Clash of Cultures & the Discovery of Gold      123456

Labor Rights for California Farm Workers

Agricultural workers also gained new political power and rights. One important organizer of immigrant labor was César Chávez, who was born in Yuma, Arizona, in 1927, and migrated to California with his parents as a young boy. He would grow up to be recognized as one of the world’s most important civil rights leaders, fighting for the rights of agricultural workers in California.

Chávez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1961. Organizing Mexican and Mexican American agricultural workers in a nonviolent fashion, Chávez managed to obtain the support of civil rights advocates, Catholic clergy, students, and other sympathizers for a massive 340-mile march from the California farm community of Delano to Sacramento in 1966. That same year, Chávez merged his NFWA with the Filipino-dominated Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) into what would eventually be known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). He also helped organize a boycott against grape producers who refused to have their farms unionized, and famously went on a fast in his efforts to organize a union.