![\"Senator](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773783978_480_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nThe United Farmer Workers union said it will not participate in celebrations of its founder Cesar Chavez amid what the union described as \u201ctroubling allegations\u201d against the iconic Chicano figure.<\/p>\n
The union, in a statement released Tuesday, did not detail the accusations against Chavez but said they were concerning enough for the organization to take action. But several events around the country honoring Chavez including events in Tuscon, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and San Bernardino have been canceled in recent weeks, with little explanation given by organizers.<\/p>\n
The news comes two weeks before Cesar Chavez Day, observed March 31 \u2014 its namesake\u2019s birthday \u2014 in California since 2000. Many city halls close in observance, schools take time to teach children about Chavez\u2019s legacy and many community groups use the day for efforts like organizing, rallies and clean-ups.<\/p>\n
Local organizers in Los Angeles haven\u2019t announced whether they will cancel their events. <\/p>\n
The claims against Chavez \u201care incompatible with our organization\u2019s values. Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on. Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors. Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing. We have not received any direct reports, and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations,\u201d the union said.<\/p>\n
Canceling events, the union said, would \u201cprovide space for people who may have been victimized to find support and to share their stories if that is what they choose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chavez is a towering national figure credited with organizing and raising the lives of migrant farm workers in California and beyond and giving voice to the struggles of Mexican Americans.<\/p>\n
Bursting into national prominence in the mid-1960s in the San Joaquin Valley, Chavez galvanized public support on behalf of them after organizing community groups across Central and Southern California. For decades, agricultural laborers had lived in substandard housing and were paid terrible wages. Efforts to organize migrant laborers were usually crushed violently by farmers and local law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Chavez and his associates joined a grape picker\u2019s strike in 1965 launched by Filipino organizers centered around Delano, the heart of California\u2019s table grape crop. Those early years were marked by bitter and sometimes brutal incidents involving picketing farm workers who screamed \u201cHuelga! \u201c \u2014 \u201cStrike!\u201d\u2014and growers who vowed never to give in to Chavez and his movement.<\/p>\n
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Senator Robert Kennedy Cesar Chavez as Chavez ended a 25-day fast<\/p>\n
(Bettmann \/ Bettmann Archive)<\/p>\n
That eventually transformed into a boycott that earned international attention. Chavez, drawing on his Catholic faith, fasted for 25 days <\/a>in 1968 to draw attention to the violence swirling around the effort, ending it by sharing bread with then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Two years later, the UFW was able to secure contracts for over 10,000 grape pickers.<\/p>\n Those successes made Chavez an almost mythic figure. The UFW flag \u2014 a stylized black Aztec eagle on a red flag \u2014 became synonymous with the Chicano movement that was emerging at the same time. Posters and murals featuring Chavez\u2019s beatific brown face sprouted in the Southwest and beyond. He traveled across the United States espousing his philosophy of non-violence, union and dignity for farm workers. <\/p>\n A 1983 poll of Latinos by The Times <\/a>found Chavez to be the most admired leader.<\/p>\n But Chavez\u2019s legacy became increasingly tarnished as the years went on. Labor victories became fewer and fewer. His fierce criticism of illegal immigration \u2014 Chavez argued that they undercut his unionization efforts \u2014 put him at odds with immigration activists. A 2006 Times investigation detaile<\/a>d how dozens of former associates and workers left the UFW because of what they described as Chavez\u2019s increasingly autocratic ways.<\/p>\n Cesar Chavez talks to striking Salinas Valley farmworkers<\/p>\n (SAKUMA\/ASSOCIATED PRESS)<\/p>\n When the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decided to rename Brooklyn Avenue in East Los Angeles and Boyle Height to Cesar Chavez Avenue in honor of the labor leader in 1993 many in the community opposed it<\/a> citing the economic burden businesses would undergo to update their addresses and the erasure of the community\u2019s history on the street. <\/p>\n Yet his standing among Latinos nationwide was such that schools, streets and parks were renamed in his honor in the years after his death in 1993. In 2012, President Barack Obama went to tiny Keene, California \u2014 where Chavez had set up both his home and the operational headquarters of the United Farm Workers \u2014 to dedicate the C\u00e9sar E. Ch\u00e1vez National Monument.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear the source of the new allegations or when they might become public. But there have rumbling for weeks among activists that something about Chavez was coming. <\/p>\n A Corpus Christi march was called off last week after labor leader Dolores Huerta withdrew, the San Antonio Express-News reported<\/a>. <\/p>\n Huerta is not commenting on this issue at this time, said Eric Olvera, spokesperson for Huerta. <\/p>\n The UFW was vague about the claims but suggested they were serious enough for extreme action.<\/p>\n \u201cThese allegations have been profoundly shocking. We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Cesar](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773783980_180_.jpeg\")
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