Cesar Chavez didn’tchase his own “dream,” the proudly stated goal of self-interested folksnowadays, but pursued a more fulfilling calling: justice for people who had none.Specifically: the farm workers of California, the people who bend over and pickthe lettuce for our salads and the grapes for our domestic wine. In the early1960s when Chavez began organizing them into what became the United FarmWorkers, the workers were paid little, lived in shacks and in fear of steppingout of line.
Michael Pena starsin the 2014 film Cesar Chavez (out onBlu-ray and DVD). The screenplay by Keir Pearson and Timothy J. Sexton isstructured as a blueprint for social action. In their telling, Chavez returns asa union organizer to the fields where he once worked at age 11 and findsnothing has changed. Entire families toil in the hot sun under the watchfuleyes of the growers and local police. Chavez allies his Chicano workers withstriking Filipino field hands (overcoming divisions) while invoking deep-seatedcultural motifs and religious faith among his own people. Mariachi bands accompanyprotests led by banners of the Virgin Mary. When the sheriff accuses them of beingCommunists, Chavez laughs, “We’re Catholics.”
Trying to thwartviolent retaliation against the violence of their employers, Chavez favoredlarge-scale civil disobedience, playing to the media and using leaflets to getout the message in an age before the Internet. He was able to find supportamong other labor unions and the general public, mobilizing church and civil rightsgroups in his cause while calling for boycotts of growers who refused tobargain. As is often the case in two-hour historical dramas, the screenplaysimplifies events while trying to remain true to the overall spirit of whatoccured. John Malkovich is outstanding, investing one of the story’s villainswith his usual knife’s edge, sophisticated cynicism.
