{"id":38457,"date":"2014-03-31T19:14:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T02:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panna.org\/news\/cesar-chavez-parent-pesticide-activist\/"},"modified":"2023-01-12T10:19:29","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T18:19:29","slug":"cesar-chavez-parent-pesticide-activist","status":"publish","type":"pan_blog","link":"https:\/\/www.panna.org\/news\/cesar-chavez-parent-pesticide-activist\/","title":{"rendered":"Cesar Chavez: Parent & pesticide activist"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I cross Cesar Chavez Avenue on my way to work each morning, I’m greeted by murals with the visionary labor organizer’s portrait. When I reach the PAN office, he smiles down at me from a poster hanging prominently in the hall.<\/p>\n

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Update: Be sure to see the new Cesar Chavez biopic, in theaters around the country now. Released in conjuction with Farmworker Awareness Week, it will inspire viewers to support better worker protections<\/a> <\/a>and pledge to support responsibly grown food<\/a>. See the film, then take action \u2014Viva La Causa!<\/em><\/p>\n

Originally posted March 28, 2013.<\/em><\/p>\n

As I cross Cesar Chavez Avenue on my way to work each morning, I’m greeted by murals with the visionary labor organizer’s portrait. When I reach the PAN office, he smiles down at me from a poster hanging prominently in the hall.<\/p>\n

This week marks the 14th<\/sup> annual National Farmworker Awareness<\/a> celebrations, and I\u2019ve been contemplating the Chavez legacy. We know that as a parent as well as an activist, he shared our concerns about how pesticides harm children<\/a> through the food they eat, the water they drink and the air they breathe.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing we care more about,\u201d he once said about farmworkers, \u201cthan the lives and safety of our families.\u201d Chavez knew the life of a migrant worker first-hand. At one point his family lived in a San Jose community known as Sal Si Puedes<\/em> \u2014\u201cGet Out If You Can.\u201d<\/p>\n

After attending over 30 different schools, he began working in the fields instead of going to high school. As is still true for thousands of youth today, Chavez was poorly paid to work in dangerous conditions. He dedicated his life to the movement that since popularized the more uplifting slogan, Si Se Puede<\/em> \u2014\u201cYes, We Can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPesticides & farmworker children<\/h3>\n

Organized farmworkers were among the first to draw the country\u2019s attention to the harms of pesticides.<\/p>\n

Under the leadership of Chavez, Dolores Huerta<\/a>, Baldemar Velasquez<\/a> and other union organizers, farmworkers helped outlaw DDT and other hazardous pesticides. They talked about the dangers of pesticide drift, and got consumers wondering about pesticide residues on their foods. These chemicals, Chavez warned, could \u201cchoke out the life of our people and also the life system that supports us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the father of seven, Chavez was heartbroken by the impact pesticides had on children. His 1988 “Fast for Life<\/a>” protest was inspired in part by the clusters of birth defects and deaths in farmworker communities in California\u2019s San Joaquin Valley. Residents suspected that the water in these rural areas had been poisoned by pesticides.<\/p>\n

\n\tHonor a hero by making change<\/h3>\n

So when I see his sad smile in PAN’s poster, I think Chavez would be deeply disappointed that today, 20 years after his passing, we are still fighting to remove hazardous chemicals like atrazine<\/a> and methyl bromide<\/a> from our fields. But he would be glad to know that the farmworker movement is still vibrant, and that these unions and allies have been core PAN partners since our earliest days.<\/p>\n

Here are three things you can do today to honor the legacy of the man who Robert F. Kennedy called \u201cone of the heroic figures of our time\u201d:<\/p>\n