Baldemar Velásquez fights for migrant farmworkers
The way you begin your life is not necessarily how you will live it. He began his life as a migrant worker at age 6 with no voice, but today Baldemar Velásquez is an internationally-recognized advocate for farmworkers and immigrants — one with a powerful voice.
Born in Pharr, Tex. to a Mexican American family of migrant workers, Velásquez worked alongside his parents and siblings in the fields. His parents instilled in him a strong work ethic and a passion for social justice. At age 12, he wanted to earn extra money for his family and believed he had found a way to accomplish that — by working harder.
Arriving earlier than the best paid workers, Velásquez started working in the premium rows – those closest to the trucks where the buckets of crops were to be placed. He learned that these rows were reserved for the overseer’s family. The Velásquez family was ordered to move, but Baldemar refused to load the buckets unless he received extra pay. Unfortunately, he and his entire family were fired.
On the ride home, his father asked what he had learned from the experience. Velásquez said “All the workers should have refused to move buckets.” After that incident, the family worked fields in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and again in Texas.
Velásquez had experienced his first taste of inequality, kindling his passion for justice and stoking his anger about the way they were treated. To combat his lack of friends and festering anger, he started playing all the school sports, becoming a good football player.
“I would hit the white kids with ‘reckless abandon, as they say’ and a little more to vent,” he said. “One teammate told me to look at my grades – you are still a dumb Mexican even though you play football.”
That night, he started studying the dictionary, learning all the words he could and how to properly use them. Over time, he made the honor roll and headed to college.
Velásquez didn’t have the words for racism or prejudice, but he knew something wasn’t right – denying rights to hard working people and exploiting them financially, socially and spiritually. He became involved in civil rights movements including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Because of his experiences and his passion for social, Velásquez knew he had to fight for the migrant and immigrant workers.
Heavily influenced by the ideas of César Chávez, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., Velásquez was able to work with Chávez and King and learn how to stage orderly, effective protests.
He founded the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO in 1967 and began forming unions, fighting for equal pay, health insurance and equality for the workers.
“We fought Campbell Soup Company, the company that said they would never sign an agreement with anyone who was not an employee,” Velásquez said. “After eight years, we negotiated an agreement with them to improve the working conditions, demand better treatment and double their pay.”
At the end of his keynote address at the 8th annual César Chávez Lecture, sponsored by the Division of Diversity and Inclusion, Velásquez challenged the audience, especially students, to make a difference — “start grassroot efforts that make a difference in the lives of those being treated unfairly; help empower people regardless of the type of degree you will earn and fight for economic justice. The fight is about more than race – it’s a class issue.”
Velásquez encouraged everyone to use their voices to combat injustices as he has since he was 12 years old.
|Wandra Brooks Green, Division of Strategic Marketing and Communications