Good evening, everyone:

On March 31st, we at Kresge pause to recognize the long and difficult struggle for the rights and dignity of migrant and farm workers – people who perform some of our nation’s most demanding and essential labor and provide some of our most thankless services, often under hazardous, unsafe, and even abusive conditions.

We all have been saddened, disappointed, and disillusioned by the media reports over the last twenty-four hours involving Cesar Chavez. In particular, the New York Times published an investigation accusing Chavez of sexually abusing two girls in the 1970s, as well as Dolores Huerta, the co-founder of the United Farm Workers. The Times’ reporting was based on some 60 interviews and extensive examination of various forms of union documents, emails, and other sources.

Institutions across the country – including the United Farms Workers themselves – are pulling back from the celebrations traditionally held to honor Chavez’s organizing work, Ms. Huerta’s tragic and moving statements have been particularly central to driving these decisions. She explained that "I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life's work."

So, it is to honor that movement toward the securing of migrant and farmworker rights and justice that we will celebrate on March 31st.

It is so very difficult to reconcile genuine achievement and the infliction of profoundly disturbing harm. This is one of those times when the cliché likely applies: two contradictory realities can be held simultaneously. The allegations of Chavez’s sexual abuse must be accorded a weight commensurate with the unthinkable damage his actions caused to at least three women. And the undeniable advances Chavez helped bring about for one of the most exploited group of laborers in our nation’s history must be recognized and celebrated – as we have in fact done for so many years. The historical ledger will – must – include both.

That is why it is so terribly important to eschew the deification of an individual in favor of elevating and valorizing the full and multilayered web of people and organizations who worked – and continue to work – with courage, tenacity, sacrifice, and personal risk to advance farmworker and migrant communities’ dignity, economic justice, and safety.

In that spirit, we thought it appropriate to reprise Delores, the documentary our Equity Task Force showed last Fall, which highlights. Ms. Huerta’s lifelong (she is now 96) dedication to advocating for labor rights, civil rights, and environmental and social justice. We’ll do that on Tuesday, March 24th at noon in the Troy convening center.

We hope you will join us.

Rip

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