Wathen

Books by Cindy Wathen

Remembering Cesar: The Legacy of Cesar Chavez

Introduction by Paul Chavez
Edited by Cindy Wathen
Compiled by Ann McGregor
Photographs by George Elfie Ballis
$25 ($38 Canada) Hardcover
10" x 9" • 112 pages • ISBN 1-884956-11-4

A portion of the sale of every book is donated
to the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation.

Reviews

The Los Angeles Times

"...[Remembering Cesar] reminds us of who he really was and what he really did over a lifetime of struggle....evokes Chavez both as historic figure and as shimmering symbol."

—Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

Midwest Book Review

"A fitting memorial and tribute to the man and his legacy.

Remembering Cesar is a highly recommended biographical portrait recommended for students of the American labor movement, and the continuing struggle of the American farmworker for honest recognition, fair compensation, decent working conditions, and a better life for themselves and their children."

—Midwest Book Review

About the Book

This is the first book to receive the endorsement of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation.

Quiet and unobtrusive, Cesar Chavez took on a seemingly impossible task with a simple admonition to those who doubted him. "Sí se puede" – yes, it can be done – he would insist.

Chavez was a migrant farmworker by birth and by trade. Although he was extremely well-read later in life, his formal education ended after the eighth grade. He never owned a house. He didn’t own a car. He never made more than $6,000 a year.

For more than 100 years, organizers, on the behalf of farmworkers, had been unsuccessfully trying to form a union. Chavez had a better idea; he took the battle from the few and gave it to the many: to the farmworkers themselves and to the American consumers in communities throughout the nation.

Chavez’s sharpest spear was nonviolence, his most devastating sword, the boycott. With these two weapons and an undying dedication to justice, Chavez awakened America to the plight of the migrant farmworker. In doing so, he improved the lives of thousands of farmworkers and taught important lessons about justice and self-sacrifice to countless others.

In this collection of firsthand accounts by those who knew him best, a portrait of an uncommonly complex man, both driven and focused, yet humble, empathic and exceedingly principled, emerges. The reader gains an understanding of the yoke Chavez chose to place onto his own shoulders as well as the ideals he employed to accomplish for the migrant farmworkers what many predicted would be impossible.

The more than 45 contributors range from the famous – Edward James Olmos, Henry Cisneros, Martin Sheen, Coretta Scott King, Jerry Brown, and others – to members of the Chavez family, to UFW staff, to the farmworkers themselves. Illustrated by the compelling black and white photographs of George Elfie Ballis, who began photographing the farmworker movement in the 1950s.

Copyright © 2003 Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press, Inc.

To order the book contact any bookstore or the publisher directly at:

Quill Driver Books/Word Dancer Press, Inc.
1831 Industrial Way #101
Sanger, California 93657
(559) 876-2170 • (800) 497-4909

http://www.quilldriverbooks.com

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