The historic visit of Barack Obama to La Paz and the dedication of the Cesar Chavez monument as a national historic site is important. It is covered in many news stories, including here:
http://www.csmonitor.com/...
Unfortunately the writer Amanda Paulson in the Christian Science Monitor is poorly informed on the role of Chavez and the UFW on immigration. She repeats the right wing view that Chavez was anti immigrant. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Both CNN and USA Today cover the dedication today.
Among the more contested issues raised by Paulson and by Barnacke in Trampling Out the Vintage, is the view of the UFW’s relationships with undocumented workers in 1975 period, the so called “Wet Line. This is the same argument being made today by various anti immigrant militia groups , Tea Party advocates and posted on Wikipedia . I tried for a couple of weeks to correct the Wikipedia source but others regularly changed it back. The post cites sources, but the sources only acknowledge a conflict, they do not support the assertion of anti immigrant behavior.
I prefer Bert Corona’s view. Bert was a leading voice on immigration issues and organized undocumented workers in the organization Hemandad Mexicana. He was also a friend of mine, and we worked together on immigration issues. Although critical of the UFW policy, Bert never took the highly destructive view that the militia advocates promote today. There were disputes over issues, and errors were made but remember the context, which Bert for one did. The UFW was losing the strike as strikers were replaced by with undocumented workers crossing a border and a picket line to work in struck fields. These undocumented workers, who knew little or nothing about the UFW or the long, violent, bitter and costly strike they were breaking, were nonetheless breaking a strike on a movement for justice and equality.
Chavez was not anti immigrant. Indeed, from its founding the UFW was an organization that worked to improve the lives of immigrants. Helping workers to get legal status was a major part of the work. The case cited was not about immigrants, it was about strike breakers.
Ultimately in 1975 the UFW convention took a formal position to organize the undocumented and to allow them to vote in elections as a part of the California Agricultural Relations Act. That is the official UFW position on the undocumented.
Bill Fletcher Jr. in his new book, “They’re Bankrupting Us” and 20 other myths about Unions, Beacon Press, 2012, says
.
“ It’s important to appreciate that this attack, underway for decades, began anew when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980. Prior to Reagan’s victory, there were individuals and factions within the Republican Party that accepted at least some elements of the New Deal Reforms of the 1930’s, and generally, if grudgingly, accepted the existence of labor unions. What changed with Reagan was the Republican philosophy on the economy and, with that, the approach taken toward labor unions.
What Reagan, Reaganism, and what came ultimately to be know as “neoliberalism” represented was a complete rejection of the role of government as an instrument for the fair distribution of wealth in order to address the unfortunate, the unemployed, the under employed, and the disregarded. “
Writers need to know that The rise and the decline of the UFW was 1968-1980 in California , bracketing Ronald Reagan's role first as governor and then as President.
Reagan crafted and fashioned his assault on labor through his campaign against the UFW and in favor of the growers. The tools of the assault, and the ideological battles were developed and tested against the UFW before Reagan became a viable candidate.
Distorted views of UFW history are not helpful.