Joy Keys chats with Author Matt Garcia about Cesar Chavez

Published to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the founding of the United Farm Workers on September 30, 2012, FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement by Matt Garcia is the most comprehensive history ever written on the meteoric rise and precipitous decline of the United Farm Workers, the most successful farm labor union in United States history.

Based on little-known sources and one-of-a-kind oral histories, author Matt Garcia revises much of what we know about the UFW. From the gripping account of the union’s grape boycott which became the defining feature of the movement, to the union’s expansion and ultimately it’s demise as the victim of its own success and Chavez’s growing instability, Garcia tells a tale of hope, triumph and disappointment. 

Matt Garcia is Professor of Transborder Studies and History at Arizona State University, where he also directs the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies, and the Program in Comparative Border Studies. He is the author of A World of Its Own.