The Rhetorical Career of Cesar Chavez

The Rhetorical Career of Cesar Chavez PDF

Author: John C. Hammerback

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2003-04

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781585443024

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Although born into one of the least powerful segments of American society, César Chávez led the farm-labor movement to unprecedented heights. His powerful effect on audiences is well known, but award-winning scholars John C. Hammerback and Richard J. Jensen offer the first explanation of how Chávez achieved that effect. Although other studies of Chávez exist, none has examined so thoroughly his rhetoric nor analyzed in depth such a large number of Chávez's own texts--scores of which have previously been unstudied. Chávez was an indefatigable speaker, writer, and non-discursive communicator who developed a well-thought-out approach to his rhetorical discourse and placed his speaking and writing at the very center of his career. By merging thought and character in his themes, arguments, and explanations, and in his first and second personae, Chávez was able to identify with the character of his listeners. That identification induced many audience members to support Chávez's agenda for union activism. The authors have developed a model "to help explain Chávez's startling transformation of some audiences and persuasion of others." Hammerback and Jensen reveal that Chávez's world view motivated him to work tirelessly and directed him to the particular rhetorical qualities and techniques that characterized his discourse. The authors also demonstrate Chávez's surprising effectiveness as a rhetor despite his soft-spoken style, uncharacteristic of most powerful orators.

The Words of César Chávez

The Words of César Chávez PDF

Author: Cesar Chavez

Publisher: Texas A&M University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9781585441709

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Complements the editors' earlier study, The rhetorical career of César Chávez.

The Gospel of César Chávez

The Gospel of César Chávez PDF

Author: Mario T. García

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 159

ISBN-13: 1580512232

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Best known as the leader of the farm workers' struggle and of the Latino civil rights movement, Chávez, like Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, was a deeply religious figure whose faith and spirituality guided his public life. The Gospel of César Chávez uses the prolific leader's own words to bring attention to his profound faith and the way this faith shaped his leadership.

The Crusades of Cesar Chavez

The Crusades of Cesar Chavez PDF

Author: Miriam Pawel

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 160819714X

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National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Winner of the California Book Award A searching portrait of an iconic figure long shrouded in myth by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of an acclaimed history of Chavez's movement. Cesar Chavez founded a labor union, launched a movement, and inspired a generation. He rose from migrant worker to national icon, becoming one of the great charismatic leaders of the 20th century. Two decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant Latino leader in US history. Yet his life story has been told only in hagiography-until now. In the first comprehensive biography of Chavez, Miriam Pawel offers a searching yet empathetic portrayal. Chavez emerges here as a visionary figure with tragic flaws; a brilliant strategist who sometimes stumbled; and a canny, streetwise organizer whose pragmatism was often at odds with his elusive, soaring dreams. He was an experimental thinker with eclectic passions-an avid, self-educated historian and a disciple of Gandhian non-violent protest. Drawing on thousands of documents and scores of interviews, this superbly written life deepens our understanding of one of Chavez's most salient qualities: his profound humanity. Pawel traces Chavez's remarkable career as he conceived strategies that empowered the poor and vanquished California's powerful agriculture industry, and his later shift from inspirational leadership to a cult of personality, with tragic consequences for the union he had built. The Crusades of Cesar Chavez reveals how this most unlikely American hero ignited one of the great social movements of our time.

César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice

César Chávez, the Catholic Bishops, and the Farmworkers’ Struggle for Social Justice PDF

Author: Marco G. Prouty

Publisher: University of Arizona Press

Published: 2022-06-21

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 0816549869

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César Chávez and the farmworkers’ struggle for justice polarized the Catholic community in California’s Central Valley during the 1965–1970 Delano Grape Strike. Because most farmworkers and landowners were Catholic, the American Catholic Church was placed in the challenging position of choosing sides in an intrafaith conflict. Twice Chávez petitioned the Catholic Church for help. Finally, in 1969 the American Catholic hierarchy responded by creating the Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Farm Labor. This committee of five bishops and two priests traveled California’s Central Valley and mediated a settlement in the five-year conflict. Within months, a new and more difficult struggle began in California’s lettuce fields. This time the Catholic Church drew on its long-standing tradition of social teaching and shifted its policy from neutrality to outright support for César Chávez and his union, the United Farmworkers (UFW). The Bishops’ Committee became so instrumental in the UFW’s success that Chávez declared its intervention “the single most important thing that has helped us.” Drawing upon rich, untapped archival sources at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Marco Prouty exposes the American Catholic hierarchy’s internal, and often confidential, deliberations during the California farm labor crisis of the 1960s and 1970s. He traces the Church’s gradual transition from reluctant mediator to outright supporter of Chávez, providing an intimate view of the Church’s decision-making process and Chávez’s steadfast struggle to win rights for farmworkers. This lucid, solidly researched text will be an invaluable addition to the fields of labor history, social justice, ethnic studies, and religious history.

Mexican American Religions

Mexican American Religions PDF

Author: Gastón Espinosa

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2008-07-08

Total Pages: 455

ISBN-13: 0822388952

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This collection presents a rich, multidisciplinary inquiry into the role of religion in the Mexican American community. Breaking new ground by analyzing the influence of religion on Mexican American literature, art, activism, and popular culture, it makes the case for the establishment of Mexican American religious studies as a distinct, recognized field of scholarly inquiry. Scholars of religion, Latin American, and Chicano/a studies as well as of sociology, anthropology, and literary and performance studies, address several broad themes. Taking on questions of history and interpretation, they examine the origins of Mexican American religious studies and Mario Barrera’s theory of internal colonialism. In discussions of the utopian community founded by the preacher and activist Reies López Tijerina, César Chávez’s faith-based activism, and the Los Angeles-based Católicos Por La Raza movement of the late 1960s, other contributors focus on mystics and prophets. Still others illuminate popular Catholicism by looking at Our Lady of Guadalupe, home altars, and Los Pastores dramas (nativity plays) as vehicles for personal, social, and political empowerment. Turning to literature, contributors consider Gloria Anzaldúa’s view of the borderlands as a mystic vision and the ways that Chicana writers invoke religious symbols and rhetoric to articulate a moral vision highlighting social injustice. They investigate the role of healing, looking at it in relation to both the Latino Pentecostal movement and the practice of the curanderismo tradition in East Los Angeles. Delving into to popular culture, they reflect on Luis Valdez’s video drama La Pastorela: “The Shepherds’ Play,” the spirituality of Chicana art, and the religious overtones of the reverence for the slain Tejana music star Selena. This volume signals the vibrancy and diversity of the practices, arts, traditions, and spiritualities that reflect and inform Mexican American religion. Contributors: Rudy V. Busto, Davíd Carrasco, Socorro Castañeda-Liles, Gastón Espinosa, Richard R. Flores, Mario T. García, María Herrera-Sobek, Luís D. León, Ellen McCracken, Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett, Laura E. Pérez, Roberto Lint Saragena, Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, Kay Turner

Social Controversy and Public Address in the 1960s and Early 1970s

Social Controversy and Public Address in the 1960s and Early 1970s PDF

Author: Richard J. Jensen

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1628953004

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The period between the 1960s and 1970s is easily one of the most controversial in American history. Examining the liberal movements of the era as well as those that opposed them, this volume offers analyses of the rhetoric of leaders, including those of the civil rights movement, the Chicano movement, the gay rights movement, second-wave feminism, and conservative resistance groups. It also features an introduction that summarizes much of the significant research done by communication scholars on dissent in the 1960s and 1970s. This time period is still a fertile area of study, and this book provides insights into the era that are both provocative and illuminating, making it an essential read for anyone looking to learn more about this time in America.

César Chávez

César Chávez PDF

Author: Ilan Stavans

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2010-02-09

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13:

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Labor leader, social justice advocate, Chicano leader, and humanitarian are only some of the multifaceted renderings of César Chávez. Ilan Stavans has compiled essays and first-person narratives that capture the multiple dimensions of this storied figure. To that end, Stavans's collection of timely articles separates fact from fiction, or as he puts it the "objective is the opposite of hagiography." Broken into two sections, César Chávez explores a variety of topics central to understanding the actual person instead of a shadowy apparition. The first part, "Considerations" offers critical assessments of Chávez's life that utilize different approaches to understanding his life, including cultural studies critiques, historical narrative that provide invaluable context, and even eulogies following his untimely death. The second section, "Voices" includes personal reflections on Chávez's life that explore his religiosity, his role as an "everyman," and the decline of the United Farm Workers union. The title is certain to assist readers in better comprehending this groundbreaking labor leader.