'Troubling' allegations against Cesar Chavez prompt UFW to cancel celebrations
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The United Farmer Workers union said it will halt celebrations of its founder Cesar Chavez amid what the union described as “troubling allegations” against the iconic Chicano figure.The union, in a statement released Tuesday, did not detail the accusations against Chavez but said they were concerning enough for the organization to take action.Several events around the country honoring Chavez have been canceled in recent weeks.The claims against Chavez “are incompatible with our organization’s values.
Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on.Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors.
Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing.We have not received any direct reports, and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations,” the union said.Canceling events, the union said, would “provide space for people who may have been victimized to find support and to share their stories if that is what they choose.”Chavez is a towering national figure credited with organizing and raising the lives of migrant farm-workers in California and beyond and giving voice to the struggles of Mexican Americans.Bursting into national prominence in the mid-1960s in the San Joaquin Valley, Chavez galvanized public support on behalf of farm workers.
Workers lived in substandard housing and were paid terrible wages, according to a Times obituary.Those early years were marked by bitter and sometimes brutal incidents involving picketing farm workers who screamed “ Huelga! “ — “Strike!”—and growers who vowed never to give in to Chavez and his followers.Chavez engineered a 1968 boycott of California grapes.
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