What motivated Chavez to organize, and how do these experiences compare with other minorities and their struggle for civil rights?

In most all labor movements, the motivation to organize labor stems from mistreatment of the working class. This was the primary cause of Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association on the California grape farms. Throughout the farms along California, Mexican workers were essentially undercutting the domestic wages. The United States and Mexico had an agreement called the Bracero Program. This allowed for "guest workers" from Mexico to work the farms in America. Obviously, this turned into cheap labor. The growers and owners of the farms simply took advantage of this program, and domestic workers suffered. They had no power to negotiate wage increases, because cheaper labor was being funneled in by the government program. Moreover, whenever the domestic workers tried to unionize, the growers used these guest workers as strike breakers.

Chavez had already risen through the ranks of several different community organizations. He was well known for community involvement, and this brought him to Delores Huerta. Both Chavez and Huerta created the National Farm Workers Association, now called the United Farm Workers. After a series of strikes, the UFW was able to negotiate contracts, and it had nearly 50,000 members by the 1970s.