California: Cesar Chavez

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6 responses to “California: Cesar Chavez”

1. 

   Erika

   March 1, 2013

   I love your history posts – I learn something every time; either something I didn’t know or a way to teach my children someday! Thanks 🙂

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2. 

   maryanne @ mama smiles

   March 1, 2013

   Your unit is excellent. Thank you for sharing it! Pinning!

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3. 

   marie b

   March 2, 2013

   Chávez, adding revolutionary racism to labor agitation, quickly attracted Communist support from all over California, and began to make headlines. Such well known Communists as Sam Kushner, Carl Westman, Alan Zak, Bettina Aptheker, Saul and Billie Wachter, Hal Verb, Tom Sanders, and Harvey Richards were soon on the scene supporting him. Among Cesar’s top aides was Luis Valdez of the Communist Progressive Labor Party, who had trained for revolutionary activity in Communist Cuba. His personal speech writer was Wendy Goepel, a delegate to the Communists’ Eighth World Youth Festival in Helsinki. His secretary was Donna Sue Haber, a founder of the Communist W.E.B. DuBois Clubs.

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   1. 

      Ticia

      March 3, 2013

      So, I thought long and hard about how to respond to this comment, and about approving it. I talked it over with my husband and he pointed out you are right he did have many questionable things.

      Honestly, I disagree with Chavez on most issues. At the begining of his career, he did some great things (getting a fair wage for migrant workers, abolishing use of the short hoe, breaks scheduled into the day), which is what I chose to highlight. But, like many leaders once he had gotten the big achievement he was aiming for, he continued on and it became more political and more extreme.

      I chose to post about him out of all the different people with birthdays in March, and there were many I wanted to do more, because I knew it would be a challenge. I think he is celebrated because of his skin color in many parts, not because of what he did. I think his political views became very communistic, and he did things that were not right and he became a cautionary tale to my mind.

      I also think he did something that was VERY needed, someone did need to bring attention to the migrant farm workers who were being abused. I think it is probably still an issue we need to be aware of because many of the workers are illegal aliens who do not have the ability to speak up. I also know that as long as people are willing to come over and work in such conditions, it can’t be solved. Nor can it be solved given our current political climate. All of this is too much of a hot button and most people are not willing to talk but, want to call names or attack the other position without listening.

      But, these are issues I will bring up to my kids later, when their thinking is not so black and white. Right now my kids see things in “good guy/bad guy,” so I’ve simplified it to something they can understand.