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Questions about Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and the larger movement for the rights and dignity of farmworkers hang heavy on the hearts and minds of many this week, following the New York Times report published earlier this month.

The report, which was published on March 18, investigated extensive allegations of sexual assault and abuse against United Farm Workers of America (UFW) co-founder Cesar Chavez. The allegations include at least three named survivors, Ana Murguia, Debra Rojas, and renowned civil rights leader Dolores Huerta.

The experiences shared by these three women outline a pattern of abuse that included repeated sexual assaults of both Murguia and Rojas as children and Huerta as an adult. As these stories come to light, we must build our capacity to face and confront the reality of sexual violence in our movements not just in the past but in the current moment as well.

Confronting the sexual violence committed by Chavez doesn’t mean we can no longer learn from the wins of UFW; the grape boycotts; the fight for better wages and working conditions; and the important wins on limiting the use of harmful pesticides. To learn from this history is to build on the legacy of broad-based farmworker struggle.

As long as our movements have a distorted relationship to power, we will also have charismatic leaders abusing the power we give them.

As long as our movements have a distorted relationship to power, we will also have charismatic leaders abusing the power we give them.

The violent encounters shared by Murguia, Rojas, and Huerta are horrific. For so many, the overwhelm we experience when faced with the realities of sexual violence can cause us to freeze and shut down. Yet, sexual violence thrives in silence. The idea that sexual violence is a private matter that survivors must manage behind the scenes is the lie that allows sexual violence to thrive. For generations women have been told that to disclose the violence we experience at the hands of men in our movements for social change is to undermine the movement itself. If we care about revolution, if we care about la gente, then it’s our duty to protect the movement by privately managing the impact. In reality the secrecy forced on survivors of sexual violence is exactly what keeps our movements not only ineffectual but toxic to the very communities we are........

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