A Song for Cesar

♪♪ [ Indistinct singing ] [ Instruments tuning ] -Okay, go.

♪♪ -Abel Sanchez and Jorge Santana have added music to a story of Cesar Chavez.

Everybody, black and white and Latino and Asian and... -Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys ready in percussion land?

-...Native American and all of us -- we should have this.

-Okay.

I'm ready.

They're ready.

Everyone's ready.

-Here we go.

-It's a song for Cesar.

-Rolling on 4.

[ "Free" plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read.

You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride.

You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.

♪♪ -When California moves, it moves the rest of the country.

And when the country moves, the rest of the world moves.

And that's what we were doing.

-♪ As I walk along this land, I wonder what will be ♪ ♪ Will I be forever searching?

♪ Will my soul be free?

-We didn't know who we were.

We were seeking identity, Cesar Chavez gave us that.

-♪ Will my children reach the promise of equality?

♪ -I think the deciding factor in whether you're going to make real social change or not is risk.

Are you willing to take a risk?

And the farm workers took the risks.

[ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪ -♪ As I walk along this land, I wonder what I see ♪ ♪ See my brother struggling, struggling to be free ♪ -You're either part of the problem or a part of the solution.

Ain't no in between.

-♪ Will I be forever yearning?

♪ Will my soul be free?

-It was said somewhere along the line, "Beware of a movement that sings."

-Oh, man, it was so exciting.

The musicians were excited.

The people were excited.

-Even though we don't know where this journey is going to end, we know that this journey is going to be successful even if it takes a long time to get there.

-♪ Like a never-ending battle, battle of my mind ♪ ♪ Will I be forever yearning what I seek to find?

♪ -We, uh -- We were recording one night, Jorge Santana and myself, a song called "Free," and, you know, the next thing we know, we were inspired as if Cesar Chavez's spirit entered into the studio.

-♪ Will I still be free?

-As Abel and I got closer to finishing the song, it was very real that it had a strong connection to the farm workers, Cesar Chavez, and his legacy.

The connecting factor is the cry.

It's the cry of the instrument.

It's the cry of the lyric.

It's the cry of the note.

It's the cry of the laborers.

It's the cry of Cesar wanting to have a better way for the people he represents.

-All of us are looking for a place under the sun.

By that, I mean for a union that we can belong as farm workers, which is gonna be built by farm workers, and it's gonna be for farm workers.

♪♪ -Señor Chavez, his dreams, his hopes, his desires, his work will live as long as we who are alive keep it alive.

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Dramatic music plays ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -Farm workers -- all farm workers -- shared in one common experience, and that was the injustice of living, of working in conditions that were inhuman.

♪♪ -Imagine being 10 to 8 hours bent down in your back.

Sometimes you couldn't stand up at the end of the row.

You couldn't stand up to get a drink of water.

You couldn't stand up because it was very painful.

-People got sprayed in the fields and families were locked into something very similar to something that was right over my shoulder, basically sharecropping.

♪♪ -Huelga.

-iViva la huelga!

♪♪ -iViva la huelga!

iViva la huelga!

-iViva Cesar Chavez!

-iViva!

-iViva!

-iViva la huelga!

-iViva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

♪♪ -It's an enormous, ironic injustice that a nation as powerful and as rich as this one has to rely on cheap stoop labor in order to feed itself, you know?

But I think Cesar pretty much pointed the way, I think, toward the future.

I think he says, "Stand up.

Stand up for yourself.

Don't be on your knees."

You know?

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ -Cesar Chavez was the main guy, sort of, you know, standing up for all those people working in the fields that were getting mistreated, weren't being paid, and, you know, a lot of slave labor and stuff.

[ Indistinct shouting ] -He was a walking lesson, and being around him, it was action.

-The power of persistence.

He had a strong sense of the injustice that farm workers had in our society and what to do about it.

And he kept with it.

-iViva la victoria!

Viva!

-I have two wings.

In this wing, it was B.B.

King and Tito Puente, you know, all that -- John Lee Hooker, Miles Davis -- and on this hand, it was Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and the Black Panthers, you know, and los campesinos, you know?

And to me, it was always about doing this with the music.

♪♪ -Art was integral to this project right from the very beginning because... artists are naturally drawn to those causes that are pure.

They're naturally drawn to them, you know?

Whether they're writers or they're musicians or they're actors or they're poets or they're painters, naturally they're drawn to that.

[ "Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun" playing ] -♪ Up to California from Mexico you come ♪ ♪ To the Sacramento Valley to toil in the sun ♪ ♪ Your wife and seven children I was a migrant kid.

You know, I grew up in the fields.

I mean, I was working in the field by the time I was 5 till the time I was 12.

I picked everything you could think of there.

There were no child labor laws.

Now we have child labor laws, you know?

But in those days, the bigger the family, the more you picked, the more money you made.

So if you had 15 in the family, gee, you could work a ranch, man.

♪ Up to California from Mexico you come ♪ ♪ To the Sacramento Valley -♪ To toil in the sun -♪ Your wife and seven children ♪ ♪ They're working, every one ♪ And what will you be giving to your ♪ -♪ Brown-eyed children of the sun?

♪ -"The Brown-Eyed Children of the Sun" was a poem that was sent by two young Chicanos from L.A.

I read the poem, and I heard a bolero, is what I heard.

♪ Your face is blind and wrinkled ♪ I mean, it represented something to me that was very personal.

It brings back memories of being a kid and watching your mother and father work.

"What will you be giving to your brown-eyed children of the sun?"

is that question of the future, for the future generation.

♪ Your children's eyes are smiling ♪ ♪ Their lives have just begun ♪ And what will you be giving to your ♪ -♪ Brown-eyed children of the sun?

♪ -We were born in a farm near Yuma, Arizona.

That farm was a homestead that my grandfather homesteaded when he came to Yuma.

♪♪ But during the Depression, they lost it because they didn't have enough money to pay the taxes, and so we moved to California and became migrant farm workers.

♪♪ -Yeah, it was very hard when we left Arizona.

And here we come to California.

"Oh, my God," I said, "this is a different world for us."

You know, from one field to the other, and a farm and living in a tent, in the car -- whatever we could 'cause, you know, we didn't know any better.

♪♪ Cesar, he was always -- 'cause we worked in the fields, and he would say, "I'm so mad at these people.

Look at the way they treat us.

Somebody has to help us."

-And I remember him clearly, clearly saying -- he said, "Somebody ought to do something about this.

This is not right.

Somebody ought to do something about it."

Not knowing that four years later, he was gonna be the one who was gonna be doing something about it.

And that's how it started, you know?

-♪ You're a free man ♪ And this heritage is won ♪ That you can be giving -♪ To your brown-eyed children of the sun ♪ ♪♪ [ Song ends ] [ Up-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ -I first met Cesar in 1946 when I was 6 years old, and he was a running partner of one of my cousins there in Delano.

They were both pachucos.

And I didn't know it at the time, but that was Cesar.

-♪ A los tiempos han cambiado ♪ ♪ Usted está muy aguitado ♪ ♪ Y está buti atravesado ♪ ♪ Antes se bailaba swing ♪ ♪ Boogie-woogie, jitterbug ♪ -The pachuco experience, which was his teenage youth, was born out of this cultural fusion, you know?

The jazz age and the swing music came together with Chicano culture to create the pachucismo, right?

-It was an identity.

It was the first generation of those Mexicano families who were coming to the United States, the first born who were identifying themselves as being totally different than their mothers and fathers.

"I'm not Mexicano.

I'm Chicano -- because I speak English, right?

Orale."

-He was of popular culture, man.

He was no different than any other Latino kid growing up in the United States, you know?

-He loved to dance.

Oh, he loved to dance.

-When I met Cesar, we were walking down the halls of KPFA over here on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, and there was a poster there that was for the San Francisco Blues Festival that was featuring Jimmy Liggins.

And Cesar stopped and he looked and he goes, "Is he still around?"

And I said -- I go, "You know who this guy is?"

He goes, "Oh, yeah."

He goes, "I used to go dance to him when I was a young pachuco."

I said -- I go, "You were a pachuco?"

He goes, "Oh, yeah, man."

He goes, "And I love jazz and blues."

He goes, "Coleman Hawkins is my man."

-A lot of people have no idea that the leader of the farm workers' union was this guy that had this urban soul inside him, right?

And that his taste in jazz music was probably the finest expression of that -- of that flower, you know?

-I went on a trip with him to New York about a month before he passed away.

During the day, we spent time going to different used music shops and used book stores, and he had a list of about 100 of -- you know, the top 100 jazz albums that he wanted to get, and he literally would carry it around in his back pocket and pull it out and cross it off as he would find them, as he would purchase new pieces.

He really appreciated jazz.

-Yeah.

-And he used to scat with us all the time.

We didn't realize that what he was doing was scatting.

He would call us "skiddy bim bom" and "skiddy bop bop," and we just thought that he couldn't remember all of our names 'cause there were so many of us.

-♪ Con mi linda pachucona ♪ ♪ Las caderas a menear ♪ ♪ Ella le hace muy de aquellas ♪ -What I had perceived of him as a young zoot-suiter is not untrue.

He was, but he is more.

You can be that and a leader at the same time.

The leaders can come out of that field.

They don't have to come out of ivory towers.

They can come out of the rocks and the soil and the sand of Delano.

-♪ Bailan guaracha sabrosón ♪ ♪ El botecito y el danzón ♪ Ha!

♪♪ [ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ -I was part of the Community Services Organization, CSO, in Stockton, and there had been an accident and several farm workers had been killed -- braceros.

There were a lot of braceros in Stockton.

It was one of the big centers where they brought -- I think the largest number of braceros, actually.

And there were a lot of issues where they wouldn't pay them, where they were injured and, you know, nobody was taking care of them.

And so we made that kind of an issue for the organization to try to raise money to help their families out.

-♪ The paper said "Bring the Mexicans" in 1942 ♪ ♪ The men have left the fields for the war ♪ ♪ And there's too much work to do ♪ ♪♪ ♪ North came el bracero ♪ ♪ To work the fields and grow the food ♪ ♪ For the troops, the Allies, and the nation ♪ ♪ Truly a part of the greatest generation ♪ ♪♪ ♪ See the sack of potatoes ♪ The basket full of tomatoes -♪ See the man bending down with the short-handled hoe ♪ ♪♪ ♪ This is a song for el bracero ♪ ♪♪ -As you're growing up, you see that you're just being asked to go out and slave yourself and get paid 90 cents an hour for working with one of the growers out there doing the short-handled hoe, and 80-degrees, 90-degree weather out there, hoping one day I'll be a tractor driver so I don't have to be bent over all my life.

That was kind of my rude awakening to reality of life, you know?

I was 11 years old.

My parents had taken us shopping in Salinas.

On our way back, a bus that was carrying 62 braceros -- a converted flatbed truck, actually.

They were going over the railroad tracks, and they got hit on the passenger side.

The bus exploded into pieces.

[ Electric guitar music playing ] ♪♪ For me, it was something that I'll never forget the rest of my life.

It caused me to realize what this farm worker struggle was about.

It's not just about toilets.

It's about the respect and the treatment of workers that's important, you know, whether they're union or not.

I mean, they're human beings.

They got to be treated right.

-♪ 28 -♪ Near the Canyon de Los Gatos ♪ -♪ 14 -♪ When the truck van exploded -♪ 32 -♪ When the train hit that bus ♪ We died without our names This is just a song that I've performed for many years, but for the people where so much of the food is grown, they've actually lived this.

You know, as a songwriter that writes narrative ballads, it's my job to write about these things.

♪ Bracero Memorial Highway ♪ Runs Soledad to Chular ♪ Through the fields where we worked ♪ ♪ And slept beneath the stars ♪♪ ♪ Ver la bolsa de papas ♪ ♪ La cesta de tomates ♪ ♪ Ver al hombre agachado con su corto azedon ♪ ♪♪ ♪ Esta es una cancion para El Bracero ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Song ends ] [ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ -After serving in the Navy during World War II, Cesar returned to the fields.

And it was a time of great change in America, but too often that change was only framed in terms of war and peace, black and white, young and old.

No one seemed to care about the invisible farm workers who picked the nation's food, bent down in the beating sun, living in poverty, cheated by growers, abandoned in old age, unable to demand even the most basic rights.

But Cesar cared.

And in his own peaceful, eloquent way, he made other people care, too.

♪♪ -I met Cesar -- I think it was in 1944 or '45.

I lived in Delano, and he was a migrant worker.

He used to follow the crops.

I met him at a malt shop.

♪♪ He had always talked about organizing farm workers.

He told me one day, "You know what, Mother?"

He used to call me "Mother."

"I want to organize workers, but I need your support because you know there will be no money coming in and it's gonna be a sacrifice."

And I said, "I approve 100%," because I knew what it was to be out in the fields.

♪♪ I worked to support the family, because we had no money.

♪♪ We just had a little bit of savings that I had saved, and so after that ran out, I had to go to work.

I mean, I did it because I believed in him, and that's what I wanted to do.

I wanted him to continue organizing and help the people that we felt needed the help.

-Whoo!

-iQue viva la huelga y que viva Cesar Chavez!

♪♪ -A friend of mine, a trumpet player, Luis Gasca, asked me if I knew or had heard of Cesar Chavez, and I hadn't at the time.

And he told me who he was and what Cesar was doing.

Myself being a migrant worker, a field worker, picking cotton, chopping cotton, doing the field work, I was really intrigued about it, and I quickly wanted to be part of the cause, you know, and wanted to see what I could do to support.

I'm honored and happy to say that it became a lifelong friendship.

The world should know about Cesar and el movimiento.

And music is a great vehicle to express our feelings, our thoughts.

-♪ A un pueblo unido -Music has always been part of our history as far as our Mexican roots.

The corrido goes all the way back to, you know, the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

-♪ En lo alto del la bruta serrania ♪ ♪ Acampado se encontraba un regimiento ♪ -It was a musical broadside.

It was a musical flyer that communicated stories and heroes of the Mexican Revolution.

-♪ Popular entre la tropa era Adelita ♪ -So it's an easy fit for -- You know, fast-forward to the Chicano movement, the United Farm Workers.

You get a couple of guys with a couple guitars on a flatbed truck going through the fields, just letting people know, "This is where we're at."

-♪ Viva la huelga en el field ♪ ♪ Viva la causa en la historia ♪ -These corridos spread not only here, but all throughout, you know, Aztlán, the American Southwest.

There's corridos that were written about the situations of the farm workers in Texas, farm workers in New Mexico.

So you had, you know, these bands that were basically just guitar and voices, man.

Los Peludos out of the San Francisco Mission District, headed by Enrique Ramirez.

You know, you have Los Alacranes Mojados with "Chunky" Sanchez and those guys down in San Diego.

-There was a lot of inspiration out in the fields, inspiration that we began to take and put into the music.

And this enlightened the music, music that sings about the issues themselves, like "El Picket Sign," "Huelga en General," you know, "Bandera Roja," "No nos Moveran."

These types of songs, they began to enlighten us and make us feel like we had some kind of power.

-You know, and these songs that, you know -- ♪ Chicano, soy Chicano ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'm brown and I'm proud ♪ ♪ And I'll do it in my own way You know?

All of a sudden, we're being motivated by these songs, and it's a generation, man.

It's a generation of young people who are, you know, picking up on this and being able to take it on.

[ Indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ -Chicano!

♪♪ -The young generation was ready to go, especially after the Chicano movement came out.

Everybody got all gung-ho about, you know, doing something, you know, for our people.

♪♪ -♪ Don't put me down if I'm brown ♪ ♪ Hear what I say -As Chicanos, we were looking for some identity, and that music was something that we could call our own.

-♪ Hear what I say -Somebody's coined the term, that "Latin rock" or "Latin soul" -- that was the soundtrack of our lives.

To this day, when I hear it, it does take me back to, you know, that whole Chicano movement.

That music just inspires you to want to help a cause, you know, be there and support it.

-♪ Don't put me down if I'm brown ♪ ♪ Hear what I say -After being exposed to the farm workers and then hearing the news and also being at a lot of rallies where we were with a lot of our people out there, we created a song that says, you know, "Don't put me down if I'm brown."

-In the 1960s, we all started getting more in touch with our own culture -- 'cause we grew up as Americans.

You know, we were listening to the Beatles and Bob Dylan and Motown and everything else.

And, you know, we started to feel our own culture and pride in our own culture.

And that's when a lot of Chicano musicians became more Latinized in their music.

In the early days, we were doing surf music, rock music, British invasion, R&B, doo-wop, and suddenly we're starting to use timbales and congas.

We're starting to do Spanish.

We're starting to do bilingual and writing that way and singing about things to do with our culture.

So, what better thing than Cesar Chavez and the movement to support and to write about?

[ Indistinct shouting ] ♪♪ -It was a very politically aware time.

It was -- Feelings were running high, you know?

And people were ready to protest and see social change.

They weren't going for the ol' "okie doke" no more, you know?

-Yeah, yeah.

-And they started to realize that they could make a difference, you know?

And the music fit right in.

-iViva la causa!

-The huelga had just broken out, and I didn't know anything about it.

I went to Delano and arrived there New Year's Eve.

I remember we pulled into Filipino Hall, and there was 2,000 farm workers packed into Filipino Hall.

There was an energy in that Filipino Hall that, I mean, you can't really put your finger on, you have to experience.

There was a spiritual energy that was really strong, and I was taken by it.

And here I was at 17 years old, you know?

And my hair was long, you know?

I had Beatle boots on.

Seeing that before my very eyes and seeing the reactions of people responding to the music and the spiritual energy that was taking place really took me in a whole different direction, you know?

At the end of my two weeks, when I was supposed to leave, I never left.

It was a sense of community, a sense of strength, and a sense of purpose.

La causa, right?

-iCobardes!

Cobardes!

-♪ Viva la revolucion ♪ ♪ Viva nuestra asociacion ♪ ♪ Viva huelga en general ♪ -It's very important that we work day and night... -As a young teenager, I used to play a lot for the farm workers in small rallies that they used to do.

We used to play when he would come up in a station wagon, and old station wagon, get up, and speak.

-We want you to take out everybody in those fields.

Wherever possible, let's make sure that the grapes turn into raisins on the vines.

-♪ La Raza llena de gloria ♪ ♪ La victoria va cumplir ♪ -iViva la huelga!

-[ Chanting ] iHuelga!

Huelga!

-When Cesar Chavez and when the whole farm workers movement begun, it was very exciting to know that we weren't just farm workers, but we were people who contributed to the wealth of this nation.

And I started to -- I think it made all of us proud.

-♪ Cuando llegamos a Fresno ♪ -I saw this little giant of a man walking and leading thousands of people.

What that did for me, especially, and others, was, like, it lifted tons of weight off of my back.

All of a sudden, it gave me a freedom.

It gave me a freedom to speak through my work about those injustices that I had felt when I was growing up.

When Cesar Chavez, con la Virgen de Guadalupe, say, "It's okay, this is what we're supposed to be doing, this is what we should be doing," that energized all of us.

♪♪ We started to talk about the pride that was taking place at that particular time.

♪♪ And we started talking about identity and, "What do we do about the movement?

What's our role in the movement?

What do we do for the farm workers?"

And we finally -- Our idea was that we would become the narrative to the farm workers' struggle.

We would illustrate it, give it a pictorial narrative, you might say.

-The essence and the start of Chicano art was right there in the middle of the UFW.

♪♪ The painting by this man right behind me, Carlos Almaraz, who was actually the very first UFW sign painter -- he made backdrops and signs and everything for Cesar.

He came back from New York, and he really wanted to get more into the Chicano movement, and he volunteered.

♪♪ -I remember Carlos coming to our movement at a time where we were just about to have our first founding convention.

And we were looking for an artist to paint a mural to depict, you know, the trials and the struggles of the farm workers.

I told Carlos that we needed a very large mural.

And he said, "How large?"

I said, "I don't know, but the Convention Center in Fresno is enormous."

He said, "Well, we'll do something."

When the mural was done, he asked me to come view it at the headquarters, and I went.

And it took half of a football field.

I could not believe how enormous it was.

Sure enough, he got this 60-by-40 mural made out of heavy canvas, weighing several hundred pounds, up for the convention on time and looking very nice.

♪♪ And so we have a lot of memories of Carlos and his paintings and also memories of his great concern for the farm workers.

♪♪ -Cesar Chavez -- he recognized how important it is to be visually enriched, and audioly, too, you know, hearing things, music and poetry especially, and writing books like Jose Montoya, information.

-"Hoy enterraron al Louie, and San Pedro o sanpinche are in for it.

And those times of the forties and the early fifties lost un vato de atolle."

♪♪ "Kind of slim and drawn there towards the end..." -Cesar would come to Sacramento and visit us in our studios and help us print posters, and, "Come on, Cesar, get busy."

You know?

[ Laughs ] "How you boys doing?"

"Oh, good."

You know?

♪♪ -Cesar was an incredible storyteller, and he knew that this was the only place he could let his hair down.

And for Cesar, letting his hair down was just having an audience to hear stories that were not directly connected to the union but almost always were about the farm workers.

-The Royal Chicano Air Force wasn't an organization of just artists that paint and that draw and that sing and that do murals.

We translate the word "art" into a wider meaning, and that goes "the art of organizing."

-For being such a sloppy outfit, we did produce some clean, clean masterpieces that are still to this day considered as close to high art as you can get.

♪♪ -The idea that kids now knew who certain people were in the movement -- they knew who Dolores Huerta was.

They were seeing a reflection of themselves in our work.

All of a sudden, we were validating that Indian side of us that we had sort of set aside for so long.

♪♪ We were beautiful people, and we had a history.

And through our work, we illustrated that history as best as we could so that the kids could look at them and walk away from a poster, from a mural, and say, "You know, that's me up there," you know, or, "I can be that someday."

♪♪ -I want people to look at my work and say, "I know what he's talking about, you know, and it's speaking to me," you know?

Or, "I disagree with what he's saying in that."

I don't want people to look at my work and say, "Hmm, I wonder if it's supposed to be a red flower or if it's supposed to be a red sunset?"

No, because I don't have that much time to talk with people.

♪♪ I want to see a painting that says, "You know, I can do it.

I can change this."

You know, "I can change the conditions around me."

And I think that's the importance of work that empowers people.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Huelga.

Viva la huelga.

♪♪ -Señor Chavez had asked that we don't eat grapes, so we didn't eat grapes at home.

My son was about 9.

♪♪ He went to school, and they were serving grapes.

He walked out of school.

[ Laughter ] I said, "No, you have to go back."

He said, "These are evil people."

I said, "They're just ignorant."

♪♪ -In 1969, when I was working on the San Francisco boycott, working for $10 a week and $15 a week for food, living in a boycott house with other people, one of the last things I did that year, in October, was do a concert with Santana when their first record came out.

So, we got Santana and his band.

We got Mike Bloomfield and friends, Martin Ferrero, Shades of Joy, and the old Charlatans, and sold out and raised a lot of money.

[ Cheers and applause ] [ Down-tempo guitar music playing ] -We marched together, you know, against Safeway in front of Woolworth's on Market Street.

We did a few things together.

We played concerts for him and the farm workers.

Cesar Chavez taught us just how much compassion, how much kindness, how much patience, how much spiritual determination and conviction do you have.

He would bring a dimension that juntos, together, we could make a change.

-♪ Freedom ♪ Freedom ♪ So get up, stand up ♪ And let's celebrate Come on!

-I'm a child of God that has a lot of conviction because I learned from the Black Panthers, I learned from Cesar Chavez, I learned from Harry Belafonte.

I learned from a lot of people that you're either part of the problem or part of the solution.

Ain't no in between.

[ Electric guitar solo ] ♪♪ -We used music for the movement, you know?

And then of course Jim was a lifesaver for us because he did these big concerts, you know, music concerts as fundraisers.

And that's where we got a lot of the money to continue doing the work, you know?

-I met with Cesar in this little office in Delano, and I told Cesar -- I was really into photography a lot.

I said, "I want to be a photographer for the union."

He says, "No, no.

We have Joan Baez available.

We want you to go out and do concerts and fundraisers."

So, I said, "Okay."

[ Laughs ] And so I did that for the next five years.

[ Rock music playing ] ♪♪ I could go after any band I wanted to, and it was an era when the United Farm Workers Union movement was so supported by everybody.

So, the bands would perform basically for free, and some of them even spent their own money.

Kris Kristofferson was one of them.

-I identified with the farm workers because of where I grew up.

As soon as I knew that it was Cesar and that it was for the farm workers, I was committed.

♪♪ -Jerry Garcia and Crosby & Nash, Taj Mahal.

I did one show at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. with Cheech & Chong, Malo, and Tower of Power.

Sold out at the Shrine.

♪♪ ♪♪ -So it was just the '60s, you know?

I mean, it wasn't only sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.

It was, you know, some high political times.

It was conscious, the consciousness of the people and the heart, you know, that they showed to stand up and, like I say, make things right, you know, for the workers.

-I was just always hearing horror stories about what's going on, and then all of a sudden, this Cesar Chavez shows up and things are getting done.

I remember the guy just getting roasted in the press and roasted with politicians, but still the communities were really showing up.

♪♪ -These big benefits -- the farm worker benefits that we did at the time -- were just phenomenal.

And all our buddies were doing it -- the Azteca, the Malo guys, Cheech & Chong, these guys that we were all running around the country with and stuff.

There was no way in hell we were gonna miss this.

♪♪ -Oh, man, it was so exciting.

The musicians were excited.

The people were excited.

You know, we were actually saying that this is what we're doing for those we love and those who were not being treated so well, and they knew that we could do something.

You didn't have to beat people over the head to get them to do these things.

The musicians came out and did it, you know?

-I think, you know, the times affected the music, and the music affected the times.

And just the whole idea of bringing rock musicians behind a movement -- it was really in vogue then, I mean, because it was a very effective thing.

I mean, these farm workers' benefits -- I mean, it wasn't like, oh, some little -- you know, some tiny little concert in a park.

I mean, there was thousands of people.

You know, it made a big impact.

-♪ I never... -Yeah, I did the first farm workers' concert way back then with Cheech & Chong and Azteca, Tower of Power, the very first one at San Diego State.

-San Diego State.

Yeah.

Yeah.

-Yeah, that was us.

Yeah.

Yeah, but it was a great show, and, you know, that was the very first, and then we went on to do many more after that.

-♪ And the feeling, yeah -♪ Suavecito ♪ -♪ The feeling that I have inside ♪ -♪ Suavecito mi linda ♪ -Before I got in the band, I was cutting school and going out there to protest for the farm workers.

I didn't speak Spanish, but I learned the word "huelga."

It was amazing for me to be a part of that.

We had the number-four hit in the nation with "Suavecito."

I had so many emotions going through me at that time, you know?

I mean, here I am, you know, a young kid, all these opportunities are right there.

And I still had a social consciousness.

My chest is filled with pride knowing that I was out there and became a part of the solution.

It put a smile on my face that, you know, hasn't left really.

-♪ La-ah-ah-ah ♪ La, la, la-ah-ah-ah -Can I get you to sing it now?

-♪ La-ah-ah-ah ♪ La, la, la-ah-ah-ah [ Mid-tempo music plays ] -We wanted to make music.

♪♪ But at the same time, we wanted to make a statement, and those statements, yes, were around a lot of what was going on in that era, that time.

-♪ Peace, everybody ♪♪ -My dad, who came from Saltillo, Mexico -- he ran away from home when he was 15, jumped on a ship that went to Alaska, worked in Alaska, but got on another ship that came to California.

Well, the first jobs he could get to was working in the fields.

We would travel to wherever the season was, go out there, and all the kids work in the fields picking the food.

And we stayed in those little huts and stuff that -- well, you know, we didn't have housing and stuff.

So this is why I can relate to all those things, because hey, man, I went through that.

♪♪ We said anytime that we were able to do anything for the farm workers, and do these concerts to raise money and awareness, we were there.

-We were asked to come to this event that Cesar was doing, I think, at East L.A. College.

It was on the football field, you know, the stadium there.

And we came, and we were gonna -- I think we did a little skit.

-It was just a day in the life of Cheech & Chong, you know?

"Yeah, we're gonna go, you know, stand onstage with Cesar Chavez for a minute," you know?

-The first time he saw us, he had this big smile on his face.

And he was funny.

And he had a sense of humor.

[ Chuckles ] And it was cool.

It was -- Me and Tommy, we were right at the height of Cheech & Chong's success, and Paris, Tommy's son, who's a little blond -- He's 40 now, you know?

The first time I looked at this picture, like, "Whoa, man."

You know?

"We had a lot of hair, too."

[ Laughs ] -Whenever we did a benefit or whenever we did an appearance on behalf of Cesar, there was always that noble feeling that you got inside that -- You never got that doing concerts, you know?

You just got that from being part of a movement where it's helping people.

♪♪ -I remember San Diego State 'cause Cheech & Chong was on before us.

[ Both laugh ] And they cracked up the whole audience, you know?

-They were great.

Yeah.

-They were great.

-It was a big concert.

-It was huge.

-It was a stadium, a football stadium.

-A football stadium.

-And it was packed.

Tower of Power was there.

You know, Malo was there.

-Yeah, a lot of people.

♪♪ For us, as a new, young Filipino/Latin rock band coming out of San Francisco, everything was exciting to us, and there was always opportunities to perform at concerts.

And a lot of the performances that we did had to do with benefits and raising awareness and money for the cause of the farm workers back then.

And I was pretty young back then and kind of naive, but now that I look back, you know, those were very important performances that we did.

-[ Singing in Tagalog ] ♪♪ -We were from the Mission District, and it's a melting pot, and it's a melting pot of many, many bands, but what made Dakila a little different was that little Filipino element to it.

I think just because, you know -- because of our cultural background, we felt that we should really, like, emphasize that just a little bit.

-Back in 1965, there was a AWOC organization, which is the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by a Filipino activist, Larry Itliong, and he was the one that organized the actual strikes back then, and it was mostly Filipinos.

-I mean, you can't talk about Cesar Chavez without talking about Larry Itliong, you know?

It was those two men who really made the difference in terms of the farm workers' struggle in Delano.

The history of Filipinos and who they are and how they represent a certain portion of this country still hasn't been told.

That story has yet to be told.

-So, not many people know that, you know, the Filipinos were instrumental in the birth of the United Farm Workers union.

-♪ Pass it around -Liberty!

-So, we were glad to be part of the benefit 'cause we were part of that history.

-Freedom!

-[ Singing in Tagalog ] ♪ Pass it around Peace!

[ Cheers and applause ] -Yeah.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ] ♪♪ -I had a friend who lived in Beverly Hills who threw a birthday party for himself, and it was magnificently opulent, beautiful.

Every kind of food, every kind of silverware.

It was an incredible event.

But after that party, I drove north from Los Angeles to Delano, ♪ Digging in your fields ♪ Pulling up your food ♪ No matter how I feel ♪ Don't do me no good And I went to see the food store of the UFW, and there was very little in it -- some soup, some beans, maybe some rice, nothing much.

And the contrast between where I'd been and the food store of hardworking people that had very little in it provoked me to write the song "Field Worker."

♪ Came across your border ♪ Just to work for you ♪ I give you all I got to give ♪ What more can I do?

♪ Don't give me law and order I couldn't help it.

It was -- The dichotomy was so, so stark.

The difference was so amazing.

I had to write it.

I had no choice.

♪♪ I have a brand-new recording of it that I did live at Wembley Stadium in front of 80,000 people with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

♪ Digging in your fields ♪ Pulling up your food ♪ No matter how I feel ♪ Don't do me no good Every time I sing it, I get the same response -- because people understand what it's about.

They understand it's a fight.

Hardworking people have to fight for every scrap, for every dollar in this world.

♪ "Treat me like a human" ♪ Is all I have to say -♪ The man that I am working for ♪ ♪ Won't let me get ♪ Away-y-y-y-y ♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ] [ Soft music plays ] ♪♪ -Look, there's, like, two things -- food and music.

People aren't gonna let go of that.

I don't care how it's delivered.

One way or another, they're gonna have to have it.

-Okay.

Here we go.

-And music, to me, is... -Here we go.

-...the language of our planet, of our universe, of our solar system, you know, of our cosmos.

I mean, you know, you can go anywhere in the world, and before you learn the language, you're already hearing the music.

♪♪ -♪ Big boss man ♪♪ ♪ Can you hear me when I call?

♪♪ ♪ Big boss man ♪♪ ♪ Can you hear me when I call?

♪♪ ♪ Well, you ain't too big ♪ You just tall, that's all ♪♪ -♪ You got me working, boss man ♪ ♪ Working round the clock ♪ I want a little drink of water ♪ ♪ But you won't let Jimmy stop ♪ Oh, big boss man ♪♪ ♪ Can't you hear me when I talk?

♪ ♪♪ Talking to you, boss man.

♪ I said you ain't so big ♪ You just tall, that's all Ah, what do you say?

♪♪ -I was like one generation on my mother's side away from agrarian people.

We used to go and pick tobacco.

And we got sprayed in the fields, so I had a lot of this stuff that I could relate to.

When I came to California, the relationship between the owners of any kind of agriculture and the people doing the work was appalling to me.

♪ Big boss man ♪♪ ♪ You can't hear me when I call ♪ -Why don't you hear me?

-♪ Big boss man ♪♪ ♪ You can't hear me when I call ♪ -Ohh.

That ain't right.

♪♪ -♪ Oh, you ain't so big ♪ You just tall, that's all -That's all.

♪♪ -And then when the opportunity came for me to be able to basically put my money where my mouth is and where my talent where I could do something to help benefit people, I did.

-Yeah.

-I think we got it.

-I do, I do, I do.

What do you think?

Everybody okay out there?

-I got it, you know, and it's like I'm -- nobody's supposed to be treated like that, you know?

And I saw that if something that I could do to help -- you know, raise money, bring awareness -- well, then, it was.

It was time not to eat grapes.

Grapes did not get eaten.

-iViva la huelga!

-iViva!

-iViva Cristo Rey!

-iViva!

-iViva la United States of America!

-iViva!

-iViva Mexico!

-iViva!

-iViva Cesar Chavez!

-iViva!

-Miren señores y señoras, lo que les acabo de decir son mentiras.

Yo creo en el movimiento, yo creo en la peregrinacion, yo creo en la huelga, que viva la marcha!

-iViva huelga!

-El Teatro Campesino, the kind of theater, the agit-prop theater that they did off the side of a truck, out in the fields was very, very well done, in a language that was very, very direct to the soul of the migrant, of the farm worker.

-We as artists had a purpose, and that purpose was to be faithful to its audience and to bring our stories, our theater, our plays, our music to the people.

'Cause that's where it belonged.

-I grew up as a farm worker.

We came from Lordsburg, New Mexico, and I was just a kid.

-Agustín Lira came out of the Teatro Campesino.

He was one of the founders of El Teatro Campesino with Luis Valdez, and he wrote songs about the farm workers' struggle, one of the pillars of this movimiento music, you know?

-I was 18.

For a couple of years, I wandered around from Fresno to Selma, back and forth.

I read a newspaper article that said that the UFW was looking for volunteers, and because I was homeless at the time, that really sounded like a great deal to me because it said that it was for a chance to move up in the organization.

So, to me, that was like a clarion call.

I heard the bell, and I went to Delano.

♪♪ -By the time 1965 rolled around, I was in San Francisco.

I joined the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

We were performing in the parks.

I was taking part in the cultural revolution that was the hippies.

But I began to receive these newspapers via my grandmother, and she was sending us "El Malcriado," sending them to my dad, right?

And I saw "El Malcriado," and I said, "What is this?"

And it said something's happening in Delano, of all places.

I never expected anything to happen in Delano.

And so when the strike broke out, I had to go check it out, so I went to the strike.

And I began to get this idea of, "Maybe I can talk to Cesar about a theater of, by, and for farm workers," you know?

-Compañero... -So I came back to San Francisco, and Cesar came to the Mission District to raise money a couple of weeks later.

So I went to the rally, and I followed him all day, and eventually over the Bay Bridge over to Oakland.

He was meeting a group of cursillistas, and they were singing this beautiful song, I remember, and I'd never heard it before.

And so I waited until it was all over, the meeting was all over, and then I approached him and pitched him the idea.

He said, "Well, that's good," he said, "Pero, you know, I want to be honest with you."

He says, "There's no money to do theater in Delano.

There are no actors in Delano.

There's no stage in Delano.

There isn't even time to rehearse.

We're on the picket line night and day.

You still want to do it?"

And I said, "Sure.

Que -- What an opportunity.

Como que no?"

So I went to Delano, and I followed my heart.

And it was the right choice.

It was, uh -- It was like an explosion, you know, happening.

And I wanted to be right at the center of it.

And I packed up my stuff and moved and began the rest of my life, so to speak, you know?

-♪ Llegando a los files Se ven los esquiroles ♪ -One of those evenings, we were sitting, talking about the possibility of starting a theater group, and I said, "Oh, okay."

You know?

And that's how it started.

Then the following day, we started looking for recruits.

That's how we found Felipe Cantu and some of our other performers.

They were scabs.

They were breaking the strike.

And we pulled them out of the fields and brought them in to work with us.

-How you doing there, boy?

-Hello, Jack.

How are you?

-How you doing?

Fine.

-Yes, fine.

-Whoever was involved with us, wherever they came, whatever their perspective was, what they experienced was also seen on stage.

-I know what's good for all of you people.

-A lot of them felt that they were contributing to the evolution of the union by being part of the Teatro.

-There is no strike.

-Ohh!

-Huelga!

-♪ Solo queremos lo justo ♪ ♪ Y la dignidad del hombre ♪ -Well, you'll never work for me again.

-It was a continual workshop, working the material over and over at night.

So many times, by 2:00 in the morning, we were still up, and we were up at 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning to go picket.

-♪ Hasta Mexico ha llegado ♪ ♪ La noticia muy alegre ♪ ♪ Que Delano es diferente ♪ -First and foremost, I say what probably shaped the Teatro was the march to Sacramento.

Cesar came up with the idea of marching to Sacramento, right?

For 25 days, we would march from Delano to Ducor, you know, Ducor to Porterville.

It was 20 miles, 20 miles.

We'd set up in the park or whatever they had, you know, and put up the truck, and then the campesinos would arrive and the march would arrive and we'd have the rally, right?

Which would go into the night, every night for 25 nights.

And the Teatro would perform the actos that we had put together by then.

-Chuckball over here is Mr. Ravioli, president of Bank of America.

[ Laughter ] -And so that gave us some real solidity, you know?

We became a teatro because of repetition, and also because of reputation.

Campesinos and people in the union began to see that we were part of the movement, right?

♪♪ -Cesar stopped me, and he says, "Agustín, you know, do you think you have the time to put a song together for the march?"

And by the second day of the march, we performed "La Peregrinacion," "The Pilgrimage."

-♪ Y que yo he de decir ♪ ♪ Que yo estoy cansado ♪ ♪ Que el camino es largo ♪ ♪ No se ve el fin ♪ -At the capitol steps in Sacramento, there were over 10,000 people, and it was one of the greatest moments of my life to perform there.

♪ Y my alma grita ♪ ♪ "Tu no puedes descansar" ♪ Standing there and performing was just electric.

It was wonderful.

♪ Desde Delano voy ♪ ♪ Hasta Sacramento ♪ ♪ Hasta Sacramento ♪ ♪ Mis derechos ♪ ♪ A pelear ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -We're going to go eastbound from 40 Acres... [ Police radio chatter ] -Well, one of the important obstacles that we had to face was that we knew that we were gonna face a lot of violence.

When the strike first broke out, on those picket lines, you know, having rifles aimed at you, having people come at you with 2x4s, having to worry about you're gonna be run down by a car or a truck -- 'cause they would aim the trucks at you.

So, all of the stuff that was going on really made that commitment to nonviolence very, very important.

-When I went to the Delano, I saw the danger right away because on the picket lines you can't hide it, and I was really freaked out to see the possibility of getting killed, you know, by the police, of by being hurt by the opposition, because it didn't seem like there were any measures there to stop them or to pull them back.

They did whatever they wanted to us.

♪♪ -When I was with Cesar and we were working, it was so difficult and so frightening and so hot.

But I think the deciding factor in whether you're gonna make real social change or not is risk.

Are you willing to take a risk?

And the farm workers took the risks.

♪ Gracias a la vida ♪ ♪ Que me ha dado tanto ♪ -Joan Baez, as an icon of the American folk movement, as someone who was a part of a movement that really inspired the Civil Rights Movement, the free speech movement, by the fact that she was a troubadour utilizing songs to bring about positive change, she really lent a lot of credence to the United Farm Workers union to other American musicians.

-♪ Me ha dado la risa y me ha dado el llanto ♪ I've always been the happiest when I was doing activism and music at the same time.

And my foundation was and is nonviolence.

I'm not interested in being involved in anything else.

So that was an obvious place for me to be, with Cesar.

-♪ Gracias a la vida ♪ ♪ Que me ha dado tanto ♪ [ Song ends ] -Look at little Cesar!

Hey, Cesar, you smell!

I can smell you right here, you communist bum!

-You know, when he faced up to the growers and when the trouble came at him -- because it used to come at him a lot -- he would stand there very strong.

Because people wanted to kill him.

They wanted to put him under, and especially at the beginning.

At the beginning, they wanted to play really tough with him.

-It's not a difference of opinion, Sheriff.

They're coming -- It's a paid damn plan to come and beat the hell out of us.

They're gonna stop this strike at all costs.

-The big heart makes for the courageous action.

His courage was such that he would be the person to send against the brutes, against the dogs, just like Martin Luther King.

-They don't care whether they're strikers or not.

As long as they're Mexicans, they're stopping them and beating them up in the streets.

-This man -- he got a big stick, you know?

Bigger than my neck.

And he hit me across the head three times.

[ Indistinct shouting ] [ Rock music playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ -First of all, you had to deal with the humiliation of getting your ass kicked and not being able to respond.

You got to take it.

That's a tough one.

-In Delano, we were also infiltrated, so we were threatened that way.

♪♪ And we didn't know how insidious it was and why we were being infiltrated to that degree.

You know?

I said, "Why?

We're not teaching people to be violent.

We're not teaching anybody to go take guns out there and to shoot the cops down.

On the contrary.

That's not our message at all."

Our message was nonviolence.

-It came at us, you know?

I mean, it -- And in many forms.

I mean, I had -- For doing Teatro, I had guns pulled on me.

I had a loaded gun pointed to my head at one point.

And a grower's son said, "All right, act, MF'er."

You know?

"Act."

And the thing is that, at that point, you find yourself questioning everything.

And you don't want to be a fool.

You know, you want to be -- You don't want to die.

That's for damn sure.

But you don't want to be a coward, either, you know?

So, it's a -- You -- So many emotions well up that it's incredible.

It's an incredible experience.

All of that is nonviolence, is what I'm saying, right?

-Right down the street about 200 yards here, Nagi Daifallah, an Arab member of our union, was killed, and then two officers dragged him on the ground and left him.

All summer long, the police have used excessive force.

And now they've killed one of our Arab brothers.

And it was inevitable because the police here are racist, and if you have someone that they're dealing with that has a different color skin than themselves, they beat the hell out of them.

♪♪ -You hear just the horror story after horror story, but here's one that ended in the deaths of two people who were workers, you know?

And it was important that they did not pass out of this life without people heralding who they were.

[ Thumb piano playing ] ♪♪ I brought that thumb piano.

I was trying to bring a kind of, if you will, angelic sound presence, a light, ethereal sound -- you know, to these guys whose spirits were, you know, just taken out of their bodies like that.

You don't get to take our people like that.

You understand what I mean?

Our people.

You know, you don't get to take us like that.

No.

Not if it's my day.

I'm gonna be there.

-♪ When the crops are all in and the lettuce is rotting ♪ ♪ The oranges are piled in their creosote dumps ♪ ♪ Flying them off to that Mexican border ♪ ♪ To pay all their money and way back again ♪ ♪ My father's own father, he waded that river ♪ ♪ They took all the money he made in his life ♪ ♪ My brothers and sisters went working the fruit trees ♪ ♪ They rode on that truck till they lay down and died ♪ ♪ Goodbye to my Juan There was a man, an older man, who was shot and killed.

His name is Juan de la Cruz.

And I went home and wrote this song.

♪♪ "Once again, the workers rise with the lark.

There's a mass going on in the people's park.

Silent and determined, they set to embark on a three-day fast and a five-mile march.

For a man's been shot on the picket line.

60 years of strength was young for dying.

His family is here with eyes of red.

His wife steps down with feet of lead.

And the sun shines down upon the old man, whose days are done, for a martyr has been taken.

He's old Juan de la Cruz.

And a century of women pray at the casket before them laid.

And the Virgin of Guadalupe watches over de la Cruz."

♪♪ -In some instances, it's the singing that'll give you the courage.

-♪ Solidarity forever -Let's hear it!

-♪ Solidarity forever -And you see it in some of the films that have documented the farm workers' struggle.

-♪ Solidaridad pa siempre ♪ ♪ Solidaridad pa siempre ♪ -Where campesinos are singing "Nosotros Venceremos" or, you know, "No nos Moveran" in the face of goons, you know, that are about to hit them.

-iViva...!

-[ Singing indistinctly ] -And having been there myself, I mean, under trying circumstances, it's very true that if you sing, it takes you to a new level, you know?

And it gives people animo.

It gives people spirit and courage to face whatever it is.

-♪ Ay pero si, ay pero no ♪ -The songs that we created and came up with reflected that struggle.

-iViva la huelga!

-They helped to organize and to educate the farm worker community.

-iViva la huelga!

iViva la huelga!

-♪ Ay pero si ♪ -The songs that came out of the marches, the songs that are still used today, not only were they meaningful, but they were really beautiful songs on their own.

So, I think they were a tool for people who didn't know anything about the movement, who didn't know anything about the history.

They would make you ask questions, and it would get you involved in it.

And I think that that's kind of what it's supposed to do.

It's supposed to grab you and bring you in and illuminate something for you, and all of those songs do.

♪♪ -As an African-American man, Southern and Caribbean roots, my ears were open to the wide variety of music that the farm workers were able to all be a part of.

We as African-Americans have a pretty wide variety of music, but it's also interesting to see other people have something that you can feel, see, touch, taste, and it's all brand-new.

But then there was other senses at play, like "De Colores."

-♪ De colores ♪ -One day, for a Friday night meeting, Cesar asked me, "Do you remember that song they were singing in Oakland, down in the basement?"

And I said, "Yeah, that was a beautiful song."

He says, "If I get you the words, could you guys sing it at the meeting tonight?"

I said, "Give me the words," and so we got the words and we rehearsed it and that's how "De Colores" became the himno del movimiento, okay?

We started singing "De Colores," you know?

-♪ Y por eso los grandes amores de mucho ♪ -♪ De colores es el arco iris que vemos lucir ♪ -♪ Los pajaritos que vienen de afuera ♪ -♪ Vemos lucir ♪ ♪ Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos ♪ -♪ La gallina ♪ ♪ La gallina con el caracara caracara ♪ -You know, someone would start to sing that, and that would be the most amazing thing that everybody knew the lyrics.

And the other side of that thing is that it was multi-generational, and the family was at the heart of it.

-All right.

Here we go.

One, two, three... ♪♪ ♪♪ -♪ De colores ♪ ♪ De colores se visten los campos en la primavera ♪ -♪ De colores ♪ -♪ De colores son los pajarillos que vienen de afuera ♪ -♪ De colores ♪ ♪ De colores es el arco iris que vemos lucir ♪ -♪ Y por eso los grandes amores de muchos colores ♪ ♪ Me gustan a mi ♪ ♪ Y por eso los grandes amores ♪ ♪ De muchos colores me gustan a mi ♪ ♪♪ -And eventually the farm workers' union started getting more and more contracts, and so they were able to increase the level of protection for the farm workers, not only for their members, but for others who didn't want their own employees to unionize so they would raise the wages and give them better working conditions.

-We got a lot of laws passed in California.

We got unemployment insurance.

We got the right to organize, got rid of the short-handled hoe.

We got rid of about a dozen really deadly pesticides.

Then in all of our contracts in the '70s, you know, we got the toilets and the cold drinking water and the rest periods.

And then of course, we also got farm workers covered under all of the Department of Labor standards of minimum wage.

-But we still have a lot work to do in making sure that every worker that's doing honest work, that helps society, gets a living wage.

And we have a long ways to go.

-♪ De colores, de colores es el... ♪ -It's still going on.

It's going on in all different kinds of ways.

And I think the involvement, participation, the awareness of the history, the importance of what it means to organize and to have an influence in the political process and the cultural process, it's a huge testament to the UFW.

♪♪ -♪ Canta el gallo ♪ ♪ Canta el gallo con el quiri quiri quiri quiri quiri ♪ -♪ La gallina ♪ ♪ La gallina con el cara cara cara cara cara ♪ -♪ Los polluelos ♪ ♪ Los polluelos con el pío pío pío pío pí ♪ -♪ Y por eso los grandes amores ♪ ♪ De muchos colores me gustan a mí ♪ ♪ Y por eso los grandes amores ♪ ♪ De muchos colores me gustan a mí ♪ [ Song ends ] -Oh, yeah.

[ Applause ] ♪♪ -This business of music is really important, you know?

Because the music is what lifts everything.

-♪ Vamos, vamos... ♪ -Music is important to affairs of the heart.

-There's something that communicates to people on a different level altogether.

There's a different way that our cells respond to the vibration of music.

And that's such a powerful way of communicating.

♪♪ -Without the music and without the theater, without both of those things, I don't think that you would have had the kind of strength and power that came out of Delano.

-I wouldn't have wanted to be part of any movement that didn't have music.

I don't know if one exists that didn't have music.

There are two ends of it.

One of them is that, you know, movements don't work anyway.

The other one is that music alone can change -- you know, change the world, and that's a nice idea.

But it has to have the work behind it in order to really make serious changes.

♪♪ -People who are in the face of discomfort and sadness and tragedy, and yet they stand up, you know, strong and they say, "I am not going to give up, and I am going to fight for what I believe in and my family and who I am" -- they are the people who inspire my songs.

♪♪ -He gave us purpose.

Cesar Chavez gave us purpose of where to go with our artwork and what to do with it and how to capitalize on it.

And I'm so glad he did.

Otherwise, we'd probably be perdidos.

We'd be lost, you know?

-Towards the end of his life, he was asked by somebody how he would like to be remembered, with statues or public memorials.

And Cesar looked at him, and he said, "If you want to remember me, organize."

My kind of man.

-If we can get people that look like him, maybe people that don't have a lot of role models -- little Chicano kids, and kids that are poor from different neighborhoods -- and if they can look at somebody like my father and say, "Man, if Cesar Chavez can do something like that, maybe I have some Cesar Chavez in me."

And that's what our hope is, is that we hope that people will understand that there is no savior that's gonna come in from the outside to take care of our problems.

We have to look to ourselves and we have to step up and we have to be responsible.

♪♪ -As far as I'm concerned, he was like a brother, okay?

He was like an older brother to me and we're all part of the same family.

But he was also a hero, you know?

And continues to remain a role model for me that lives inside my brain and lives inside my soul, you know?

I absorbed him, as you must, you know, with the leaders that you love and respect.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Really, the power of a song is the power of humanity, a song to take you through the hardest times, to take you through the oppression, a song that would touch a baby's ears so that when they grew up, that song took them through life.

♪♪ People can learn the truth with a song.

[ "Free" plays ] ♪♪ -♪ As I walk this land, amazed at what I see ♪ ♪ See my brothers struggling, struggling to be free ♪ ♪ As I walk this land, cries equality ♪ ♪ Is it just for privileged ones ♪ ♪ But not for you and me?

♪♪ -♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free -♪ Oooh, set me free -As long as there's one ounce of strength in our bodies, that ounce of strength would be used to fight for this good cause.

-♪ Oooh, set me free -And in the end, we will win.

-♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooh, set me free ♪ Oooooooooooh [ Song ends ] [ Cheers and applause ] -We're good!

-I'm free now!

I'm free!

Free!

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪