Fight in the Fields: Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement

The illustrated companion book to the PBS documentary of the same name tells the story of the late leader of America's migrant farmworkers and the United Farm Workers Union, and their battle against the giant agribusinesses. TV tie-in.

A useful survey and pictorial of the extraordinary career of the visionary Mexican-American labor leader and human-rights activist, who died in his sleep in 1993 at age 66. Written by two California journalists who are veterans in covering farm labor issues and agribusiness, this companion volume to a PBS documentary reflects a vivid appreciation of how Chavez's organizing activities, dating from 1962, enabled one of society's most vulnerable worker groups to assert dignity, claim rights, and ultimately change a powerful industry's whole way of doing business. Chavez himself came from a farming family that lost its land and was forced into the migrant farmworkers ranks during the Depression. The book highlights Chavez's unique ability to define issues in a way that linked haves and have-nots in effective coalitions that gained national prominence, a pride in his Mexican heritage that did not inhibit his ability to work in multiracial coalitions (notably with Filipino immigrant workers), and his Gandhi-inspired skill in playing power politics without ceding the moral high ground. Unfortunately, these themes are more often stated than explored and illuminated. But the book's strength lies in its collecting the observations of so many contemporary movement eyewitnesses and presenting portraits of an array of Chavez's lifelong friends and comrades (among them Delores Huerta, the teacher and divorced mother of seven who became the United Farm Worker Union's shrewd and tough lead contract negotiator). In addition, the book acknowledges conflicts within the UFW rooted in the tensions between its nuts-and-bolts functioning as a labor union and its impact as the hub of a visionary social movement. This strives to be candid and intimate, yet ultimately its commentary fails to break through the commemorative into the kind of real analysis that would have revealed more of the man behind the movement icon. (105 b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Cesar Chavez, the founder of the United Farm Workers union, was a man of principles and piety, dedicated, as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., were, to strategies of nonviolent protest. Still controversial, Chavez is, nonetheless, beginning to fade from our collective consciousness. To preserve his story, two filmmakers, Rick Tejada-Flores and Ray Telles, created a PBS documentary titled The Fight in the Fields, and journalists Ferriss and Sandoval wrote and compiled this powerful, photo-filled biography. They trace Chavez's path from a happy childhood on his family's Arizona farm to the fields of California, where the Chavez family landed after being forced from home during the Depression and the great drought. Chavez never got over his shock at the brutality of farmworkers' lives and the blatant racism they endured. He founded the United Farm Workers union in 1962 to fight for basic human rights, devoting himself to union work at night after picking cotton all day with his wife to support their eight children. All that Chavez accomplished by organizing strikes, protests, and the now legendary grape boycott, was heroic in nature and profound in effect. Donna Seaman

When the Chavez family lost its farm in Arizona in 1938 during the Depression, they moved to California and became migrant workers. Cesar was outraged by the exploitation, racism, and brutality that migrant farmworkers were forced to endure. His strong religious convictions, a dedication to nonviolent change, and a skill at organizing led to the establishment of the United Farmworkers (UFW) union. "La Causa," as it was called by supporters, became an important movement for self-determination in the lives of California's Mexican American and Filipino farmworkers. The successful nationwide grape and lettuce boycotts and public support exposed the injustices of California agribusiness and resulted in the first collective bargaining agreements and union hiring halls for migrant workers. Authored by two journalists who covered Chavez and the farmworkers, this companion volume to a PBS documentary traces Chavez's life and the events and people that helped shape it. Recommended for labor and agriculture collections.?Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Lib., New Brunswick,
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.