The Strikers of Coachella

The Strikers of Coachella PDF Author: Christian O. Paiz
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469671700
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
The past decades have borne witness to the United Farm Workers' (UFW) tenacious hold on the country's imagination. Since 2008, the UFW has lent its rallying cry to a presidential campaign and been the subject of no less than nine books, two documentaries, and one motion picture. Yet the full story of the women, men, and children who powered this social movement has not yet been told. Based on more than 200 hours of original oral history interviews conducted with Coachella Valley residents who participated in the UFW and Chicana/o movements, as well as previously unused oral history collections of Filipino farm workers, bracero workers, and UFW volunteers throughout the United States, this stirring history spans from the 1960s and 1970s through the union's decline in the early 1980s. Christian O. Paiz refocuses attention on the struggle inherent in organizing a particularly vulnerable labor force, especially during a period that saw the hollowing out of virtually all of the country's most powerful labor unions. He emphasizes that telling this history requires us to wrestle with the radical contingency of rank-and-file agency—an agency that often overflowed the boundaries of individual intentions. By drawing on the voices of ordinary farmworkers and volunteers, Paiz reveals that the sometimes heroic, sometimes tragic story of the UFW movement is less about individual leaders and more the result of a collision between the larger anti-union currents of the era and the aspirations of the rank-and-file.

César Chávez

César Chávez PDF Author: Ilan Stavans
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313364893
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Labor leader, social justice advocate, Chicano leader, and humanitarian are only some of the multifaceted renderings of César Chávez. Ilan Stavans has compiled essays and first-person narratives that capture the multiple dimensions of this storied figure. To that end, Stavans's collection of timely articles separates fact from fiction, or as he puts it the "objective is the opposite of hagiography." Broken into two sections, César Chávez explores a variety of topics central to understanding the actual person instead of a shadowy apparition. The first part, "Considerations" offers critical assessments of Chávez's life that utilize different approaches to understanding his life, including cultural studies critiques, historical narrative that provide invaluable context, and even eulogies following his untimely death. The second section, "Voices" includes personal reflections on Chávez's life that explore his religiosity, his role as an "everyman," and the decline of the United Farm Workers union. The title is certain to assist readers in better comprehending this groundbreaking labor leader.

Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can)

Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can) PDF Author: Peter Matthiessen
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520958365
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
In the summer of 1968 Peter Matthiessen met Cesar Chavez for the first time. They were the same age: forty-one. Matthiessen lived in New York City, while Chavez lived in the Central Valley farm town of Delano, where the grape strike was unfolding. This book is Matthiessen’s panoramic yet finely detailed account of the three years he spent working and traveling with Chavez, including to Sal Si Puedes, the San Jose barrio where Chavez began his organizing. Matthiessen provides a candid look into the many sides of this enigmatic and charismatic leader who lived by the laws of nonviolence. Sal Si Puedes is less reportage than living history. In its pages a whole era comes alive: the Chicano, Black Power, and antiwar movements; the browning of the labor movement; Chavez’s fasts; the nationwide boycott of California grapes. When Chavez died in 1993, tens of thousands gathered at his funeral. It was a clear sign of how beloved he was and how important his life had been. A new foreword by Marc Grossman considers the significance of Chavez’s legacy for our time. As well as serving as an indispensable guide to the 1960s, this book rejuvenates the extraordinary vitality of Chavez’s life and spirit, giving his message a renewed and much-needed urgency.

United to Strike

United to Strike PDF Author: Molly Zenk
Publisher: North Star Editions, Inc.
ISBN: 163163285X
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Budding reporter Tala Mendoza thinks life in 1965 Delano, California, is boring. But that's before Filipino grape workers vote to strike. While the strike brings Filipino and Mexican farmworkers together, it tears apart Tala and her best friend, Jasmine. Can Tala and Jasmine's relationship withstand the Delano Grape Strike?

Lettuce Wars

Lettuce Wars PDF Author: Bruce Neuburger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583673350
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
In 1971, Bruce Neuburger—young, out of work, and radicalized by the 60s counterculture in Berkeley—took a job as a farmworker on a whim. He could have hardly anticipated that he would spend the next decade laboring up and down the agricultural valleys of California, alongside the anonymous and largely immigrant workforce that feeds the nation. This account of his journey begins at a remarkable moment, after the birth of the United Farm Workers union and the ensuing uptick in worker militancy. As a participant in organizing efforts, strikes, and boycotts, Neuburger saw first-hand the struggles of farmworkers for better wages and working conditions, and the lengths the growers would go to suppress worker unity. Part memoir, part informed commentary on farm labor, the U.S. labor movement, and the political economy of agriculture, Lettuce Wars is a lively account written from the perspective of the fields. Neuburger portrays the people he encountered—immigrant workers, fellow radicals, company bosses, cops and goons—vividly and indelibly, lending a human aspect to the conflict between capital and labor as it played out in the fields of California.

Chasing the Harvest

Chasing the Harvest PDF Author: Gabriel Thompson
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786632209
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Lives from an invisible community—the migrant farmworkers of the United States The Grapes of Wrath brought national attention to the condition of California’s migrant farmworkers in the 1930s. Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers’ grape and lettuce boycotts captured the imagination of the United States in the 1960s and ’70s. Yet today, the stories of the more than 800,000 men, women, and children working in California’s fields—one third of the nation’s agricultural work force—are rarely heard, despite the persistence of wage theft, dangerous working conditions, and uncertain futures. This book of oral histories makes the reality of farm work visible in accounts of hardship, bravery, solidarity, and creativity in California’s fields, as real people struggle to win new opportunities for future generations. Among the narrators: Maricruz, a single mother fired from a packing plant after filing a sexual assault complaint against her supervisor. Roberto, a vineyard laborer in the scorching Coachella Valley who became an advocate for more humane working conditions after his teenage son almost died of heatstroke. Oscar, an elementary school teacher in Salinas who wants to free his students from a life in the fields, the fate that once awaited him as a child.

Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972

Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972 PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Subcommittee on Migratory Labor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural laborers
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor....

Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972, Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Migratory Labor.... PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1534

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Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972: A-C. Land ownership, use, and distribution. 3 v

Farmworkers in Rural America, 1971-1972: A-C. Land ownership, use, and distribution. 3 v PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare. Subcommittee on Migratory Labor
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Agricultural laborers
Languages : en
Pages : 1508

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Hearings

Hearings PDF Author: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1400

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