Through much struggle, the United Farm Workers of America leader César Chávez saw the hopes for better lives for Mexican, Mexican American, and Hispanic workers in the United States repeatedly raised, sunk, and revived again. Many factors contributed to this seemingly unending pendulum swing from hopefulness to despair, and the speech that Chávez delivered to the Commonwealth Club of California in 1984 highlights some of these factors. The address offers a window into Chávez’s keen awareness of the plights of the farmworkers whom he represented as well as of Latinos in general.