The Farmworker Movement is full of families who participated in the movement and whose destinies changed for the better due to it. This was not a coincidence. César Chávez’s strategy as an organizer was to recruit entire families for La Causa. We give you a taste of the story of one family, the Barreras from Porterville, as told in an oral history by Yolanda Barrera, whose family were members and strong supporters of the National Farm Workers Association, and later the UFW. Also, we present an edited version of a speech by Richard Chávez, talking about how César Chávez relied on his brother for support for him and the union. Everything sí se puede if you have a brother like Richard. Lastly, we update you about the art photo exhibition by the women's art collective Madre Monte in Palenque, Colombia, using images by Richard Cross.
And don’t forget to click and donate to the Bradley Center before the end of the year.
A Family Affair
By José Luis Benavides
Frank Bardecke’s monumental book on César Chávez and the UFW, Trampling Out the Vintage, includes a chapter titled, “A Family Affair.” There, Bardecke chronicles the Chávez’s plan in 1962 to organize farmworker families from the Central Valley in their communities around the issues they confronted off the job, empowering families to establish what became the Farm Workers Association initially. Yolanda Barrera’s nuclear and extended family is one example of many, and the Barreras have a great historian and storyteller in the family—Yolanda—who has already written an essay titled, “We are the Legacy of César Chávez.” (You can see John Kouns's photographs of the Barreras in our Farmworker Movement Collection.)
Her experience as a lawyer and her passion for preserving and keeping alive the story of her family and their involvement in the Farmworker Movement made a powerful combination during her oral history interview conducted earlier this year by Marta Valier, David Grewe, Brandon Lien, and me. We present here only four segments of the interview, edited by Brandon Lien, using photographs by John Kouns and family photos courtesy of Yolanda Barrera.
Segment 1: Yolanda Barrera talks about the role of music in her family and the Farmworker Movement. She starts her story in Texas, their migration to Proterville, and the family's role in the first March to Sacramento. [10:52]
Segment 2: Yolanda Barrera talks about doing farm labor harvesting oranges in Porterville. She also recalls when she met César Chávez for the first time, and how Jim Drake's Migrant Ministry helped her father and others to establish the Farm Worker Organization of Porterville, with her father as president of the organization. [16:17]
Segment 3: Yolanda Barrera talks about how people from Porterville helped support the grape strike by doing fundraising bailes and traveling on Fridays to Delano to deliver the money. She also recalls how her father recruited her to speak on behalf of their group, leading to her being picked up as a Spanish-speaking interpreter. She recalls why the Friday union meetings used to be memorable and enjoyable for the participating families. [14:28]
Segment 4: Yolanda Barrera talks about how she managed to apply for college despite having a high-school counselor who blocked her ability to apply. And the role of César Chávez in making her dream of attending college a reality. [8:10]
“If you have a brother, lean on him,” Richard Chávez
Speaking of family, Richard Chávez was recruited early for La Causa by his brother César. Richard’s contributions have remained somewhat unacknowledged, and you will see why in this video segment (7:31) where he tells two stories about how César had to “lean on him” to help design the iconic thunderbird of the UFW flag and to help finance the creation of a credit union for farm workers. Richard spoke at CSUN in 1995, as part of the California Farm Workers Oral History Project. Brandon Lien edited the video using photos by John Kouns.
Richard Estrada Chávez, born on November 12, 1929, in Yuma, Arizona, began working in the fields at a young age, and later became a skilled carpenter, working in lumber mills and joining a carpenter's union apprenticeship program in San José. He moved to Delano in 1952 and worked on residential and commercial projects establishing himself as a successful carpenter. He organized and became the president of the local chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), the same organization in which César, Dolores Huerta, Gilbert Padilla, and others learned the community organizing techniques that would serve them in their work establishing the Farm Workers Association (FWA).
In 1962, after César quit CSO and moved to Delano, Richard supported his brother’s efforts in organizing farmworkers while continuing his work as a carpenter. That year, he became a founding member of FWA and designed the iconic thunderbird symbol for the union’s flag.
Later, on October 25, 1963, Richard took out a $5,600 mortgage against his house and lent $3,500 to help establish the credit union, which offered savings accounts to FWA members and loans at 1 percent interest per month with no collateral. In 1966, when the union’s grape strike started, Richard became a full-time union member, leading the construction of offices, clinics, and service centers when the union headquarters moved to Forty Acres in Delano. He served as the first director of the National Farm Workers Service Center, which later became the César Chávez Foundation, focusing on affordable housing and operating Radio Campesina. From 1972 to 1984, Richard participated in negotiations, directed boycotts, and served as a vice president of the union.
In 1973 Chávez organized a boycott in Detroit, convincing chain stores to stop selling grapes and expanding picket line operations to over 60 locations. He also played a role in administering the New York City grape boycott and led negotiations for 130 contracts affecting 30,000 members in 1981. After retiring from full-time union work in 1983, he remained active in the César Chávez Foundation and the Dolores Huerta Foundation. As Huerta's partner for more than forty years, they had four children together plus 13 kids from previous marriages. After César died in 1993, Richard built a pine coffin for his burial in La Paz, with a short-handled hoe placed on top, a dangerous farming tool that was outlawed thanks to the union's efforts.
In 2008, Richard witnessed when Forty Acres became a National Historic Landmark and he joined UFW representatives, including Dolores Huerta, to meet President Obama in 2010 on Cesar Chávez Day. In 2012, President Obama established the César E. Chávez National Monument in partnership with the César Chávez Foundation. Richard Chávez passed away in Bakersfield, California, on July 27, 2011.
Madre Monte’s Art Photo Exhibition in Palenque
The women's art collective from Palenque de Benkos in Colombia, Madre Monte, mounted a beautiful exhibition of their art project using images by Richard Cross, titled appropriately Mboso ri Apú (The Voices of Water)—see Richard’s images of water here. Although we have been unable to see the exhibition and want to bring it to Los Angeles, Madre Monte has generously shared with us some of their work and we have seen on Instagram some of their cyanotypes—they look so powerful. We leave you here with a link to two of their Instagram posts where you can see what the exhibition looks like and their work with elder women helping bring back their collective memory. You can follow them at their handle: @somos.madre.monte. Here is what they say about their work using the 1970s images by Richard Cross:
“We saw in the cyanotype a favorable path of return for these images, where our hands gave them shape and affection in their rebirth in Palenque, going through the words of our knowledgeable women, the contact with the plants of the territory, nourished by the sun of this land, and bathing in the puncheras (bowls) with our waters, a fabric of memories continues where time is a story that never ends.”