Labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez (César Chávez) is honored with a holiday on his birthday, March 31, across California. All SCCLD libraries will be closed on Tuesday, March 31, reopening on Wednesday, April 1.
A champion of the rights and humanity of farmworkers, Chavez has become a symbol of the struggle by Chicanos and Latinos to receive full equality in our society. Growing up, Chavez witnessed some of the discrimination that Mexican Americans faced across much of the U.S. Many Hispanics avoided speaking Spanish at home out of fear of their children being put at a disadvantage.
Chavez moved to San José (Mayfair neighborhood) the year after the historic 5-4 Supreme Court decision to declare that Mexican Americans deserved the same rights as their neighbors. He began organizing through the Community Service Organization, before founding the National Farm Workers Association with Dolores Huerta and others in 1962 in the San Joaquin Valley. There they fought for the rights of farmworkers. Following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, Chavez and the NFWA employed only nonviolent strategies such as boycotts and marches to achieve their goals.
Many Latino leaders today point to Chavez, Huerta and the United Farm Workers (as the group has been known since the early 1970s) as a pivot point for the empowerment of Mexican Americans and other Latinos in the Southwest and across the U.S. We honor Chavez for his decades of activism and positive change.
The library has several works about Chavez' life and works.
Cesar Chavez: My itty-bitty bio (eBook, English)
César Chávez: My mini biografía (eBook, Spanish)
For early readers
Who Was the Voice of the People?
Collection (graphic novel 2021)
Grades 3-7, 8-12
A Song for Cesar
Kanopy streaming video (documentary 2021)
We Are Power: How Nonviolent Activism Changes the World
Collection (book 2020)
