New film about Cesar Chavez

Chavez, who would have celebrated his 87th birthday this week, is now back in the news because of a new biography and a new film. There have been many books about Chavez, but Miriam Pawel's biography, The Crusades of Cesar Chavez, is important because it not only celebrates the inspirational UFW founder but also acknowledges his serious flaws as a movement leader. Diego Luna's film, Cesar Chavez, the first dramatic movie about him, takes a more reverential look at the UFW leader. Its signal achievement is to bring Chavez's story to the big screen and to educate a new generation of Americans about the importance of the labor and civil rights movements in improving the lives of the nation's most dispossessed and exploited people.