Tomorrow, March 31, is Cesar Chavez Day. Why does California celebrate it? What is Chavez’s legacy?

“In 2004, the Bakersfield Californian reported that most farm workers in the fields have never heard of Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers Union. The union’s health and pension plans each reported less than 3,500 contributing workers in a state which has, seasonally, from 350,000 to 700,000 workers in its fields and orchards. Less than 2% of the state’s agricultural workers are protected by a Farm Workers contract at any given time.

Of the union’s claims to have “won basic, humane treatment for the campesinos,” the LA Weekly’s Marc Cooper, writing in 2005, said, “nothing could be further from the truth.” “

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