Cesar Chavez believed ferociously in the border of the United States — because that border protected his union. So ferociously did he hold this view that the New York Times ran a story detailing an accusation that the union Chavez founded, the United Farm Workers, set up a 100 mile “wet line” to keep “wetbacks” and “illegals” — yes, all of those are Chavez’s words — out of the United States, according to the American Spectator.
A 1969 article in the Lodi News-Sentinel also quoted Dolores Huerta, who helped found the UFW with Chavez, using the term. “There is a detention camp for wetbacks at Coachella from where they’re (wetbacks) (sic) taken out every day to work in the fields,” one article says, according to the Huffington Post. Continue reading