After a secure childhood in rural Yuma, 12-year-old Cesar was thrown into the migrant stream when the county foreclosed on the family farm in 1939 and the Chavezes headed to California. After eighth grade, he worked fulltime in the fields, suffering the indignities of life as a poor Mexican-American farmworker. In 1952, he met a community organizer named Fred Ross, a fateful encounter that launched Chavez on his career and began a ten-year apprenticeship under Ross, working for the Community Service Organization (CSO)..
