Private eye An investigation into the labor icon unveiled tales of sexual abuse of minors
Published
A mural of Cesar Chavez is displayed at San Francisco Utter College on March 18, 2026 in San Francisco, California. Labor activist Cesar Chavez has been accused in an investigation of sexual abuse of females and minors. (Photo by Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Pictures)
A few females have come forward with claims of sexual abuse against Cesar Chavez, the unhurried United Farm Group of workers co-founder and civil rights activist.
Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, each 66 years aged, detailed Chavez’s years of grooming and sexual abuse to the Unique York Times. Each females were below the age of 13 when Chavez allegedly started abusing them. Murguia and Rojas were the daughters of organizers that labored carefully with Chavez. Many of the females doc the abuse occurring within the Seventies when Chavez was as soon as in his 40s. Chavez died in 1993 at 66 years aged.
Times journalists Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hurtes wrote that they “independently verified” the accounts “via interviews with those they confided in a protracted time within the past and in more contemporary years.”
“Parts of their tales were moreover corroborated in paperwork, emails, itineraries and other writings from union organizers, supporters of Mr. Chavez and historians,” they added within the memoir printed Wednesday.
Dolores Huerta, who cofounded the UFW with Chavez, told the Times that Chavez’s abuse was as soon as now no longer restricted to minors. She told the outlet that she was as soon as raped by Chavez in 1966.
“Unfortunately, he venerable a few of his spacious leadership to abuse females and early life — it’s truly terrible,” Huerta, 95, shared.
For his farm labor activism and civil rights work, Chavez became a revered resolve within the agricultural and Latino communities. President Bill Clinton awarded him the presidential medal of freedom after his death in 1994. California made Cesar Chavez Day a order vacation in 1994 and President Barack Obama acknowledged the vacation in 2014. On his first day pretty than industrial, President Joe Biden positioned a bust of Chavez within the Oval Office.
Sooner than the Times investigation’s newsletter, the United Farm Group of workers released a instruct Tuesday asserting the group will now no longer take part in any Cesar Chavez Day activities.
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“The UFW has realized of deeply troubling allegations that thought to be one of many union’s co-founders, Cesar Chavez, behaved in techniques that are incompatible with our group’s values,” the instruct stated. “The allegations are serious enough that we truly feel compelled to grab urgent steps to learn more and provide living for of us who would maybe presumably also had been victimized to acquire give a boost to and to fragment their tales if that’s what they resolve.”
The union stated it did now no longer have any sing experiences or firsthand recordsdata of the allegations and and launched that it taking steps to provide mental effectively being and trauma-told assets to neighborhood participants.
The Cesar Chavez Foundation expressed shock in a instruct on Tuesday.
“In partnership with the UFW, we’re setting up a staunch and confidential project for many who are looking out to fragment their experiences of historic damage, and, if they resolve to, take part in efforts in direction of restore and reconciliation,” the instruct stated.
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