Many people (especially those who do not live in or near California's agricultural promise lands) simply do not understand what terrible living and working conditions agricultural workers have suffered under for so many years immigrants. Many of these workers didn't know there was an alternative. Many were happy to get this job, even for a wage as low as thirty-five cents an hour, and paid for their housing; a tent. That is until a man named Cesar Chavez came along. Chavez, by many, is considered the Moses of West Coast migrant farm workers. At the risk of his personal safety, as well as that of his family, Mr. Chavez fought the boss, as the mostly white farm owners and supervisors are known, and organized these repressed workers under one name, United Farm Workers Union; perhaps the best-known trade union story of the twentieth century. So how did it evolve? First, let's show the story of Cesar Chavez. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Chavez, a product of Depression-era migrant childhood, knew what suffering was. He grew up mostly in Arizona. His grandparents fled the feudal hacienda system in Mexico; basically a system of indentured servitude, where the peons who were at the lowest rung of the country's economic system and worked all their lives for the lords of the large farms. In the late 1880s they fled this system and crossed the Rio Grande. His grandfather managed to find work in the mines of Arizona and saved enough money to purchase a plot of land. His father, Librado, was one of the Chavezes who remained in Yuma, Arizona, to raise his family and take care of the family farm. The Chavez family prospered until the great stock market crash in 1929, and since Librado owed money on the land he had purchased, the land was purchased by another farmer, who also owned the bank where Librado's loan had been made. da.The destruction of the family farm left an indelible mark on Cesar Chavez, this seems to have brought out his rebellious side. The family packed their bags and left for California, like many other migrants; to pick tomatoes, plums, melons, berries, grapes, cotton, or whatever they could get by paying a few cents to pick. It was necessary for everyone to work to put food on the table; kids would catch snippets of school between trips. In the winter of 1939, Cesar and his family lived in a soggy tent, working to pick peas for pennies an hour. Migrant workers during these times were treated among the worst in the history of this country. John Steinbeck, the author, branded the California elite as heartless by saying that no one complains about having to feed a horse when it is not working. But we complain about feeding the men and women who work our lands. I could go on for pages about how these migrant farm workers were mistreated and some of the atrocities committed. However, I will now time travel to Cesar's actual work in giving these workers what they deserve. After a stint in the Navy, Cesar saw that others were also suffering prejudice and discrimination; blacks and Filipinos couldn't get beyond cooking or painting crews, Mexican-Americans couldn't get beyond sailors, etc. The Navy even offered him his first visit to a real doctor! His first, of many, run-ins with the law was after his discharge from the Navy, he went to a movie theater.