#Metoo, Chavez? Then fall, Cesar; labor hero no longer useful to left
The left built the late California labor leader Cesar Chavez into a hero.He’s now the latest takedown in the #metoo era.The man whom the United Farm Workers (UFW) and progressive pantheon spent decades treating as the brown Martin Luther King Jr.
faces chilling, and murky, allegations of sexual misconduct with women — possibly involving minor girls as well.It is a surprising development ahead of March 31, which is ‘Cesar Chavez Day’ in California.For half a century, gatekeepers on the left turned Chavez into an untouchable icon.He was the co-founder of the UFW, the leader of the Delano grape strike, and a nonviolent crusader for migrant workers.
Every progressive history curriculum, every California street sign, every March 31 was proof that here was a flawless champion of the oppressed.Schools were renamed, statues erected, documentaries produced with soft lighting and swelling violins.
Critics who noted his anti-immigration stances in the 1970s were dismissed as right-wing cranks.The narrative was simple: flawless labor saint versus evil growers.California Post News: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube, WhatsApp, LinkedInCalifornia Post Sports Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, XCalifornia Post Opinion California Post Newsletters: Sign up here!California Post App: Download here!Home delivery: Sign up here!Page Six Hollywood: Sign up here!Yet Chavez was no open-borders progressive.
He was a staunch opponent of illegal immigration, viewing undocumented workers as strikebreakers (“scabs”) imported by growers to undercut wages and bust unions.He used the term “wetbacks” freely (a slur for Mexicans crossing the Rio Grande).
The UFW blocked border crossings, reported thousands of undocumented workers to the INS, and lobbied for stricter enforcement.Chavez saw unchecked illegal immigration as a direct threat to the jobs, bargaining power, and living standards of the domestic farmworkers he represented.This wasn’t subtle; it was core strateg...