The Rhetorical Career of Cesar Chavez

Although born into one of the least powerful segments of American society, Cesar Chavez led the farm-labor movement to unprecedented heights. His powerful effect on audiences is well known, but award-winning scholars John C. Hammerback and Richard J. Jensen offer the first explanation of how Chavez achieved that effect. Although other studies of Chavez exist, none has examined so thoroughly his rhetoric nor analyzed in depth such a large number of Chavez's own texts -- scores of which have previously been unstudied. Chavez was an indefatigable speaker, writer, and non-discursive communicator who developed a well-thought-out approach to his rhetorical discourse and placed his speaking and writing at the very center of his career. By merging thought and character in his themes, arguments, and explanations, and in his first and second personae, Chavez was able to identify with the character of his listeners. That identification induced many audience members to support Chavez's agenda for union activism. The authors have developed a model "to help explain Chavez's startling transformation of some audiences and persuasion of others". Hammerback and Jensen reveal that Chavez's world view motivated him to work tirelessly and directed him to the particular rhetorical qualities and techniques that characterized his discourse. The authors also demonstrate Chavez's surprising effectiveness as a rhetor despite his soft-spoken style, uncharacteristic of most powerful orators.

Richard J. Jensen is a professor at the Greenspun School of Communication at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas John C. Hammerback is a professor of speech communications at California State University, Hayward