear our demands as Mexican and Filipino farm workers. I hope that on this pilgrimage, the protest will attract the attention of more people so that they will be able to see how poor the conditions are for farm workers as well.
1970
The grape boycott was a complete success. The growers signed a contract that has provided the farm workers with higher wages, benefits, and much more protection than before. I am extremely happen that the boycott went international. Thanks to the millions of people that boycotted the California grapes throughout the United States and internationally, we finally got the contract signed.
Today I start my firsthunger strike. There has been a lot of violence against the strikers, so I am fasting with high hopes of ending this violence. “Also, I am fasting for the purification of my own mind and body, and soul. This fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activist who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more.”
The boycott is taking longer than we expected and we’ve been getting bad press that we’re a group of Marxist Communists that are somehow engaged with the Soviet Union. This is ridiculous! We will soon embark on a 250 mile pilgrimage from Delano all the way to Sacramento to spread the word of the mistreatment of the farm workers and that a vast majority of us are Christian!
LATER IN 1966.. Word has spread all the way to New York to Mr. Senator Robert Kennedy, who has sympathized with the mistreatment and has joined our cause! Things are looking up as we now have a very powerful alliance who is expected to run in the primaries!
IT’S OFFICIAL!! Strike against the grape growers! Today we start a local grape boycott and I have high hopes for results. Many of the strikers are worried about not working for so long and not being able to support their families, but we will not stop until justice is served! A group of the strikers will organize and distribute donations for the strikers until the growers sit down to negotiate better terms of employment for their workers.
El Malcriado (meaning ill-bred or mischievous) is being published whilst I’m writing this. It is an underground newspaper distributed in Delano. Dolores and I named it after another paper with the same name that was published during the Mexican Revolution. In the paper, there will be a critical analysis of the farm workers’ wages and work conditions as well as the horrible pesticides used. I hope that many will read and join NFWA!!
After serving as director for CSO for so many years, I have not been able to convince the board to move forward and organize farm workers. I suspect the think what the rest of the world thinks. Farm workers simply cannot be unionized, because they haven’t been able to for over 100 years of trying. But this is silly logic. I have been wrestling with the idea of leaving CSO for months, but doing so would have to be a family decision. Some would think it is ridiculous, to leave a steady paycheck, a beautiful house, and food on the table every night to live an uncertain life as a migrant farmer. I worry about my children, my wife especially worries about them. The idea of leaving CSO has grown on her, she understands that there’s more to life than comfort. Our amigos lived and died on those poor wages.
My time at the CSO has connected me to Dolores Huerta, a driven woman who will stop at nothing to achieve justice for the farm workers, women, poor, and sick. We have discussed leaving the CSO for some time, in order to start organizing the farm workers. Nothing can be done here anymore for the farm workers. I quit my job, with the approval of Helen, on my thirty-fifth birthday, and this September 30th marks the birth of the National Farm Workers Association.
My only hope to give our children better lives for a long time was to push them to go to college and out of poverty. But I’ve been lucky enough to have been accepted a position at CSO (Community Service Organization). In my first week alone, I have learned so much about the world. For instance, labor laws and labor unions. I hope that someday farm workers will have such a thing.
Today Helen and I embark on the journey of marriage together. We met when I was fifteen when my parents brought us to harvest cotton in the fall. I saved a little money and we are going to visit all the missions of California from Sonoma to San Diego.
Later in 1948.. Helen and I did not have enough funds to continue to the missions in Mexico, so we returned to Delano where I pick grapes and harvest cotton in the fall. What we call home is nothing to brag about, but we’re optimistic. It’s a small, one room house with no running water or electricity.
While on a three day leave from the Navy, I return home to visit my family. I went to a local movie theater in Delano only to notice the seating was divided. Whites on one side, colored on the other. This is wrong, I thought to myself; such a ridiculous thing, to segregate a theater. I wondered what the consequences would be if I had deliberately sat in the white section. What would they do? What could they do? On the contrary it seemed that it might serve as an example to other colored people. This seemed to outweigh the costs. I sat myself down in the white seating and waited, only to find some others follow suit. It was not long before police handcuffed and took me to a downtown jail. I was held in custody for only an hour, because no written law was violated and no charges could be put against me.
I joined the US Navy to defend my country and support my family. I should expect these next two years of my life to be a challenge for me both mentally and physically.
Now that I'm finished with 8th grade, I can no longer put off work for school. My mom tried desperately to keep us kids in school, but with Dad's back injury from a recent car accident, we have to pull our weight more than normal. I will not be able to write much, because I start working in the fields full-time tomorrow. I will try to update you as much as possible..
I’m beginning to understand how hard the life of a migrant worker can be. My family and I are in California now and we travel to work in the fields each day. We harvest peas and lettuce in the winter, beans in the spring, corn and grapes in the summer, and cotton in the fall. Mom does not want me to work in the fields, she says that I’m too young, but I feel a sense of pride when I go to work with my father each day. It’s been rough, sometimes all of us come home with a combined $0.30 for the day’s work. This is not nearly enough to provide for my four siblings (Richard, Librado, Rita, and Vicki) and I. One time, Ricardo was begging in the streets of Sal Si Puedes and Mom caught him. He got an earful for that. She always taught us to be thankful for what we had, that is, each other.
My family and I lost our farm in a shady set of transactions. My dad never ceases to stand up for what is right, so he sought legal advice from a local attorney to see what his option were. The attorney advised him to buy back the farm by taking out a loan. However, Dad relentlessly gave all we had to starving family members (a small downside to having a big family). We stuck together but were unable to pay back the loan on the property, so we began our lives as migrant workers.