The myth of small and winnable issues

Is this really the appropriate small and winnable social issue?
Source: trogerizmus.blog.hu

Dislike: Some American community organizers promote as a one-size-fits-all recipe that organizers should start organizing apathetic and marginalized groups first around "immediate and winnable" issues.

This organizing tactic, which builds on the Alinsky tradition, but is often presented in a distilled manner, holds out the promise that a quick victory on a small issue (a parking space, a stop sign, garbage delivery or bus service change) can give impetus for the organization and the members to grow, which is essential for a bigger campaign. Without dismissing the merits of this tactic, however, community organizers often forget to consider its pitfalls, which may arise in particular because they set the standards too low by choosing a "small" issue at the very start. To what extent is gradualness the best way to make people believe that they can demand systemic change?

In August, I participated in a one-week training of the Midwest Academy in Chicago. This is one of the most acknowledged training programs in the U.S., where many community organizations enroll their organizers. This definitely became one of the two greatest training experiences of my life: I often felt I was watching an interactive play or I was one of the actors because the way the trainers shared knowledge was so dynamic and entertaining. The training was very comprehensive and very strategic. In connection to the "immediate and winnable" issues, however, we were asked to do an exercise to rebuild a fictional, once well-operating neighborhood organization. Our task was to decide which issues we should pick in the very beginning in order to organize the residents for social action. The target group was middle-class. Residents of this fictional neighborhood showed dissatisfaction around the following issues: 1. a child was hit by a car in the neighborhood, 2. items in a shop were priced lower than what their real price was, therefore inattentive customers might have paid more that they thought they did, 3. there were leaves in sewers, which may cause flooding in basements, 4. a sales tax increase. While I was contemplating choosing between the issues of misled customers and the sales tax increase, to my greatest astonishment, the leaves in the sewer got the most outstanding number of votes. The trainer did not question the arguments in favor of this issue (namely, that it is a small and winnable issue, therefore it can bring quick success to the community and members can gain experience in advocating for their community on easy grounds).

I did not fully understand that if the sales tax increase or the lower priced items were highlighted by the imaginative community, why would it seem a good idea to start from zero? On top of this, why should we take it as readily understood that we can connect the leaves in the sewer to a sales tax increase within foreseeable time (not many years later) so that we can finally talk about tax justice which may lead to systemic change. I see a lot of pitfalls in this: is it certain that it pays to pick an apparently easily winnable issue with such automatism? Can community members lose impetus because we did not try to speak about essentially important issues? Can it happen that we underestimated the community? Is it certain that we found the good leaders that we are not brave enough to shoot for bigger targets? Do we really see the bigger picture? Do we adjust our activities at all to the actual "temperature" of the society or are we captured by some theoretical-methodological institutional frame?

The protest of The Woodlawn Organization in Chicago.
The organizer was Saul Alinsky. Source: newswise

But what does Saul Alinsky precisely say about the "immediate and winnable" issue? Alinsky writes in the Rules for Radicals, "The organizer knows, for example, that his biggest job is to give the people the feeling that they can do something, that while they may accept the idea that organization means power, they have to experience this idea in action." (1989:113) The job of the organizer, Alinsky continues, is to build the confidence of the group so that the group believes that when they managed to win with a limited number of people, they can dream bigger. (1989:114) "You have to very carefully and selectively pick his opponents, knowing full well that certain defeats would be demoralizing and end his career," Alinsky compares the process to the contest of a prize-fighter. (1989:114) He goes on, saying, "Therefore, if your function is to attack apathy and get people to participate it is necessary to attack the prevailing patterns of organized living in the community.. [...] The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization.  [...] An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent; provide a channel into which the people can angrily pour their frustrations." (1989:116-117.)

As a result of this, an issue becomes an "appropriate" issue for a new community organization not only because it is easily winnable but because it gives an opportunity for people to articulate their anger. "There can be no such thing as a “non-controversial” issue," Alinsky continues. (1989:117.) (Controversial in the sense that it creates conflict and controversy between decision-makers and citizens by making a step towards the rearrangement of unfair power relations.) According to Alinsky, people take action because they realize that the source of their situation and frustration does not lie in themselves (or not eminently in themselves), but more likely in the accumulated impact of the unjust functioning of the institutions and the bad political decisions. Therefore, the leaves in the sewer can be an appropriate "immediate and winnable" issue when it can stir up and channel such anger and when it becomes an instrument for the community to believe that it is possible and reasonable to fight in cooperation against seemingly unmovable bastions. According to Alinsky, new community organizations grow in this process. (1989:117.)

Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, however, question whether building an organization is the best way to enforce systemic change. (1977, in particular, The Welfare Rights Movement - Mobilizing Versus Organizing section) On the one hand, they think that community members can lose their impetus if they focus on building the organization, the process which community organizers hail: it can be contra productive in particular in those moments when people have already broken out of their apathy as a result of current social events. On the other hand, Piven and Cloward think that disruptive tactics also much better serve social change and the rearrangement of power relations: as a result, they urge to mobilize people for confrontational actions (understood within the democratic framework) or for civil disobedience instead of building organizations which entails unavoidable limitations. In their view, a national network of cadres connected to several loosely coordinated groups contribute to the aim of social change better than a national cooperation of community organizations. They thought that the period of the welfare crisis in the second half of the 1960s in the U.S. favored this tactic. (Piven and Cloward finally realized a combination of the two tactics in cooperation with community organizers - with the National Welfare Rights Organization - in the Welfare Rights Movement.) Without listing the pitfalls of this theory at this moment, the Piven-Cloward idea has something to say to the myth of the "immediate and winnable" issues: it balances this tactic by implying that a community organizer first and foremost needs to measure the "temperature" of the society so that it can the most extensively build upon the current social events.

Garbage piles in Naples during the garbage crisis (2011).
Source: time

Is it really an effective strategy when a new organization sticks to "small and winnable issues", fighting for a parking space, stop signs or garbage delivery? In the last decade of community organizing, has the gap between small and winnable issues and big and significant social issues, in fact, been bridgeable? Does this really lead us to long-term social change,? asks Gary Delgado (American researcher, lecturer, activist, one of the founding members and organizers of ACORN) in his article from 1998 The Last Stop Sign.

Right-wing grassroots efforts, which would close abortion clinics, would put gays and lesbians back into the closet, he says, have never organized for stop signs. These groups, he adds, supposedly know that "good organizing issues are deeply felt, controversial." Delgado does not want to deny traditional methods of community organizing: empowering grassroots community leaders, organizing a wide democratic base, or community learning through which marginalized people could prove that they can articulate their issues and they do not need anointed experts. He does not intend to dismiss real victories either: the improvement of public housing, school reform, tax reform. But he also says that community organizing often has "misconceived notions of "wins"" and "is almost completely separate from the parallel world of progressive activism" which, he thinks, achieved significant results (women's movement, gay and lesbian movement, immigrant movement, etc.).

The essence and merit of community organizing is the building of a community infrastructure, which can lay the foundations of a new movement, or can enhance an existing one (see the activities of National People's Action related to the Occupy Movement here or here). Naturally, the progressive activist movements, which Delgado and perhaps Piven and Cloward were hailing, could not have evolved in their full potential without an existing community infrastructure, through which participants could mobilize one another. And therefore, it is essential that neighborhood groups fight for less spectacular, smaller issues, so that group identity can shape and citizen participation can become a familiar phenomenon. Accepting all this, it is important what Delgado in 1998 said that "if traditional CO [community organizing] is to become a force for change in the millennium and beyond, it must proactively address issues of race, class, gender, corporate concentration, and the complexities of a transnational economy."

In the U.S., where community organizing is embedded into a strong movement tradition and is closely connected to organizing for putting pressure on the legislature (by promoting bills and using the voting power in the power spectrum of politics), it should of course be self-evident for many that small issues are only a tool for organizing for long-term goals and to build the community infrastructure. Therefore, it is important that when we talk about the Alinsky-tradition in a new context, e.g., in Europe, (so outside its progressive historic context, in an unavoidably distilled manner,) it is important that these tactics gain ground in a way that they have resonance to the current progressive social events of the actual country and to avoid that it is simply interpreted as a methodology, deprived of its original context and set of values.

Read it in Hungarian.

Literature: Saul D. Alinsky: Rules for Radicals. A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, Vintage Books, New York, 1989. Frances Fox Piven és Richard A. Cloward: Poor People's Movements. Why They Succeed, How They Fail, Pantheon Books, New York, 1977. Gary Delgado (1998): The Last Stop Sign, available online: http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/102/stopsign.html

Even though I don't want to establish a party, can I call you a voter?

My professional development training is coming to an end soon. There were a lot of things which captured me, and there were things which I would do differently. By the end of the summer, I had collected a lot of best practices in this blog, without making a particular effort to provide a critical context. So I would like to start some more reflection. In the next few weeks, I will be publishing a series about five things that I like in community organizing in the U.S. And five things I would do differently.

Source: USNews

Like: The citizen is considered a voting citizen - not only by political parties but also by community organizations.
One person, one vote, says the American. And that's how community organizations count as well. Not because they would want to recruit voters to a political party, but because they know that a forgotten issue will only be important for a decision-maker if they can make political capital out of it. Therefore, the "buying power of the vote" becomes important not only in political but also in civil campaigns. Before a campaign, community organizations make a political analysis: they research the makeup and size of the voting base of the decision-maker, or of their opposition, they check how big the number of undecided voters is and they build a coalition on the basis of this if necessary.

Having observed this, I have the feeling that in Hungary, and maybe in other Eastern European new democracies, we do not utilize this tactic enough. Many civil society organizations simply do not use it because they don't think they should act political in their role (i.e., making a political statement in social issues). Instead, the groups provide services or do soft advocacy, and they try to influence decision-makers behind the scene.

But even those civil society organizations which take a confrontational stance against people in power do not use this tool effectively. On the other hand, in the U.S., I have seen examples of letter-writing and phone-banking actions when citizens simply declared to the decision-maker: I voted for you, or I am an undecided voter, but I can't agree with this statement of yours; or they demonstrate power in a rally by emphasizing how many people they represent in their organization and who their stakeholders are.

The right to vote is a tool and power in the hands of the citizens. It can happen that a marginalized group in itself is big enough to demonstrate power, and it can also happen that it needs to build a coalition with groups which represent power in the eyes of the decision-makers.

In addition, before the elections, most community organizations run campaigns to register historically underrepresented groups and urge them to vote. (In the U.S. - as opposed to Hungary - there is no comprehensive voter database, so that's why voter registration is necessary here.) My host organization, Virginia Organizing, for example, reached out to tens of thousands of people by doing phone-banking in the months preceding the election. (You can read more on voter registration campaigns, and the overlaps between the agenda of the Democratic Party and that of community organizing here.)

Demonstration against harsh voter ID provisions. Source: TPM

Thinking over to what extent we as civil society workers can act as political beings (or to what extent we need to become one) has become relevant in Hungary because of the recent curbing of voting rights. Distancing from parties is naturally fundamental: holding accountable any political party on power, without expediency, always with the same vehemence. Co-option is a threat: we want to criticize the legislature from the outside, without having strong leaders becoming part of the establishment.

But we want to be involved in decision-making. That's why we act political but we do not do party politics (when we put pressure on the decision-makers on social issues). Beyond this, however, do we consider ourselves voters in a campaign? Do we build on this tactic at all knowing that reluctant politicians will yield to us only when they feel threatened, when they are afraid of their voting base shrinking (or that the opportunists stand by us in the hope of acquiring new supporters)? Do we make different groups of stakeholders visible in a bigger demonstration? Do we think about asking coalition partners to emphasize how many people and how different principles they represent when we manage to build bridges between very different stakeholders? As civil society workers, can we encourage the historically underrepresented groups to live with their most basic political right? Could we organize trainings, talks, community events on the voting topic?

The stance Ágnes Vadai (Democratic Coalition, Hungary) took in a recent television debate was an eloquent example of the fact that several politicians would like to monopolize voters for party politics in Hungary when she asked her talking partner, Péter Juhász, why he talked about voting citizens and socio-political goals if he does not want to establish a party. Irrespective of whether Milla establishes a party or not, is that really the proper social setting when only parties can count with citizens as voters? Should the civil groups only distribute food, make some attempts with their petitions, and occasionally jump in front of a ministry, and they can be considered voters only when a political party addresses them?

Read it in Hungarian.

Who gains admission and who counts white? - Immigrants organize now and then (Part 2)

Source: minnesota.publicradio.org

As second-generation immigrants, the DREAMers had a family and financial background that enabled them to complete a high school or even a community college. They are the "cream" of the undocumented immigrants. Obviously, there are huge class differences among undocumented immigrants. Those immigrants who enter the country with a tourist or work visa, then overstay after the time of admission has expired, are often in better financial shape and better educated. Those, who by risking their lives, cross the border illegally, will try to get a job wherever it is possible without a work permit, for example, in the construction industry, in the service industry (in restaurants) or in agriculture. They may do manual labor or work for an acquaintance or for a family member, so for those who already got themselves on firm ground, and with the help of others, it is easier to remain invisible to the authorities. If their employee does not pay their wage, or deducts undeclared expenses from their wage, or binds them with debts or commits sexual assault against them, they may risk their stay if they file a complaint. The employees who abuse their workers benefit from the large flow of undocumented immigrant workers, who can replace those who complain, organize or unionize. (Read Part 1 here.)


Working-class undocumented immigrants organize: César Chávez and the non-violent movement of farmworkers and their unions

Huelga - Strike. Source: Tavaana

In 2009, approximately 2.5 to 3 million people worked in the American agriculture, and 72 percent of them were immigrants, with the majority being Mexican (IPC, NCFH). Their links to the U.S. are strong, some of them were born here. Their status can be manyfold. More than one million of them work undocumented (IPC). As a result of the strong agrilobby, federal laws that govern wages, overtime and benefits do not apply to farmworkers and they may be protected by state law (PCUN). Ultimately, the employer treats the illegal workers as they like. The U.S., in addition, allows 30 thousand people (3-5 percent of the agricultural workers) to legally work as a guest worker for less than a year in American agriculture. The growers, referring to the lack of a local workforce, can initiate their participation in the guest worker employment program after they cannot fill the jobs despite thorough job announcements. The H-2A visa, which provides legal status for these workers, theoretically provide some protection. For example, it determines that wages cannot be lower than the minimum wage, and it sets housing standards to some extent. However, because the workers are not in the position to change a workplace in case the employer does not meet legal obligations, and because by submitting a complaint they would risk their stay, or their possible renewal of employment in the next season, and because the state supervision of the implementation of this law is not comprehensive, abuse is not unusual. Many workers, in addition, arrive deeply in debt because they covered the transportation cost or paid recruiters for the opportunity to work. Transportation costs must be reimbursed by the employer for the worker if they completed at least half of the work contract period. As a result of the lack of proper protection, the workers are forced to stay despite unsatisfactory circumstances. It also happens that the employer avoids paying transportation costs back to the home country of the worker after their contract ends. On the other hand, those farmworkers who live in the country legally or without proper documents, or who may be citizens, are indirect subjects to the exploitative system: the employers, for the sake of greater profits, decide to employ those who they need to pay less (because, for example, they don't need to pay Social Security on the wages of the guestworker) (Working Immigrants).

In 1962, César Chávez started to organize among farmworkers. His parents immigrated from Mexico to Arizona, and he was born in 1927 in the U.S. His family lost their farm during the economic depression of the 1930s when he was a child and the impoverished family moved to California where they started to work as farmworkers. The situation of the Spanish-speaking population was in many aspects similar to the African-Americans living in the southern states. The education was segregated in many schools, it was forbidden to speak in Spanish, and the society fundamentally disdained people with Mexican origin. There were restaurants where only whites were served. Chávez worked as a farmworker, followed by two years in the military, then in 1952, he started to work for Fred Ross, a community organizer affiliated with Saul Alinsky, where he became the director of the organization in 1958. The Community Service Organization, however, did not commit itself to organize farmworkers, so Chávez quit his job in 1962 and started to organize with his allies.

Get out the vote campaign. Source: UFW

In 1960, in California a group of large-scale farmers emerged who carried out specialty crop and industrialized agricultural production. This system needed a lot of investment from different parties, especially because of the high number of dry regions, so stakeholders from banks, agricultural machinery and irrigation system production to the packing and transportation industry and wholesalers and retailers all had an interest in the maintenance of this agribusiness. As a result, the farmworkers, who were practically at the bottom of the capitalist pyramid, had to represent power not only against the growers, but a well-extended and influential network of business stakeholders, who successfully drowned all their organizing initiatives in the last few decades. (2003: Dalton)

Chávez aimed for unionizing a huge number of workers so that they can collectively bargain with the growers and the employees hire the workers through the union. His movement protected the interests of the settled-down farmworkers, often against the miserable guestworkers brought from Mexico for seasonal work under the so-called Bracero program. Under this federal program, which ran between 1942-64, the avoidance of paying the minimum wage to guestworkers was not too difficult, therefore the growers could torpedo the organizing efforts of settled-down farmworkers through their easy access to the cheap labor of several thousands of guestworkers who were admitted to the country in the 1950-60s.

The overall strategy of Chávez used was that he first built a mass base of workers, who could then put substantial pressure on decision-makers. In 1962, he founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Dolores Huerta, where he offered modest benefits and support to members through a membership fee. However, the three-year long relationship building and recruitment went slowly, because NFWA hadn't had any victories which would have made the organization reliable to potential members. Finally, a 1965 strike gave impetus and helped the organization grow. A mainly Filipino workers' organization (AWOC) started a strike against grape growers in the Delano region in California and invited NFWA to join. As a result of the call and the three years of recruitment and relationship building, 1,200 families joined. A five-year strike started and the two organizations united to establish the United Farm Workers (UFW). In 1970, the grape growers in the Delano region, due to local, national and international pressure, signed a three-year contract with UFW, which brought enormous success to the movement. In 1968, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy also joined one of their actions.

A crop duster is spraying pesticides,
while farm workers are working
in the field in 1969. Source: UFW

After this, the UFW started a new boycott against lettuce growers, while, after the expiration of the three-year contract, the Delano growers signed a new contract with another union making lesser demands. As a result of this, new strikes erupted in 1973, which were put down by the law enforcement by violent means. The UFW responded with another grape boycott and 17 million Americans boycotted Delano grapes. The UFW managed to cause huge profit losses to the grape business stakeholders from production to sales, which led to the enactment of a new law by the governor of California in 1975, which secured the right of farmworkers to unionize. Due to the pressure from the supermarkets, the growers did not oppose. The membership of the UFW had grown beyond 40,000 by the 1980s.

The growers, as a response, supported the campaign of an anti-union candidate in the 1982 governor's race in California, who won the election and repealed the union law. The UFW then started another boycott and launched a campaign against pesticides, which caused serious health problems to workers and their kids. In 1992, UFW activists managed to get the wage of grapepickers increased.

Chávez passed away in 1993. One of the campaigns of the UFW now is the enactment of the so-called AgJOBS Act, which would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants and open the path for them to permanent residency.


Viva La Causa: organizing principles of César Chávez

Activists demand wage increase
for tomato pickers in front of a
Taco Bell fast food restaurant.
Source: elenemigocomun.net

By the 1960s, the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement had been emerging. The Chicano Movement, which aimed for the elimination of discrimination against Mexican Americans, segregation at schools, economic exploitation, disdain of their culture and the need for meaningful political participation was strengthened by Chávez and his allies. The work of Chávez was based on the principles of non-violence, showed a strong religious pattern, and aimed for wide social cooperation. He thought the UFW would become strong against the agribusiness stakeholders if the members of the movement did not allow themselves to be pitted against one another along ethnicity and gender, and were able to build a wide support base.

Therefore, with women and Latino farmworkers, the movement had a lot of followers among students, the white middle-class, and the Latino working class. Chávez said, "If we nothing but farmworkers, we'd only have about 30 per cent of all the ideas that we have. There would be no cross-fertilization, no growing. It's beautiful to work with other groups, other ideas, and other customs." (2003: Dalton) This approach helped the movement gain national and international support in the frequently used boycott tactics.

Chávez went on hunger strikes and fasted several times throughout this lifetime. Masses and religious events closing the fasts meant a bonding among the members of the, ultimately, religious Mexican American movement. The first fasting took place in 1968 for the "purification of the union", when during the first five-year strike members started to lose faith in the non-violent tactics and started to become violent. The fasting was also a signal for the Catholic bishops, who were reluctant to stand by the poor and instead kept on acting as mediators between the workers and the growers. At the end of the 25-day fasting, Chávez organized a public mass, which was attended by more than 8,000 supporters, for example, by Senator Robert F. Kennedy, with whom he shared the communion. He went on a hunger strike against the Arizona law which banned strikes, and during the campaign against pesticides. The Catholicism of Chavez was rooted in liberation theology.

The UFW inspired and showed a perspective to several farmworker unions and organizations, for example, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, who conducted a successful boycott against Taco Bell (fast food restaurant) between 2002-2005 for wage increases for tomato pickers in Florida; or the PCUN Oregon's Farmworker Union, which built its membership base through providing legal services and then transformed into a union. Many of PCUN's founding members graduated from the Colegio César Chávez, a popular school, named after Chávez and founded to provide education to Mexican Americans. Chávez had primary education and throughout his life, he was a self-learner. Barack Obama dedicated a monument to Chávez this October in San Francisco.

The American middle class organizes: the Sanctuary Movement in support of undocumented immigrants

Forrás: share-elsalvador.org

But how can you avoid being caught in the web of ICE if you are undocumented? You try to remain invisible. You don't go to a doctor if you are sick, you don't enroll into a school in case you are particularly vulnerable, you try to be inconspicuous, especially to the authorities. If there is a chance, you try to get at least temporary permits. And you try to find those who will employ you without a permit. In case of better-off immigrants, this may be a family enterprise, in case of the more vulnerable, this may be employers who hire undocumented people to make some extra profit. Forced labor, being bound by debt or wage theft or being a victim of sex slavery may also hide the oppressed from the authorities. Civil society organizations which advocate on behalf of or with the immigrants without endangering their stay in the country play a very important role. And the support of the society is also needed, whose members can provide help in everyday life, and give support in case of emergency to make the circumstances of immigrants livable. Initiatives (such as the Rural Organizing Project in Oregon), which aim for establishing welcoming communities, are therefore of great importance.

A good example for the outstanding support of the middle class is the Sanctuary Movement, which was a critical response of a part of the American society to the U.S. foreign policy in Central America in the 1980s. In the 1980s, due to the massacres and civil war in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and in El Salvador almost one million people sought refuge in the U.S.

Despite the fact that the actual U.S. administration aided those leaders who supported the neoliberal economic policy and the access of the American capital to these countries and who are liable for the death of the hundreds of thousands of people, the Reagan administration substantially restricted the asylum seekers in gaining refugee status. Gradually, a segment of the society became more and more aware of the consequences of the American foreign policy, and some of them started to take responsibility.

The religious Sanctuary Movement started to emerge in 1980. Several denominations took account of their faith and principles and first started to provide legal and financial aid to Central American asylum seekers who managed to cross the border. Then in 1982, John Fife, a Presbyterian minister in Arizona, declared that the church of his congregation is a sanctuary, justified by Biblical traditions. The posted banners said: "This is a Sanctuary for the Oppressed of Central America. Immigration: do not profane the Sanctuary of God." (wikipedia) Inspired by this, by 1985, congregations, non-religious organizations, families with almost 500 member-sites joined the movement. Besides the Bible, the movement was inspired by the Underground Railroad, which was a network of safe houses from the southern states of the U.S. to Canada, where fleeing slaves found safe haven in the 19th century. The network was built by the activists of the Abolitionist Movement.

The immigration office cracked down on the Sanctuary Movement in the 1980s. Several leaders were sued, and some of them were indicted on smuggling charges. The movement gained public support, and the trials incited public outrage and demonstrations. Social pressure contributed to the fact that the federal government provided temporary protected status to Central American asylum seekers in the Immigration Act of 1990. (wikipedia)

It is the business of all of us

In Portland, Sarah, a member of the Oregon New Sanctuary Movement, Sarah allowed me to stay with her. Sarah worked at a local organization in Santa Marta, El Salvador in the early 2000s, where she became politicized. She works with several organizations in Oregon, and she builds the local group of the Oregon New Sanctuary Movement and the welcoming community in Portland as an activist. She often travels back to visit friends in El Salvador, to gain energy and courage, but she knows that her job is in the U.S.; this is the country where she can do the most to support social movements and immigrant justice.

In El Salvador, she said, people seem more politicized or politically aware, and that political discourse is more common among a wide range of people. In the community where she lived in particular – largely because of its long and rich history of struggle during the 1979-1992 Civil War, but also out of necessity – organizing for basic rights and self-determination is much more integrated into communal life.

The political action, community organizing and organizing for social change start in our everyday life.

Read Part 1 here.

Further literature: Frederick John Dalton: The Moral Vision of César Chávez. Maryknoll, New York, 2003. Lynn Stephen: The Story of PCUN and the Farmworker Movement in Oregon. University of Oregon. Eugene, 2012. Ganz Marshall: Why David Sometimes Wins. In: David M. Messick and Roderick M. Kramer: The Psychology of Leadership. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005, pp. 209-238.
Documentary film: Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement - Part 2: The Struggle in the Fields. PBS Documentary, 1996.

Read it in Hungarian.