3 of Robert Kennedy’s Children Visit Chavez to Support Protest

Cesar Chavez’s fast in protest against the use of certain pesticides had gone largely unnoticed by the outside world until three children of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy showed up here Thursday to lend their support.

Chavez, 61, began the water-only fast at midnight July 16 to draw attention to ‘five dangerous pesticides’ that he believes can cause cancer and other health problems for farm workers and consumers alike.

Since then, amid reports that the United Farm Workers leader is growing weaker by the day, Spanish-language radio stations across the San Joaquin Valley have filled the airwaves with daily progress reports. Meanwhile, union leaders have used the the 19-day fast to step up calls for support of their 4-year-old boycott of table grapes.

Revived Memories

The arrival of the Kennedys revived memories of 1968, when Chavez ended a 25-day fast with the senator at his side and a battery of news reporters from across the nation looking on.

Chavez was visited by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Kerry Kennedy and Douglas Kennedy, whose presence drew more than 50 reporters to a press conference. The three Kennedys later marched with about 100 demonstrators outside a local supermarket that refused to take table grapes off its shelves.

Townsend, 37, told reporters: “The challenge that Cesar Chavez lays down is not simply to wait but to look within ourselves and to ask what each of us can do. And what he has asked us to do is to boycott grapes and to ask our supermarkets to stop selling grapes.” The UFW now has no contracts with table grape growers.

In the evening, Townsend and her sister, Kerry, received a standing ovation when they joined Chavez at a Mass that was attended by nearly 1,000 people at the UFW meeting hall. Many of the worshipers came in after working in nearby fields. Chavez was driven to the service and assisted into the hall by supporters. He appeared very tired as he sat in a rocking chair near an altar.

‘Most Visible Public Event’

“Since the advent of the Deukmejian-Reagan era, this is the most visible public event for the farm workers movement,” said the Rev. Wayne (Chris) Hartmire, a Presbyterian minister who was with Chavez during his previous fasts in both 1968 and 1972.

“Cesar’s sacrifice is clearly generating a tremendous amount of concern and support for the boycott,” Hartmire added, “and that is a heartening thing to see.”

Despite the current burst of publicity, the union’s fortunes have rarely sagged as low as they are today.

As it stands, the union has only 80 contracts nationwide, mostly with tree fruit, wine grape and vegetable growers, UFW officials said. Similarly, its dues-paying membership now includes about 30,000 contracted workers, compared with about 60,000 in 1978, the officials said.

The situation has led some critics to suggest that Chavez’s fast may be a desperate attempt to boost the union’s dwindling membership, contracts and, perhaps, waning popularity.

“Chavez has not been to Delano for a long time, and now it seems he came to get publicity,” said Connie Garza, 41, of nearby McFarland, who is a spokeswoman for a group organized in 1985 to counter the union’s grape boycott. “I think he is grabbing at anything he can.”

The group Garza represents, the Grape Workers and Farmers Coalition, contend that the UFW boycott has had little, if any, effect on grape sales.

But while UFW officials reluctantly admit that the union’s membership has dropped dramatically, they vehemently deny that the fast is a ploy to gain new contracts.

“We’ve heard all that before,” UFW Vice President Dolores Huerta said. “This fast is intended to focus attention on the fact that people are actually dying of cancer caused by the use of pesticides.”

The UFW attributes the unusually high number of cancer deaths among children in the agricultural community of McFarland to the use of pesticides. State investigators are still looking for the cause of the cancers, but they have found no evidence to link pesticides to the deaths.

Chavez has declined interviews with reporters since he began the fast. But in a prepared statement, he compared the use of the pesticides captan, dinoseb, methyl bromide, parathion and phosdrin to a “poisonous assault on our people, our communities and our food.”

But Jim Wells, special assistant to the Pesticide Management Division of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, argued that the chemicals are strictly controlled and that Chavez is misinformed.

“It is not a consumer issue--we don’t feel these chemicals are a hazard to the consumer,” Wells said. “As for laborers, we are still studying captan. But the other four chemicals are well-controlled, provided that workers do not pick when they are not supposed to.”

Nonetheless, even some non-union grape pickers in the Delano area expressed support for Chavez’s cause.

“We get blisters and rashes . . . real bad . . . every time we pick grapes,” said Veronica Aldaco, 21, while counting boxes of grapes in a field near downtown Delano. “We know what’s causing it, but we don’t know what the long-term effects will be.”

Chavez spent most of the day secluded near the union compound in a small room that has been barred to reporters.

One of his physicians, Fidel Huerta, said, “There is a need for hospitalization at this point--I have suggested he stop the fast.”

But he said Chavez, who has lost 20 pounds during the fast, has refused to take such advice.

“This is a spiritual thing with him,” Huerta said. “This is not a publicity stunt.”