All Emperors, Even Cesar, Must Fall
by Eliott Turner
Over a decade ago, I immigrated back to the United States somewhat against my will. I had made a life for myself and my wife in Managua, Nicaragua. I had raised my two stepkids in the Barrio Jorge Dimitrov as my wife worked a cool real estate tech startup gig. She had health insurance with zero copays and zero deductibles. My kids went to a fancy private school. But we had a problem: she was a pro democracy activist who attended protests with her sisters. Most of our neighbors were Danielistas: people who blindly follow Daniel Ortega and his wife. They call themselves “Sandinistas”, but that name lost its meaning years ago.
After my wife and her sister went to the infamous Holiday Inn protest in 2011, the heat turned way up. Suddenly, activists and students started to disappear. People like my wife.
I check my privilege as an able-bodied cisgender man who has United States citizenship. I have always had that emergency parachute button when I have lived and worked abroad, and I spammed it! I found a job in South Texas with the goal of setting up a workers' center for undocumented jornalerxs. I wanted a job ASAP to apply for a visa for my wife and stepkids. I didn’t even negotiate pay much. The sooner I got that first paycheck, the sooner I could apply.
But the organization I worked closely with had ties to César Chávez. They had separated from him, though. I was a bit puzzled: I am Chicano but grew up in the Midwest. My town had no street named after the “Great Man” César Chávez. He was not in my history books. When my parents got divorced and my dad moved out, he took with him my ties to Chicano identity. My extended family from Juarez did not mean to cut off all ties, but this was the landline era, before cellphones. My mom was mad at my dad and, by extension, mad at them. There was no email or social media.
The leadership and organizers explained to me why they didn’t care much about the United Farm Workers. At the height of his grape boycott prowess, César Chávez had a very xenophobic worldview. He viewed “mojadxs” as strike-breakers. As scabs. He started his farm labor organizing work with Filipinx immigrants in California. But extending a hand to try and do binational labor organizing? Nah. A step too far. If you were a Chicanx in the field and down with UFW, he loved you. If you were a mojadx? Vete al carajo.
César Chávez’s worldview didn’t really surprise me much because I had read Carlos Fuentes' El Espejo Enterrado. Chávez and Fuentes shared the same “Mestizaje hegemony” worldview based on the philosopher Vasconcelos “Raza cosmica” theory. Basically, when you combine the white (Spanish) race with the mestizo (Mexica people), then you get a superior race. You have likely heard the phrase “pura raza.” You have also seen similar racial theories based on eugenics all over the world, including Germany in the 1930s and the Southern United States in the 1700s and 1800s.
The “Mestizo supremacy” crew fails to care much about black Mexicans in Veracruz, or the indigenous peoples all over Mexico and Central America that don’t speak Mexicanish Spanish. Or even the Mayan peoples all over the Isthmus. Or Asian Latinx. Most countries in Latin America didn’t even have a “black” race category on the census until the past few decades. The erasure has been almost complete. Chicanxs like Chavez are like Fuentes in Mexico: you are mestizo or you are inferior.
César Chávez was a brave organizer with innovative tactics we still use to this day; raising consumer awareness about a product’s flawed creation process is all over the place. And effective in various degrees. But he also had major blind spots and has now been credibly accused of grooming and wildly inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women he should have been mentoring and inspiring.
My heart goes out to all the victims of César Chávez. The Caesar of the Roman Empire had some cool ideas at the start of his reign, but then had to be stabbed in the back by his senator pals. César Chávez, the “Great Man,” is great no more. Only the truth and nothing but the truth about men in power, and any interpersonal harm they caused, can help us reform power to create transformation of the self and SJW movements.
Any injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Mahatma Gandhi, in his autobiography, admitted to being jealous and once using force against his wife in their early marriage, but then repenting and developing a profound relationship with her. Real leaders don’t hide their mistakes behind closed doors or NDA’s, they put themselves on blast. César Chávez? He took his skeletons in his closet with him to the grave.
After my wife and her sister went to the infamous Holiday Inn protest in 2011, the heat turned way up. Suddenly, activists and students started to disappear. People like my wife.
I check my privilege as an able-bodied cisgender man who has United States citizenship. I have always had that emergency parachute button when I have lived and worked abroad, and I spammed it! I found a job in South Texas with the goal of setting up a workers' center for undocumented jornalerxs. I wanted a job ASAP to apply for a visa for my wife and stepkids. I didn’t even negotiate pay much. The sooner I got that first paycheck, the sooner I could apply.
But the organization I worked closely with had ties to César Chávez. They had separated from him, though. I was a bit puzzled: I am Chicano but grew up in the Midwest. My town had no street named after the “Great Man” César Chávez. He was not in my history books. When my parents got divorced and my dad moved out, he took with him my ties to Chicano identity. My extended family from Juarez did not mean to cut off all ties, but this was the landline era, before cellphones. My mom was mad at my dad and, by extension, mad at them. There was no email or social media.
The leadership and organizers explained to me why they didn’t care much about the United Farm Workers. At the height of his grape boycott prowess, César Chávez had a very xenophobic worldview. He viewed “mojadxs” as strike-breakers. As scabs. He started his farm labor organizing work with Filipinx immigrants in California. But extending a hand to try and do binational labor organizing? Nah. A step too far. If you were a Chicanx in the field and down with UFW, he loved you. If you were a mojadx? Vete al carajo.
César Chávez’s worldview didn’t really surprise me much because I had read Carlos Fuentes' El Espejo Enterrado. Chávez and Fuentes shared the same “Mestizaje hegemony” worldview based on the philosopher Vasconcelos “Raza cosmica” theory. Basically, when you combine the white (Spanish) race with the mestizo (Mexica people), then you get a superior race. You have likely heard the phrase “pura raza.” You have also seen similar racial theories based on eugenics all over the world, including Germany in the 1930s and the Southern United States in the 1700s and 1800s.
The “Mestizo supremacy” crew fails to care much about black Mexicans in Veracruz, or the indigenous peoples all over Mexico and Central America that don’t speak Mexicanish Spanish. Or even the Mayan peoples all over the Isthmus. Or Asian Latinx. Most countries in Latin America didn’t even have a “black” race category on the census until the past few decades. The erasure has been almost complete. Chicanxs like Chavez are like Fuentes in Mexico: you are mestizo or you are inferior.
César Chávez was a brave organizer with innovative tactics we still use to this day; raising consumer awareness about a product’s flawed creation process is all over the place. And effective in various degrees. But he also had major blind spots and has now been credibly accused of grooming and wildly inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women he should have been mentoring and inspiring.
My heart goes out to all the victims of César Chávez. The Caesar of the Roman Empire had some cool ideas at the start of his reign, but then had to be stabbed in the back by his senator pals. César Chávez, the “Great Man,” is great no more. Only the truth and nothing but the truth about men in power, and any interpersonal harm they caused, can help us reform power to create transformation of the self and SJW movements.
Any injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Mahatma Gandhi, in his autobiography, admitted to being jealous and once using force against his wife in their early marriage, but then repenting and developing a profound relationship with her. Real leaders don’t hide their mistakes behind closed doors or NDA’s, they put themselves on blast. César Chávez? He took his skeletons in his closet with him to the grave.
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