Niños por la causa

Abstract

This article argues that children were central to the United Farm Workers’ (UFW) social justice appeal in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As marginalized laborers and a vulnerable group in need of protection, child farmworkers were emblematic of the movement’s aspirations. As agents of protest and activism, both farmworker and non-farmworker children were key to its advancement. Additionally, the article highlights the many ways that the UFW shaped children’s politics, fostered their identity, and contributed to student-led civil rights efforts in rural California. Drawing on a wide variety of sources, including oral histories and children’s correspondence with Cesar Chavez, this article details children’s unprecedented level of labor rights activism in the UFW movement's first decade.