Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution by Peter Matthiessen Page B
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
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there behind his fake-plywood
Formica desk, in the hard light and hum of air conditioning,
he stared after me. “Good luck,” he said in a
sniping voice as I went through the glass door, which swung
to on the conditioned air with a soft exhaling.
In the San Joaquin Valley summer night, far out beyond
the neon lights, crickets jittered and a dog barked in the
wash of silence between passing cars. Alone in his office,
the manager still stood there, hands on his barren desk,
with as much vindictiveness in his face as a man can afford
who believes that the customer is always right. Under the
motel sign, the light read V ACANCY .
2
I HAD arrived in Delano late in the evening of the
last night of July, and was to meet Cesar Chavez for the first
time the following morning in the office of his assistant,
Leroy Chatfield. The whole staff had just returned from a
retreat at St. Anthony’s Mission, in the Diablo Range, “a
holy place,” Mr. Chatfield said, “where we tried to figure
out how to make life miserable for rich people.”
Chatfield is a gaunt, mild-mannered man with the white
hair of a summer child and the wide-eyed, bony face of a
playful martyr; at thirty-four, he is one of the brightest and
most resourceful of a bright and resourceful staff. Before
coming to Delano three years before, he had been Brother
Gilbert of Christian Brothers and a teacher at Garces High
School, in Bakersfield; but it was Cesar Chavez, he said,
who gave him his education. As Chatfield spoke of Chavez
and the farm workers, his face was radiant; Mrs. Israel,
struck by this, said, “You really love these people, don’t you,
Leroy?” It was a straight question, not a sentimental one,
and it made him blink, but he did not back away from it.
“Oh, yes,” he said quietly. “I mean, you don’t meet people
like that . . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged, at a loss,
still smiling.
While Chavez was meeting with some visitors from
Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Mrs. Israel and I were taken on a tour of the Union
offices, which are small and cluttered and busy. Chatfield
introduced us to Union vice-president Dolores Huerta, to
Chavez’s administrative assistant, the Reverend James
Drake, to staff lawyers Jerome Cohen and David Averbuck,
to Philip Vera Cruz, a Union officer and head of the Filipino
membership in the absence of assistant director Larry
Itliong, and to Helen Chavez, who is in charge of the credit
union office. Mrs. Chavez, Chatfield told us, is very quiet
and very strong, with a hot temper that rarely surfaces.
“Sometimes,” he said, “she has less faith than Cesar in nonviolence.”
Chatfield’s disarming innocence and his gift for
understatement have made him very effective as a Union
negotiator, and since he is also a good speaker, he often
represents the Union when Chavez himself cannot make a
public appearance.
Most of the offices are decorated with posters of Union
heroes. Robert and John Kennedy are everywhere, and
some of their portraits are black-bordered and hung with
flowers, as in a shrine. A huge blue-bordered picture of
Gandhi contrasts strangely with blood-red posters of Emiliano
Zapata, complete with mustachio, cartridge belts, carbine,
sash, sword and giant sombrero, under the legend VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN . Here and there are Union emblems, a
square-edged black eagle in a white circle on a red background,
over the letters UFWOC or the word HUELGA , which
means “strike.” Chavez says that the impact of a black emblem
in a white circle on a red field was discovered by the
Egyptians. Some people like to think that the eagle appeared
to Cesar Chavez in a dream; some say it came to
Chavez’s cousin Manuel, whose inspiration was the label
on a wine jug of Gallo Thunderbird. The truth is that the
emblem Chavez wanted was an Aztec eagle, which he
asked Manuel to design. With the assistance of Richard,
Manuel sketched it on a piece of wrapping paper, and
Formica desk, in the hard light and hum of air conditioning,
he stared after me. “Good luck,” he said in a
sniping voice as I went through the glass door, which swung
to on the conditioned air with a soft exhaling.
In the San Joaquin Valley summer night, far out beyond
the neon lights, crickets jittered and a dog barked in the
wash of silence between passing cars. Alone in his office,
the manager still stood there, hands on his barren desk,
with as much vindictiveness in his face as a man can afford
who believes that the customer is always right. Under the
motel sign, the light read V ACANCY .
2
I HAD arrived in Delano late in the evening of the
last night of July, and was to meet Cesar Chavez for the first
time the following morning in the office of his assistant,
Leroy Chatfield. The whole staff had just returned from a
retreat at St. Anthony’s Mission, in the Diablo Range, “a
holy place,” Mr. Chatfield said, “where we tried to figure
out how to make life miserable for rich people.”
Chatfield is a gaunt, mild-mannered man with the white
hair of a summer child and the wide-eyed, bony face of a
playful martyr; at thirty-four, he is one of the brightest and
most resourceful of a bright and resourceful staff. Before
coming to Delano three years before, he had been Brother
Gilbert of Christian Brothers and a teacher at Garces High
School, in Bakersfield; but it was Cesar Chavez, he said,
who gave him his education. As Chatfield spoke of Chavez
and the farm workers, his face was radiant; Mrs. Israel,
struck by this, said, “You really love these people, don’t you,
Leroy?” It was a straight question, not a sentimental one,
and it made him blink, but he did not back away from it.
“Oh, yes,” he said quietly. “I mean, you don’t meet people
like that . . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged, at a loss,
still smiling.
While Chavez was meeting with some visitors from
Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference,
Mrs. Israel and I were taken on a tour of the Union
offices, which are small and cluttered and busy. Chatfield
introduced us to Union vice-president Dolores Huerta, to
Chavez’s administrative assistant, the Reverend James
Drake, to staff lawyers Jerome Cohen and David Averbuck,
to Philip Vera Cruz, a Union officer and head of the Filipino
membership in the absence of assistant director Larry
Itliong, and to Helen Chavez, who is in charge of the credit
union office. Mrs. Chavez, Chatfield told us, is very quiet
and very strong, with a hot temper that rarely surfaces.
“Sometimes,” he said, “she has less faith than Cesar in nonviolence.”
Chatfield’s disarming innocence and his gift for
understatement have made him very effective as a Union
negotiator, and since he is also a good speaker, he often
represents the Union when Chavez himself cannot make a
public appearance.
Most of the offices are decorated with posters of Union
heroes. Robert and John Kennedy are everywhere, and
some of their portraits are black-bordered and hung with
flowers, as in a shrine. A huge blue-bordered picture of
Gandhi contrasts strangely with blood-red posters of Emiliano
Zapata, complete with mustachio, cartridge belts, carbine,
sash, sword and giant sombrero, under the legend VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN . Here and there are Union emblems, a
square-edged black eagle in a white circle on a red background,
over the letters UFWOC or the word HUELGA , which
means “strike.” Chavez says that the impact of a black emblem
in a white circle on a red field was discovered by the
Egyptians. Some people like to think that the eagle appeared
to Cesar Chavez in a dream; some say it came to
Chavez’s cousin Manuel, whose inspiration was the label
on a wine jug of Gallo Thunderbird. The truth is that the
emblem Chavez wanted was an Aztec eagle, which he
asked Manuel to design. With the assistance of Richard,
Manuel sketched it on a piece of wrapping paper, and
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