Download The Moral Vision of Cesar Chavez

The Moral Vision of
César Chavez
Agriculture, Food and the
Environment in Catholic Social
Teaching -- Spring 2008
(Br.) Keith Douglass Warner OFM
[email protected]; webpage:
www.scu.edu/fevp, click on
“justice for farmworkers”
Course description
This course presents the vocation of César
Chavez to investigates the dramatic
changes have taken place in our modern
agrofood system over the past century. Chavez was profoundly influenced by a
Catholic vision of society, and this played a key role in inspiring him to organize
Mexican farm workers to fight for their dignity. He addressed human rights, racism,
labor organizing, farm workers’ conditions, environmental protection, food safety, and
food access; through his moral vision and agency he challenged people around the
world to do the same. This course will provide an overview of Catholic perspectives on
agriculture, food and the environment, but also labor organizing and immigration, to
examine how Chavez went about achieving this vision using a spirituality of
nonviolence. Class assignments will probe his spiritual and moral vision, and explore
how it is -- or could be -- carried forward today.
This course has two sections. The first half of the course presents Chavez’s biography,
background, vocation, spirituality, and farm labor organizing activities. This section
will include an introduction to the industrialization of agriculture and ag labor, as well
as the origin of Catholic social teaching about human dignity and justice in society. It
will ask: what was Chavez’s moral vision? How did it develop over time, and why? The
second half examines the status of farm workers, farm labor unions, and immigrant
farm workers today. This half will ask: what would it mean to carry his vision forward
today? Were he still alive, what would César do? Course assignments will address these
questions in the context of this, the 15th anniversary of his death.
Student learning goals
1. To understand the origins, vocation, moral vision, and impact of César Chavez’s
life.
2. To learn about the relationship between a “moral vision” and ethical engagement
with social injustice.
3. To understand the development of Catholic social teaching as a coherent body of
ethical thought, and how Chavez advanced it through his vocation.
4. To learn about the field of “agrofood studies” and to survey the dramatic
changes that have taken place in the relationships between the environment,
agriculture, food, and culture over the past century.
5. To be able to trace the development of Catholic social teaching about human
dignity, labor organizing, immigration and agriculture through time.
6. To carry forward Chavez’s moral vision to the challenges we face today with
race, agriculture, social justice, immigration and sustainability.
7. To reflect on the meaning of our vocations in light of Chavez’s moral vision.
Course evaluation
Tracing your family history to farming (or alternative assignment)
Describe and explain an aspect of Cesar Chavez’s moral vision
Compare one of Chavez’s discourses with a contemporary one
Popular education poster: immigrant roots
Character based learning plans
Final: a position paper addressing an agro-environmental dilemma
Class participation
Total
Worth
10%
15%
15%
10%
20%
20%
10%
100%
Due
Ap 10
Ap 29
May 8
My 13
My 29
Jun 10
Required assignments
I will not accept hand written assignments. Please print them on a computer printer.
1. Conduct a brief oral history research with at least 2 family members to find out
how far back farmers or farmworkers can be found in your family. Find out what
kinds of farming they did, what kinds of crops were grown, under what
conditions, and how the crops were marketed. Explain how your family
members exited farming, if they already have. 1000 words. You must interview
family members even if you think they don’t have any connection to ag. For an
alternative assignment, see Keith.
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2. Describe, explain and interpret one aspect of Chavez’s moral vision. Describe it
great detail, and explain how it relates to Catholic social teaching. Interpret this
in light of several key questions that Keith will provide.
3. A discourse analysis. Analyze one of César Chavez’s speeches or written texts,
and compare it with a contemporary discourse addressing an ethical dilemma.
4. Create a popular education poster with a partner.
5. Using the text Jesse, create a pair of Character based learning plans to be
proposed by the Ethics Center.
6. A final position paper that includes several components, including a moral
vision, virtue ethics, and a food ethic. Details TBA.
Required Texts
Dalton, Frederick John. 2003. The Moral Vision of Cesar Chávez. Maryknoll: Orbis Press.
Ferriss, Susan, and Ricardo Sandoval. 1997. The Fight in the Fields: Cesar Cesar Chávez
and the Farmworkers Movement. Harcourt.
Garcia, Mario. 2007. The Gospel of Cesar Chávez. Sheed & Ward.
National Conference of Catholic Bishops. 2004. For I Was Hungry and You Gave me to Eat:
Catholic Reflections on Food, Farmers and Farmworkers. Washington, DC: USCC.
Martin, Philip L. 2003. Promise Unfulfilled: Unions, Immigration, & the Farm Workers.
Cornell.
Wright, Angus. 2005. The Death of Ramon González. Austin: University of Texas Press.
NOTE: YOU MUST PURCHASE THE REVISED 2005 EDITION
****Jesse. 1994. Gary Soto. Scholastic. To be provided by Keith & the Ethics Center.****
Reader for Envs 161: The Moral Vision of Cesar Chavez
1. Andrews, David, CSC. 2004. Eating is a Moral Act. Blueprint, LVIII 3, 1-7.
2. Warner, Keith Douglass, OFM. In preparation. The Farm workers and the
Franciscans.
3. Wolfteich, Clare. 2005. Devotion and the Struggle for Justice in the Farm Worker
Movement. Spiritus 5 (2005): 158–175
4. Allen, Patricia, Margaret FitzSimmons, Michael Goodman, Keith Warner. 2003.
“Alternative food initiatives in California.” CASFS Research Brief.
5. Warner, Keith Douglass. 2007. Agroecology in Action: Extending Alternative
Agriculture Through Social Networks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Introduction & ch 1.
6. Wirth, Strohlic and Getz. 2007. Hunger in the fields
7. Mexican Farmers Protest US Trade Pact. 2008.
Plagiarism Policy
All students will perform their assignments honestly and assignments will be original
work. Any plagiarism will result in immediate and appropriate disciplinary action not
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limited to failing the course and possible expulsion from the University. (See “Student
Handbook.”) If you do not understand this policy please consult the instructor.
Disability Accommodation Policy:
To request academic accommodations for a disability, students must contact Disability
Resources located in The Drahmann Center in Benson, room 214, (408) 554-4111; TTY
(408) 554-5445. Students must provide documentation of a disability to Disability
Resources prior to receiving accommodations.
SCU events Spring 2008 relevant to a Moral Vision of Cesar Chavez
April 23, Wednesday, Spanish language mass, Concelebrants: Jesuit Fathers Paul
Locatelli, Luis Calero and Paul Fitzgerald, Noon, Mission Church
Thursday, April 24, Ethics at Noon: "'Amnesty, Ethics, and Immigration: Catholic
Perspectives From Both Sides of the Border," Kevin Appleby, Director, Office of
Migration and Refugee Policy, US Conference of Catholic Bishops Conference; Erica
Dahl-Bredine, Catholic Relief Services-Mexico Country Representative. Co-sponsored
by the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education. 12 p.m., Wiegand Room
April 24, Thursday, Professor Mario T. Garcia, History Department, UC Santa Barbara, "The
Spiritual Journey of Cesar Chavez” 3:30-5:00PM, Adobe Lodge
Thursday, April 24, Lecture: "On Ethics and Immigration," Arizona Governor Janet
Napolitano, 7 p.m., Recital Hall
April 30, Wednesday, Mariachi Music, Noon, Mission Gardens
Tuesday May 20. Noon. CSTS Symposium on pesticide alternatives by Keith at noon.
Details TBA
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Course outline and reading assignments (FIF=Fight in the Fields; GCC=Gospel of Cesar Chavez; MVCC=Moral Vision of Cesar
Chavez; FIWH=For I Was Hungry; PU=Promise Unfulfilled; DRG=Death of Ramon Gonzales; R: Copycraft reader)
Reading for subsequent class meeting
Week
Topics
Introductions: the course and each other:
1A
Moral visions of agriculture, food, labor and the environment
April 1
Introduction to the modern agricultural dilemma: production vs.
protection; the reality of farmworkers
FIF Forward, I, 1
1B
Defining the modern agrofood system, and agrofood studies
GCC Forward, I
April 3
Farmers vs. growers vs. farmworkers vs. peasants
MVCC I, 1
Losing the farm: the Chavez case and more generally in Mexico
FIF 2, 3
2A
Introduction to Catholic social teaching: practical wisdom
GCC 1, 2, 13
April 8
Popular religiosity
MVCC 2
A brief and visual history of farm labor in California
FIF 4
2B
Community organizing, labor organizing and unions
GCC 8
April 10 The Delano Strike
MVCC 3
The Great Pilgrimage
FIF 5, 6
3A
Human dignity
GCC 3, 10
April 15 Nonviolence as spirituality and social change strategy
MVCC 5
FIF 7
3B
Economic concentration in the agrofood system
GCC 5, 9, 11
April 17 Boycott as a strategy for nonviolent social change
FIF 8
4A
Pesticides and farm workers
GCC 3, 4
April 22 Farm Labor Contractors
Mario Garcia in Adobe Lodge
MVCC 4
4B
April 24
FIF 9, Epilogue
MVCC 6
5a
April 29
Economic justice and farm worker wages
R: Andrews, Eating is a Moral Act
NCCB, For I Was Hungry
5b
May 1
The farm worker movement and its impacts on the Catholic church
and food ethics
R: Warner, Farm workers and the Franciscans
PU Prologue, 1
DRG Intro, 1
6a
May 6
The ongoing challenges of organizing poor immigrant farm workers
R: Wolfteich, Devotion and the struggle for justice
PU 2, 3
DRG 2
6b
May 8
7a
May 13
7b
May 15
R: Warner, Agroecology in action
Nonviolence and Farm worker spirituality
The challenges of organizing farm workers.
Character based learning
Pesticides (continued)
DRG 6, 7
8a
Jesse
May 20
PU 8
8b
R: Allen et al, Alternative food initiatives
May 22
DRG 4, 9
9a
Rural poverty in Mexico
May 27
Indigenous cultures and justice
R: Wirth, Hunger in the fields
9b
Rural hunger in Mexico and California
R: Mexican farmers protest US trade pact
May 29
DRG 10, afterward
10a
Technology and social power
June 3
Prospects for change
10b
June 4
11
June 10
NO CLASS – THURSDAY OF WEEK 10
NO CLASS ON THURSDAY OF WEEK 10
Technology and conflict
Farm workers, food ethics, and alternative agfood movements
Last class
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