Cesar Chavez was a union organizer for the field workers. He realized that illegal immigrants would drive down the wages of the legal field workers and opposed illegal immigration. He was right!
The field workers that he worked for were paid minimum wages or less and worked under horrendous conditions with zero benefits or job security.
Due to illegal immigration the wage structure is still minimal or less. Illegal immigration has destroyed his work and dream. Chavez is one of the good guys. It is sad that the historical revisionists want to paint him as an advocate of illegal immigration. He was a union organizer for those that needed help and he was an American patriot.
ps
I am not a great fan of unions but in the case of Cesar Chavez’s work I am.
I'm sorry, but "one of the good guys" doesn't try to run an illegal secondary boycott. Nor does "one of the good guys" order his minions to murder his antagonists.
I had more than enough experience with Cesar Chavez and his people in the clash between Chavez' United Farm Workers and the viniculturists of California.
I ran the advertising account for a champagne brand when they first went national around 1966. My client and I were returning to the winery from dinner in a nearby town when the front windshield grew a "flower" and a bullet thudded into the carseat about six inches from my head. Ben floored the accelerator and we raced down the canyon at full speed.
There were no other shots -- none that we were aware of, anyway. When we got back to the winery, Ben shared his past few weeks of "negotiating" with Chavez and his team. Mostly, it amounted to refusing to buckle under to threats of physical or financial mayhem.
When I got back to Dallas, I found my agency's office building entrance mobbed by UFW demonstrators -- demanding me to stop the advertising campaign. They were also demonstrating at the ABC studios in NYC, where the Dick Cavett Show was recorded -- demanding that they stop running our ads. The network wanted to buckle, but that would've compromised the entire marketing effort. I negotiated a compromise -- they would run the pre-recorded ads, but they wouldn't let Cavett do any more live spots.
I spent my own week "negotiating" with these miserable SOBs who were trying to break me -- and who had actually tried to kill me, but missed.
In the absence of actual experience, I might've been able to work up a little sympathy for their plight. But they shoot at you and try to destroy your livelihood...and I'm plumb out of sympathy.
No, Chavez was NOT "one of the good guys". And his organization and tactics were those of simple thugs.
He was a complicated man, with some unattractive qualities in addition to his victories. You might want to read the article below to get a sense of that: