Why Is Cesar Chavez An Effective Leader

Cesar Chavez was a Chicano, an American with strong Mexican roots, who petitioned for Mexican-American rights. Cesar Chavez was born in the town of Yuma, Arizona in 1927 and lived the rest of his life around California. As a young child, Chavez was the son of farm workers who always was moving around for work. Because of this, he went to 36 different schools before he dropped out in eighth grade. They were also very poor because farm workers were always paid below the minimum wage of the time and had to move with the seasons. As an adult, Cesar Chavez wanted to change this way of living for the mostly Chicano farm workers. Cesar Chavez leads a group to create a farmworkers union (UFW, United Farm Workers of America) to protect the rights of

To show this, Document B discusses how Cesar Chavez and the workers of the UFW lived daily. Document B states, “We [Bob and Liz Maxwell] found (a room) at the end of a corridor. It was piled with broken furniture and empty beer cans, had ancient obscenities scribbled on the wall, but it did have windows and a sink that worked…Living conditions like that resulted from Chavez’s determination to keep the union a genuine organ of the poor. For him, it was unthinkable that representatives of the poor be better off than those for whom they labor” (Maxwell). Even Chavez himself lived like this for many years. They were also only paid $12.50 a week at $0.24 an hour according to the information found in Document B. Cesar Chavez did not want his workers to live the high life while the farm workers were nearing starvation. Plus, Chavez understood what it was like to be a poor farm worker because he was one in the past. So he empathized with the people he was representing. Chavez was an effective leader because he was of the people, with the

For example, Document C includes a quote from Chavez himself. Document C states, “I am convinced that the truest act of courage...is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice” (Chavez). Cesar Chavez sacrificed himself by participating in a 25-day hunger strike. There is also a picture in Document C that shows his sacrifice as well. In the picture, a weak-looking Chavez is sitting in an armchair with a thick blanket next to a grim-faced Robert Kennedy. This was Chavez’s last day of his hunger strike, and after 25 days of not eating, he was very weak. When someone doesn’t eat for a long period of time, they can suffer from many things such as being cold all the time. The picture was taken March 11, 1970, in California, and March in California is not a cold time of year and people shouldn’t have to wrap up in a blanket to keep warm. So Chavez was becoming very weak from sacrificing himself for the UFW. This picture shows the sacrifice Cesar Chavez gave to his cause that was so popular around the nation the popular Robert Kennedy came to visit him. That is yet another reason why Chavez was an effective