César Chávez: “The Basis for Peace Is Respecting All Creatures”

Today is the annual celebration of the birth, life, and tireless work for justice of activist César Chávez, who not only dedicated himself to protecting and advocating for his fellow humans but who also understood–and acted on the understanding–that commitment to justice and compassion should extend to how we interact with our fellow animals as well.

Image of Chávez with his canine companions by Cathy Murphy. Retrieved from the Walter P. Reuther Library United Farm Workers Collection.

The United Farm Workers (UFW), co-founded by Chávez, succinctly explains that “Cesar … led the historic non-violent movement for farm worker rights and dedicated himself to building a movement of poor working people that extended beyond the fields and into cities and towns across the nation. He inspired farm workers and millions of people who never worked on a farm to commit themselves to social, economic and civil rights activism. Cesar’s legacy, like the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., continues to educate, inspire and empower people from all walks of life.”

What you don’t read here, or in most bios of Chávez (including at UFW), is that Chávez also was a voice for and friend to animals. A vegetarian for the last 25 years of his life and a vegan for at least some segment of those years, Chávez did not just make efforts toward removing himself from animal exploitation and call it a personal choice. He called on others to do the same, including many of his friends within the farm labor movement:

“Cesar took genuine pride in producing numerous converts to vegetarianism over the decades. You’re looking at one of them,” UFW president Arturo Rodriguez said in 1996 during a speech at a farm conference. “He felt so strongly about it that sometimes I think he took as much personal satisfaction from converting people to vegetarianism as he did to trade unionism.”

His niece similarly reported on Chávez’s influence, in Más Magazine (direct URL no longer available):

Camila Chavez found her transition to a vegetarian lifestyle not only easy, but also saw it as a way to honor her uncle Cesar E. Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union.

“Cesar was a vegan. He didn’t eat any animal products. He was a vegan because he believed in animal rights but also for his health,” Chavez said. “Growing up I was always surrounded by vegetarians and vegetarian meals were always an option. When Cesar died, I decided to become a vegetarian in honor of him.”

Some vegans may lament that we don’t know how long he was a vegan, that there are conflicting reports as to whether he was vegetarian or vegan, that we don’t know what or how much he ate in the way of dairy or eggs. But it is absolutely clear that in the final decades of his life, Chávez was sincere in his wish to pursue–and encourage–truly nonviolent ways of living, in his wish to help animals. And to leave out Chávez’s fight for justice for his fellow animals, in addition to his fight for justice for his fellow humans–as most organizations and individual champions of Chávez seem to–is to do his memory a dishonor.

In 1992, during his acceptance of a Lifetime Achievement Award from In Defense of Animals, Chávez proclaimed,

We need, in a special way, to work twice as hard to make all people understand that animals are fellow creatures, that we must protect them and love them as we love ourselves. And that’s the basis for peace. The basis for peace is respecting all creatures. . . . We cannot hope to have peace until we respect everyone–respect ourselves and respect animals and all living things. . . . We know we cannot defend and be kind to animals until we stop exploiting them – exploiting them in the name of science, exploiting animals in the name of sport, exploiting animals in the name of fashion, and yes, exploiting animals in the name of food.

If you are a vegan who is not familiar with Chávez’s best-known work and legacy, please change that–please support the important efforts of the United Farm Workers, not only by supporting their campaigns but also by being conscious and proactive about where your food comes from–because “vegan” does not always automatically translate to “humane.” And if you are an admirer of Chávez’s work for humans, of his spirit and his sense of justice and compassion, but are still eating animals and animal products, please join him in stopping; there is nothing nonviolent or just about selfishly exploiting and killing when we don’t have to.

Inexcusably, César Chávez Day still isn’t being recognized as a national holiday; sign the petition here as part of the ongoing effort to change that.