César E. Chávez Labor Quotes

chavez

“The road to social justice for the farm workers is the road to unionization. Our cause, our strike against table grapes and our international boycott are all founded upon our deep conviction that the form of collective self-help which is unionization holds far more hope for the farm worker than any other single approach, whether public or private. This conviction is what brings spirit, high hope and optimism to everything we do.”

“We know what unions have done for other people. We have seen it and we have studied and we have cherished the idea of unionism. We have seen the history and development of unions in this country and we tell the growers that we want nothing more, but that we want our own union and we are going to fight for it as long as it takes.”

“…So they are trying to do something about it. They are not doing it by seeking charity. They are not begging at the welfare office. They are not, like many of their employers, lobbying the halls of Congress with their gold plated tin cups asking to be paid for not growing crops. They are trying to do it in the way that millions of other Americans have shown is the right way-organization, unionism, collective bargaining.

“If they had $2.00 for food, they had to give $1.00 to the union. Otherwise, they would never get out of the trap of poverty. They would never have a union because they couldn’t afford to sacrifice a little bit more on top of their misery.”

“In the no-nonsense school of adversity, which we did not choose for ourselves, we are learning how to operate a labor union.”

“The consumer boycott is the only open door in the dark corridor of nothingness down which farm workers have had to walk for many years. It is a gate of hope through which they expect to find the sunlight of a better life for themselves and their families.”

“…many have the idea that organizing people is very difficult, but it isn’t. It becomes difficult only at the point where you begin to see other things that are easier. But if you are willing to give the time and make the sacrifice, it’s not that difficult to organize.”

“I think one of the great, great problems…is confusing people to the point where they become immobile. In fact, the more things people can find out for themselves, the more vigor the organization is going to have.”

“Money is not going to organize the disadvantaged, the powerless, or the poor. We need other weapons. That’s why the War on Poverty is such a miserable failure. You put out a big pot of money and all you do is fight over it. Then you run out of money and you run out of troops.”

“Organizing is an educational process. The best educational process in the union is the picket line and the boycott. You learn about life.”

“The life of the union depends upon more people getting to share the limelight, because with the limelight also comes responsibility and with the responsibility comes a little sharing of the load.” “There isn’t enough money to organize poor people. There never is enough money to organize anyone. If you put it on the basis of money, you’re not going to succeed.”

“We are organizers at heart. Most of us in the movement take great pride in being able to put things together.”

“We’re going to pray a lot and picket a lot.”

“For a long time we didn’t know how to put that work together into an organization. But we learned after a while- we learned how to help people by making them responsible. Today it’s the same principle with the Union. And it works. We don’t get everybody, but we get enough to get that nucleus. I think solving problems for people is the only way to build solid groups.”

“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”

“The people united will never be defeated.”

“You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.”

“Because we have suffered, and we are not afraid to suffer in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything — even our lives — in our struggle for justice.”

“We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.”

“When a man or woman, young, or old, takes a place on the picket line for even a day or two, he will never be the same again.”

“It’s amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn.”

“There’s no turning back…We will win. We are winning because ours is a revolution of mind and heart…”

“Sometimes, fathers and mothers would take money out of their meager food budgets just because they believed that farm workers could and must build their own union. I remember thinking then that with spirit like that… we had to win. No force on earth could stop us.”

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…The people who give you their food give you their heart.”

“I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.”

“We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community – and this nation.”

“It’s ironic that those who till the soil, cultivate and harvest the fruits, vegetables, and other foods that fill your tables with abundance have nothing left for themselves.”

“Perhaps we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one’s life to the liberation of the brother who suffers.”

“Our opponents in the agricultural industry are very powerful and farm workers are still weak in money and influence. But we have another kind of power that comes from the justice of our cause. So long as we are willing to sacrifice for that cause, so long as we persist in non-violence and work to spread the message of our struggle, then millions of people around the world will respond from their heart, will support our efforts…and in the end we will overcome.”

“¡Si se puede!”or “Yes We Can!”

Sources:

http://laborquotes.weebly.com/c.html
http://nbclatino.com/2013/03/31/10-cesar-chavez-quotes-the-man-he-was-and-the-legacy-that-lives-on/

We thank Ignacio Andrade of MSU’s Office
for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives
for submitting the information appearing on this page

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