Maurice Jourdane

This weekend, the United Farm Workers is holding its fiftieth anniversary. In 1962, Cesar and Helen Chavez and Dolores Huerta began their struggle to improve the life of farm workers.

Last week, on Cinco Mayo in San Diego's Barrio Logan, the United States Navy christened and launched the USNS Cesar...

The fan at a concert or football game and the farm worker stooped in the field, might doubt that there is a thread tracing Linda Ronstadt, the San Diego Chargers, Braceros and the tool used in the hot dusty fields.

In 1942, a severe shortage of laborers available to carry...

One evening several months ago, I sat in United Farm Workers' president Arturo Rodriguez backyard talking story with Cesar Chavez' brother Richard and several amigos who had grown up with Richard and Cesar. While we discussed Cesar's nonviolent approach, Richard laughed. "He believed in nonviolence in forming the union but...

Over the past months we have been watching those who live in the Mideast and North Africa protest in an effort to obtain the vote. In Egypt, after 18 days of protest in Cairo's Tahrir Square, to avoid bloodshed President Hosni Mubarak stepped down from the position he had held...

On February 18, the Los Angeles Times reported that "cities throughout California" are illegally using money intended to redevelop blighted areas: "That helps explain why so many are fighting so hard against Governor Jerry Brown's proposal" to shut down redevelopment agencies. Before Governor Brown was inaugurated, he began...

I met Governor Brown in the 1970s, around the time he banned the short-handled hoe, the tool that crippled California farm workers by forcing them to toil long hours stooped in the field. During this period in California history, we witnessed Governor Brown, In the words of the California Teachers...

The Los Angeles Times recently reported that California Attorney General Jerry Brown charged "Bell leaders of secretly plotting to enrich themselves and conceal their lucrative compensation." Then the press reported the arrest of eight Bell officials for charges based on cheating taxpayers out of around $5.5 million dollars....

On July 28, a federal court in Arizona issued an injunction against the controversial Arizona law that requires police to determine the immigration status of everyone lawfully stopped that the officer reasonably suspects is illegally in the United States. A federal judge held the Arizona law void because the power...

A couple years ago, President Obama said, "As farm workers and laborers across America continue to struggle for fair treatment and fair wages, we find strength in what Cesar Chavez accomplished so many years ago. It's time to recognize the contributions of this American icon." In an op-ed