The United Farm Workers

Vision Statement:
"To provide farm workers and other working people with the inspiration and tools to share in society's bounty."
"California's farm workers had attempted to unionize long before the 1960s, but the UFW was the first to create 
a long-term, large scale, cohesive 
institution as their vehicle of change ."
~Archivist Conor Casey, SFSU
View 1965 speech by Chavez
Activists Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, avoiding the term union due to "the long history of failed attempts" and forgotten commitments. The association, renamed the United Farm Workers (UFW), served to eliminate injustices towards migrant workers using peaceful protest. Through boycotts, fasts, and marches, the UFW gained many victories over the years, providing crucial advancements in the fight for American labor rights.
"We, the Farm Workers of America, have tilled the soil, sown the seeds and harvested to crops. We have provided food in abundance for the people in the cities, the nation and the world but have not had sufficient food for our own children... But despite our isolation, our sufferings, jailings, beatings and killings, we remain undainted and determined to build our Union as a bulwark against future exploitation... Above all, we believe that all men must act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood and that our Union shall guarantee that all are treated equal in dignity and rights."
~Excerpt from preamble to the first UFW constitution, September 21-23, 1973
- Courtesy of UFW, May 2012 -

Sí Se Puede- Yes We Can!


"These three simple words provided inspiration for the United Farm Workers movement, helped elect the first African American President of the United States, and permeated international politics."
~Molly McGuire, Kansas State University