Cesar Chavez, a labor leader, is accused of sexually abusing two teenage girls in the 1970s and farm worker leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s, according to a New York Times investigation.
The newspaper interviewed two women who said they were sexually abused by Chavez – one repeatedly – when they were children.
“Both of these women have faced depression, fear and drug abuse in the past years. They kept quiet for decades, afraid to go public because it would tarnish the legacy of Mr. Chavez, but they decided in recent months, after being contacted by journalists, that their stories should also be included,” this newspaper reported.
Huerta told this newspaper that she was raped by Chavez in 1966.
“Mr. Chavez took her out to a secluded grape field in Delano, Calif., parked her and forced her to have sex inside the car. She said she chose not to report the attack to the police because of her hostility to the movement, and she was afraid that no one in the union would believe her,” the newspaper reported.
In an Instagram post, Huerta said that for the past 60 years he had kept this secret because, “I believed that revealing the truth would hurt the farm workers movement that I have spent my whole life fighting for.”
LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, left, sits with activists Dolores Huerta, Rachel Kirk and Reina Schmitz during the California Democratic Party State Convention at the Moscone Center in San Francisco on Feb. 21.
(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)
Huerta said she had two separate sexual encounters with Chavez. For the first time, she was “tricked and pressured into sleeping with him,” she said, and she felt helpless because he was her boss “and the leader of an organization that I had devoted many years of my life to.”
“The second time I was forced, against my will, and in a place where I felt trapped,” said his statement. “I had experienced harassment and sexual abuse before, and I convinced myself that these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in private.”
Huerta became pregnant from both sexes and later arranged for the children to be adopted by other families.
“Over the years, I have been fortunate to have a deep relationship with these children, who have become close to my other children, their siblings,” said the statement. “But still, no one knew the full truth about how they got pregnant until a few weeks ago.”
A New York Times investigation found that Chavez fathered four children out of wedlock with three women and that there had been “whispers within the organization” for decades about his behavior.
This newspaper reported that a number of Chavez’s relatives and former farm worker leaders have been aware of allegations of sexual misconduct for years but have found no evidence that they made any efforts to investigate the charges against them or acknowledge the victims.
Huerta told the New York Times, “It makes me sick to know that he hurt young girls.
The news comes a day after the United Farm Workers said it would not participate in Chavez’s celebrations because of “disturbing allegations” against him.
The claims against Chavez “are not in line with the principles of our organization. Some of the reports are family matters, not our story that we can talk about or our place to comment on. What is most worrying are the allegations involving the abuse of young women or children. The allegations that women or young girls may be abused are very damaging. We have not received specific reports, and we say that we do not have these allegations,” the union said.
On Tuesday morning, the Cesar Chavez Foundation said in a statement that it is “aware of disturbing allegations that Cesar Chavez engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and children while he was President of the United Farm Workers of America.”
The foundation said it is working with farmworkers union leaders to respond to the allegations and support those who may have been harmed.
Coming to national prominence in the mid-1960s in the San Joaquin Valley, Chavez strengthened public support on behalf of farm workers after organizing community groups throughout Central and Southern California. For decades, agricultural workers have lived in substandard housing and paid poor wages. Attempts to organize migrant workers were often violently crushed by farmers and local law enforcement.
But Chavez’s legacy became more and more corrupt as the years went on. Labor victories have been few and far between. His strong criticism of illegal immigration – which Chavez said hindered his efforts to organize unions – has put him at odds with immigration activists. A 2006 Times investigation detailed how dozens of former associates and workers left the UFW because of what they described as Chavez’s increasingly independent ways.
