Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century

Join us for an evening with Randy Shaw, author of the new book Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century. In Beyond the Fields, Shaw reveals the untold story of how the spirit of “Si Se Puede” that began with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in the 1960s still sets the course for today’s social justice movements. Shaw finds that the influence of Chavez and the UFW has ranged far and wide: in labor campaigns like Justice for Janitors, in the building of Latino political power, in the fight for environmental justice, in the growing national movement for immigrant rights, and even in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In fact, many of the ideas, tactics and strategies that Chavez and the UFW so skillfully employed, like grassroots organizing and the cultivation of young activist talent, were integrated into the Obama campaign and even overseen by former UFW disciples like Marshall Ganz.

Randy Shaw is the Director of San Francisco's Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and is editor of the online daily newspaper BeyondChron.org. His previous books are The Activist's Handbook and Reclaiming America.

"Randy Shaw shows how the spirit, strategies, and tactics of the UFW in its heyday still strengthen the U.S. labor movement."
-Eliseo Medina, former member UFW Executive Board, now Executive Vice President of SEIU

Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Labor Center, Institute for the Study of Social Change, Chicano Studies, Institute of Governmental Studies, and others.