Cesar Chavez Plants the Seeds of Comedic Success

Cesar-fast-with-Robert-Robert-Kennedy-and-Helen-Chavez-with-Cesar-Chavez-getting-ready-to-end-his-fast---Photo-Sanchez

 

 

 

 

The Early Years

His father Ruben, an employee of Westinghouse in the late ’50s, early on saw no potential growth within the company. He was recruited to head up the art department of a new company they would later name Space Publications. Although the business was very successful, his father wanted to belong to something. “In those days people wanted to change the world,” Scott explains.

 

 

 

 

The printshop at the camp where it all started

Inspired by his first encounter with Chavez, his father was happy to accept the job of revamping the UFW newspaper, El Malcriado. After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Ruben and wife Daneen were soon recruited by Frank and Liz Rodriguez, who worked with the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, to help run the UFW office in San Jose. The duo became a big part of UFWOC.

Chavez recognized their talents and asked them to become a big part of La Causa. It soon turned into much more than that as his parents moved the family from San Jose to La Paz, setting up what is now known as Taller Grafico, designing the building from the ground up, buying printing presses and charging forward with the cause.

The publishing arm of UFW became a full-service print shop and publishing company that revamped, printed and distributed El Malcriado newspapers, produced mass-mailing campaigns, and branded and merchandised posters, bumper stickers, T-shirts, badges and anything that would raise funds to help get the UFW message out.

For their efforts, the Montoya’s were each paid a salary of $5 per week including food, shelter and donated clothing. Scott remembers, “In those days you did not need much money to live, and as long as we had cloths and a place to sleep and call our own, making a difference in the world was much more important.

 

 

 

 

Scott and younger brother Mark at Fillipino Hall in Delano

“It was like camping everyday. What I remember was, even as a kid, I always felt privileged and special being witness to a time in history that really changed peoples’ lives. But most of all as a kid I just really had fun growing up in La Paz with my friends, Anthony and Paul Chavez, Cesar’s sons, and Emilio Huerta, Dolores’ son.”

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