Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez:
[on air, to BBC1 Radio host] Once social change begins, it can't be reversed. You can't uneducate someone who's learned how to read. You can't humiliate someone who has pride. And you can't oppress someone who is not afraid anymore.

Cesar Chavez:
With all due respect, I know you went to a fancy school, but that doesn't make you an expert.

Cesar Chavez:
Who started it?

Fernando Chavez:
I told you, they started calling us names.

Cesar Chavez:
No, who started the fight?

Fernando Chavez:
We didn't have a choice.

Cesar Chavez:
You always have a choice.

Sherriff Smith:
You mind telling me what's so funny?

Cesar Chavez:
Sir, we're Catholic. How can Catholics be communists?

Sherriff Smith:
Come out with this er... this newspaper. Got this beaner character in there named Don Sotaco. There he is... kind of funny. [chuckles]

Bogdanovich Senior:
Well, it's a cartoon, but I'm not sure it's funny.

Bogdanovich Junior:
Who cares? Most of our workers are illiterate.

Bogdanovich Senior:
Yeah, but you can understand a cartoon without being able to read. So this Don Sotaco... he informs the workers about their rights. And this is what... a weekly?

Bogdanovich Senior:
Mm-hmm.

Bogdanovich Senior:
Thank God it isn't a daily... although 52 weeks a year, that is a lot of rights, Sheriff.

Fred Ross:
This court ruling bans all mass picketing.

Dolores Huerta:
And the best part... they got a ban on saying the word "Huelga" anywhere near the fields.

Gilbert Padilla:
"Huelga"?

Dolores Huerta:
"Huelga".

Gilbert Padilla:
Can you say "Strike"?

Dolores Huerta:
So long as you don't translate it.

Fred Ross:
Once they get you in their jails, they can figure out ways of keeping you there a long time, Cesar.

Jerry Cohen:
Who else is on the team?

Cesar Chavez:
Just you.

Jerry Cohen:
Doesn't it take more than one person to make a team?

Cesar Chavez:
Oh, you'll be doing more work than one person.

Sen. Kennedy:
Who told you they were gonna riot?

Sherriff Smith:
[thrown offguard, shifty pause] The foremen. Right out there in the fields. The ones we were talking to said that if we didn't stop them, they were gonna cut their hearts out. So rather than let things get out of hand, we just removed the cause.

Sen. Kennedy:
This is a most interesting concept, I think. That you suddenly hear talk of somebody who's gonna get out of order, perhaps violate the law, and so you go in and arrest the intended *victim* of the crime, and they haven't done anything wrong.

Sherriff Smith:
Cesar, you got a permit for this march?

Cesar Chavez:
It's not a march, Sheriff. It's a pilgrimage all the way to Sacramento. And our families are here just to say goodbye.

Sherriff Smith:
[to policemen] You hear that? They don't like working for a day's wage, but they will walk over 300 miles for free.

Jerry Cohen:
[during negotiations with Victore Representative] That was the most eloquent piss I've ever heard.

Bogdanovich Junior:
Dad, what should we do?

Bogdanovich Senior:
I don't know, John. I'm not the one that went to college. I'm not the one with the Master's degree. I'm only the one who invested a lot of money in his only son, hoping that one day he'd be able to answer one simple question: "How do I not drive my father's business into the f***ing ground?"

Cesar Chavez:
I'm angry that I live in a world where a man who picks your food can't feed his family.

Anchor:
...what your view is of the strike, or boycott of the grape industry ?

Ronald Reagan:
Oh, the grape boycott. Well, I've classified that in the past in a number of public occasions as immoral. And I think it is.

Cesar Chavez:
You know, when the Chinese came to America to build the railroads, you know what they demanded of their overseers?

Fernando Chavez:
[nonchalantly] No.

Cesar Chavez:
Food. Good food. And enough time to enjoy it. And if the owners skimped on that, they wouldn't lift a finger. Give the Chinese a good meal every day, and they could build the infrastructure of a continent. Their meal is what gave their lives their dignity. And to them, dignity was more important than money.

Cesar Chavez:
[on air, to BBC1 Radio host] They'd rather sell the grapes to London or Stockholm, and think that that will erase all the indignities that people suffered.

Cesar Chavez:
[on air, to BBC1 Radio host] Well, it's never been about the grapes. It's always been about the people. The poorest of the poor, the marginalized, the ones who have been ignored. There would be no food on the table without these people. These people have names, faces, families. And I guess what we want to accomplish is to give these people a voice.

Bogdanovich Senior:
You have to admit, this old Croat put up a hell of a fight.

Cesar Chavez:
Yeah, I can do that, as long as you can admit this little Mexican kicked your ass.

Cesar Chavez:
[closing lines, archival footage] But I want more than anything else, I'd like to see the poor take a very direct part in shaping society. And let them make the decisions. And in our case, if the poor aren't involved, change will never come.