Early Life
César Estrada Chávez was born on March 31, 1927 in Yuma, Arizona, in a Mexican-American family of six children. He had two brothers, Richard (1929–2011) and Librado, and two sisters, Rita and Vicki. He was named after his grandfather, Cesario. Chávez grew up in a small adobe home, the same home in which he was born. His family owned a grocery store and a ranch, but their land was lost during the Great Depression. The family's home was taken away after his father had agreed to clear eighty acres of land in exchange for the deed to the house, an agreement which was subsequently broken. Later when César's father attempted to purchase the house, he could not pay the interest on the loan and the house was sold to its original owner. His family then moved to California to become migrant farm workers.
The Chávez family faced many hardships in California. The family would pick peas and lettuce in the winter, cherries and beans in the spring, corn and grapes in the summer, and cotton in the fall. When César was a teenager, he and his older sister Rita would help other farm workers and neighbors by driving those unable to drive to the hospital to see a doctor.
In 1942, Chávez graduated from eighth grade. It would be his final year of formal schooling, because he did not want his mother to have to work in the fields. Chávez dropped out to become a full-time migrant farm worker. In 1944 he joined the United States Navy at the age of seventeen and served for two years. Chávez had hoped that he would learn skills in the Navy that would help him later when he returned to civilian life, however he soon discovered that at the time Mexican-Americans in the Navy could only work as deckhands or painters. Later, Chávez described his experience in the military as “the two worst years of my life.” When Chávez returned home from his service in the military, he married his high school sweetheart, Helen Fabela. The couple moved to San Jose, California, where they would have seven children: Fernando, Linda (1951–2000), Paul, Eloise, Sylvia and Anthony.
Read more about this topic: Cesar Chavez
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