Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution by Peter Matthiessen Page A

taxes on it. “Don’t get me
started on my plans,” he said. To Chavez, who envisions the
first migrant workers center, the place is already beautiful;
he comes here regularly to walk around and let his plans
take shape. “There’s alkali in this land,” he said. “We’re
trying to get something growing here, to cut down the
dust.”
    At the Forty Acres, near the highway, an adobe building
which will house gas pumps, auto repair shop and a cooperative
store had recently been completed, though it was
not yet in use: the shop was heaped high with food stores
for the strikers, donated by individuals and agencies all
over the United States. Just across from it is the windowless
small room in which Chavez lived during the twenty-five-day
fast that he undertook in February and March 1968.
Behind this building was a temporary aggregation of shacks
and trailers which included the workers clinic and the
Union newspaper, El Malcriado (the “rebellious child,”
the “nonconformist,” the “protester”—there is no simple
translation), which issues both English and Spanish editions
every fortnight. Originally El Malcriado was a propaganda
organ, shrill and simplistic: it saw Lyndon Johnson
as a “Texas grower” careless of the lives of the Vietnamese
“farm workers.” Today it is slanted but not irresponsible,
and it is well-edited.
    One green trailer at the Forty Acres, bearing the legend
M OBILE H EALTH C ENTER , was the contribution of the International
Ladies’ Garment Workers Union; its medical
staff, like that of El Malcriado and most of the rest of the
UFWOC operation, is made up entirely of volunteers. So
is the intermittent labor being done on the headquarters
building, a gray shell in the northwest corner of the property.
The work was supervised by Chavez’s brother Richard,
who had been sent off a few days before to help out
with the boycott in New York. “The strike is the important
thing,” Chavez said, moving toward this building. “We
work on the Forty Acres when we get a little money, or
some volunteers.” The day before, six carpenters from a local
in Bakersfield had given their Saturday to putting up
gray fiberboard interior walls, and Chavez, entering the
building, was delighted with the progress. “Look at that!”
he kept saying. “Those guys really went to town!” The
plumbing had been done by a teacher at Berkeley, and two
weeks before, forty-seven electricians from Los Angeles,
donating materials as well as labor, had wired the whole
building in six hours. “I’ve never seen forty-seven electricians,”
I admitted, trying not to laugh, and Chavez grinned.
“You should have seen it,” he assured me. “I could hardly
get into the building. Everywhere I went, I was in somebody’s
way, so I just went out through the window.”
    The building will combine Union offices and a service
center, where workers can obtain advice on legal problems,
immigration, driver’s licenses, tax returns, and other matters.
We inspected the credit union, legal offices, the hiring
hall-and-auditorium, the dining hall, kitchen and rest
rooms.
    In the northeast corner were small cubicles for the Union
officers. “Everybody was out here claiming his office.” Chavez
smiled, shaking his head. “We’ve outgrown this building
even before we move into it, and I guess they thought
that somebody was going to get left out.” He grunted.
“They were right.” We had come to the cubicle in the
corner. “This is mine, I guess,” he said, “but now they don’t
want me here.” I asked why. He was silent for a little while,
looking restlessly about him. “I don’t know.” He shrugged
and took a breath, as if on the point of saying something
painful. “They’re very worried about security or something.
I don’t know.” Stupidly, I failed to drop the subject. “I
guess the corner is more exposed,” I said. “They want you
somewhere inside.”
    Chavez walked away from me. “This is the