| Reading |
- Who Was Cesar Chavez and Why Were Farmworkers Invisible in America
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- The Harsh Reality of Life in the Fields and the People Who Were Excluded from Labor Laws
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- How Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Built the United Farm Workers Movement
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- The Power of Boycotts, Marches, and Nonviolent Resistance to Win Rights
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- Farmworker Struggles Continue Today and What We Can Do About It
- Discussion Questions: Connecting Ideas Across the Unit
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| Key Ideas |
- Cesar Chavez grew up on a family ranch in Arizona but lost his home during the Great Depression when he was about 10 years old
- Farmworkers were deliberately excluded from laws like the National Labor Relations Act that protected other workers
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- Farmworkers faced dangerous conditions including heat stroke, exposure to harmful pesticides, and terrible living conditions
- Laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 protected other workers but excluded farmworkers from minimum wage and child labor protections
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- Larry Itliong and Filipino farmworkers started the Delano grape strike in September 1965, and Cesar Chavez’s organization joined them
- Dolores Huerta co-founded the movement and was a fearless negotiator who created the phrase ‘Sí se puede’ (Yes, it can be done)
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- The farmworkers used three main strategies: strikes (refusing to work), marches (walking 300 miles to Sacramento), and boycotts (asking Americans not to buy grapes)
- The grape boycott was their most powerful tool because it moved the fight to cities where they had more support
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- Many of the same problems Chavez fought against still exist today, including dangerous conditions and low wages for farmworkers
- The Coalition of Immokalee Workers created the Fair Food Program, convincing companies like Walmart and McDonald’s to only buy from farms that treat workers fairly
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| Activities |
- Vocabulary Cards (Set 1)
- Mini Book: Cesar Chavez’s Early Life
- Coloring Page
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- Flapbook: Life in the Fields
- Vocabulary Cards (Set 2)
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- Copywork
- Vocabulary Cards (Set 3)
- Mini Book Pages
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- Flapbook: Nonviolent Resistance Works
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- Tri-Fold Booklet: From Start to Finish
- Booklet: What Do You Think?
- Optional Quiz or Writing Prompts
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