If the success of the boycott taught the growers the limits of their strategy, it also imbued Chavez with false confidence. The story of the UFW after the historic signing of the first grape contracts in 1970 is mostly one of tactical errors caused in part by Chavez’s refusal to take counsel from his advisors. Chavez assumed he was infallible, which led to self-destructive behavior that short-circuited the movement. Disappointing the many people who dedicated their lives to the farm workers struggle, Chavez ultimately managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Nonetheless, the boycott’s veterans and supporters continued to hold him accountable to the workers he purported to serve, even after the boycott network had been dismantled. This spirit of resistance extended to some members within Chavez’s inner circle, preventing a complete dissolution of the union.
An exploration of the successes and failures of Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers is valuable now, at a time when a new food justice movement is on the rise. On college campuses, a new generation of students have created gardens, demanded new courses, and challenged their universities to serve “real food” in dining halls. Their ideas have also had significant influence beyond the ivory tower, compelling consumers to spurn fast food, shop at local farmers’ markets, and invest in community-supported agriculture (CSAs).
In many ways this new consciousness about food and its contents builds upon the longer American tradition that starts with Sinclair and runs through Chavez and the United Farm Workers. Most similar are the large number of young people drawn into the movements then and now. In the 1960s and 1970s, many young people dedicated a summer, a semester, or even years to working for the United Farm Workers, participating in strikes or traveling to far-off cities to picket stores carrying nonunion grapes. Such volunteers were most effective in the boycott, where their cultural affinity with consumers and their urban upbringing made them effective advocates for the movement. At the height of their power, hundreds of boycott volunteers killed the grape market in nine of the ten most important North American cities and blocked (or “blacked,” as they called it in England) grapes from reaching European markets, contributing to the final push for contracts. In the process, volunteers gained valuable experience that propelled them into a life of activism and social justice.
Today advocates for food justice have a similar passion for their cause. I fear, however, that the motivation of many participants stems from concern for themselves rather than for the lives of workers. Like Sinclair’s audience who worried about what went into the hot dogs more than the conditions under which laborers produced them, many of today’s activists are inclined to think of their own diet or their impact on livestock animals before they think of the workers. Such positions are a product of popular food writers who often privilege consumer-oriented food justice over the equally important challenge of achieving better working conditions in the fields.13
The history of the United Farm Workers grape boycott offers a reminder that this has not always been the case. Safe and humane working conditions and fair wages for farm workers served as the primary motivations for boycott volunteers throughout the 1960s and 1970s, compelling some to sacrifice their own lives for the cause. This is not to say that moments of tension did not seep into the movement; however, the overwhelming majority of those who volunteered saw themselves as servants to an idea that went well beyond concerns for their own health. And although boycott campaigns often involved familiar warnings about pesticides, the message focused on workers who endured exposure to potentially harmful chemicals in the fields. At root, the boycott was a consumer strategy for achieving producer-oriented goals.14 That most of the intended beneficiaries of this movement were Mexican and Filipino is a testament to the power of the intercultural understanding that thrived in the union throughout the better part of two decades.
The United Farm Workers, therefore, symbolized the potential of peaceful protest by a multiracial, intergenerational coalition of men and women at a time when social movements had begun to grow weary of such approaches. Students for a Democratic Society splintered into the Weather Underground, a group that carried out bombing campaigns on unoccupied government buildings in the early 1970s.15 Similarly, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee turned toward a politics of “black power” that privileged black (male) voices, excluded white ones, and questioned the viability of peaceful protest.16 During this same period, the United Farm Workers increasingly became the last, best hope for those still committed to a world without violence and racial division. As groups like the Black Panthers, the Brown Berets, and the Young Lords chose a paramilitary character that earned them increased surveillance from federal and local authorities, the union projected an image of inclusivity and cooperation that attracted new recruits and won the support of the media and urban consumers.17 Although this approach moved the nexus of power farther from Chavez’s hands and into the public, it also gave him more bargaining power than his contemporaries in other movements.
Some readers may wonder why I focus on organizers rather than farm workers. In some instances, the distinction between the two is blurred since many organizers had experience in the fields, including Chavez himself; however, by the mid-1960s, most had left this line of work. The union relied heavily on volunteers who lived in cities and suburbs rather than the California countryside, a fact that initially did not trouble Chavez. As he noted, the organizer is often an outsider to the people he represents. A lack of strike funds and the constant migration of agricultural laborers created what Chavez called “a movement without members” that was kept alive by the volunteers who had little or no experience in the fields.18 It was not until the mid-1970s that some members of the UFW executive board became concerned about the authenticity of a union run by people other than farm workers, although they failed to produce a viable alternative.
The experiences of organizers have also been better recorded than those of workers. In addition to my oral histories, the Farm Worker Documentation Project and the United Farm Worker Collections at the Walter Reuther Library provide more insight into the lives of organizers, reflecting the origins of these archives. As a web-based, English-language project, the Farm Worker Documentation Project attracted computer-savvy veterans to upload memoirs, documents, and photos and to engage in discussion online. Regarding the collections at Wayne State, most documents and recordings focus on organizers who ran the union and, to a lesser extent, the farm workers who benefited from their activities. This is not to say that farm workers’ voices are absent or that worker opinions are not available. Nevertheless, a systematic collection of oral histories and documents from farm workers during the heyday of the UFW remains to be done.19
These limitations notwithstanding, From the Jaws of Victory conveys a tale of hope, triumph, and disappointment that will be useful to anyone who has harbored the goal of bringing justice to this world.
The book is organized into a balanced focus on the United Farm Workers before and after the historic grape contracts in 1970. Chapter 1 explores the many activists who revived an effort to end rural poverty in California and explains how Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers emerged as the leader of this new movement. Chapter 2 examines the evolution of the boycott as the primary tool for the union and the many tactics employed by boycott volunteers to make it effective. In chapter 3, the conditions that contributed to the signing of the first UFW contracts for grape workers, including the efforts of boycott volunteers on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, are explored. Chapter 4 considers the changes in the U.S. economy and the policies President Richard Nixon employed to expand the “free trade” of California’s agricultural bounty. This policy included encouraging the Teamsters to organize farm workers in an attempt to divide (and conquer) the farm labor movement. Chapter 5 examines the UFW’s decision to enlist the support of California’s state government in regulating labor relations through