The Daily - How Cesar Chavez Abused His Power

Episode Date: March 31, 2026

The civil rights icon had a history of sexually abusing women and girls, which the Times reporters Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hurtes spent five years investigating. They spoke to “The Daily” about how they uncovered the story.  Guest: Manny Fernandez, an editor at large for The New York Times. Sarah Hurtes, an investigative reporter for The New York Times. Background reading:  Read the investigation by Manny and Sarah into the allegations against Ceasar Chavez. Photo: Barton Silverman/The New York Times For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrowe. This is the Daily. Breaking news in New York Times just publishing shocking new allegations made against late labor leader, Sessa Chavez. After a Times investigation revealed allegations of sexual abuse against one of America's most important civil rights icons. This really is a reimagining of a whole legacy. The entire country has started to wrap.

with a new reality. They covered up the late civil rights leader's name with cement. Removed the image of Cesar Chavez from several commissioned pieces of art. A statue at Cesar Chavez Plaza is now wrapped up in plastic you see here. And a history that's now been rewritten. California officially renaming the holiday formerly known as Cesar Chavez Day, March 31st, now to Farm Workers Day. Today, on what would have been Caesar Chavez Day, in California,

California. We talked to the reporters who broke the story, Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hertz, about the women at the center of it and what it took to uncover a secret that they'd carried for more than 50 years. It's Tuesday, March 31st. Mani and Sarah, welcome to the show. Thank you for having us. Hi. Thank you. So you two just came out with this bombshell that was years in the making, this reporting showing that Caesar Chavez sexually abused young girls and women in his movement. And we wanted to talk to you both about how this story came to be and why it came about now. And Sarah, you were integral to all of this. But, Manny, the reporting really started with you. So let's begin there. How did this start? It starts in 2021. And I was sort of

just getting settled as the LA Bureau Chief when a biographer of Cizier Chavez named Matt Garcia wrote an email and the email from Matt Garcia was basically sort of saying you know, hey guys, I didn't really write about this in my book but there are some things with Cizier Chavez and girls that you guys should look into.

You know, he had touched on the fact that Cesar Chavez had had some affairs in his book, but he was hearing from people saying that there was more than that. And we get a lot of tips. Right. I chase a lot of tips. And what did you think about this one when you got it?

I wasn't sure what to make of it. I was just sort of like, huh? Maybe there's something there, maybe not. But it was certainly worth looking into. Worth looking into, of course, because of who Chavez is. this monumental civil rights activist in the Latino community. Manny, can you just tell me what did the name Cesar Chavez mean to you at this point?

I mean, I am from Cesar Chavez country. I'm born and raised in Fresno, California, and you can't grow up in Fresno and be from a Mexican-American family and not have Cesar Chavez as just part of the weather. of your life. Hmm. Part of the weather. Yeah.

I mean, he's just like, it's not just like streets, murals and things like that. It's just that there's a, it runs a lot deeper than that. For me personally, my grandparents on both sides of my family, started out as farm workers.

On my mom's side of the family, my grandparents, they met on a, garlic patch outside of Fresno in the 1940s and they were both 16. And my grandmother's line that I have never stopped repeating is she would always say it was love it for smell. And so like there's just that like, I mean that backstory, like, I mean, that's part of my DNA.

All my life, I have been driven by one dream, one. One goal, one vision. To overthrow a farm labor system in this nation that treats farm workers as they were not important human beings. Cesar Chavez is like as important to the Southwest as maybe MLK is to the South. Farm workers are not agricultural implements. They are not beast of burden to be used and discarded. He drew public attention to the conditions that farm workers were working in. Thousands of farm workers live under savage conditions.

Some of them were living in basically sheds. Some of them were being mistreated. Some of them were not being paid for the work they were doing. No one even knew their names. We had all lived through the fields. or our parents had, we shared that common humiliation. The only answer, the only hope was in organizing. So he is on the front lines bringing the world's attention

to how much farm workers are being paid, how they're being treated. We have looked into the future and the future is ours. He helped create America's first successful union for farm. He led pickets and great boycotts. Boycotts against the wine, the yellow wine, the grapes, and the lettuce is very effective. And marches. Chavez and friends began their walk from the sunny seat at border checkpoint. But in a larger sense, he was this symbol, this like spokesperson to tell literally the world, and especially America,

the work of these farm workers, there's a nobility and a dignity to it. Their lives matter, and these dreams of these people matter. So all of that to say, this tip that you get, this story you're looking into, is not just another run-of-the-mill story for you. Yeah, I mean, this is important to me. Like, the stakes are high.

But again, I am... chasing down a tip at this point. Right. There may be a story here, and there may not. But I wanted to talk to the women who were rumored that Cizor Chavez

did something to them. And hear from them, what is the deal? What happened? You know, nobody wants to take down a hero, but I think we need to know who our heroes are. So in this tip from

Matt Garcia, and in a conversation we have later, he's talked to me about a private Facebook group for people who used to march with Cesar Chavez, people who were former union activists in their exchanging memories, and they're saying, hey, who remembers the lyrics to that one song? We used to sing and things like that. And shortly before, Cesar Chavez's birthday, which is March 31st, and it's a state holiday in California, there's this post. And the post is from a woman named Deborah Rojas. And she writes a message. And as part of that message, she basically says, wake up people, this man you march for every year molested me. And that post stays up for a few days and then she takes it down.

And so I called Deborah Rojas on the phone, but she made it clear that she was not ready to talk. And then one night, sort of late, I get a call, and it's Deb. And what does she say? I can tell that she's been drinking. And she's sort of calling me to say, you know, do you really want to tell my story? You don't want to tell my story. They're going to come after you.

They're going to come after me. she believed that the idea of taking down Caesar Chavez would ignite so much anger that people would come after her and her family. The anger would be so high. From Chavez supporters. The they is Chavez supporters. Yes, and it's actually even she believed

that people close to Chavez did not want this story to come out. It sounds to me like, What Deb is doing here is stress testing you in a way. Like she's sussing you out. She's asking, do you have the stomach for what it would mean to tell my story? Yes, that's exactly what she's doing. And what she's doing is she is struggling with, do I come forward or do I not? And that struggle, I could hear it, I could see it.

Do I hold this in? or do I speak it? And she was struggling with that in that moment. And a short time later, she blocks me on her phone. That sounds like a dead end. How do you proceed? One of the things that happens is eventually Sarah gets involved. I get a call from my editor,

who tells me that they want to send me to L.A. to help out on this investigation. So I work in the International Investigations team. I'm based in Brussels, and I have a background in working in complex investigations, and I also have a background in sexual violence and conflicts, and so I fly to L.A. So we were a team, and I shared my notes with Sarah,

and we started reaching out to a number of women, We decides that we're going to broaden the search, just interview as many members of Caesar-Shevis movement as possible. And there was another woman whose name I had. And that other woman is Anna Margia. And over time, we went to go see Deb, and then we went to go see Anna. and over the course of the reporting, I start developing that journalistic relationship with Deb and Sarah starts developing a closer relationship with Anna.

And these two women, Anna and Deb, they know each other. They're friends. They grew up together. They talked to each other when they were teenagers. They know each other quite well. And so after months and months, I'm sitting down with Deb and I say, do you think, would you go on the record if Anna would?

And Deb's like, yeah, I think I would. And that's eventually what happens. Both individually decided to go on the record with their names. So I guess we're going to do it like from the beginning. And Anna agreed to have her voice recorded. Hmm. How are you feeling? Yeah, today I woke up achy today. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So Anna is 66 years old. She currently lives in Bakersfield, in a house with her husband, and she has three children. And in many ways, her story is tied to a place Chavez established for his movement in the mountains outside L.A., a place called La Paz. You moved to this community called La Paz. Yes, I was 10. We were, my dad was in charge of, you know, like, just basically getting the property ready. La Paz was his movement's headquarters.

And Anna's family, they were the first to move there and to set up the place for Chavez. So when we moved up there, my family for a while was the only family there. You know, they had this. old hospital and the houses and it was just this very eerie isolated place. It was formerly a hospital for tuberculosis patients. Where there was lots to explore and she loved it initially. You know, I was a tomboy, so I liked doing, you know, all that stuff going out and playing in the creek and... taking hikes on the mountain side.

And she loved the mountain caves where she could go by ponds or creeks and play in the water. She also liked how spooky and weird her new environment was. This old desolate hospital was a former wheelchair that she could spin on. It was kind of a wonderland for her, it sounds like. It was, it was kind of a wonderland. I think she just enjoyed. being carefree. She just enjoyed being a child. It was a very good place for me. Were you, were you proud to be part of this union? Yes, yes, I, you know, I enjoyed it.

It was something, I guess, it was instilled in me for my dad, you know, going out and helping other people and doing good for people. Her father... He was very invested in Caesar Chavez movement. In fact, she basically met Caesar Chavez through her dad when her dad married a volunteer in that movement. And so Cesar Chavez attended the wedding as her dad's best man. Wow.

And she remembers attending that wedding. I didn't know it at the time we was, but that was the first time. and I just knew that from pictures I had seen. So Anna was very much a child of this labor movement. She understood its significance from a very early age. And she picked up on how important her family's role was in building this community in La Paz, as soon as they moved in, really.

I thought it was a good thing. But through the years, as I got older in my younger, teen years, it got difficult. We felt stuck because there was really nobody there. Now, the only thing is that this environment was very isolated. There wasn't much going on outside, and also not many people living with her. My dad, because my father was always gone. He was an organizer, so he was always gone. Her father, he was never around, because Caesar asked him to go on tour with him. He was always on picket lines.

He was always helping Caesar getting contracts unionized for the farm workers. So her dad was always on the move. Her stepmom was sometimes there, but also gone at times. And she just felt that it became increasingly lonely. Right. It sounds like she's surrounded by all of these people, including her father, who are dedicating themselves to this higher calling, to this movement that they truly believe in.

But what that does is kind of make the child, make Anna a second order priority. Absolutely. And she tried to fill that loneliness by working herself as part of this union. So I would go to school and come home and go work. For a time I worked, you know, in the purchasing, making sure that we had enough office supplies, ordering office supplies.

I worked in accounting for a while. Then I started working in Caesar's office. Caesar moved in about a year and a half after Anna's family had moved into this community. And she had seen him by then and knew how important he was. He was often surrounded by his bodyguards whom he employed, you know, after he started receiving quite a lot of death threats. So she could sense, say, the presence of an important man. So when Caesar started asking her to work in his office, that felt very special. When did that start?

I think I was like about 13, 12 and 1 half, 13 years old. So I would do like basically filing, typing letters, just, you know, simple stuff like that that I could do. She was very proud to say that she could mimic his signature to help answer fan mail. Yeah, because I would send his pictures, so I would practice writing. And so then I would sign because at one point it got like too much. So I would sign. Or work on the switchboard. I enjoyed it. It was a board with a bunch of cables, and it reminded me of character that Lily Tomlin played as a switchboard operator.

Gradually, he starts inviting her in his office to just have these one-on-one talks. And Anna says that they talk a lot. I had a really hard time talking to people. I had a hard time talking to my dad. I had a hard time talking to my stepmother. I didn't have a good relationship with either of him at the time. And he was one adult that I could fight in, that I knew he went to tell my father, you know, what I was feeling or, you know, somebody that I learned to trust that I could talk.

And so Anna tells him how lonely she feels in this community. Things that went on at school. How lonely she feels at school. Like if something happened at my house, you know, with my dad. How lonely she feels in her home. And how would he respond to those things? He would just listen and try and be understanding. And Caesar, in exchange, tells her that he too feels lonely.

And he would say how lonely he was and how hard it was that he always had to have people with him. And it was so bad that, you know, sometimes he couldn't. even go to the bathroom by himself. There would have to be security outside, right outside the bathroom with him. Anna feels very sorry for him. You know, that, that sucks. She also feels connected to him. What was it like for you, you know, to have this man share so much with you? I felt very special that he made me feel like I was somebody. Wow. And that's something I dealt with. You know, I've dealt with a lot in my life. But, yeah, we used to talk.

Just talk. And at the time, Caesar is already starting to be known in the movement as someone who does yoga, who enjoys meditation, but also as someone who sees himself as a bit of a healer. He, by then, starts going around his community and saying, that he can heal people with migraines by putting his hands on them. And so he starts doing that with Anna. He places her on the yoga mat in his office. He tells her that this is a way to relax.

The first time, it was like we were talking and he told me to close my eyes and he was trying to show me pressure points and to show me how to meditate and relax. But it starts like that. and then he would start kissing on me. And I was very surprised when that happened. I didn't understand. It is on the yoga mat while showing her these pressure points on her hands on her body

that he starts kissing her. How old is he at this point? Caesar is about 44. And Anna is 13. Did you understand what kisses were or what, like, how? Not at that time. It was just, you know, not anything intense at the beginning. Eventually, it got more kissing,

and pretty soon it moved on to other things. And it transforms in. to something where he regularly calls her to his office to be physical with her. I felt I felt I had, who was I going to turn to once it got past that? When it got past the point when he took me to that mat to have intercourse, I mean, I didn't have, I don't know who I would talk to. Yeah. I had no one to turn to.

And it kept on. And he would tell me not to tell anybody to keep it a secret. You know, my friends would be jealous. So I kept it to myself. And where were her parents in all of this? Did they know what was going on? I mean, my dad was gone. Yeah.

He gave everything to the movement. She says that she didn't feel like she had the space to tell them. I didn't know how he would react because he was Caesar's compadre. I didn't know if he would be mad at me. I didn't even know if he would believe me. And I didn't want to find out. What about the others that were in this community in La Paz? Did they get suspicious about this?

Did it raise any red flags for anyone else? No. Even though she had to pass by several people to enter his office where he would then lock the door. I mean, come on, I'm a 13-year-old girl going into his office and spending half hour, 45 minutes, an hour there just when he's supposed to be so busy. How could they not know? But then one day... I was on my way to Caesar's office. and I ran into Debbie because Debbie's...

On the pass to Caesar's office, she runs into Debbie, who's 12 at the time, when Anna is 13. And I went there, well, where are you going? And I told her where I was going, and she looked at me like, like, what? I'm like, yeah, and so we started talking. They quickly realized that they're both going to his office

and doing the same things. Oh, wow. We looked at each other and we said, wait, you know, we both said the same thing. Well, he told me not to tell anybody because they would get jealous. And so it felt really like a sort of relief to have someone to finally be able to share her secret was. You know, her and I would talk to each other because we were the only ones we could talk to. You know, we felt safe with each other. But it doesn't change Anna's dynamic with Chavez.

He continued to keep her close. And over the next few years, he would bring her with him often on tour. And I thought that was the coolest thing, you know, because I got to meet John Baez. She is also accompanying him in the summer of 1975, where Chavez and his organizers are preparing this long. March broken up over multiple days through California. For almost 20 years of union organizing in California, Cesar Chavez has won his biggest victory. And they call it the Thousand Miles March.

It's a very long march and it's going to be difficult, but we're determined that we're going to get the message to every single worker. And the goal is to draw public attention to their recent victory that gave farm workers the legal right to unionize in the state of California. that we have to walk. We can't fly and we can't drive because driving and flying is just too rapid. And so Anna is joining him in the middle in Fresno, was Debbie, her friend. It was exciting because, you know, we were participating to me. We were participating in something really good. Yeah.

So Debbie and I, you know, we traveled with Caesar and his guards. We stayed in the same houses. It was fun. I mean, it was, we were always in that circle with Caesar, made us feel very special. It sounds like he's really at the peak of his influence, Chavez, and of his movement's success. Like, I assume the girls can feel that as they're with him, that adoration he's being showered with.

Absolutely. It definitely has an impact on them in the way that their secret is even more tightly, held because here they are these two girls from farm workers' family who seem to think that they're nobody's in contrast to this great hero of the people. Why would I want to destroy the cause for me, for my life, how it affected my life? I was nobody. I was just a kid.

We'll be right back. So when does Anna start to break free of Chavez? It was a long process. It took several years. But it begins the same year as the March. No, it was my 15th birthday. He asked my parents if I can go with him to a fundraiser in Bel Air. And it's when she traveled to Bel Air at a fundraiser's house.

I think I was looking for him and I walked into that kid. kitchen. She stepped in on him kissing another woman, and she tells me that she felt disgusted by that and had this sense of feeling betrayed. He always made it seem like I was the only special one in his life. I finally had somebody there that wanted just me. And why do you think it was this moment that hit her so hard. Like, what about it do you think really shook her in this way? I think that she realized something that she probably knew, but hadn't quite come to grasp, is that she wasn't someone whom he loved or whom he saw himself being with. She was just someone who he was using. And she starts pulling away.

Our relationship eventually started to break down some, you know, because he, I guess he started saying he couldn't control me as much as I got older. You know, I would speak out more. She spends less and less time with him. She eventually decides she wants to leave the community for good. I needed to get away. I needed to get away, so I left. That's got to be a freeing moment for her. But it's not.

She ends up becoming rapidly hooked to Heron. So while it's supposed to be a moment of freedom, it's supposed to be a moment where she's finally not under the grip of this one man. She is starting to use. Tried a couple of times even to OD intentionally. And I went to La Paz because my family was there so that I could try and get away, get clean from my hair. her when use. She decides that the only safe place to go is to the only family that she knows,

which is, you know, the family living in La Paz, but also the man whom she had trusted. So she goes back. And once she arrives, Caesar Chavez summons her to his office. He summons her the way he did it when she was a child. He called her house. And he says, you need to come to my office. And so I went. You know, I didn't think anything of it. I went. But unlike all the other times, he's not alone.

He was a bunch of board members who are around Caesar and who all surround her and who start verbally attacking her. Saying what? Saying that... They didn't want me there. She's a danger to the community.

They didn't want me. in drugs there. That she's bringing in drugs. Told me to get out. That she is no longer welcomed. I was devastated. You know, to me, you know, I gave my life for this cause. And I never asked for anything back.

And the one time I went to ask for help, I was treated. I was being thrown out like trash. And she never talked to. to him again. So that is obviously a very devastating story, incredibly difficult to hear and to think about. I want to just pull back and ask, to what extent is Anna's experience reflective of broader patterns

that you all uncovered in this reporting? Anna's story matched. The other stories we were hearing from other women. The way that Cesar Chavez sort of created that special bubble for Anna to make her feel special, to have her work for him and do different tasks and to spend time together alone in the office, that matched up with how he treated Deb. The same sorts of things that he was doing with Anna,

he was doing with Deb. So we've now talked to seven women with a range of allegations against him of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. And what we've heard from talking to those women, as well as others, is that he would sometimes have consensual affairs with adult women, and he would have also non-consensual sexual encounters with adult women as well.

And one of the most prominent examples of that is Dolores Werta, right? A civil rights icon in her own right, who also came out to say that she, too, was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Chavez. This is a 95-year-old woman. This is Dolores Werta. This is Caesar Chavez's top female partner. in the entire movement that he created.

This is the woman who coined Si Se Puede. This is perhaps the most famous Latina activist in America. We sat down with her for two hours, and she told us, Cesar Chavez sexually assaulted me, and he also manipulated me into sex in a hotel room. And she told us both of those sons. sexual encounters led to pregnancies, and she had those babies in secret, and she has held

on to this secret for 60 years. We have not independently verified what Dolores told us. However, it does match a pattern that we've heard from several women about how Cesar Chavez operated. And what about that concern that Deborah shared with you early on that her story might prompt this wave of anger towards her from people close to the movement? Has that materialized? No, it hasn't really. They've been flooded with support.

I think in many ways, like some of the backlash that they feared in coming forward has actually been directed more towards Cesar Chavez and any sort of public displays of his name and his face. I graduated from Fresno State University. There was a statue of Cizzer Chavez on campus. After our story published, people at first put a black cloth over it, and then they put a plywood box over it to cover the statue,

and now that statue has been removed. similar things have happened in other cities across California, across the country. His name has been removed from buildings, street signs. I have received emails and texts and phone calls from people who are Mexican-American who tell me that they were just devastated, that it was a, it was a, painful for them to read this. It was painful for them to lose a hero.

I think the country is in the middle of reckoning with his legacy. Manny, I want to ask, these women had kept this secret for decades and decades, 60 years in one case,

and Caesar Chavez died in the 90s. So why did they decide to come forward now after all these years? You know, I was talking to Deborah the other day after the story published

because she was hearing or seeing in the media this sort of question of why now and Deborah said why not now and I think her point was sort of like there was never a perfect moment

for Deborah to do this and Deb said he has been a shadow over my life, and I wanted to end. It's time. Sarah, what do you think about that question? About why now? For Anna? I think for Anna, there are several factors that come into play. It's not just one big reason. The first one is her dad. I didn't want my dad to be so disillusioned by this movement, by this man that he worked so hard with. to help bring about change for the farm workers.

About a year and a half ago, her father passed away. You know, he died thinking this man did a good thing. And so that was one of the reasons why she thought it was okay to tell her story. It made it easier. Oh, wow. And so there's that. And then there's also this one moment that she describes where she went back to La Paz when it had opened as a public monument,

as a place where people could visit, learn about Caesar Chavez's life, about the movement's history. And she had decided to go back. And there she saw pictures of Caesar, pictures of the people in his movement, until she came upon his office. And his office, they have it now behind a glass wall.

And it was set up how he had it. And as she looked at the office, Right in the corner was the mat, the yoga mat. She saw the yoga mat. Oh, God. I was like, I can't believe they put that there. It's brought back so many memories. I was like, I didn't go back anymore.

It's just so unique, so rare to have a place where someone was abused to be on display to the wider public. At the same time, she also, has come to realize that her life didn't necessarily have less value than the leader, than his, than Caesar Chavez. You know, I'm sorry to his family, the Chavez family, for doing this to their dad. And I just want them to know that I'm sorry. But I couldn't hold it anymore. It's time.

People need to know. They need to quit worshipping this person. He's just a man. He's not the causa. There were many men, women, and children that sacrificed for this cause. And many lives, many lives were changed because of the cause, not because of the man.

It's time for the people that he hurt to speak out. Now I don't have to look at his name on a street every time I drive by. Now I can breathe easy. I don't have to carry the secret anymore. Well, Manny, Sarah, thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with it. Do you worry that that helps? The White House signaled it was softening its effective oil blockade on Cuba, allowing a Russian tanker full of oil to reach the island. We allowed this ship to reach Cuba in order to provide humanitarian needs to the Cuban people. These decisions are being made on a case-by-case basis.

The move comes after the administration has been blocking energy shipments to Cuba since January and threatening to punish any nation that sent fuel there. Russia said it had discussed the shipment in advance with the U.S. And that it had a duty to support Cuba. Today's episode was produced by Olivia Natt, Lindsay Garrison, and Rob Zipko. It was edited by Michael Benoit and Lizzo Bailen. Original music by Dan Powell and contains music by Pat McCusker, Marion Lazzano, and Alicia Bette. Our theme music is by Wonderly.

This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the daily. I'm Natalie Ketrowaf. See you tomorrow.