Cesar Chavez Migrant Hero

Cesar Chavez Migrant Hero

Harvested by Hand You probably know that the fruits, nuts, and vegetables you eat were once crops that grew in fields. But did you ever stop to wonder how those crops are harvested? Some are harvested by machines, but many--fruits in particular-are too delicate. Research shows that nearly half of all U. S. fruit is still harvested by hand. Most of those hands belong to migrant workers, who travel from farm to farm, picking fresh food so that we can eat it. It's hard work that can pay little, and migrant workers aren't always treated well by the farmers who hire them. One man spent his life trying to help migrant workers. His name was Cesar Chavez.

A Migrant's Life Cesar Estrada Chavez was born to a Mexican-American family in 1927 near Yuma, Arizona. As a child, he lived on a small farm. Cesar loved life on the farm, but dishonest men cheated the Chavez family. In 1937 they lost their land. The family joined the many other poor families who traveled west during the Great Depression, looking for jobs as migrant farm workers.

Life on the road was very different for the Chavez family from life on their farm in Arizona. Many farmers in California wanted people to work for little pay. Then the farmers could keep more money from the food they sold. As a result, life for migrant farm workers was often terrible. Workers toiled in the hot sun for hours but sometimes had to pay for any water they drank in the fields. The workers spent much of the little money they made on temporary housing, usually run- down shacks that were hot in summer, cold in winter. The shacks often came with holes and insects but no bathrooms or any way to cook. Sometimes instead of mattresses to sleep on, owners gave the workers straw.

For several years, the Chavez family moved around California, finding work wherever they could. By the time Cesar graduated from the eighth grade, he had gone to more than thirty schools. He was often teased because he didn't have decent clothes or shoes and because he spoke English with a Spanish accent. Cesar and his siblings worked in the fields with their parents on weekends and during the summer. It was hard work, yet migrant workers were often cheated out of their already-low wages. One time, Cesar's whole family worked for seven weeks, seven days a week. At the end of the harvest, they found that their boss had left without paying them, and there was nothing they could do. Even though they harvested tons of fruit and vegetables, they barely earned enough to feed themselves, let alone enough to save and get ahead.

The best hope for most migrants was- and is-the education of their children, but education for migrant children was hard to come by. Many migrant children grew up in the fields and started working as young as age eight. Cesar himself left school after the eighth grade to work in the fields full time to help support his family. Without a good education, the children often kept doing migrant work when they grew up, and the cycle continued.