Gustavo Arellano
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
I have seen very little pushback against this move to strike Cesar's name from all these different places.
I think that speaks to a new generation of activists, but also leaders that know you cannot defend the indefensible.
I don't think we would have had the same reaction 20 years ago.
And she said she hid it all because she did not want to be seen as trying to throw a leader of a movement that was just starting under the bus.
So it was a sacrifice of the most painful kind.
She sacrificed her own mental health, her own everything on behalf of this man.
I cannot even imagine holding this pain in.
For decades, she is now about to turn 96.
She is in the winter of her life, still as active as ever.
And to see that sort of courage be maintained, and she never once gave any hint of it.
She was always, and is still always seen as just a super strong icon.
The victories that they were able to attain were real.
They were able to create legislation in California that benefited all farm workers, not just the farm workers unionized by the United Farm Workers.
And the leader of the UFW in those years was Cesar Chavez.
So the good that he did cannot be wiped away
should be acknowledged.
But now we need to, while we tell those stories, we also need to tell the totality of the man, because now especially you cannot remove, you cannot separate the two.
It's impossible now.