by Ken Butigan

"...our strikers here in Delano and those who represent us throughout the world are well trained for this struggle. They have been under the gun, they have been kicked and beaten and herded by dogs, they have been cursed and ridiculed, they have been stripped and chained and jailed, they have been sprayed with the poisons used in the vineyards; but they have been taught not to lie down and die nor flee in shame, but to resist with every ounce human endurance and spirit. To resist not with retaliation in kind but to overcome with love and compassion, with ingenuity and creativity, with hard work and long hours, with stamina and patient tenacity, with truth and public appeal, with friends and allies, with mobility and discipline, with politics and law, and with prayer and fasting..."Cesar Chavez, Good Friday, 1969

The land is rich and flat and endless, and as we leave Interstate 5, traveling east under the brilliant moonlight, I am aware with each passing mile that we are traversing holy ground.

This is California's San Joaquin Valley, the source of much of the nation's food. This fact alone would make it a sacred place. But the holiness of this region goes beyond its bounty. This land has been consecrated by the lives of those who make that abundance possible, those who have worked and lived and died here--many of them poor, many of them moving from field to field like pilgrims on an endless peregrinacion, or pilgrimage.

Most importantly, this land has been irrevocably blessed by a process set in motion thirty years ago: a decision by poor and powerless people to join together in nonviolent resistance to demand their dignity. We are human beings, they announced at that time, and we oppose intolerable working conditions, low pay, and the lack of basic respect. They then backed this declaration by launching the United Farm Workers (UFW), a movement led by Cesar Chavez that used nonviolent strikes, boycotts, fasts, education and public mobilization to spark a process of far-reaching social change.

As we drew closer to Delano--the site of Forty Acres, the original headquarters of the movement, where I would be part of a multicultural team leading a four day retreat on "Cesar Chavez's Nonviolence"--I was increasingly cognizant that we were entering a specific place (like those other places in the Deep South, in India, in the Philippines, in South Africa, and more recently in China, Eastern Europe, and Russia) where the human spirit had confronted violence and injustice with the relentless persistence of active, creative, and empowering nonviolence.

Memorial for Chavez

Shortly after Cesar Chavez' unexpected death in April 1993, members of the Franciscan Province of St. Barbara--which had worked closely with the UFW throughout the 1960s and 1970s--decided to honor this prophet of nonviolent change by holding a series of workshops on his work and vision for Latina and Latino youth from throughout California. Now, in February, 1994 I was traveling to Delano to join three other long-time workers for justice and peace in leading the first workshop: Leonardo Vilchis, an organizer at Dolores Mission, a Jesuit parish in East Los Angeles which has been addressing gang violence with nonviolent strategies; Olga Islas Seim, the director of religious education at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in San Jose; and Br. Ed Dunn, ofm, the director of the Social Concerns Committee of the St. Barbara Province.

Retreat participants included forty women and men from youth groups associated with Franciscan parishes and ministries in Sacramento, San Francisco, Oakland, Palo Alto, San Jose, the San Joaquin Valley, and Los Angeles. In addition, we were joined for the entire weekend by fifteen of the original UFW strikers, known as huelgistas (huelga is Spanish for "strike"). During our days together, the stories, insights and testimonies of these founders of the movement touched all of us deeply. At times, we felt that we were observing, and participating in, the transmission of a tradition of resistance and hope from the cultural elders to the next generation.

Over these days together, we became much more acquainted with the broad outlines of the history of this struggle--including the protracted table grape strikes and boycotts waged over these three decades--as well as specific episodes from that history. For example, one huelgista told us that it was a regular practice of the county sheriff to give large helpings of grapes to the jailed strikers and, rather than being provoked, they would set the tray of grapes aside and begin to pray! On a more serious note, they shared with us how, after two picketers were killed during the 1973 strike, the UFW ended the strike but then launched an international grape boycott, sending the huelgistas throughout the US and Canada to tell the story of the struggle, including the brutality they had faced, and to organize the next phase of the campaign.

Principles of Nonviolence

Woven throughout the weekend were a series of nonviolence principles that Cesar Chavez, echoing Gandhi and M.L. King, Jr., articulated in interviews, in writings and in the crucible of action. These included:

• Active nonviolence is rooted in the fact that human beings are gifts from God.
• Active nonviolence is a way to be neither a victim nor an oppressor.
• Active nonviolence is a way to wage conflicts in a human way.
• Active nonviolence seeks to break the cycle of escalating violence.
• Active nonviolence is a simultaneous journey inside us and outside us.
• Active nonviolence is not weak.
• Active nonviolence mobilizes "people power."
• Active nonviolence seeks the truth of the situation and firmly holds onto it.
• Active nonviolence creates a situation powerful enough to challenge injustice and to continue as long as it takes to create change.
• Active nonviolence does not seek to conquer the opponent but to overcome the injustice of the situation by creating a solution that takes into account the humanness of all.

After four days of presentations, small group discussions, role plays, videos from UFW history, reflection on our local contexts, and a series of very special moments--including a powerful ceremony at Cesar Chavez's simple grave at La Paz, the current UFW headquarters in Keene, CA--we had a sharper understanding of the work of Cesar Chavez and the continuing work of the UFW to improve the living and working conditions of millions of people.

On Sunday evening, we closed our retreat with a moving religious service. During this experience of prayer and music, the huelgistas commissioned each participant to carry on the vision and work of Cesar Chavez, marking this call by solemnly bestowing on each participant a tiny cross fashioned by campesinos (farm workers) in El Salvador.

Six week later, we held a follow-up gathering with the retreat participants living in the San Francisco Bay Area. As we reflected on the meaning of the experience, one person after another shared dramatic stories of how they had used what they had learned in Delano to transform recent violent situations in the streets and in the workplace. In very concrete terms, they talked about breaking the spiral of violence through creativity, communication and active nonviolence. As we left our meeting that evening, each of us realized in a new way that the vision and practice of Cesar Chavez continues to demonstrate the power of active nonviolence to change our lives and the life of our world.