Just to show you how revered United Farm Workers (UFW) co-founder Cesar Chavez was among leftists, The New York Times made sure to include the following note at the top of an explosive article that alleges he sexually abused underage girls in his movement:
The reporters interviewed several women who told their stories for the first time, as well as more than 60 other people, including Cesar Chavez’s top aides and relatives. The reporters also reviewed hundreds of pages of union records, confidential emails, photographs and other material.
In other words, Democrats, please don’t hate us. We really did our homework on this one.
The accusations come from two of the alleged victims themselves, one who was 12 when she said the sexual abuse started. The other alleged victim quoted in the piece was 13 when she says Chavez sexually abused her:
Ana Murguia remembers the day the man she had regarded as a hero called her house and summoned her to see him. She walked along a dirt trail, entered the rundown building, passed his secretary and stepped into his office.
He locked the door, as he always did when he called her, and told her how lonely he had been. He brought her onto the yoga mat that he often used in his office for meditation, kissed her and pulled her pants down. “Don’t tell anyone,” he told her afterward. “They’d get jealous.”
The man, Cesar Chavez, one of the most revered figures in the Latino civil rights movement, was 45. She was 13. Ms. Murguia said she was summoned for sexual encounters with him dozens of times over the next four years.
[…]Ms. Murguia and Ms. [Debra] Rojas, both of whom are now 66, were the daughters of longtime organizers who had marched in rallies alongside Mr. Chavez. He used the privacy of his California office to frequently molest Ms. Murguia, she said. He had known her since she was 8 years old. She became so traumatized that she attempted to end her life multiple times by the age of 15.
Rojas was 12 when she says the abuse, which included raping her, started. Murguia said that Chavez molested her, but that he did not rape her.
Victims say they were discouraged from speaking up so as not to tarnish Chavez’s legacy:
On top of it all, Dolores Huerta, who also co-founded the UFW and was an instrumental ally to Chavez, shared a statement on Wednesday, alleging that he raped her, too:
I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.
I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.
As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.
I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.
Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.
Huerta, who had four children with Chavez’s brother, Richard, said she kept quiet about it because in her view the movement was bigger than her sexual assault:
I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way. I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.
“Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement,” she also stated.
The fallout, the Times noted, has already started:
The U.F.W. canceled its annual celebrations honoring Mr. Chavez, a response to what the union he once led called “profoundly shocking” accusations.
Marches to honor Mr. Chavez were called off in Austin, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and elsewhere. Officials in multiple states said they would consider renaming the scores of streets and schools named in his honor. “None of us knew,” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said on Wednesday, noting that he planned to discuss with legislators whether to rename Cesar Chavez Day on March 31.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has already taken action:
The state of Texas will not observe the Cesar Chavez Day holiday. I am directing all Texas state agency heads to comply. In the upcoming legislative session, I will work with Texas lawmakers to remove Cesar Chavez Day from state law altogether.Reports of the horrific and widely acknowledged sexual assault allegations against Cesar Chavez rightfully dismantle the myth of this progressive hero and undermine the narrative that elevated Chavez as a figure worthy of official state celebration.
California Globe editor in chief Katy Grimes, however, says something’s not quite right about all of this:
A few thoughts – I covered thousands of non-union farm workers for 15 years, who the UFW was trying to force unionization on.It’s been an open secret that Cesar Chavez was a serial womanizer.Dolores Huerta has been a card-carrying UFW zealot and opportunist for decades. If this is true, why didn’t she reveal this when Chavez died in 1993, 33 years ago? And wasn’t Richard Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s brother father of her four children, her long-term partner?The timing is suspect, and that the story was fed to the NYT even more suspect.I smell a big ugly rat. Something isn’t as it seems…
As always, stay tuned.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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