Cesar Chavez: A Triumph of Spirit

This biography of Chavez by Richard Griswold del Castillo and Richard A. Garcia is the first to approach Chavez's life - his courageous acts, his turning points, his many perceived personas - in the context of Chicano and American history. It reveals a shy, quiet man who was launched by events into a maelstrom of campesino strikes, religious fervor, and nonviolent battles for justice. Among his friends and supporters he counted Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and millions across America who rallied to his cause. In Griswold del Castillo and Garcia's biography, Chavez's life mirrors major events in Mexican American history: Mexican immigration during the 1920s; forced repatriation in the 1930s; segregation in public schools; Mexican American contributions during World War II; the Zoot Suit Riots in Los Angeles; formation of Mexican American organizations to advance civil and political rights; the Chicano movement of the 1960s and early 1970s; the emergence of a conservative political backlash in the 1980s; and, finally, the "new immigration" in the 1990s. Cesar Chavez was touched by all these events, and his story is both private and part of a collective experience. Library Journal With his family displaced from their land and forced to work as migrants, Chvez (1927-93) from early on shared the arduous life of those he was destined to lead. In this biography of the embattled farm labor organizer, del Castillo (Mexican studies, San Diego State Univ.) focuses on Chvez's formation, growth, and development as a leader in the movement to unionize farm workers in the Southwest. The story is filled with ups and downs in the long, drawn-out struggle with powerful corporate and institutional interests, as well as with organized labor. Moral strength through nonviolence, pragmatic flexibility, and the able coleadership of Dolores Huerta are all elements del Castillo credits to La Causa. Del Castillo's account is balanced, highly readable, and engaging. Recommended for general readership.Charles E. Perry, East Central Univ., Ada, Okla.