FRESNO, Calif. \u2013 For weeks, events commemorating the late civil rights leader Cesar E. Chavez began to get cancelled abruptly across multiple states. The only reason given was that it was over a “sensitive matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, speculation suggested it may have been fears of immigration agents targeting events that would draw immigrants and farmworkers. A national crackdown on immigrants under the second Trump administration unleashed a wave of fear across communities.<\/p>\n
And the labor movement Chavez co-founded has over the decades turned into a de facto defender of immigrants who make up a large portion of farmworkers in the country.<\/p>\n
But on Tuesday, official statements from the United Farm Workers \u2013 the union Chavez built in the early 1960s \u2013 pierced through all of the speculation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe UFW has learned of deeply troubling allegations that one of the union\u2019s co-founders, Cesar Chavez, behaved in ways that are 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,\u201d an online statement from the UFW issued Tuesday morning read<\/a>.<\/p>\n A mere 24 hours since that statement was issued, communities across the western U.S. where Chavez\u2019s movement has deep ties, especially in California\u2019s San Joaquin Valley \u2013 where the modern farmworker movement was born \u2013 began to sour on Chavez.<\/p>\n A subsequent New York Times story about Chavez that had apparently been in the works since 2021 was also published hours later on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n The story lays out in detail that Chavez molested <\/a>young girls and raped the co-founder of his labor movement, Dolores Huerta. Huerta, in a statement shortly after the national story was published, said Chavez fathered two children with her as a result.<\/p>\n But she didn\u2019t raise the children. She left them in the care of other families who could better care for them, she said. Chavez died in 1993.<\/p>\n Huerta had never before shared that part of her life. She said she felt coming forward sooner would hurt the farmworker movement that had worked so hard to fight for labor rights.<\/p>\n Even on Wednesday, as communities took in the news about Chavez, the UFW had rallied outside a federal courthouse in Fresno while a court hearing where the UFW is a plaintiff played out.<\/p>\n