In the Fields of REFORM : One Man’s Cause

I remember the middle-aged man with the Indian face, the short man in shirt sleeves, so often surrounded in public by politicians and movie stars. Even then-- in the 1960s--when Cesar Chavez was the most famous Mexican-American anybody could name, he courted irrelevance. Mexican-Americans (90% of us) are people of the city. Mexican-Americans are more apt to work at construction sites than in the fields.

In the ‘70s, Chavez was outmaneuvered by the Teamsters Union and by Sacramento politicians and perhaps by his own intractability. He was criticized in the liberal press for his inability to administer the United Farm Workers union he fought so hard to organize.

This summer Chavez has asked consumers not to buy, not to eat table grapes. As he has done before, Chavez went on a hunger strike--a moral tantrum. His age, his frailty made the tactic reckless. The world press issued bulletins on his deteriorating condition--it was likely he was experiencing hallucinations; his kidneys might shut down. This summer Chavez has been protesting the use of dangerous pesticides, dangerous to men and women in the fields, dangerous to consumers. This summer, as before, his cause has been just, his tactic desperate.

At the grocer’s last week, I asked the man in the green apron if anyone had protested his display of grapes: “You’re the first.”

Last Sunday, Chavez created from denial--from nothing!--an international event. He would break his fast. For however long it would take the media to digest such an event, Delano was the moral center of the world, the throne of the lamb.

I saw hot-air balloons bobbling northeast above the valley floor as I drove south from San Francisco and I saw the lovely peregrinations of crop-dusting planes in the morning light. By the time I got to Delano, the morning was hot. A huge white tent--a circus tent, a revival tent, a pall--was raised over a parking lot at the union’s compound. The place had the look of New Jerusalem, and yet without pleasance--more like a Red Cross station. The tent was full of people sitting on folding chairs. A Mass would be celebrated in thanksgiving for the breaking of the fast. An altar was prepared in the western nave--of the tent. I was late. A woman’s voice over the loudspeaker--better heard in the parking lot than within the tent--was confiding a hagiography: “Cesar’s condition”; details of the fast; comments relayed from Cesar’s doctor. Three or four TV satellite trucks were parked to the north of the tent, generators humming. To the south, beyond waving shadows of trees thrown down upon the tent, were carnival booths--cold drinks and “Veggie Tamales.”

Through the microphone: “Cesar has asked, when he comes, he wants no applause. And, please, everyone stay seated.”

As I circled the outside of the tent for a place to stand, I noticed some men running, other men pressing the crowd toward the tent in dumb show--not touching but gesturing. I saw three or four cars approaching slowly through reels of dust. As near as I am to the table on which I am writing, I saw him through the window of an old green car. He was cradled upon the arm of someone in the back seat. Oh. His head lolling to the side, his eyes closed, his mouth open as if in sleep or in death. A doll. A sick child. The lamb of God. The car turned the corner of the tent as, through the microphone, the crowd inside the tent was cautioned of his coming: Shhhh. Shhhhh.

It is possible to see Chavez as the victim of his own strategy, forced to play out his most public persona. If he were my father, I think I might hate him; I would resent his not being mine. If I were a farmer I would rue the moral dramas he staged at my expense. If I were a farm worker, I might be lured by the better deal. As it was, I only wanted to hold him, protect him from the spectacle he had made.

Most of us--in the tent, outside the tent--could not see him during the Mass. He was somewhere in front, with the invisible movie stars and the invisible politicians. Outside, little boys climbed trees to see. The Mass began.

There were several priests. There was a choir. Catholic Mexico made a people of rituals and symbols.

Through the microphone: “Cesar is wearing a green linen shirt to honor the Filipino workers in the fields . . . .”

Indian Mexico found the tragic furrow within Spanish Catholicism. “FAST FOR LIFE” was the sign over the altar, both orthodox in its Catholicism and Mexican in its sensibility.

I confess that when I first watched Chavez from afar, in the ‘60s, I was embarrassed by him. He seemed too long-suffering, downcast--too Mexican. Defeat is the constant theme of Mexico. Conquered Mexico. Raped, diminished Mexico . . . . Lose a battle in Mexico and Mexico will raise a statue in your honor; an old joke.

During Mass, people around me sat, as Mexicans do, oblivious of one another. Spectators were taking slugs of Pepsi Light. There were not only Mexican faces. A young woman in front of me took off her shoes and put her feet on an empty chair. Two women in straw hats yakked and yakked and abruptly got up and left. To my right, a Mexican family sang all the songs, enunciated the prayers. The Mexican faces seemed, most of them, faces of poverty. Chavez faces. Indian faces. They sat in their chairs passive and patient of the ritual pace from the altar; they were not surprised or impressed by TV cameras or celebrities flown in from Hollywood or from Washington. For years Chavez has magnified their lives. Once again the world had come to Delano.

Say it was a media event. Or say here was simple moral grandstanding, vainglorious. But here was also a Mass, a great medieval cathedral risen from a field in California. An old Mexican floated a banner among the aisles ceaselessly: VIVA LA VIRGIN Y VIVA CESAR CHAVEZ.

For Chavez, as for his critics, the intersection of religion and political action has been the problem. Central Valley growers resented processions of nuns and the holy banners--attempts to introduce religious themes into labor negotiations. For his part, Chavez could not bring his spiritual longing to rest in bureaucracy. Chavez was a failure in Sacramento among politicians and landowners. He did what he could. He did what prophets do. He said what nobody wanted to hear. But he never became a spokesman for the epic story of his generation--the northern migration of millions from Mexico and Central America. These would pass Chavez by like an urgent tide. The prophet would see himself as the leader of a particular union. The contest was reduced to an acre, with a supermarket chain for an unwilling Goliath.

In any political history of Mexican-Americans, other names should figure as prominently. Willie Velasquez, for example. Valasquez died of cancer this year; he organized the Southwest Voter Registration Project that registered millions. Willie Velasquez will not be famous.

“If only Chavez would leave those damn grapes,” an East Coast foundation man remarked at dinner the other night.

Try reasoning with a hero. Just try. Chavez appealed to the imaginations of many Mexican-Americans precisely because he led a small band--a shepherd; precisely because he hoisted banners of the Virgin Mary; most because he was a political failure--impolitic.

When I think of Chavez, I think of my own parents and their respect for him which is securely held and will not diminish. His authority is spiritual, not political. It is priestly, very large and useless.

Was Chavez even aware of the progress of the Mass? The pace. The heat. How would he stand it? Was he lying down or sitting up? The gospel was too easily ironic: The miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes.

We finally knew where the body of Chavez was placed. At the conclusion of the Mass, his grandchildren presented him with balloons, one balloon for each day of his fast--36 balloons. We saw the balloons.

In the papers the next day, there were photos of Chavez and Ethel Kennedy under the headline: CHAVEZ ENDS FAST AMID CELEBRITIES.

That is not what I saw. I saw people in the tent. I saw people who consented to the sacrifice of a man they couldn’t see, for a cause they might not own. The prophet was protesting pesticides. But people came because Chavez had told them long ago, taught them--like a priest teaches--that life is a struggle, that man accepts and endures suffering, that failures are more human than success. The idea of Chavez hovered above the heads of the crowd, unfettered by any cause. I saw the sign on the altar that said FAST FOR LIFE.

After Mass, boys passed through the aisles and among the people collecting empty aluminum soft drink cans. They filled many plastic bags.