A first-generation American, he was born on March 31, 1927 near his family’s small homestead outside Yuma, Arizona. At age 11, his family lost their farm during the Great Depression and became migrant farm workers. Cesar finished his formal education after the eighth grade and worked the fields full-time to help support his family. Throughout his youth and into adulthood, Cesar traveled the migrant streams throughout California laboring in the fields, orchards and vineyards where he was exposed to the hardships and injustices of farm worker life (About Cesar Chavez - Cesar Chavez Foundation).