United Farm Workers of America (UFW)

Home | UFW | UAW | SEIU | Conclusion | Sources

Description

"Across the San Joaquin valley, across California, across the entire nation, wherever there are injustices against men and women and children who work in the fields...there you will see our flags, with the black eagle with the white and red background, flying. Our movement is spreading like flames across a dry plain."

Description

Prayer of the Farm Workers' Struggle

by César E. Chávez, UFW Founder (1927-1993)

Show me the suffering of the most miserable;

So I will know my people's plight.

Free me to pray for others;

For you are present in every person.

Help me take responsibility for my own life;

So that I can be free at last.

Grant me courage to serve others;

For in service there is true life.

Give me honesty and patience;

So that the Spirit will be alive among us.

Let the Spirit flourish and grow;

So that we will never tire of the struggle.

Let us remember those who have died for justice;

For they have given us life.

Help us love even those who hate us;

So we can change the world

Amen

UFW Site Contents

The circumstanes of farmers and farm workers are absent from the consciousness of most Americans. Yet, there is a rich tradition of efforts by both groups to act collectively to improve their common conditions. Social movements with predominantly urban constituencies have received the most attention by scholars as well as the general public. Agrarian movements have, at times, embodied th eprorgessive ideals that are at the heart of the American identity. In their best moments, agrarian movements have sought to further the empowerment and self-determination of their constituencies, to transform social and institutional arrangements into more egalitarian ones, to challenge the dominance of powerful organizations that lack accountablity to those whose lives they affect, and to create institutional avenues that facilitate greater participation by ordinary people. There is a historical and intellectual need to study the legacy of agrarian movements if only because, as Wendell Berry stated, "Eating is an agricultural act" (Mooney xi).

Before the UFW

About the UFW

UFW Today

Workers' Voices

Bibliography

Home | UFW | UAW | SEIU | Conclusion | Sources