César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice (review)

Marco Prouty, a former career foreign service officer, has chronicled the work of César Chávez and the struggle for farm worker justice in California’s Central Valley from the 1965–70 Delano Grape Strike and the Battle of the Salad Bowl from 1970–77. Drawing upon rich archival sources of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and recent works on the rhetoric, leadership, and organizing strategies of Chávez, the book significantly contributes to Catholic labor history and the story of mid-twentieth-century social justice. Prouty sketches the relationship between Chávez and the USCCB on behalf of farm worker justice. Second, he tells the story of the relationship between Chávez and Monsignor George G. Higgins.

The first part considers the historical roots of La Causa. The 1964 termination of the Bracero Program and the rise of the civil rights movement laid the foundations for organizing California’s Farmworkers. Chávez’s family and military experience, his early years in community organizing with Fred Ross, the influence of Father Donald McDonnell, and his study of Gandhi and the papal social encyclicals inspired his activism.

Part 2 delineates the long journey for justice. Catholic vineyard owners and growers stood together in opposing Catholic Farmworkers. Prouty charts the initial steps that birthed the United Farm Workers union (UFW). In 1962 Chávez invited Dolores Huerta to join him in organizing field workers. Higgins, the so-called labor priest and a member of the Committee on Migratory Labor, used his considerable journalistic and advocacy skills to support Chávez’s efforts. The two first met and connected in summer 1967. Higgins and Bishop Joseph Donnelly, together with Monsignor Roger Mahoney, steered the USCCB’s ad hoc committee on farm labor. They helped change the Church’s position from one of reluctance to full support for the UFW. In 1969 the Church endorsed the grape boycott. Higgins and Donnelly played crucial roles in mediating and settling the Delano Grape Strike, and victory was achieved on July 29, 1970. Unfortunately, peace was short-lived. The Battle of the Salad Bowl began at once. For the first and only time in his life Higgins took sides, supporting Chávez and opposing the Teamsters.

The six chapters of part 3 describe the complex struggle that the UFW union faced with the growers, the Teamsters, and state and local government agencies. Chávez used boycotts and tapped into the emancipatory role of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the politics of fasting. Marches to Sacramento seemed like religious pilgrimages. Bishop James Rausch, Higgins, and Donnelly shaped the USCCB’s pro-Chávez position and reinforced his role by arranging his personal audience with Pope Paul VI in 1974. The Church had become a full participant, and La Causa culminated triumphantly when the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act was passed in 1975.

Unfortunately, victory is not the final chapter of the story. The epilogue chronicles the decline, destruction, and diminishment of the UFW union at the end of the 1970s. The causes are multiple. The California Labor Relations Board proved ineffective. The union did not establish administrative structures for long-term success; national interest in social causes withered, and the policies of the Reagan administration were virulently hostile toward organized labor.

Sadly, the relationship between Higgins and Chávez grew distant and their friendship waned. Chávez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993. Higgins continued his work and died on May 1, 2002. Ironically, President Bill Clinton awarded both of them the Presidential Medal of Freedom.