Dolores Huerta and the UFW

 For a substantive view of the current revelation of mis use of power by Cesar Chavez, see

https://medium.com/@dolores_huerta/march-18-2026-e74c20430555. 2025.

For background on organizing in farm labor, and the role of strategic racism, see

https://beyondchron.org/cesar-chavez-the-ufw-and-strategic-racism/

(2014.) 

posted by Duane Campbell 

Cesar Chavez Dolores Huerta, the UFW, and Strategic Racism.

Cesar Chavez  & Duane Campbell, 1972

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.  You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read.  You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.  Cesar Chávez.  November 9, 1984.

by Duane Campbell

On March 31, 2018,  Eleven  states  and numerous cities will hold holidays celebrating  labor and Latino Leader Cesar Chavez. Conferences, marches and celebrations will occur in numerous cities this weekend and particularly in rural farm areas  of the nation.  A recent film Cesar Chavez: An American Hero, starring Michael Peña  as Cesar Chavez and Rosario Dawson  as Dolores Huerta presents important parts of this story.

Meanwhile,  in March of 2015  hundreds of farmworkers have walked off their jobs in Baja California, Mexico, from the agricultural fields just a few miles from the U.S. border , fields developed to provide a harvest to the U.S. markets.  Farm labor strikes and violence against strikers remains a volatile issue.  Farm workers deserve dignity, respect, and fair wages.  Achieving these goals will require a union.

The  current UFW leadership, as well as former UFW leaders  and former DSA Honorary Chairs  Eliseo Medina and Dolores Huerta  are recognized leaders in the ongoing efforts to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the nation.

 On immigration, UFW President Arturo Rodriquez says, “We urge Republicans to abandon their political games that hurt millions of hard-working, taxpaying immigrants and their families, and help us finish the job by passing legislation such as the comprehensive reform bill that was approved by the Senate on a bipartisan vote in June 2013,” Rodriguez said.  Similar compromise proposals, negotiated by the UFW and the nation's major agricultural employer associations, have passed the U.S. Senate multiple times over the last decade. The same proposal has won majority support in the House of Representatives, even though House GOP leaders have refused to permit a vote on the measure. “The UFW will not rest until the President's deferred relief is enacted and a permanent immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, is signed into law.”  www.UFW.org

What Chavez, Huerta  did  accomplish along with Philip Vera Cruz ,  Marshall Ganz, LeRoy Chatfield, Gil Padilla, Eliseo Medina and  hundreds of others was to   organize in California the first successful farm worker union against overwhelming odds.

David Bacon to Speak at Sac State on Wed. Sept, 13

FILM IN HINDE, UNIVERSITY UNION   3 PM

KEYNOTE SPEAKER AT GUY WEST PLAZA  David Bacon, Free. 5:30 PM

as a part of the campus Farm to Fork celebration.  Sept  13. 

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. . . They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

-Donald Trump, June 16, 2015

In the Fields of the North/ En Los Campos del Norte by David Bacon

Univerity of California Press, 2017

.

Reviewed by Duane Campbell

“We are not animals. We are human beings.”

In an impressive and important new book, David Bacon effectively counters the racism and xenophobia advanced by our current president and promoted in right-wing media by providing hundreds of photos and clear descriptions of the real life and work of the immigrants harvesting the food we eat.  

Bacon does so by interviewing farmworkers and photographing farmworkers in their “housing” and in their work. He reports and records the humanity of the thousands of people who come north to harvest our crops and to feed their families as best they can.

Photojournalist David Bacon has a long history of documenting the lives of immigrant people, including the important books:, Illegal People: How Globalization creates migration and criminalizes immigrants. (2008) and The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013), as well as a long list of journal articles.

In The Fields of the North, Bacon uses his extensive and award-winning photography to tell more of the story. This is not just a book with some photos, but rather a series of extended photo essays (with over 300 photos)  showing that images and words have a combined power far beyond either words or images by themselves. Bacon tells the story of cycles of exploitation and poverty suffered by tens of thousands moving from season to season, working in the fields to harvest our food for subminimum wages, and facing the racism and political power of growers and their labor contractors.

When Liberals Criticize Liberals About the Election

Dissent Magazine has posted a piece, "The End of Progressive Neoliberalism,' by Nancy Fraser.
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-neoliberalism-reactionary-populism-nancy-fraser

Dissent does not offer an opportunity to comment on its articles, so I will comment here.  (below)
by Duane E. Campbell 

Thank you for the piece, The End of Progressive Neoliberalism .I wondered how folks such as the writer justified the position of not organizing all available forces to defeat Trump.  It is good that you came out of the closet. I think you represent many, I have been looking for someone to speak up from this perspective ( not my own). The position puzzles me.

From your essay you seem to consider the contamination of our politics by the Clinton, neoliberal machine as a greater danger than the potential victory by Trump and his neoliberal proto fascists.

I have some issues of dissent from your piece. Contrary to your statement, there is a left in the US.  Weak, yes, but it exists. For example the CCDS says of the election,

“”The movement for justice and progress in the U.S. has suffered a great setback. And the depth of the reactionary movement that led to this setback was underestimated by most on the left. It’s necessary to reflect on what it has taught us and about our shortcomings but it’s also vital to assess our strength to meet this great challenge.” 

  I think they are referring to your position  when they say,

“And the depth of the reactionary movement that led to this setback was underestimated by most on the left.”

Democratic Socialists of America’s position is here:

http://www.dsausa.org/we_fight_for_socialism_dl_npc

There were a good number of socialists ( not liberals) who worked night and day to defeat Trump including myself.  Most did so on some form of this perspective.

http://www.dsausa.org/trump_racism_and_the_left_dl

While you make good points in criticizing liberals  ( you call them  progressive neoliberalism), I encourage you to continue to explain your own view.

I will use data from California  in response since I know the data from here more than national data. The Trump election is most likely going to eliminate health care for some 2-4 million children, in particular the children of the undocumented.  Some 2-4 million workers ( immigrants) now face deportation.  At least 40 % of these are parents of U.S. citizen children.

Defeat Trump : The Latino Vote is Important

By Dolores Delgado Campbell and Duane Campbell

Immigration issues along with the changing composition of the U.S. electorate will shape the 2016 Presidential and Congressional races, as well as many state races.

While working class non-union white voters in the upper Midwest appear to be abandoning the Clinton-led Democratic Party in response to immigration and neo- liberal trade policies, Latino voters are putting some traditional Republican and swing states in play, noticeably Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Texas.  In these states with a close electoral contest, the Latino vote may make the decisive victory.

The U.S. electorate in 2016 will be the country’s most racially and ethnically diverse ever. Nearly one in three eligible voters  (31%) will be Latino, African American, Asian or another racial or ethnic minority, up from 29% in 2012.  Much of this change is due to strong growth among Latino voters, in particular U.S.-born youth. Latinos will constitute an estimated 11.9% of the total electorate.

According to Pew Research, the projected number of eligible voters will be:

White – 69%; African American  12%; Latino 12%; Asian 4%.

(For a detailed description of the various national  groups within the Hispanic category  see  http://www.dsausa.org/dl_hispanic_heritage_month)

Latino millennials will account for nearly half (44%) of the record 27.3 million Hispanic eligible voters projected for 2016. (Pew, 2016)

Donald Trump began his campaign for the Republican nomination with an assault on Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the U.S. This was his strategic choice.  He has expanded his assault to encompass additional immigrant groups including Muslims and other Latino immigrants (but not Cubans).