Eugene Nelson (1929–1999) was a radical American writer and

labor leader A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

. He was born in

Modesto, California Modesto ( ; ) is the county seat and largest city of Stanislaus County, California, United States. With a population of 218,069 according to 2022 United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau estimates, it is the List of cities and towns in Ca ...

. Growing up on farms, he twice saw his family's home and his garden taken over by bankers. He then lived in towns all over California, where his mother worked as a waitress. At age twelve, Nelson read the

Boy Scout A Scout, Boy Scout, Girl Scout or, in some countries, a Pathfinder is a participant in the Scout Movement, usually aged 10–18 years, who engage in learning scoutcraft and outdoor and other special interest activities. Some Scout organizatio ...

manual with its message of kindness to others. That motivated him to think seriously about the desirability of economic and political improvement. He also learned of the need for

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformat ...

by reading ''Citizen Tom Paine'' by

Howard Fast Howard Melvin Fast (November 11, 1914 – March 12, 2003) was an American novelist and television writer. Fast also wrote under the pen names E.V. Cunningham and Walter Ericson. Biography Early life Fast was born in New York City. His mother, ...

, and the poems and essays of

Percy Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...

. While in high school, he made friends with

Mexican-American Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...

and

Chinese-American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...

boys who lived in the slums. Nelson won first place in a

Lions Club Lions Clubs International, is an international service organization, currently headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois. , it had over 46,000 local clubs and more than 1.4 million members (including the youth wing Leo clubs, Leo) in more than 200 ge ...

speaking contest with a speech on world peace, and in the high-school poetry contest with a poem on

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In ...

. At age sixteen, he read the poems of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...

and began writing poetry. He decided to spend his life as a wandering poet, but discovered that it is too cold in the U.S. much of the year to be able to sleep outdoors. After high school, Nelson worked for a while with Mexican immigrants thinning

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...

s near

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. It is the most populous city in the county, the List of municipal ...

with a short-handled hoe. It was hard low-paid work, and made him sharply aware of the falsity of the myth that Mexicans are lazy. "They were the warmest, friendliest and highest-spirited people I have ever known," he observed, "and fueled my interest in things Mexican."Eugene Nelson, "Song of Myself", ''Break Their Haughty Power'', ism press, San Francisco, 1993, p. 366. Later he worked at forty or fifty different jobs, trying to get different and new perspectives on the world. He learned to speak Spanish fluently. Eugene married a Mexican-American nurse, who gave birth to two daughters. "We planned to raise an international family," he wrote wistfully, "to show that different peoples can live together in harmony. Alas, we didn't have sufficient dedication or wherewithal to carry through on this... We had a successful marriage for several years, partly because we each made the decisions on alternate days." In 1966 Nelson became Texas director of the first

grape boycott A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,00 ...

César Chávez Cesario Estrada Chavez (; ; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta and lesser known Gilbert Padilla, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), ...

's farmworker union. Later, in south Texas, he founded a union called the Independent Workers Association, which later affiliated with Chávez's

United Farm Workers The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the National Farm Workers Associatio ...

. A long strike and march to Austin resulted in improved pay and conditions for workers in south Texas. The police arrested Eugene on various spurious charges, including inciting a riot and threatening the lives of Texas Rangers. As a roving farmworkers' advocate and organizer, he also joined the

Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), whose members are nicknamed "Wobblies", is an international labor union founded in Chicago, United States in 1905. The nickname's origin is uncertain. Its ideology combines general unionism with indu ...

(Wobblies). In his later years, Nelson continued to write and research on topics of social and political controversy. "I think the chief priorities today," he wrote in 1993, "are preventing nuclear explosions; feeding the starving; lessening pollution and the exhaustion of the earth's resources; achieving a much lower

birth rate Birth rate, also known as natality, is the total number of live childbirth, human births per 1,000 population for a given period divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registr ...

; homes for all; and cooperative and

participatory democracy Participatory democracy, participant democracy, participative democracy, or semi-direct democracy is a form of government in which Citizenship, citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their ...

(with compassion) in all aspects of life." In 1999, Eugene Nelson died of a massive stroke in his

retirement home A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home, old folks' home, or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – or rest home, is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Ty ...

in Haleiwa,

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

References

Works

*''Huelga! The First One Hundred Days of the Delano Grape Strike'' *''Bracero'' - novel, Culver City, Calif. : Peace Press Pub., 1975 *''Pablo Cruz and the American Dream'', 1975 *''Poems, Sane and Insane'', 1992 *''Fantasia of a Revolutionary'' *''Tales of Crapitalism'' *''Break Their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy in the Heyday of the Wobblies'',

biographical novel The biographical novel is a genre of novel which provides a fictional account of a contemporary or historical person's life. Like other forms of biographical fiction, details are often trimmed or reimagined to meet the artistic needs of the fictio ...

. San Francisco: ism press, 1993

External links

Information at FarmWorkers.org''Break Their Haughty Power: Joe Murphy in the Heyday of the Wobblies''
San Francisco: ism press, 1993,
"There's a Beauty About Boxcars"
fro

San Francisco: ism press, 1993, page 66–73.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Eugene People from Modesto, California Activists for Hispanic and Latino American civil rights American civil rights activists American trade union leaders Industrial Workers of the World members 1929 births 1999 deaths Activists from California