THE COMPASSION OF JAZZ. Jim Cassell

       The United Farm Workers

      The United Farm Workers headquarters needed to move from Delano—it was too small, too dusty, and too small-town for such a big movement. Then Cesar heard about a property going up to bid—an old tuberculosis hospital with acres of land surrounding it (some of Cesar’s relatives had been treated at the hospital while it had been running). It’d be perfect for the new headquarters, but there was a big issue—it was in the middle of Kern County in the Tehachapi Mountains, which was heavily Republican.

      Once it became public knowledge that Cesar and the union were interested in the land, powerful conservatives in Kern County were determined to make sure he didn’t get it. A Jewish Hollywood producer who was very sympathetic to La Causa offered to help the union acquire the property. They worked out a plan where Richard Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s brother, would dress up like a chauffeur to drive the producer in a limousine to make a bid on the property. After the Hollywood producer won the bid, he turned the land over to Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, outmaneuvering the power brokers of Kern County.

      The new headquarters were in Kern, California, and were nicknamed La Paz. It was different, though, in the new center. The beauty of the union was that it felt like one big family, full of love and support and united by our common goal of fighting for a better life for the farmworkers. Now it felt a bit like a monastery—everyone was working all the time, without the previous feeling of camaraderie. That isn’t to say it was a bad work

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