César Chávez In 7 Images: A Brief History Of The Latino Icon In Photos

By David Iaconangelo | Mar 30 2015, 01:00PM EDT

Cesar Chavez
César Chávez day is March 31. Shutterstock/rook76
1. Young Chávez
After graduating from junior high and working in the fields with his family for three years, Chavez enlisted in the Navy at age eighteen. Two years later, he was honorably discharged, and with little in the way of other options, he went back to farm work in Delano, California. Instagram/CesarChavezMovie
2. Founder of the United Farm Workers union.
Chavez got his start in labor organizing with the Community Service Organization (CSO) in San Jose, Calif. After a decade with them, he split off to form the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later joined with the mostly Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to make up the UFW. Here, a person holds up a U.F.W. sign during President Barack Obama's announcement of the Cesar E. Chavez National Day on October 8, 2012 in Keene Kern County, California Getty Images
3. Grapes.
The 1965 grape strike in Delano began with Filipino workers and blossomed into picket lines across the Southwest and a national (and international) call for a consumer boycott -- as well as boycotts that targeted major distributors in cities. It's the fruit with which much of the public came to associate Chavez's work, especially after a historic contract signing with grower John Giumarra, Jr. marked a victory for the UFW. Reuters/John Kolesidis
4. Triumph for the strikers.
By 1970, several grape growers had agreed to sign deals with strikers. In July of that year, John Giumarra, Jr. (pictured on the right here), the "Grape King" of California, left a message on Chavez's voicemail saying he was ready to work out a deal. When Giumarra fell, so did all the others -- in days, over 20 other growers agreed to negotiate contracts. YouTube
5. UFW marchers in 1975.
On July 1, 1975, Chavez led UFW workers on a 1,000-mile march from San Ysidro, up along the coast to Sacramento, and back down south to La Paz. The march was held in celebration of a state law ensuring farm workers' right to organize as well as to urge farm workers to vote on which union -- the UFW or the Teamsters, or none at all -- would represent them at each individual location. Instagram/CesarChavezMovie
6. Chavez with Shirley Temple.
Chavez delivered one of his most famous speeches -- the Commonwealth Club address -- in 1984 upon the invitation of child star Shirley Temple Black. The labor leader had initially been reluctant; Black had a long history of stumping for Republican causes, and even served as Richard Nixon's ambassador to Ghana. Instagram/ CesarChavezMovie
7. The icon.
Chávez has over the years been the subject of an intensifying campaign to make his birthday a holiday. Here, a man holds a photo of him during an immigration rights rally at the Arizona State Capital in Phoenix, Arizona, September 4, 2006. REUTERS/Jeff Topping

César Chávez's birthday on March 31 gets the state holiday treatment in Colorado, California and Texas, and President Obama has called for Americans to observe the labor-rights and Latino icon's memory on that day. In 2014, his birthday got even more attention than normal because of the Diego Luna-directed biopic; immigration-reform boosters like Mark Zuckerberg's FWD.us and a plethora of groups who want his birthday to be declared a national holiday have latched onto the release of the movie to promote their own cause. Let's remember him on this day and check out the story of Chávez's life in farmworker advocacy -- in photographic shorthand.

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David Iaconangelo

David Iaconangelo is a Brooklyn-based writer and translator. Formerly editor of ZafraLit, a blog of new short fiction from Cuba. He has lived in and reported from various Latin American countries.

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