Standing where his grandfather was imprisoned 48 years ago at the Old Monterey County Jail, Andres Chavez spoke Tuesday about his "tata" Cesar Chavez's legacy for civil rights and the advocacy that still is needed for farmworkers.

The 24-year-old director of strategic initiatives for the Cesar Chavez Foundation had driven from Keene, the United Farm Workers labor union and foundation headquarters.

He came to celebrate the commemorative plaque presentation the Alliance of Monterey Area Preservationists (AMAP) provided to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors for the old jail, where Cesar Chavez was incarcerated during the Salad Bowl Strike of 1970.

His incarceration amid a nationwide strike of iceberg lettuce, once the Salinas Valley’s cash crop, helped create visibility for his movement and ultimately led to widespread improvements for farmworkers.

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But while the structure has historical significance in the farmworker and labor movements, the younger Chavez said the plaque remains relevant today.

"I hope that this plaque stands for more than that," Andres Chavez said, "it stands for inspiration and as a call for action and to be courageous and always stand on the right side of history, whether it's continuing to resist the separation of families or continuing to support farmworkers' rights to organize."

Boycott

On Dec. 4, 1970, Cesar Chavez turned himself in after Monterey County Superior Court Judge Gordon Campbell issued a warrant for his arrest because he did not call off a lettuce boycott.

He was leading a strike against Bud Antle Inc. for the UFW's representation of workers.

Salinas Californian coverage documented the boycott and the leader's incarceration. When he went to jail, Cesar Chavez issued the statement for his followers “to boycott Antle, boycott Dow, boycott the—out of them,” the latter referring to Dow Chemical, a company affiliated with Antle.

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Cesar Chavez's UFWOC, as it was known at the time, protested Antle’s labor contract with the Teamsters drivers and packing workers in the Salinas Valley. While the Teamsters had negotiating rights for workers, the UFWOC did not, particularly for farmworkers. This led to the late Chavez’s call to boycott beginning in August 1970.

Cesar Chavez stayed at the jail until Christmas Eve that year.

Since 2004, the jail has been a national historic landmark because of the labor organizer's stay. Although he passed away in 1993, 9 months before Andres Chavez was born, efforts to celebrate Cesar Chavez's legacy have continued.

In the board of supervisors' session Tuesday, AMAP provided a presentation for future efforts to reuse the jail which may include having a museum dedicated to the farm labor movement.

Built in 1931 and designed by Oakland-based architects Reed and Cortlett, the jail is made of concrete foundation and walls, with stucco, in Gothic Revival architectural style during the Art Deco period.

It was the county's primary jail until the new site, on Natividad Road, was completed in 1977, according to a 2002 historical analysis prepared by Carey & Co., Inc. for the county.

But the old jail became historically significant after Cesar Chavez's imprisonment there.

'You suffer, I suffer'

The UFWOC’s subsequent lettuce strike would become the largest farmworker strike in U.S. history.

Cesar Chavez had just finished the five-year Delano grape strike earlier that year, where table grape growers signed union contracts that would allow for the UFW to represent workers.

In the Dec. 4, 1970 court ruling, Campbell had jailed Cesar Chavez until he called off the boycott, according to reporting at the time by The Californian’s Helen Manning.

Approximately 2,000 UFW supporters stood in the old courthouse, just next door, that day as they waited for Campbell’s judgment.

After the activist was taken to the jail by sheriff’s deputies, supporters made their way to Cristo Rey Church near Chinatown, where they held mass.

In the days that followed, vigils were held outside the jail.

As a 17-year-old Hollister High School junior, Noe Yaocotal Montoya, 65, attended the vigil. He skipped school on Dec. 4 to make sure "there was no hanky-panky going on," he said.

Strumming his guitar and singing the chants he once played for UFW actions, Yaocoatl Montoya performed at the plaque ceremony Tuesday.

He is a longtime Teatro Campesino performer, the theatre group founded by Luis Valdez for the farmworker movement.

"Music was integral to the whole movement," he said. "Music brings up the whole spirit. It was very hard. When you work, you made very little. When you're on strike, you make nothing."

With UFW leaders Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong, prominent supporters like Ethel Kennedy, Coretta Scott King and Ron Dellums also visited Cesar Chavez.

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The UFW’s actions drew intense protests from the Citizens Committee for Agriculture, locals who opposed Cesar Chavez’s efforts and, on Dec. 7, 1970, booed Kennedy as she visited the jail.

On Dec. 19, 1970, King addressed supporters outside of the jail, stating "I support you all in all you are doing, because your cause... is a common cause, and whenever you suffer, I suffer too," according to coverage from The Californian's Eric Brazil.

The boycott would spread to as far as Harvard University and Michigan, where Dow Chemical had its offices.

Eventually, the California Supreme Court ordered Cesar Chavez's release on Dec. 24, 1970, though it held that the Teamsters still had representation for Antle workers. UFW’s effort would last until March 1971, when the two labor groups agreed to represent workers.

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Preservation

In the years that followed, the Architectural Heritage Association of Monterey County, now part of AMAP, led efforts to stop the county's efforts to demolish the old jail in 2002, according to Mark Edwin Norris.

Last year, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors decided to open requests for proposal for adaptive reuse of the old jail, led by Supervisor Luis Alejo, whose late aunt, Irma Alejo, walked with Cesar Chavez on Dec. 4, 1970.

The type of reuse has yet to be determined, but AMAP President Nancy Runyon has indicated it would like to see it house a museum as part of the Cesar Chavez National Memorial Park, which would span in different locations from San Jose to Arizona, honoring the UFW leader's legacy.

During the ceremony, Alejo described the impact Cesar Chavez had for Latino elected leaders like himself.

"We're standing here today on the sacrifices and the shoulders of those giants that were here in 1970," he said, "so we have much to acknowledge to those legendary leaders who stood up for farmworkers and for our communities many decades ago."

The unveiling also had attendees who were there when Cesar Chavez was jailed, including the county's agricultural commissioner, Henry Gonzales.

A Salinas native, he joined the UFW at 13 years old, when he worked alongside his 69-year-old grandfather thinning lettuce with the infamous "cortito," a shorthand hoe that is now outlawed.

Gonzales joined the vigils outside of the jail at 15 years old, calling for Cesar Chavez's release.

The legacy nearly 50 years later has an impact on Gonzales.

"I really took the 'Si Se Puede' saying and was able to do a lot of things," he said, referring to the UFW slogan "Yes We Can." "I still believe that 'Si Se Puede' and that's helped me get to where I've been able to become agricultural commissioner. I don't know if it's irony, or what, that a homeless farmworker child is now the agricultural commissioner in the county. It's very poetic, if not ironic."

Supervisor Simon Salinas, also a migrant field worker as a child, spoke to the ability for growers and farmworkers to coexist in improving the area, and the old jail standing for that.

"In my mind, farmers and farmworkers are married in that their destinies are tied," Gonzales said. "I believe that together there can be a better agricultural industry here, and I think for the most part, there is that togetherness."