Si se Puede! (Yes We Can!): Latino Civil Rights

Artists make choices in communicating ideas. Colorado-based artist Emanuel Martínez created Farm Workers’ Altar to celebrate an important event in the Chicano movement. On March 10, 1968, in the fields near Delano, California, labor organizer César Chávez broke a twenty-five-day fast at a Mass celebrated at this altar. Which symbols do you see invoke this sense of unity between social and religious causes? Which symbols celebrate the diversity and character of humanity?

Observation: What do you see?

What does the size and shape of this artwork suggest about its purpose?

The upper surface of this piece is flat. The sides slope outward from the top to the base. This artwork is larger than you might think. It measures about the size of a table, 38 1/8 x 54 1/2 x 36 in. (96.9 x 138.5 x 91.4 cm.).

What motifs and symbols do you notice?

On the top panel of this artwork, a central cross is bordered by geometric designs in bright colors. The designs are reminiscent of those woven into Mexican blankets and tapestries. The top almost resembles a painted table cloth. Take a look at the longer sides of the altar. One side of the artwork depicts an image of Christ crucified. Look at the opposite side: what do you notice about the sun? What is the woman holding? What else do you notice about her, the landscape, and the border? Beneath a three-faced sun, an indigenous woman holds shafts of wheat in her right hand and a bunch of grapes in her left. The bright colors of her headband, the peace medallion on her necklace, and her pink dress stand out against a clear landscape of blue water and a green mountain. Ears of corn and grapevines decorate the borders of the image. Now look at one of the shorter sides. What do you notice about the positioning of the arms on this side?  How about the skin tones and shirt sleeves?  What are the hands grasping?  Four arms of varied skin tones reach towards each other forming a box around a central symbol. The fists clench grapevines, working together to harvest the fruit.

What is the central symbol?

This symbol, for the Farm Workers Union, is made up of an eagle’s head, in reference to the eagle that graces the Mexican flag, and an inverted pyramid that refers back to the pyramids of the ancient Aztecs.  American farm workers in the 1960’s were largely migrants from Mexico and other parts of Central America. This emblem embodied their history and heritage.

Interpretation: What does it mean?

The work of art’s size, shape, and symbols provide us clues to its religious, social, and political significance. We know that this piece is large enough to be used as a table and that its surface is richly decorated with religious and political imagery. In Catholicism the altar is a symbol of Christ’s Last Supper, a place for physical and spiritual nourishment and a reaffirmation of faith. This altar commemorates the 1968 Catholic Mass held in Delano, California, where César Chávez broke the twenty-five-day fast he undertook to protest unfair employment practices and unsuitable work conditions for migrant laborers. Chávez, a religious and non-violent leader, co-founded the organization that later became the United Farm Workers. The Farm Workers Union commissioned Chicano artist Emanuel Martinez to create this altar even before it was known that it would be used at such a significant event. The arms surrounding the Union emblem symbolize the combined strength of all workers of every color skin. Martinez defined social struggle in Christian terms by combining elements of spirituality and mestizaje, the mixed racial heritage of Mexicans and their Chicano descendants.

The artist painted pre-Columbian and European symbols and figures on the altar to indicate the mestizo heritage that Chicanos celebrate. This altar is one of the most important icons of the early Chicano movement because of its visual images that represent cultural, social, and economic issues important to La Causa (the cause). On one side of the altar, a crucifix bears a brown-skinned Christ; on the other, an indigenous woman holds wheat stalks and grapes that prefigure the bread and wine of Holy Communion. These items also symbolize the fruitfulness of the earth. The woman represents the many workers who migrated from Mexico to California to harvest crops under deplorable conditions.

The motif of clasped hands from many races working together to gather the harvest surrounds an abstract black eagle on a red background, the symbol of the United Farm Workers of America, Chávez’s organization. Many workers who attended the Mass in the middle of a field, the site of their labor, would have recognized these symbols. The sun is formed from the mestizo image of a head with the central face composed of two profiles that represent both indigenous peoples and Europeans. These images, along with the peace symbol and the crucifix, evoke a sense of unity between social and religious causes and celebrate the diversity and character of humanity.

Artist make choices in communicating ideas. What information can we learn about growing up in a Latino family from this painting? What clues does the artist give us about her hopes and dreams? What connections can be made amongst many American families? Observing details and analyzing components of the painting, then putting them in historical context, enables the viewer to interpret the overall message of the work of art.

Observation: What do you see?

What are the figures on the roof doing?

What a beautiful night! Two girls lie back on the roof of their house to gaze up at a full moon. One points to the stars. What might they be thinking or saying to each other?

What is happening inside of the house?

Through the window of this tidy, simple home, a mother adds a blanket to the bed, readying it for bedtime for her daughters. A religious cross flanked by palm leaves hangs on the wall beside the bed. A hairbrush and other accessories lay on a bedside table. From these details, we know that nurturing both home and family, as well as faith, are important to the occupants of this home.

Interpretation: What does it mean?

This scene is one of happy memories for the artist. Carmen Lomas Garza vividly recalls such an evening when she and her sister climbed onto their roof, looked up at a beautiful moon, and dreamed of their future. They had both wanted to be artists.  From the age of 13, Lomas Garza read all the books she could about art and practiced drawing the world around her every day.

Lomas Garza grew up in a close-knit Mexican-American community in Kingsville, Texas. Though her family and neighbors were warm and loving, she often experienced prejudice outside of her community. She painted such scenes as these – positive images of family and friends enjoying everyday life – in celebration of her heritage and in hopes that others might likewise appreciate it. Lomas Garza has said, “Every time I paint, it serves a purpose–to bring about pride in our Mexican American culture.” Although this painting documents a specific Mexican American childhood experience, it honors families of all cultures that nurture their children’s dreams.

For centuries immigrants have come to America in hopes of finding a way to provide a safe, nurturing home for their families, and opportunities for their children to dream and realize their dreams. Is the artist’s aim of invoking shared aspirations for future generations realized by this work? What elements of the immigration experience has she omitted to create this scene?

The labor movement of earlier generations was reignited in part by the United Farm Workers (UFW), led by a labor union activist Cesar Chavez. He was committed to non-violent change and justice, inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Chavez worked to organize Mexican American farm workers in California, 1965, advocating for better wages, safer working conditions, and less exposure to pesticides.

An impediment to their cause was the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, a federal law which did not protect farm workers. This meant that is was up to the farm owners to recognize the UFW union as a bargaining agent. Chavez and his supporters implemented work stoppages and national boycotts against lettuce, table grapes, and wine to promote their message and gain support for the protection of farm workers.

Chavez was born to Mexican immigrants in 1927. His family moved from Arizona to California in search of migrant laborer jobs. After serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Chavez returned home to California where he first experienced working with striking agricultural workers at the Community Service Organization. He went on to form the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962.

In 1965, the NFWA received national attention because of the Delano grape strike. The strike involved workers from the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) who walked off their jobs at grape farms, demanding that their wages be equal to the federal minimum wage. When the NFWA joined the strike, Chavez expressed the workers’ goals in a document called the Plan of Delano consisting of six main propositions.

1. Chavez begins by defining the movement as a “social movement,” one in which the workers seek their “God-given rights as human beings.”
2. The workers seek the support of the federal government and political groups. Chavez writes that legislators could have helped the workers, but instead chose to support farm owners. Chavez lists starvation wages, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, and sub-human living conditions as just some of the effects of a system unfairly skewed against the workers.
3. Chavez would like the support of the Catholic Church, reminding the church that the workers carry images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. He also quotes nineteenth century Pope Leo XIII, “Everyone’s first duty is to protect the workers from the greed of speculators who use human beings as instruments to provide themselves with money. It is neither just nor human to oppress men with excessive work to the point where their minds become enfeebled and their bodies worn out.”
4. Chavez describes the suffering, poverty, and misery of agricultural workers, pointing out that the government protects the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
5. Unity of all farm workers is crucial, no matter what their ethnic background may be. Chavez mentions the tactic some employers have used to divide the farm workers – offering them non-union contracts. Chavez stresses the need for union-negotiated contracts, as only through collective bargaining would real change happen.
6. Finally, Chavez reiterates the workers’ intent to strike and not give up the fight. He terms the movement a revolution, referring to the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 where poor people also sought basic human rights.

With the release of the Plan of Delano, Chavez quickly became a popular public speaker, inspiring under-represented and oppressed farm workers, both Latino and non-Latino alike. His next move was to lead protesters in an historic 340 mile-march from Delano, California to the state capital of Sacramento. The national attention received by the strikers ultimately pressured the farm into owners conceding to the strikers demands.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy and Cesar Chavez celebrate Catholic mass following the end of Chavez’s fast, 1968, Time Life Pictures, Getty Images.

Chavez also used hunger strikes and fasting as tools for protest. For three years, the UFW had been engaged with grape growers to sign contracts with the union. The strike gradually turned violent, with sheriffs and teamsters beating farm workers during strikes. Frustrated and impatient, many farm workers began to tire of Chavez’s insistence on non-violence. In an effort to diffuse the situation on both sides, Chavez engaged in a twenty five day hunger strike in 1968 to emphasize the importance of non-violence in order to achieve real, lasting change. Of his fast, Chavez wrote: “There was demoralization in the ranks, people becoming desperate, more and more talk about violence. People meant it, even when they talked to me. [The farm workers] would say, “Hey, we’ve got to burn those sons of bitches down. We’ve got to kill a few of them.”. . . I thought I had to bring the Movement to a halt, do something that would force them and me to deal with the whole question of violence and ourselves. We had to stop long enough to take account of what we were doing. So I stopped eating.” On the day that he broke his fast, Chavez was joined by thousands of supporters, including Senator Robert F. Kennedy, to celebrate Catholic mass and break bread. He would later write:

On the day I broke my fast, I was pretty much out of it, I was so weak. We had a mass at the county park. . . . At the park I was so much out of it, all I felt was a lot of people pushing and trying to get closer to the altar. It was hot. I remember arriving, a lot of people trying to say hello, trying to hug me while I was being held up because my legs were so weak. The mass was said by many priests, and many nuns came to distribute the bread. I couldn’t see the crowd because I was sitting down. . . . Because I was too weak, I couldn’t even speak my thanks, but Jim Drake [Chavez’s union aide] expressed my thoughts which I had put down earlier. “Our struggle is not easy. Those who oppose our cause are rich and powerful, and they have many allies in high places. We are poor. Our allies are few. But we have something the rich do not own. We have our own bodies and spirits and the justice if our cause as our weapons.

Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi was one of his role models, Gandhi’s autobiography The Story of My Experiments With Truth opened Chavez’s mind to the possibilities of non-violent resistance, including hunger strikes. Of Gandhi, Chavez wrote, “The message for me is that of his non-violence and the fact that he was a doer. He made things happen . . . I lose faith in someone who doesn’t continue a project, who starts something and then leaves it. The world is full of us quitters. Even if Gandhi had not liberated India, he stayed with the project all his life. And that is my great attraction. He just didn’t give up.” After Chavez undertook his twenty-five day fast, he explained the need for his fast and the movement’s non-violent philosophies: “Knowing of Gandhi’s admonition that fasting is the last resort in the place of the sword, during a most critical time in our movement last February, I undertook a 25-day fast. I repeat to you the principle enunciated to the membership at the start of the fast: “If to build our union required the deliberate taking of life, either the life of a grower or his child or the life of a farm worker or his child then I would choose not to see the union built.” Gandhi’s peaceful ways provided Chavez with inspiration and motivation to work toward non-violent social change throughout his life.

Another important role model for Chavez was civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. King also advocated for non-violent social change, explaining why in his famous 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “You may well ask, why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn’t negotiation a better path? You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”

In fact, during his twenty five day fast in 1968, Chavez received a telegram from King that read: ““I am deeply moved by your courage in fasting as your personal sacrifice for justice through non-violence. Your past and present commitment is eloquent testimony to the constructive power of non-violent action and the destructive impotence of violent reprisal. Your stand is a living example of the Gandhian tradition with its great force for social progress and its healing spiritual powers.” The telegram was received just one month before King’s assassination.

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The civil rights era of the 1960s, in which marginalized groups demanded equal rights, dramatically altered American society. Galvanized by the times in which they lived, Latino artists became masters of socially engaged art, challenging prevailing notions of American identity and affirming the mixed indigenous, African, and European heritage of Latino communities. Many artists reinvigorated mural and graphic traditions in an effort to reach ordinary people where they lived and worked. Whether energizing genres like history painting, or creating activist posters or works that penetrated bicultural experiences, Latino artists shaped and chronicled a turning point in American history.

The Latino Civil Rights movement began around the same time as the African American Civil Rights movement during the 1960s. The Latino community founds its voice in civil rights activist Cesar Chavez in their quest for equality. Chavez, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., implemented peaceful protest strategies in the effort to expand civil and labor rights for Latinos. The marches, strikes, and fasts that Chavez and others employed aided in raising awareness of unfair labor practices, such as low wages and poor working conditions facing the Latino community. These issues became compelling motivation for Latino artists to use their talents to raise awareness and engage others for La Causa. Their artwork, which began as an expression of public art forms, fueled ongoing political activism and a greater sense of cultural pride. Political banners and posters carried during marches and protests were some of the first art forms of the movement. While Emanuel Martinez’s Farm Workers Altar is an excellent example of early public art of the movement, Carmen Lomas Garza’s Camas para Sueños exudes cultural pride in depicting a scene of everyday life in a Mexican American family.

Farm Workers’ Altar

This altar was used during the celebration of Catholic Mass in 1968 when Cesar Chavez broke a twenty-eight day fast to protest the working conditions of migrant agricultural workers. This fast was the first Chavez undertook during his lifelong struggle against the injustices faced by the greater Latino community. His 1968 fast was in response to a disagreement over Chavez’s non-violent protest tactics among his fellow union activists. The disgruntled farm workers believed that Chavez’s insistence on peaceful marches and strikes were not an effective way to attain recognition as a union by the crop growers. The workers’ non-union unregulated status meant that the crop growers were able to take advantage of them with low wages, long working hours, and unsafe working conditions. Yet, Chavez’s perseverance and dedication to the cause inspired many and swayed them to his way of thinking. When Chavez broke his fast on March 10, 1968, he was joined by ten thousand supporters, including Senator Robert F. Kennedy and United Farm Workers’ co-founder Dolores Huerta.

Artist/ activist Emanuel Martinez was inspired by Chavez’s passionate speeches and his own Mexican-American heritage to create the imagery on the altar. Martinez incorporated many of the Mexican, Christian, and pre-Columbian symbols that were used throughout el Movimiento movement on banners, posters, and flyers. He was just twenty-one years old when commissioned by the Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles for the project. One side of the altar depicts a brown-skinned Jesus Christ; on the opposite side, an indigenous woman wears a peace symbol, her hands grasping grapes and wheat. The dual-faced sun above her denotes the mixed heritage of Mexican Americans; the union of Spanish and indigenous peoples. The side panels display a cross made from corncobs and a circle of linked arms with multiple skin tones, representing strength and unity. The symbol of the United Farm Workers, a black eagle inside a red circle, is placed inside the circle. For more information on the imagery in Farm Workers’ Altar, please see Activity: Observation and Interpretation.

Martinez had spent years working for the Latino civil rights cause, joining the country’s first Chicano civil rights organization Crusade for Justice, in Denver, Colorado. Unlike Lomas Garza, whose work is devoted to small, intimate pieces, the bulk of Martinez’s artwork is on a large scale, mostly mural paintings for community organizations. In these murals, Martinez incorporates the same symbols of mestizo heritage as he did in the Farm Workers’ Altar – images of pre-Columbian civilizations of Mexico and of past and present historical figures who have contributed to the Mexican and Mexican American struggle for justice. He describes the purpose of his activist artwork as, “aimed at strengthening the unity of our community by encouraging pride and bringing cultural nationalism to the forefront of the Chicano civil rights movement. I became committed to this goal and did everything I could to help achieve it.”

Camas para Sueños

Like Emanuel Martinez, Chicana artist Carmen Lomas Garza was inspired by the Latino rights movement, responding to social change and discrimination through her artwork. Lomas Garza’s paintings address her experiences growing up in the 1950s in an extended Mexican American family on the Texas/ Mexico border. She writes:

Most of my images are recollections of my childhood in South Texas. Relatives and friends are depicted as remembered in everyday activities or in unusual events such as a session with a faith healer or a fight. . . . Every time I paint, it serves a purpose–to bring about pride in our Mexican American culture. When I was growing up, a lot of us were punished for speaking Spanish. We were punished for being who we were, and we were made to feel ashamed of our culture. That was very wrong. My art is a way of healing these wounds.

Within the close-knit Mexican American community of Kingsville, Texas, Lomas Garza received love and encouragement from her family and from a broad range of friends and neighbors. But when she ventured outside the comfort of her community, she experienced prejudice. The Chicano movement helped give her new pride in her mixed Native American and Spanish ancestry. She writes: “When I was in high school, the [United Farm Workers] came marching through town. That was really a crucial turning point for the Chicano movement because it brought to life in a very obvious way the inequities. And so I became involved with the Chicano movement as an artist. My answer to answering what I could do within the Chicano movement was to do my artwork.” In college she decided to dedicate her art to the Mexican American community to show her gratitude and celebrate her rich mestizo heritage. Lomas Garza hoped that by painting positive imagery of Mexican American community life, her art might help eliminate the racism she experienced as a child.

Her works focus on subjects such as the importance of childhood memories and family traditions. Lomas Garza’s work is personal and intimate – even the scale of her work is small – inviting the viewer to look closely and engage with community traditions and family interactions depicted in her work. Her 1985 painting Camas para Suenos [translation: Bed for Dreams] focuses on the dynamics of Mexican American family life. The lower half of the artwork shows a mother providing comfort for her children in the form of a freshly made bed, religious imagery, and a well-stocked chest of drawers. On the roof above her, her daughters lay by the light of the moon, pointing to the stars and dreaming of their future. The artist suggests that the girls’ dreams are within reach, especially when their home life has provided them a good foundation.

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