In celebration, a few selected quotes from the words of Cesar Chávez for your enjoyment:
“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”
“Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.”
“I remember with strong feelings the families who joined our movement and paid dues long before there was any hope of winning contracts. 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.”
“We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.”
“To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.”
“Non-violence is not inaction. It is not discussion. It is not for the timid or weak… Non-violence is hard work.”
“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.”
Much gratitude to a great man.
Cesar was one of the few, at the time, who complained about the horrors of Illegal Immigration and the tragic results on American workers. Illegals nearly ruined his union.