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Cesar was born in Arizona and lived there until he was 11.
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During the years 1927-1938 Cesar lived with his grandparents, siblings and parents in a small farm. They raised chickens and grew their own crops but it was still hard for them to eke out a living.
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By the year 1938, the Chavez family went broke. To survive, the family had to leave their home and find a job. They traveled from place to place, following the California crops.
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The Chavez family was living in wretched cabins at the labor camps. The vile conditions were very unsanitary and many tragically lost their lives. The working conditions were terrible. They worked with dangerous equipment and deadly chemicals. And growers were still refusing to pay migrant workers fair wages.
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During 1938-1942, Cesar attended to more than 30 schools during the ages of 11-15. He dropped out of school in 8th grade because of his fathers' accident and had to support his family at work.
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At the age of 21 Cesar got married to a women named Helen. Later on Cesar became a father of eight kids.
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After working in the fields, Cesar was able to find a modest job and became a staff member at the Community Service Organization. The organization's purpose was to protect the civil rights of Mexican Americans.
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Cesar had about enough of the injustice towards migrant workers. He even stopped working at the one job that provided him with good stake. He wanted to dedicate his life to fight for migrants' rights, and because of that he had to sacrifice many belongings.
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In the beginning of the year 1962 Cesar had traveled 15,000 miles seeking for workers with the intention of fighting for justice. In 1965 his union was officially founded and named United Farm Workers.
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Together Cesar's union accompanied with the public's support, boycotted the grapes and protested. The event would end until the growers negotiated with the union.
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Cesar was a peaceful person and never used violence, until the members were tired of the farmers not listening to them. They were thinking about on killing one of the farmers. Before things got out of hand, on December of 1967, Cesar went on a fast that lasted 25 days until January of 1968. As a result, the members were reunited and they were more committed on making a change without violence.
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The growers had finally succumbed and were obligated to accept the migrants. The farmers signed the first union contracts with the workers and justice was made for Mexican American migrants.
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Cesar's feud with the grape growers wasn't over yet. In fall of October 1970, the farmers were starting to get aggressive and had sprayed pesticides on the strikers.
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Cesar Chavez is recognized as an non-violent activist that fought for the rights of Mexican American Migrant workers. Overall, he had reached his goal in improving wages and working conditions for migrant workers. Cesar Estrada Chavez peacefully passed away in his sleep on April 23, 1993 at age of 66 near Yuma, Arizona, a short distance from the small family farm where he was born.
