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The development of labor unions
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Luisa Tovar Ms. Rangel English 5th Period 13 April 2017 Making Dreams a Reality (ORIGINAL TITLE) Harold Laski once said, “Without equality, I say there cannot be liberty.” These words represent how Dolores Huerta felt about how farm workers were treated and how she began her journey to give them freedom. Dolores believed in equality and how everyone should be treated the same, have the same jobs and the same pay. Dolores had to face many challenges throughout her life like discrimination, and she helped many immigrant workers. Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta was born on April 10, 1930 on a small town in Mexico, Dawson. Huerta’s parents were divorced she was three when she moved to Stockton, California with her two brothers. Dolores mother …show more content…
Throughout high school Dolores was treated different because of her race, some of the teachers and students treated her different, when Dolores won an easy contest, the school didn’t let her take the trip, even though other withe girls had gone before. Dolores teacher accused her of plagiarism because the paper was too well written (Van Tol). Later Dolores tried to open a teen center, were kids from all races could get together and have fun, the center was closed down because people didn’t want their kids talking to the Mexican kids. Huerta wasn’t the only one suffering from discrimination, at the end of World War 1, her brother was brutally beat for wearing a zoot-suit, a popular Latino fashion. Despite this Huerta continued her education and enrolled in the Delta Community College …show more content…
Dolores Huerta started teaching in the 1950’s. Huerta saw how many of the kids in the school didn’t had clothes, shoes, and the conditions they lived in. Huerta tried to talk to teachers or someone who could help the kids, but no one listen, she realized that she would have to be the one to step up. Dolores quit her teaching career and co-founded the CSO. The organization thought Latinos how to vote and how to register. Dolores met Cesar Chavez and founded the National Farmworkers Association, later the United Farm workers, UFW. That’s when the Delano Grape strike and Boycott. Dolores organized the Union, during the Boycott (Barth). Huerta worked hard to give the farmworkers a better life. Huerta helped the farmers to get better pay and better working conditions. The farmers were treated terrible, they had little pay, and they didn’t had health care. Dolores wanted to give them more opportunities in political offices, and to have a voice in the community. Even though Dolores didn’t had any formal law education, she led negotiations that followed the workers new contract
To start with, Rosie Perez or Rosa Marie Perez was born on September 6, 1964 in Bushwick, Brooklyn, New York City, United States. She is a actress, dancer, choreographer, director, and community activist. Her parents are Lydia Perez, a singer and Ismael Serrano, a merchant marine seaman. Her aunt had been raising and catering her until her mother, Lydia Perez took her away and put her in Foster Care when she was 3. It wouldn't be much of a surprise if Rosie was to detest her parents after all they put her through. Rosie stayed there until she moved in with another aunt when she was 12. Later on she joined a high school in Rightwood, Grover Cleveland High School. Now most of the confusion and sadness had culminate.
The strike was the final straw of years of racial build up, poor pay, and poor conditions towards Filipino American grape workers. From 1965 to 1970, Huerta and Chavez worked together to highlight the poor conditions that 5,000 migrant farm workers were dealing with in a series of non-violent marches, speeches, and rallies. There was no significant response for the first two years, where strikers began to loose faith and turned their impatience to anger. Huerta, with the help of Chavez, took on a different tactic towards the boycott and began to spread the strike nationally. Huerta encouraged and helped farmers travel across the United States and Canada, spreading the news on what was really happening and asking for more
While working on the farms they would be sprayed with pesticides. The farm owners did not care at all for these people, only for their crops. They would work long hours without rest and little to no access to water or restrooms. All the workers would share drinking water by passing around a can and everyone would drink from there. Women had it more difficult because restrooms were not available, “it would be embarrassing, extremely humiliating,” as union co-founder, Dolores Huerta, described it in the video. This mistreatment kept going for years, some workers even said that it felt like slavery. In 1962 the National Farm Workers Association was created in Delano California to protest against all the farm owners that took advantage of the migrant workers. The founder of this association was a farmer named Cesar Chavez. He gathered farmers of all cultures to launch a strike that would hopefully undo all of these injustices that the workers had to go through. The farmers began their strike walking and yelling “Huelga” on the roads alongside the farms. This strike lasted two years but
Imagine working in the hot sun or being apart of child labor. You would be exhausted or want to escape. You would want better food because they provide you with so little. You would have been wishing for a better life. No one wants to work at a young age. They just want someone who cares for them. However, two people fought to stop these unfair laws. The biography “Mother Jones: Fierce Fighter for Workers’ Rights” by Judith Pinkerton Josephson is about an elder who is named Mary Harris Jones. She protested against child labor because these children were injured and she thought it was unfair. The Cesar Chavez Foundation (CCF) wrote the biography “About Cesar” to tell us how he fought for the farmers rights to give them fair laws. Both of these people fought for justice because they wanted better rights for workers. However, Cesar Chavez made a larger impact on the world we live in.
In countless circumstances, especially in the work force, there are oppressors and there are those who are oppressed against. If one chooses to permit the act of being demoted upon then they will continue to be underestimated and continue to be mistreated. For those who are petrified of speaking out regarding unjust situations they endure, there are people that are willing to promote and try to stop the unjust ways people face when working. Generally in the society we live in today, men do not think women are in any way superior or could make a difference; whether that be in politics or the type of profession that women chooses to practice. Certain people cannot comprehend or step out of this negative critical view point they have towards women because of what they believe is correct and because they picture women as useless objects that should not be taken seriously. You do not hear about many women activists, but there is an abundant amount that actually stepped fourth to alter their community for the ones they care about. Yet Dolores Huerta is a Hispanic female who strived for improving the rules in regards to the way people treat their employers. There was an abundant amount of Mexican-Americans that were being mistreated and were expected to work long periods of hours in the heat, which were farm laborers; all that pain and struggle to receive barely enough to support your family off of. She knew it would take various extents of struggle and sacrifice to reach the goal of altering the union workforce regulations. Dolores Huerta, alongside Cesar Chavez pursued this goal non-violently in order to better the employers because she knew it not only affected them but their families as well. While Dolores Huerta is known as a Hispa...
Throughout the beginning of her testimonial, Rigoberta Menchu defines her life and circumstances through suffering eyes. Tradition teaches her that life is about pain and hardships that must be endured. Generation after generation has accepted this lot in life, which is inevitable. She feels suffering is her peoples fate. Yet in Chapter XVI a profound movement occurs within her consciousness. She starts questioning the inevitability of suffering, wondering if it is somehow preventable. She also implements her communal outlook on life to encompass other Indian communities besides her own. Her knowledge of the injustice being rained on her people is realized to effect neighboring communities as well. Being suffocated by oppression, Rigoberta starts to move from suffering to struggle in an attempt to find a new way of life.
In 1938, the Chavez family lost their farm due to the Great Depression. They were forced to relocate to California and become migrant workers. Chavez was distressed by the poor treatment that migrant farmworkers endured on a daily basis. His powerful religious convictions, dedication to change, and a skill at non violent organizing cultivated the establishment of the United Farmworkers (UFW). It was also referred to as “La Causa” by supporters and eventually became a vital movement for self-determination in the lives of California's farmworkers. The astounding nationwide lettuce and grape boycotts along with public support revealed the atrocities of California agribusiness and resulted in the first union hiring halls and collective bargaining for migrant workers. The details of the childhood of Cesar Chavez and how they would later shape his actions are a vital aspect of this book and the establishment of the farm workers movement.
If he didn’t take action and accept the US Senate’s offer many workers would continue to have harsh workplaces. To show his dedication towards equality he “appropriated Catholic traditions from Mexico in the UFW’s twenty-one day, 250-mile protest march from Delano to Sacramento in 1966” . He knew that a protest of this size would not be overlooked so easily someone would notice sooner or later.
Since 1962, Chavez created and maintained a union for farm workers called the United Farm Workers of America. He went through many hard times and had to make very hard decisions but nothing stopped him from giving up on his dreams to help other people. In Document A, Dick Meister talks about how he saw the UFW through his point of view, a highly skeptical reporter from San Francisco. He says ...
Latin@s both young and old worked for hours in the hot sun. Out in the fields they worked hard to earn a living, but they did not get paid what they deserved. They got paid very little by the farm laborers who profited a lot from their labor (source: University of Michigan). To fight against this unjust treatment, Chican@s went on strike and boycotted the California grapes. In document 1 it shows photographs of the United Farm Workers strike poster and the boycotts. Many people joined the strike and boycott to help support the cause and won. Both strategies showed to be very effective in getting the farm workers a fair pay and treatment (source: United Farm
The video “La Raza de Colorado: El Movimiento” and the exhibit “El Movimiento” at UNC’s Michener Library chronicle the struggles and triumphs of Mexican Americans in Weld County and throughout the state of Colorado. Visitors of the exhibit can see different graphics and pictures posted on the walls depicting many of the important events such as the protests against Kitayama farms in the 1960’s which aimed at improving working conditions and pay, especially for women. Not only were farm workers being exploited, but factory workers lacked appropriate conditions as well, to help with this, several groups such as United Farm Workers, Brown Berets and Black Panthers organized a united front in order to launch strikes and boycotts against offending farms, factories and businesses which oppressed and exploited minority workers. Another source of dissent was the Vietnam war. Minority groups felt that White America was waging a war against colored
She got them rights for safer working conditions with safer machines. Before the factory workers had better rights and safer working conditions, many factory workers would have some of their limbs cut off by the machines. “Mother” Jones started non-violent marches to try and get the factory workers better rights. She didn’t succeed when she was alive, but the laws were passed a few years after she died. She raised the awareness of what happened in the factory, and that is one of the reasons those laws were passed.
1. Dolores Huerta was a member of Community Service Organization (“CSO”), a grass roots organization. The CSO confronted segregation and police brutality, led voter registration drives, pushed for improved public services and fought to enact new legislation. Dolores Huerta wanted to form an organization that fought of the interests of the farm workers. While continuing to work at CSO Dolores Huerta founded and organized the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960. Dolores Huerta was key in organizing citizenship requirements removed from pension, and public assistance programs. She also was instrumental in passage of legislation allowing voters the right to vote in Spanish, and the right of individuals to take the driver’s license examination in their native language. Dolores Huerta moved on to working with Cesar Chavez. Dolores was the main person at National Farm Workers Association (“NFWA”) who negotiated with employers and organized boycotts, strikes, demonstrations and marches for the farm workers.
The National Farm Association was co-founded by Cesar Chavez and Gil Padilla. The main purpose of this association was to seek and enforce Mexican-American labor laws. Such as reasonable work hours and pay an individual receives. To get their message across, many formed marches, boycotts, and strikes. With these forms of expression, people started to hear the voices of those wanting a change in El Movimiento.
One of the greatest civil rights activists of our time; one who believed the ways of Gandhi and Martin Luther King that “violence can only hurt us and our cause” (Cesar Chavez); a quiet, devoted, small catholic man who had nothing just like those he help fight for; “one of America's most influential labor leaders of the late twentieth century” (Griswold del Castillo); and one “who became the most important Mexican-American leader in the history of the United States” (Ender). Cesar Chavez; an American farm worker, who would soon become the labor leader that led to numerous improvements for union workers; it is recorded that Chavez was born near Yuma, Arizona on March 31, 1927 and died on April 23, 1993 in San Luis, Arizona. (Wikipedia) His life affected many others as his unselfish deeds changed the labor union force forever. This essay will discuss the reasons Cesar Chavez became involved in Union rights, the immediate impact he had, and also the legacy he left behind with his actions that influenced American society.