Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture

Chapter 5. Social Movement or Labor Union?: Mennonites and the Farmworker Movement

T chapter 5 U Social Movement or Labor Union? Mennonites and the Farmworker Movement It seems reasonable to take the view that while Chávez is a sincere idealist, with the welfare of farm workers at heart, he also seems unable to achieve these goals. . . . Mennonites ought not to participate in boycotts promoted by either of the unions in dispute. —Guy F. Hershberger, “Mr. Peace,” Mennonite historian and ethicist, 1974 On the Migrant Trail Most summers in the 1950s, Paul and Ann Conrad followed Mexican American families to the cotton fields of West Texas. Loaded with Bibles and other Christian literature in their van—literally a church on wheels—they traveled 500 miles to minister to the 18 or so Mexican American families who made the trip from Mathis, Texas, to the cotton fields around Lubbock. The families, many of whom worked long hours to save enough money to get through the winter, were also faithful members of the Mennonite Church in Mathis (Iglesia Menonita del Calvario), where Paul and Ann ministered. With more than half of their congregation gone for most of the summer and early fall, the Conrads believed that followingthefamilieswasimperativetomaintainingstrongrelationships.1 Once the Conrads arrived at their West Texas destination, they stayed with Mexican American families in “their little rooms,” shared meals, and every morning went out to pick cotton. In the afternoons, they parked T social movement or labor union? U 123 the church on wheels near the cotton fields and prayed for the workers, handed out Bibles, and offered farmworkers the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.2 Church leaders’ trips to the cotton fields of West Texas were often seen as a sign of real solidarity by Mexican American families, who upon their return to South Texas felt an even stronger commitment to the Mennonite Church. Following workers to the cotton fields also spoke of the close relationships that white Mennonites had with Mexican American families in SouthTexasinthe1950s.Butthatfeelingofclosenesssoonchangedwhen somebegantoviewthoserelationshipsaspaternalistic.Thesentimentwas shared by Ted Chapa and Lupe De León, both of whom had toiled in the fields of West Texas earning little more that 40 cents an hour, when they became leaders in the Minority Ministries Council (MMC) in the early 1970s. While they admired the work of the Mennonite volunteers, the emergence of the Chicano movement had raised their political consciousness just as they were thrust into leadership positions within the church. For many Latino evangelicals and Catholics the Chicano movement Mennonite missionary Paul Conrad handing out Christian literature to migrant farmworkers in Lubbock, Texas, 1950s. (Courtesy of Paul and Ann Conrad) 124 T black, brown, and mennonite U served as a political and theological turning point.3 As new groups of Latino leaders emerged in evangelical and Catholic churches in the 1960s and 1970s, the farmworker movement was a source of inspiration and a model for the connections between social justice and faith. In the Mennonite Church it was no different. The politics of Cesar Chavez and the farmworker movement created deep political reverberations for Mennonites that stretched from a poultry plant in Indiana to the produce fields of central California. While individually many Mennonites sided with the farmworkers in their struggles with growers, leaders of the various Mennonites institutions involved decided instead to appease Mennonite growers and not take sides. The decision was surprising to many Latino leaders. Even though white Mennonites worked alongside farmworkers in West Texas in the 1950s, supporting a national movement for farmworkers’ rights was another matter entirely. Mennonites were anxious about supporting a movementtheysawasincompatiblewiththeirbeliefsofpeaceandjustice. The ambivalence over the farmworkers’ struggle resembled the uncertainties many Mennonite leaders had concerning the politics and theological positions of Martin Luther King Jr. and the black freedom movement. While Mennonite leaders appreciated King’s stance on nonviolence, his theological understanding of “coercive” nonviolence and his associations with liberal theology worried some Mennonites and limited their involvement in the black freedom movement.4 Central to the Mennonite position against coercive nonviolence were the writings of peace activist and Mennonite leader Guy F. Hershberger, who in 1939 wrote, “There is no difference in principle between so-called non-violent coercion and actual violence.”5 That philosophy was a central marker of Mennonite peace identity in the mid-twentieth century. Regardless of the concerns some had about political activism, the black freedom movement captured the hearts and mindsof Mennonites, and in 1960King wasinvited to speakattwo Mennonite colleges...