This page will contain links to open access internet resources such as digitized archives, digital encyclopedias, and more. These links are very helpful in finding primary sources.
Farmworker Movement Documentation Project (UCSD)
About: Primary source accounts by the United Farm Worker volunteers who built the movement brought to us by UCSD (includes essays, photos, art and more)
Cesar Chavez and United Farm Workers FBI files
Regarding Cesar Chavez in regard to allegations of communist party affiliations within the United Farm Workers organization.
Mexican Labor and World War II: The Bracero Program (Digital Public Library of America)
Beginning in World War II, the Bracero Program brought Mexican laborers to the United States to remedy wartime production shortages. The program (which derived its name from the Spanish word for a manual laborer, “bracero”) continued until 1964, with braceros working mainly in agricultural areas in the Southwest and on the West Coast. Braceros worked long hours for low wages in difficult jobs that separated them from their families. In the United States, they also faced discrimination and became the subject of national labor debates. Get new insight into the Bracero Program and its workers through this collection of era photographs, documents, and oral history interviews.
The United Farm Workers and the Delano Grape Strike (Digital Public Library of America)
The protest that began in the fields in Delano grew into a broader boycott that asked for help from consumers in urban areas. By 1970, the UFW grape boycott was a success. Table grape growers signed their first union contracts, granting workers better pay, benefits, and protections. In the decades that followed, Chavez and the UFW continued to use nonviolent strikes, boycotts, marches, and fasts to help farm workers stand up for their rights and gather support from ordinary Americans to aid them in their efforts. This primary source set uses documents, photographs, and promotional materials to explore the events of the Delano Grape Strike and the formation of the United Farm Workers.