Cesar’s Last Fast

“Cesar’s Last Fast”

By Jessie E. Moreno

March 31st, 2011

A forthcoming documentary about Cesar Chavez titled Cesar’s Last Fast, is produced and directed by Richard R. Perez. Watching it for me was incredibly striking and moving, so much so that it sent a powerful chill down my spine that almost had me crying. It portrayed some never before-seen footage on the symbolic story of how Cesar Chavez fasted for thirty-six days in an attempt to show his discontent with the lack of progress made by his United Farmers Workers Unions when fighting the use of pesticides by farmers in California. Although this was the focus of the film, the director also shows later material that represents the difficulty and challenges when it comes to organizing farm workers and creating social movements such as Cesar Chavez orchestrated. It was almost as if this film was to be used as inspiration to get more people involved. Although this film screening was shown to us as an incomplete work (forty seven minutes), I left the UTEP Union Cinema wanting so much more.



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Before watching the documentary, I thought I had a decent sense of who Cesar Chavez was and what he had accomplished, but ten minutes into the film I started to doubt what I thought I knew. I found myself wondering and questioning why I had underestimated his work so much and why I had devalued his sacrifice. When I heard that the Cesar Chavez Day at UTEP had been canceled and saw that some people were protesting on campus, I wondered why these people got so emotional over it. Then, about mid-way through documentary, I started to realize that some of those farm workers represented in the film were people like my grandparents, my parents, and me for that matter.


I remembered growing up in El Paso, Texas, and as a young boy (eight years old) having to go and pick onions in the fields with my family for a mere seventy-five cents a sack. We would all go home darker than before after about fourteen hours of working in the brutal sun (usually took us that long to fill one hundred sacks). My mother would take our hands and feet at night and do what she could to sooth the blisters, sores, and pains that we had developed throughout the day. The next day we would wake up before the sun came up, and we would be out there and be doing it all over again.

I have always had a hard time dealing with this part of my history, because working in the fields made me feel shame, as we were often called “wetbacks” at school, a term for those who worked in the fields. It was hard for me to hear those words, because we were Americans, and we had been born here, and we were just trying to make ends meet. I always thought that by letting people know that I had I worked in the fields, that I was only subjecting myself to more discrimination. It was easier for me to forget, knowing that many associated working in the fields as being a bad thing. Having been there and done that, and after viewing this documentary, I now feel that I have a better understanding of the importance Cesar Chavez had on farm workers in America, although some evil practices still occur today. This documentary has touched me more than I thought it would, and I can sense a little bit of pride inside me now, knowing how much my family and I have overcome to be where we are now.

At the end of the film, when the questions were being asked, one young lady asked why there weren’t any leaders out there today like Cesar Chavez to fight for Mexican-American rights. When the lady asked that question, I thought of the time Cesar Chavez asked his wife the same question, and she told him that maybe it should be him. Sometimes I think we get caught up and expect others to guide us and direct us in a certain path, when in fact it is us who need to stand up and lead the fight. The producer, Richard R. Perez, made an interesting point when he said that the price of upward mobility has been a decrease of our efforts to help those in the bottom of society. If we want to be treated better by our society, then we need to stop waiting for the next Cesar Chavez to come, and realize that deep down inside, we share the same characteristics, and are capable of organizing in the same way that he did.

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