31 Mar César Chávez, Silence and What My Community Won’t Face

César Chávez speaks at a United Farm Workers rally in Delano in 1972. (Work permit, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Commentary, Emily Tenorio Molina

When will Latinos address the sexism and sexual violence our community faces, even when it involves one of our most revered leaders?

Thirty years after his death, The New York Times uncovered allegations of sexual assault and rape of at least three young girls by César Chávez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers. And painfully, Dolores Huerta, also a UFW co-founder who led marches with Chavez, accused him of raping her too.

Huerta told the Times that the abuse resulted in two children, whom she had raised by other people. She had four other children with his brother Richard Chávez.

A painful secret of more than half a century. People shocked to see a longstanding figure of Latino resilience as a monster.

Online, people questioned why the article was published right before Cesar Chávez Day. I read comments questioning why it took the women more than three decades to say anything. How can the public trust the victim’s word? How can a dead man defend his legacy?

Many of these comments came from within our own Brown community.

Chávez was often called the “Mexican American Gandhi,” a man who led a movement for the betterment of other Latinos. In 1983, he topped a poll by the Los Angeles Times, in which 568 California Latinos were asked to name the Latino they admired most, with 6% of the vote.

That admiration is real. But it has also made it harder for people to confront the harm tied to his legacy.

Chávez’s work as a leader is often presented simply to kids and adults. I was taught that he fought for Latino farmworkers to get a fair wage and better working conditions, but that is as far as my teachers went.

As a California Latina, I saw Chavez as an activist who made it possible for farmworkers to earn a living wage and shine a light on California Latino work conditions.

The full story is harder to face.

Reading about the disgusting behavior he allegedly displayed in the dark, such as raping a 15-year-old at a motel during a march or telling a victim he would name a street after her if she slept with him, made me sick to my stomach.

A figure of cultural resilience was all a lie. His victims and the women that he harassed all had to keep it a secret for the movement.

Now, back to the people who are questioning the validity of the allegations.

Chávez allegedly intentionally used his status as a union leader and activist to take the bodies of young girls and women for his sexual gratification.

So far, all his alleged victims are Latina women, and considering the time, Chávez likely knew that his alleged violation wouldn’t have repercussions.

It’s basically taboo to speak of rape or sexual violence in the Latino community, which connects back to a cultural trauma of sexism and machismo.

Chávez was a second-generation American whose grandfather migrated from Mexico to Texas and eventually owned land. Throughout Chávez’s life, he saw himself and his peers as hardworking Americans who were mistreated because of their Mexican last names and brown complexion.

Yet he saw undocumented immigrants as pests that attack and are making these “legal, hard-working” Mexican Americans look bad.

In a 1972 interview with KQED, Chavez said, “All of a sudden yesterday morning, they brought in 220 wetbacks. There’s no way to defend against that kind of strikebreaking.”

What could make Chavez think this way? Part of the answer may be his sexist Mexican values assimilated with American prejudice.

For many, being seen as “American” still means conforming to dominant white cultural norms. And in the 1960s, white Americans generally saw farmworkers as uneducated servants.

At the same time, being Mexican means embracing tradition. That includes the tradition of men dictating what a woman can and can’t do.

As a Mexican man, Chávez carried with him the learned generational sexism, as he allegedly perpetuated sexual violence upon the women and young girls who saw him as a leader.

He allegedly took advantage of these women and saw them as naive and easily persuaded to sex.

Latina women have a higher rate of not disclosing sexual violence. Sex and rape are often taboo topics within the community, which results in victims feeling ashamed of their assault.

Latina women have to carry trauma and guilt to keep the family united.

Reading about Dolores Huerta’s secret pain, which she had to carry to keep her family and organization united, reminded me of a painful reality in our culture for many women.

I’ve felt anger over the fact that I was taught to be “grateful” for César Chávez’s leadership in the farmworkers movement because his advocacy helped my parents and many parents from in my elementary school to have a decent agricultural work experience.

But that is not the whole story.

My parents and other foreign-born Latinos didn’t really follow his work or join the movement.

I’m a first-generation Mexican American. I’ll always live between two cultures. But that’s a power. I get to observe the good and the bad of both cultures.

I feel a responsibility to speak up about what we are doing wrong and how to improve our community.

We have to hold our learned cultural values accountable. Sexism is very much alive in the Latino community.

Families need to have honest conversations about the prevalence of sexual violence and how to hold people accountable.

No person is bigger than a movement, and César Chávez is not the movement.

What we can learn from this heartbreaking truth is that we must confront the vulnerabilities women face due to cultural trauma.