“People saw him as a leader, but he was really a participant. His remarkable character made him a leader, even if he was just sitting on the—you know, waiting for the police to pull people away like everyone else.”It is exactly this quality that stands out the most to me when I think of the people I admire the most in this country. So this is what I had in mind when thinking of an “American Hero” to cover in this unit. The labor and immigration activist César Chávez is someone who fits this standard. Chávez was the founder of the United Farm Workers, a union devoted to improving the working conditions of people working in agriculture. As a Mexican-American farm worker, Chávez found the working conditions for Latinos working in farms to be deplorable. He became involved in organizing protests and eventually became a well-known advocate for the Latino community in California. He eventually took on other issues, becoming a champion for civil rights, workers rights, and the anti-war movement.
The following clip is a re-enactment of one of his speeches, protesting the Vietnam war.
