César Chávez: A Photographic Essay

author: Ilan Stavan 

Cinco Puntos Press, 2010

grades 5-up 

Mexican American

“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live,” César Chávez once said. “We shall endure.”

In the evocative cover photo, César and an elder agricultural worker embrace each other. As both look directly into the camera, the elder’s right arm rests on César’s right shoulder, while César’s right hand supports the elder. Reflected in the elder’s eyeglasses are the images of agricultural workers and supporters holding signs and banners of protest. In this excellent photographic essay, carefully selected black-and-white archival photos combine with honest and accessible text to present for middle readers the story of the life and struggles of a courageous person—and the people who struggled with him.

In his introduction, Stavans is clear and to the point: “Chavez needs to be re-introduced to the young,” he writes, “as a model in the larger fight against poverty and corporate abuse. It is crucial to reinstate him to the rightful place he deserves in United States history: as both a voice for and a champion of the oppressed.” Although the tactics of non-violent resistance of such leaders as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., became César’s trademark, his heroes also included Emiliano Zapata and other Mexican revolutionaries. Indeed, César was an agricultural worker, and a local, national, and international leader as well.

At the same time, he is not an icon and was far from a superhero. Rather, César was a humble person, a common man of la gente who, together with activists Dolores Huerta, Fred Ross, and other organizers—and with thousands of agricultural workers and supporters—accomplished the all but impossible: they garnered recognition of, and won human and civil rights for, some of the most impoverished and exploited workers in this country.

Most of the black-and-white photos here are from the Farm Workers Archive, many taken by agricultural workers themselves, rather than by professional photographers. These compelling photos have an intimate look that’s reminiscent of a family album.

Some of the photos are, indeed, family snapshots. Here is six-year-old Cesario with his sister on the family farm near Yuma, Arizona. Here is César’s eighth-grade graduation photo, a snapshot of the 17-year-old in the Navy, and César and Helen with six of their own children.

But it’s the agricultural workers and their struggle that are at the heart of this photographic essay. Here is César as a young organizer speaking at a small meeting in what appears to be a classroom in the early 1960s, and at a much larger open-air rally in the 1970s. Here are agricultural workers engaging in the backbreaking labor of gathering melons, harvesting onions, and thinning rows of lettuce. Here is a 1950s photo of workers using the crippling short-handled hoes, which became a symbol of their particular exploitation. And here is a family of striking farm worker parents and children picketing the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

Especially moving are the photos of César breaking his 25-day fast in 1968, during a mass attended by some 8,000 farm workers; and of his 1993 funeral procession in Delano, in which some 40,000 mourners marched.

And although the book is essentially about César Chávez, Stavans would have been remiss had he not included Dolores Huerta. Indeed, there are pages of photos and text here about Dolores, an organizer in her own right, who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, who led the huge grape boycott and negotiated contracts with the large growers, who campaigned for the 1973 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, and who survived a vicious beating at the hands of the San Francisco police in 1988.

Stavans, who himself emigrated from Mexico, organized the photos semi-chronologically, with the sequence broken whenever necessary to provide visual consistency. The evocative black-and-white photos he chose lend themselves to discussion, not only about the movement, but also about the hard work of the people in the fields—combined, they give a sense of familia, of comunidad, something not often seen in photographic essays. 

With an all-inclusive chronology at the end, César Chávez: A Photographic Essay is a must-read for all middle schoolers—not “just” Mexican American students—and an excellent introduction to what it is to be involved in social activism. Highly recommended.

—María Cárdenas and Beverly Slapin
(published 6/28/14)

Note: For further research, students can be directed to the United Farm Workers website (http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=research&inc=history/07.html), which contains a wealth of information, including history, key campaigns, victories, photos and worker voices.

Side by Side: The Story of Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez / Lado a Lado: La Historia de Dolores Huerta y César Chávez

author: Monica Brown
translator: Carolina Valencia
illustrator: Joe Cepeda
HarperCollins, 2010
grades 2-4
Mexican American

To the best of my knowledge, Side by Side/ Lado a Lado is the only bilingual picture book about the decades-long collaboration between César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, leaders of a labor struggle that organized thousands of the most impoverished workers in the US into an unstoppable force. Indeed, in the 1960s, “¡Sí, se puede!” and “¡Viva la causa!” were battle cries for human rights and social justice.

The story begins with double-page spreads showing Dolores’s story on the left and César’s on the right-hand side. Here, young readers will see how their childhoods differed: Dolores is a talker while César is a listener; Dolores is an activist while César is an agricultural worker; Dolores’s family takes care of others while César’s family’s life is difficult. As adults, Dolores teaches migrant farm worker children while César labors in the fields. When the two meet years later, their life experiences become their organizational and philosophical strengths as they join forces to fight for justice in the fields.

A helpful author’s note, geared to parents, teachers, and older readers as well, provides further historical information—such as the immigration act of 1986, and victories including collective bargaining, health benefits, pensions, and farmworker clinics—to supplement the picture book format.

Cepeda’s mixed-media paintings—using oils, acrylics and collage on a bright palette of blues, oranges, yellows, greens and browns—are expressive and dramatic. Here are agricultural workers trying to escape the poisonous fumes of a plane spewing pesticides. Here are Dolores and César together, standing on a flatbed truck, speaking to a few somewhat-interested listeners. Here is César during his 26-day hunger strike, weakly looking out the window, while Dolores rallies the workers. And here is César’s funeral, with thousands of farmworkers and supporters honoring him.

Unfortunately, weaving Dolores’ and César’s stories together in this parallel style sometimes results in inconsistency and oversimplification. For instance, “Dolores saw that Cesar had great faith…Cesar saw that Dolores had great courage.” In fact, both César and Dolores had great faith and great courage. Another problem is that a major struggle—perhaps one of the most famous United Farm Worker struggles—is described here inaccurately. On a spread depicting an organizing meeting, the text reads:

Cesar and Dolores asked people to stop buying grapes from California because the poisons the growers used there were making the workers sick. People listened, and the grapes rotted on the vines. The farmworkers won! They got a safer place to work, and the grapes became safer for people to eat.

Here, the Delano strike, boycott, and secondary strike against California growers of table grapes—a massive struggle that lasted for five years—is collapsed into what appears to be one meeting. On the following spread, which depicts the 340-mile march from Delano to Sacramento, the text says that the purpose of the march was “to demand that workers get paid enough to live on.” But this famous march, in fact, occurred during the grape boycott, not after it was over, and it encompassed many demands, not just one.

Nevertheless, Side by Side is one of the few picture books that demonstrate that César Chávez did not work alone and that Dolores Huerta was more than a political sidekick. Along with Carmen T. Bernier-Grand’s César: ¡Sí, se puede! / Yes, We can!, Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez, and Sarah Warren’s Dolores Huerta: A Hero to Migrant Workers, Side by Side / Lado a Lado is a valuable addition to a collection of picture books that bring the courageous struggles of migrant agricultural workers to an early elementary audience. Recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 6/10/14)

César Chávez: A Hero for Everyone

author: Gary Soto

illustrator: Lori Lohstoeter

Aladdin, 2003

grades 3-up

Mexican American

Soto’s narrative begins in 1962, as young organizer César Chávez and other recruiters walk from house to house in Corcoran, California, explaining to Mexican-American agricultural workers about a new union that would help them in their desperate need for justice. As a farm worker himself, Chávez knows that Corcoran is a dangerous place for seasonal workers—he knows that contractors often steal their hard-earned money, and he knows that “strikers had been beaten and shot and sometimes killed by armed farmers.”

The narrative then turns back to the beginnings of Chávez’s early life on his grandparents’ large homesteaded farm, where the whole family works together in tough Depression-era times. And school is far from welcoming for Spanish-speaking children—“all Cesar would remember of school was the whistling of the ruler as it came down on his wrist or knuckles.” Indeed, during his years as a young farm worker, Chávez’s experiences with poverty, injustice and racism are what shape him into the organizer he later becomes.

When the family, hungry and broke, is forced to leave their farm, young readers will see what young César and the other migrant agricultural workers have to endure; and as the narrative progresses, Chávez’s development as an organizer:

[The farm workers] had to wake up before dawn. They had to work stooped over for ten hours. They had to breathe in pesticides that stayed on leaves. There were no toilets. There was no clean water to drink. There were no rest breaks. Their whole day was just hard labor.

As Soto describes how César Chávez develops from inexperienced organizer of local Chicano workers to leader of the fledgling National Farm Workers Association, to joining with the Filipino compañeros of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, to convincing the workers to adopt a tactic of nonviolence while engaging in the “fights in the fields,” to leading the 300-mile peregrinación from Delano to Sacramento, to the shouts of “¡Que viva la huelga!” and “¡Sí, se puede!” that were heard around the world, young readers will come to understand the life and work of a man of courage, humility and strength who fought for the rights of some of the most exploited workers in the US.

As a child, Soto worked the fields of the San Joaquin Valley; and currently serves as a Young People’s Ambassador for California Rural Legal Assistance and the United Farm Workers of America. He’s a brilliant and prolific storyteller whose knowledge and experience shine in this small biography of “a hero for everyone.”

Although this series, called “Milestone Books,” is designed for easy reading, the vocabulary is not oversimplified and the text does not condescend. Unfortunately, the book is printed on cheap “mass-market” paper and Lohstoeter’s black-and-white illustrations are less than engaging. Nevertheless, Soto’s evocative book can be paired with Carmen Bernier-Grand’s César: ¡Sí, Se puede! Yes, We Can! and Kathleen Krull’s Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez. All three are highly recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 12/27/13)

Going Home

author: Eve Bunting

illustrator: David Díaz
HarperCollins, 1996

kindergarten-grade 3

Mexican, Mexican American

Ever since the day after Thanksgiving in 1960, when “CBS Reports” aired a documentary called “Harvest of Shame,” the exploitation of migrant agricultural workers has been a national scandal. Farm workers—then and now—live at or below the poverty level and depend on their meager income to feed their families here, and often to support relatives in their home country as well.

Two years later, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta founded the United Farm Workers, a human rights and labor organization that successfully focused the national media’s attention on the struggles of agricultural workers for better pay, safer working conditions, and the right to organize. “Alone, the farm workers have no economic power,” Chávez said, “but with the help of the public they can develop the economic power to counter that of the growers.”

More recently, the corporate successes and excesses of NAFTA have brought nothing but impoverishment to Mexican workers, both in their country and in the US. While large transnational corporations profit hand-over-fist from free trade, slack regulation, and abundant and cheap Mexican labor, hundreds of thousands of displaced people—from cities, towns and villages—are forced to head north in order to survive. On this side, the Mexican migrant workers, many if not most undocumented, have nowhere else to go.  

Eve Bunting’s Going Home was published 35 years after “Harvest of Shame” was aired, 33 years after the United Farm Workers was founded, and two years after NAFTA was enacted into law. So one might think that Bunting would have had plenty of information about how agricultural workers and their families live—if she had looked. Apparently, she didn’t. 

In Going Home, the young narrator, Carlos, finds out that he and his farm worker family will soon be “going home” to La Perla, Mexico, for Christmas vacation. “Home is here,” his mother explains, “but it is there, too.” Well, I would bet anything that no agricultural workers in their right mind would refer to a labor camp as “home.” Turn two pages: “Papa locks the door of our house,” Carlos says. “The house really belongs to Mr. Culloden, the labor manager, but it is ours as long as we work the crops for him. It has been ours for almost five years.” On the facing page, the artwork depicts this farm worker family’s “home” as one in a row of suburban tract houses, with neatly manicured lawns—as far from a typical ramshackle labor camp domicile as Santa Barbara might be from Appalachia.   

Papa tells the children that they are “legal farm workers,” so they will have no trouble crossing the border. Well, that’s convenient—not only does Bunting neatly avoid describing the incidences of harassment, arrest, jail and deportation common at border crossings, she also does so by having Papa explain why: This family is “legal.” The world is good.

Then there is the peppering of Spanish words in the text—“sí,” “mijo” [sic], “papeles”—coming from the parents. Carlos explains to the reader that, “Papa speaks always in Spanish. He and Mama have no English. There is no need for it in the fields. But I’m always trying to teach them.” But. Since there are only a few Spanish words in the entire text, everyone appears to be speaking English. And Carlos is correcting Papa when he says a word in Spanish, which Mexican children do not do because it would be rude. Rather, children learn early on how to code-switch, an important skill in a household where the parents speak one language and the children speak two. This is all different from teaching the parents English or interpreting when interpretation is needed, a subtlety that is lost on Bunting. And I’m not sure why Bunting decided to use Spanish grammatical forms in Carlos’s English, either. This whole language thing is just a mess.

Carlos says that he and his sister know “how hard the work is. The heat in the strawberry fields. The sun pushing down between the rows of tomatoes. The little flies biting our faces. We know because we work, too, on weekends and school vacations.” In truth, children often work alongside their parents in the fields—before and after school, when they are fortunate enough to be able to attend school—as well as weekends and vacations. While federally mandated Migrant Education Programs exist, children living in rural areas often do not get to go to school. And despite the existence of child labor laws that vary from state to state, children are often forced to work under a parent’s name or under an alias. It’s a dirty business, but one that Bunting conveniently ignores. 

Why did Carlos’s family come here, then? “We are here for the opportunities,” Papa says. More likely, the children would not ask, because they would know. Toiling in the fields as migrant agricultural workers is hardly done for the “opportunities”—it’s done for survival and possibly to send some money home. 

So Mama, Papa, Carlos, Delores, and Nora arrive at La Perla, where they meet the rest of their family and have a great time. Everyone is impressed with the children’s nice clothes and English skills, and the family talks more about “opportunities”:

They laugh and clap. “Imagine, Consuelo! Your son—and all your children—speaking English. So smart!” “Yes,” Papa says. “Their school is very fine. They are getting a good education.” The woman nods. “You were wise to take them and go. Our school is good, too. But where are the opportunities for our children after?”

La Perla is a beautiful place, but there is no “opportunity” here, only in the US. That night, the children sleep in the car, and Mama and Papa come out to dance in the streets. Older sister Delores tells Carlos that Mama and Papa “plan to come back someday and live in Grandfather’s house and work his land.” Carlos thinks, “It will be after our opportunities.”

“Diaz’s fiesta-bright artwork,” a reviewer for Kirkus gushes, “ignites this joyous tale of a Mexican-American family’s sentimental journey.... The fiery colors and bold lines of Diaz's woodcut-like illustrations lend a strength and nobility to these scenes.... [H]e sets his artwork within the photographic backdrops that show gaily painted pottery, folk art figurines, Mexican Christmas decorations, festive flowers and other shiny holiday trinkets. A veritable feast for the eyes...” What the Kirkus reviewer lauds is precisely the problem. Diaz has aptly illustrated Bunting’s sanitized story of a hard working Mexican family for the edification of cultural tourists: take home all the pretty things and look away from the garbage.  Indeed, this story and art together function as an apologia for imperialism.

Bunting’s purposeful ignoring of racism in order to maintain the status quo is palpable. Where she sees issues, they are not so bad. In the case of Going Home, there is no backbreaking labor, no inhaling of toxic pesticides, no sweat, no tears, no exhaustion, no harassment from labor bosses or La Migra. Just “opportunities.” A Publishers Weekly review of Going Home could have been about any of Bunting’s “social justice” books, which “(hint) at the depth of parental love and sacrifice while distancing children from genuine understanding.”

Scholar Joyce King has coined a term for this kind of thinking: “dysconscious racism,” which she defines as “a form of racism that tacitly accepts the dominant white norms and privileges.” [1] And scholar Dan Hade has labeled Bunting’s “social justice” books as “aestheticizing the poor, anesthetizing the reader.”[2]

One last thing: On the dedication page of Going Home, Bunting writes: “Sincere thanks to Joe Mendoza, Regional Director of Migrant Education, Region #17.” Curious to know what kind of involvement someone who works with migrant families might have had with this book, I phoned him. What he told me[3] was that he and Bunting were “like two ships passing in the night; if she walked in right now, I wouldn’t remember her. As I recall, she walked into my office and asked if she could meet a migrant family because she was writing a book. I vaguely remember introducing her to a family, more as a courtesy than anything else and that was that. I spoke with her once or twice; she never asked me to read her manuscript or anything like that.”

Bunting is not the only mediocre writer who acknowledges sources solely to create credibility for a book. When a writer acknowledges someone who is not a friend but whose name carries a particular credential, the assumption is that the person has lent some kind of oversight or has helped in significant ways. In Going Home, Bunting implies something that isn’t there; it’s disingenuous.

Bunting’s “social justice” books show a distortion of reality in order to appeal to what some want to believe. Her formula fits issues such as homelessness (Fly Away Home, 1991), immigration (One Green Apple, 2006), rebellion (Smoky Night, 1994), youth gangs (Your Move, 1998), forced relocation (So Far from the Sea, 1998). Et cetera. As with Bunting’s others, Going Home is sympathetic in a seemingly harmless way. But it’s not harmless; on the contrary, it’s cruel. It’s cruel to the children of agricultural workers and other migrant and immigrant children who must struggle for the “opportunities” that others have as their birthright. And it’s cruel to the unsuspecting children who are being anesthetized to the hard lives of others.

Going Home is not recommended.

—Beverly Slapin
(published 5/18/13)

---

[1] Joyce E. King, Ph.D, holds the Benjamin E. Mays Chair of Urban Teaching, Learning, and Leadership in the College of Education at Georgia State University. This definition is from her paper, “Disconscious Racism: Ideology, Identity, and the Miseducation of Teachers” (Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 60, No. 2, 1991).

[2] Daniel Hade, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor in Language and Literacy at Penn State College of Education, where he looks at how poverty is constructed in children’s books and how it is used as an aesthetic. In 1995, he spoke at a children’s literature conference; the title of his talk was “Aestheticizing the Poor, Anesthetizing the Reader: the ‘Social Justice’ Books of Eve Bunting.”

[3] Joe Mendoza generously gave me permission to take notes while we were talking, and to quote him. He said, “Only liars don’t let themselves be quoted.” Thanks, Joe.

Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet in Spanish and English

author: Alma Flor Ada

author: Rosalma Zubizarreta 

illustrator: Simón Silva

HarperCollins, 1997

preschool-grade 5 

Mexican American

In this beautiful bilingual homage to César Chávez and the agricultural workers he led, Ada and Zubizarreta have matched each letter in the alphabet with a word or concept in Spanish (a is for árboles, g is for grácias) and a poem in both Spanish and English about some facet in the lives of the workers and their families. 

The letter “C” and the sound “ch” are for César Chavez:

César chávez

Ya tus pasos no cruzan los campos polvorientos

ni los alumbras con tu buena voz

pero tu ejemplo 

y tu palabra

retoñan en los surcos

en brotes de callada esperanza.

Your steps no longer cross the dusty fields

where your strong voice once shone

yet your example

and your words

sprout anew in the field rows

as seedlings of quiet hope.

The brilliantly colored, vibrant gouache illustrations by Simón Silva remind me of the murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco. Both hablantes and English speakers will appreciate knowing where our food comes from.

Gathering the Sun: An Alphabet in Spanish and English is highly recommended. 

—Beverly Slapin

(published 4/6/2013; revised 7/13/2021)