The complicated legacy of Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez — everyone knows the name. Regardless of ethnicity, the name “Cesar Chavez,” at the very least, rings a bell for most Americans. As one of the most influential and undoubtedly celebrated Latino figures, Chavez’s accomplishments on behalf of field workers are undeniable — from creating union contracts for field workers in writing to establishing health benefits for workers and their families and co-founding the National Farm Workers Association.

With Hispanic Heritage Month on the horizon, I thought there would be no better time to discuss the complicated legacy of the beloved Cesar Chavez and what it means for the Hispanic community today.

Chavez rose to prevalence in the early ‘60s following the establishment of the NFWA, and soon after led major strikes in McFarland and Porterville, California in 1965. From there, his popularity skyrocketed because of his advocacy and approach to non-violent protest. Incredibly, substantial progress was made by 1966 when his first labor agreement was signed — and this progress only continued to snowball into major successes for him and other farm workers over the next decade.

When I was in school, this was essentially the history lesson I learned when it came to Chavez. I learned that he was “good.” As embarrassing as it is to admit, I accepted this as fact and didn’t learn about the unsavory side of his contributions to history until I was a teenager. 

Marshall Ganz, a man who worked alongside Chavez as a United Farm Workers organizer for over a decade, remembers him in a complicated light — “heroic” but also someone who fell into “paranoid perception” during his time with UFW. Ganz recalls Chavez’s experiments with “The Game” — a tactic used to enforce loyalty by means of public humiliation of those who betrayed him. 

To my extreme surprise, Chavez was also notably hateful towards undocumented immigrants. Despite claiming in a 1974 edition of the San Francisco Examiner that he “recognize[s] the illegals as [their] brothers and sisters,” his retort after other UFW members, such as co-founder Dolores Huerta, asked him to consider using more sensitive language when regarding undocumented individuals suggests otherwise. “You [Chicano liberals] get these hang-ups…” Chavez said. “They’re wets, you know. They’re wets, and let’s go after them,” as documented in Miriam Pawel’s book “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography.” 

Not a good look at all — and that’s not even going into detail about how he encouraged his followers to call immigration on undocumented individuals, praised Ferdinand Marcos’ cruel regime in the Philipines or how he compared the farm workers he once held in high regard as greedy “pigs”.

I was equal parts embarrassed and disillusioned that he wasn’t the saint or martyr that I thought he was, which inadvertently proves my own point. Chavez was once a man, not just a historical figure. Heck, my dad met him casually in the ‘80s and said he was a chill guy, just like anyone else!  So why are we so afraid to admit that being a three-dimensional person with moments of failure and having a positive influence on history aren’t mutually exclusive?

Unfortunately, it has become incredibly normalized to keep prominent figures on high pedestals that not even they can reach and proceed to be shocked when they disappoint us. At this point, cropping out parts of someone’s identity or history to make it more palatable is pointless — especially considering how easy it is to find out the whole truth online these days. The bottom line is that whatever questionable choices or statements Chavez has made, it certainly does not negate the total net good he has had for a substantial group of people. Life isn’t black and white, so why does history have to be?

With representation being as scarce as it already is, it’s understandably painful to acknowledge the shortcomings of one of the few notable Hispanic figures that everyone is familiar with. Even though he was a rather questionable individual, Cesar Chavez was also someone precious to fellow Chicanos for the strides he made. Although it was difficult enough for me to assert his duality, we must come to terms with the fact that idolatry serves no one.