UFW

  Robert F. Kennedy said, "Cesar Chavez was an important heroic figure for the legal rights movement. To this day Cesar Chavez is a legacy that continues to impact farm workers to fight for their rights. Their most recent fight is the Cesar Chavez National Holiday Coalition that is asking the U.S. Congress to consider his birthday as Cesar Chavez Day. Cesar Chavez is unforgettable because he believed in equality and considered that the people deserved to work in decent conditions and a fair salary. In 1965 grape workers were being paid .90 cents an hour and an additional .10 cents per basket that was picked. In addition, the workers had to buy and share .25 cents cups and were also forced to pay 2.00 dollars per day for temporary housing that was usually infested with mosquitoes. In 1962 Cesar Chavez decided to form The National Farm Workers Association. The fight for higher income continued as the growers kept decreasing their pay. Cesar did not only concentrate on organizing the people for wage increases but he also wanted to establish a union that would protect the workers from living and working on unsanitary conditions and unsafe equipment. Their fight was long and risk full for something that seems simple and fair. Young children were working out in the fields instead of going to school because income wasn't enough. Women also worked out in the fields when the sun was at its brightest, some were even pregnant. The workers united when in 1965 two strikes occurred to help gain a wage increase that the growers submitted to however they did not approve the union. At the same time there was another strike of hundreds of Filipino and Mexican grape pickers in Coachella Valley. When my father first arrived the U.S. his first job was out in the fields, luckily laws had already been established to protect the workers, yet he says that some growers weren’t always sympathetic. There were times when he came across with racists that would try to take advantage of them by making them work overtime with regular hourly wages. I can’t imagine my father working in the conditions that many workers went through before laws had been established or my mother working out in the sun while pregnant. Working out in the sun first out in the fields and then in construction has made his skin tone change to dark color skin when he had light colored skin before he arrived the U.S. I choose this image because Iam very emotional about children. I have a two year old little boy whom I want to keep safe and provide him with all his needs. Every step I take is for my little boy. To think that children were out in the fields with their parents surrounded by chemicals and out in the sun. Im am very lucky and thankful that I was fortunate to have been provided with decent living conditions and that Iam able to do the same for my little boy.