Chávez was born near Yuma, Arizona. During the Great Depression, his family lost their farm and became migrant farm workers, moving from one place to another in search of work. Chávez was raised in migrant worker camps. Since his family never stayed in one place for very long, Chávez attended over thirty different schools and was able to achieve only a seventh grade education.
EARLY LIFE
Chávez was born near Yuma, Arizona. During the Great Depression, his family lost their farm and became migrant farm workers, moving from one place to another in search of work. Chávez was raised in migrant worker camps. Since his family never stayed in one place for very long, Chávez attended over thirty different schools and was able to achieve only a seventh grade education.
LIFE AS A FARM WORKER
Life for migrant farm workers was incredibly difficult. They toiled in the hot sun for hours picking beans, peas, grapes, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes, cotton, and other crops. Sometimes they were paid fifty cents for every basket they picked. At the end of the day, some farm owners subtracted money from the laborers' pay for any water they drank while in the fields. At night, farm workers were often forced to sleep in run-down shacks or in their cars if they could not afford a room.
FIGHTING FOR EQUAL RIGHTS
From 1952 until 1962, Chávez worked for the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights group. In 1962 Chávez founded a farmworkers union. He hoped the union would provide field workers with better working and living conditions and change labor laws to give farmworkers more rights. Chávez started recruiting members, registering farmworkers to vote, and trying to get better temporary housing, increased wages, and clean drinking water and field toilets.
CHANGES FOR WORKERS
In 1965 Chávez led 2,000 migrant workers on a strike in to demand better wages for wine-grape pickers in Delano, California. In 1966 he led a 340-mile march from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento. In 1968 Chávez called on consumers to stop buying grapes grown in California to put more pressure on the growers. This boycott became one of the most successful in U.S. history.
In 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act. This law, the first of its kind in the United States, guaranteed farmworkers in California the right to join unions and bargain as a group. It also protected farmworkers from unfair labor practices.
RECOGNITION FOR WORK
Chávez died in his sleep in 1993. In 1994 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In 2000, the state of California declared March 31, Chávez’s birthday, an official state holiday.