Cesar Chavez Unmasked

Facts always get in the way of myths. Cesar Chavez is a good example. Here was a rather vicious man, yet the world thinks he did wonders. His followers are still true believers—yet even they support the myth not the man:

So, the federal government will spend countless tax dollars to seek out Cesar Chavez-connected sites for inclusion in the National Parks System ("Law orders search for Chavez landmarks," May 27). Will they include the many fields and buildings that were torched or burned by Chavez and his followers during their years of "nonviolence"? Will they mark the spots where Chavez looked the other way when heads were smashed because field workers did not go along with him?

That man, a man not to be respected and honored, is the one I recall from my years growing up in the agriculturally rich Coachella Valley.

My father worked at a box-making company and packing houses. We were not rich; we did not own the companies. My parents worked hard for every penny they received. I recall many late-night phone calls. On several occasions, my sister and I went with my dad to see the blazing infernos that were once his places of business. Now, they were ash piles after the "nonviolent" UFW members got through with them. Many people were out of work because of their tactics - many people who had no quarrel previously with the UFW. Now, though, there was no sympathy, no support - only anger.

Ironically, Cesar Chavez was one of the first to argue and fight illegal aliens, yet now the next generation of Chavez followers are supporters of illegal aliens. What is now forgotten is how Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers were the first "Minutemen". Actually, that's not fair, they were far more violent than the utterly peaceful Minutemen, who use nothing more than 2-way and CB radios. Not only did Chavez and his goons regularly patrol the border and were vigilant about reporting illegal aliens to law enforcement, they also beat them up when they caught them.

Why? For the very sensible reason that these laborers were undermining wages for US born Mexican American farmworkers, just as illegal aliens today undermine wages for American workers in the building trades and other service sector industries.

But somewhere, "La Causa" of better wages and working conditions took a backseat to "La Raza" attempts to import a new lumpenproletariat, of which the radical communists in academia hoped (and still hope) to be the vanguard. And so the legend of Cesar Chavez was reinvented, or should I say fabricated. A strong-arm brawler who was really another Jimmy Hoffa now has his picture featured at pro-alien rallies with the stupid slogan "No One Is Illegal". That is certainly not a sentiment Cesar Chavez shared in his heyday.