Content warning: The following story mentions sexual assault and rape.
What's going on: Women activists in the farmworking space were reeling last week when The New York Times broke a yearslong investigation into Cesar Chavez, once revered as a leader of the Latinx civil rights movement. The report detailed allegations that Chavez sexually assaulted both women and girls — including his fellow United Farm Workers co-founder, Dolores Huerta. One woman who came forward, who says Chavez first assaulted her when she was 12, told The Times, “I feel like he’s been a shadow over my life.” Now, advocates, women in particular, are reconciling how a man who has a holiday named after him was never held accountable. As women do, they’re continuing their crucial work and taking back their movement, The 19th reports — one they’ve always powered, even when their contributions went unseen.
Tell me more: Women make up roughly a quarter of US farmworkers, according to 2022 data, and most are Latinx. The risks they face are staggering. A 2024 review found 95% of women farmworkers in the US have experienced workplace sexual harassment. Part of the issue here is that, as of the 2022 stats, most farmworkers were undocumented, creating a power imbalance that could make anyone scared to report. Now, activists — largely women, of course — want to push the movement forward at a time when immigration enforcement is under renewed scrutiny. Many hope that real change will come from this — yes, beyond just renaming Cesar Chavez Day. Resources, protection, and structural change would be a good start.
