Natalie Kitroeff: From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kit. This is the Daily. Breaking news. The New York Times just publishing shocking new allegations made against late labor leader Cesar Chavez after a Times investigation revealed allegations of sexual abuse against one of America's most important civil rights icons. This really is a reimagining of a whole legacy and it's going to

SPEAKER: The entire country has started to reckon with a new reality. They covered up the late civil rights leader name with cement. Removed the image of Cesar Chavez from several commissioned pieces of art. A statue at Cesar Chavez Plaza is now wrapped up in plastic you see here. And a history that's now been rewritten. California officially renaming the holiday formerly known as Ceso Chavez Day March 31st now to farm workers day.

Natalie Kitroeff: Today on what would have been Caesar Chavez Day in California, we talked to the reporters who broke the story, Manny Fernandez and Sarah Herz about the women at the center of it and what it took to uncover a secret that they'd carried for more than 50 years. It's Tuesday, March 31st. Manny and Sarah, welcome to the show.

Manny Fernandez: Thank you for having us.

Sarah Herz: Hi. Thank you.

Natalie Kitroeff: So, you two just came out with this bombshell that was years in the making, this reporting showing that Caesar Chavez sexually abused young girls and women in his movement. and we wanted to talk to you both about how this story came to be and why it came about now. And Sarah, you were integral to all of this, but Manny, the reporting really started with you. So, let's begin there. How did this start?

Manny Fernandez: It starts in 2021. And I was sort of just getting settled as the LA bureau chief when a biographer of Caesar Chavez named Matt Garcia wrote an email. And the email from Matt Garcia was basically sort of saying, you know, hey guys, I didn't really write about this in my book, but there are some things with Cesar Chavez and girls that you guys should look into.

Manny Fernandez: You know, he had touched on the fact that Caesar Chavez had had some affairs in his book, but he was hearing from people saying that there was more than that. And we get a lot of tips, right? I chase a lot of tips.

Natalie Kitroeff: And what did you think about this one when you got it?

Manny Fernandez: I wasn't sure what to make of it. I was just sort of like, huh, maybe there's something there, maybe not. But it was certainly worth looking into. worth looking into, of course, because of who Chavez is, this monumental civil rights activist in the Latino community. Manny, can you just tell me what did the name Caesar Chavez mean to you at this point?

Manny Fernandez: I mean, I am from Caesar Chavez country. I'm born and raised in Fresno, California. And you can't grow up in Fresno and be from a Mexican-American family and not have Caesar Chavez as just part of the weather of your life.

Natalie Kitroeff: H part of the weather.

Manny Fernandez: Yeah. I mean, he's just like not it's not just like streets, murals, and and things like that. It's just that the there's a it runs a lot deeper than that. For me personally, my grandparents on both sides of my family started out as farm workers. On my mom's side of the family, my grandparents, they met on a garlic patch outside of Fresno in the 1940s and they were both 16. And my grandmother's line that I have never stopped repeating is she would always say, "It was love at first smell.

Natalie Kitroeff: Hm.

Manny Fernandez: And so like there's just that like I mean that backstory like I mean that's part of my DNA.

Cesar Chavez: All my life I have been driven by one dream, one goal, one vision to overthrow a farm labor system in this nation that treats farm workers as they were not important human beings. Scissor Chavez is like as important to the southwest as maybe MLK is to the south.

Cesar Chavez: Farm workers are not agricultural implements. They are not beast of burden to be used and discarded.

SPEAKER: He drew public attention to the conditions that farm workers were working in.

Cesar Chavez: Thousands of farm workers live under savage conditions. Some of them were living in basically sheds

SPEAKER: and amid garbage and human excrement.

Cesar Chavez: Some of them were being mistreated

SPEAKER: are underageed children.

Cesar Chavez: Some of them were not being paid for the work they were doing.

SPEAKER: No one even knew their names.

Cesar Chavez: We had all lived through the fields or our parents had. We shared that common humiliation. the only answer, the only hope was in organizing.

SPEAKER: So he is on the front lines bringing the world's attention to how much farm workers are being paid, how they're being treated.

Cesar Chavez: We have looked into the future and the future is ours. He helped create America's first successful union for farm workers.

SPEAKER: He led pickets and grape boycots.

Cesar Chavez: Boycott against the wine, the yellow wine, the grapes and the lettuce is very effective

SPEAKER: and marches.

SPEAKER: Travis and friends began their walk from the Sunny Cedro border checkpoint. But in a larger sense, he was this symbol, this like spokesperson to tell literally the world and especially America, the work of these farm workers. There is a nobility and a dignity to it. Their lives matter and these dreams of these people matter. So, all of that to say, this tip that you get, this story you're looking into is not just another run-of-the-mill story for you.

Manny Fernandez: Yeah. I mean, this is important to me. Like, the stakes are high, but again, I'm chasing down a tip at this point,

Natalie Kitroeff: right? There may be a story here and there may not. But I wanted to talk to the women who were rumored that Cesar Chavez did something to them and hear from them what is the deal. What happened? You know, nobody wants to take down a hero, but I think we need to know who our heroes are. Mhm.

Manny Fernandez: So, in this tip from Matt Garcia and in a conversation we have later, he's talking to me about a private Facebook group for people who used to march with Scissor Chavez, people who were former union activists, and they're exchanging memories and they're saying, "Hey, who remembers the lyrics to that one song we used to sing?" and things like that. And shortly before Cesar Chavez's birthday, which is March 31st, and it's a state holiday in California, there's this post and the post is from a woman named Deborah Roas and she writes a message and as part of that message, she basically says, "Wake up people. This man you march for every year molested me." H.

Manny Fernandez: And that post stays up for a few days and then she takes it down. And so I called Deborah Rojos on the phone, but she made it clear that she was not ready to talk. And then one night, sort of late, I get a call and it's Deb.

Natalie Kitroeff: And what does she say?

Manny Fernandez: I can tell that she's been drinking. and she's sort of calling me to say, you know, do you really want to tell my story? You don't want to tell my story. They're going to come after you. They're going to come after me. She believed that the idea of taking down Caesar Chavez would ignite so much anger that people would come after her and her family.

Natalie Kitroeff: The anger would be so high

Manny Fernandez: from Chavez supporters. The they is Chavez supporters. Yes. And it's actually even she believed that people close to Chavez did not want this story to come out.

Natalie Kitroeff: It sounds to me like what Deb is doing here is stress testing you in a way. Like she's sussing you out. She's asking, "Do you have the stomach for what it would mean to tell my story?"

Manny Fernandez: Yes, that's exactly what she's doing. And what she's doing is she is struggling with do I come forward or do I not? And that struggle I could hear it. I could see it. Do I do I hold this in or do I speak it? And she was struggling with that in that moment. And a short time later, she blocks me on her phone.

Natalie Kitroeff: That sounds like a dead end. How do you proceed?

Manny Fernandez: One of the things that happens is eventually Sarah gets involved.

Sarah Herz: I get a call from my editor who tells me that they want to send me to LA to help out on this investigation. So, I work in the international investigations team. I'm based in Brussels and I have a background in working in complex investigations and I also have a background in sexual violence and conflicts and so I fly to LA.

Manny Fernandez: So, we were a team and I shared my notes with Sarah and we started reaching out to a number of women. We decided that we're going to broaden the search, just interview as many members of Caesar Chavez movement as possible.

Manny Fernandez: And there was another woman whose name I had. And that other woman is Anna Margia. And um over time, we went to go see Deb. And then we went to go see Anna. And over the course of the reporting, I start developing that journalistic relationship with Deb and Sarah starts developing a closer relationship with Anna. And these two women, Anna and Deb, they know each other. They're friends. They grew up together. They talked to each other when they were teenagers. They know each other quite well. And so after months and months, I I'm sitting down with Deb and I say, "Do you think would you go on the record if Anna would?" And Deb's like, "Yeah, I think I would."

Sarah Herz: And that's eventually what happens. Both individually decided to go on the record with their names.

Manny Fernandez: And I So I guess we're going to do it like from the beginning.

Sarah Herz: And Anna agreed to have her voice recorded.

Sarah Herz: H how are you feeling?

Anna Margia: Yeah, today I woke up a achy today.

Sarah Herz: Mhm.

Anna Margia: Yeah.

Sarah Herz: So Anna is 66 years old. She currently lives in Bakersfield in a house with her husband and she has three children. And in many ways her story is tied to a place Chavez established for his movement in the mountains outside LA. A place called Laaz. Um you moved to this community called La Paz.

Anna Margia: Yes. I was 10. Uh we were my dad was in charge of you know like just basically getting the property ready.

Sarah Herz: Laaz was his movement's headquarters and Anna's family. They were the first to move there and to set up the place for Chabis.

Anna Margia: So when we moved up there, uh my family for a while was the only family there. You know, they had the old hospital and the houses and um it

Sarah Herz: it was just this very eerie isolated place. It was formerly a hospital for tuberculosis patients.

Anna Margia: Tuberculosis hospital. So when we

Sarah Herz: where there was lots to explore and she loved it initially.

Anna Margia: You know I was a tomboy so I liked doing you know all that stuff going out and playing in the creek and taking hikes on the mountain side and you know

Sarah Herz: she loved the mountain caves where she could go by ponds or creeks and and play in the water. She also liked how spooky and weird her new environment was. This old desolate hospital with a former wheelchair that she could spin on.

Natalie Kitroeff: It was kind of a wonderland for her. It sounds like

Anna Margia: it was it was kind of a wonderland. I think she just enjoyed being carefree. She just enjoyed being a child. It was a very good place for me.

Natalie Kitroeff: Were you Were you proud to be part of this union?

Anna Margia: Yes. Yes. I you know I enjoyed it. I It was something I guess it was instilled in me for my dad, you know, going out and helping other people and doing good for people.

Sarah Herz: her father. He was very invested in Caesar Chavez movement. In fact, she basically met Caesar Chavez through her dad when her dad married a volunteer in that movement. And so Caesar Chavez attended the wedding as her dad's best man.

Natalie Kitroeff: Wow.

Sarah Herz: And she remembers attending that wedding.

Anna Margia: Yes. I didn't know it at the time who we was, but that was the first time. And I just knew that from pictures I had seen.

Sarah Herz: So Anna was very much a child of this labor movement. She understood its significance from a very early age and she picked up on how important her family's role was in building this community in La Paz as soon as they moved in. Really

Anna Margia: I thought it was a good thing. the through the years as I got older in my younger teen years it it got difficult um we felt stuck because there was really nobody there for me

Sarah Herz: now the only thing is that this environment was very isolated there wasn't much going on outside and also not many people living with her

Anna Margia: my dad because my father was always gone

Sarah Herz: he was an organizer so he was always gone.

Sarah Herz: Her father, he was never around because Caesar asked him to go on tour with him. He was always on picket lines. He was always helping Caesar getting contracts, unionized for the farm workers. So, her dad was always on the move. Her stepmom was sometimes there but also gone at times. And she just felt that it became increasingly lonely.

Natalie Kitroeff: Right. It sounds like she's surrounded by all of these people, including her father, who are dedicating themselves to this higher calling, to this movement that they truly believe in. But what that does is kind of make the child, make Anna a second order priority.

Sarah Herz: Absolutely. And she tried to feel that loneliness by working herself as part of this union. So I would go to school and come home and go work for a time. I worked, you know, in the purchasing um making sure that all we had enough office supplies, ordering office supplies. I worked in accounting for a while. Um then I started working in Caesar's office.

Sarah Herz: Caesar moved in about a year and a half after Anna's family had moved into this community. and she had seen him by then and knew how important he was. He was often surrounded by his bodyguards whom he employed, you know, after he started receiving quite a lot of death threats. So, she could sense a the presence of an important man. So, um when Caesar started asking her to work in his office, that felt very special.

Natalie Kitroeff: Mhm.

Anna Margia: When did that start? Oh, I think I was like about 13, 12 and a half, 13 years old. So, I would do like basically filing, typing letters, just, you know, simple stuff like that that I could do. You know,

Sarah Herz: she was very proud to say that she could mimic his signature to help answer fan mail.

Anna Margia: Yeah. Because I would send his pictures, so I would practice writing. And so then I would sign because at at one point it got like too much. So I would sign

Sarah Herz: or work on the switchboard.

Anna Margia: I enjoyed it. It was a board with a bunch of cables and it reminded me of character that Lily Tomlin played as a switchboard operator. You know, I

Sarah Herz: gradually he starts inviting her in his office to just have these one-on-one talks and Anna says that they talk a lot.

Anna Margia: I had a really hard time talking to people. I had a hard time talking to my dad. I had a hard time talking to my stepmother. I didn't have a good relationship with either of them at the time. And he was one adult that I could confide in that I knew. He wouldn't tell my father, you know, what I was feeling or, you know, somebody that I learned to trust that I could talk to.

Sarah Herz: And so Anna tells him how lonely she feels in this community.

Anna Margia: Things that went on at school,

Sarah Herz: how lonely she feels at school,

Anna Margia: like if something happened at my house, you know, with my dad,

Sarah Herz: how lonely she feels in her home. And how would he respond to those things?

Anna Margia: He would just listen and try and be understanding.

Sarah Herz: And Caesar in exchange tells her that he too feels lonely.

Anna Margia: And he would say how lonely he was and how hard it was that he always had to have people with him. And some it was so bad that you know sometimes he couldn't even go to the bathroom by himself. There would have to be security outside uh right outside the bathroom with him.

Sarah Herz: Anna feels very sorry for him.

Anna Margia: You know that that sucks. She also feels connected to him.

Natalie Kitroeff: What was it like um for you, you know, to have this man share so much with you?

Anna Margia: I felt very special that he made me feel like I was somebody.

Natalie Kitroeff: Wow.

Anna Margia: Um and that's something I dealt with, you know. Um I've dealt with a lot in my life. But yeah, we used to talk, just talk. And at the time, Caesar is already starting to be known in the movement as someone who does yoga, who enjoys meditation, but also as someone who sees himself as a bit of a healer. He by then starts going around his community and saying that he can heal people with migraines by putting his hands on them. And so he starts doing that with Anna. He places her on the yoga mat in his office. He tells her that this is a way to relax.

Anna Margia: The first time it was like we were talking and he told me to close my eyes and he was trying to show me pressure points and to show me how to meditate and relax.

Sarah Herz: But it starts like that. And then he would start kissing on me and I was very surprised when that happened. I I didn't um understand it is on the yoga mat while showing her these pressure points on her hands on her body that he starts kissing her.

Natalie Kitroeff: How old is he at this point? Caesar is about 44 and Anna is 13. Did you understand what kisses were or like how

Anna Margia: not at that time it was just you know not anything intense at the beginning. Um eventually it got more um more kissing and pretty soon it moved on to other other things.

Sarah Herz: and it transforms into something where he regularly calls her to his office to be physical with her.

Anna Margia: I felt I felt I had who was I going to turn to once it got past that um when it got past the point when he took me to that mat to have intercourse. I mean, I didn't have I don't know who I would talk to.

Natalie Kitroeff: Yeah.

Anna Margia: I had no one to turn to. Um, and it kept on and he would tell me not to tell anybody, to keep it a secret. You know, my friends would be jealous, so I kept it to myself.

Sarah Herz: It was really hard.

Natalie Kitroeff: Where were her parents in all of this? Did they know what was going on?

Anna Margia: I mean, my dad was gone.

Natalie Kitroeff: Yeah.

Anna Margia: He gave everything to the movement.

Sarah Herz: She says that she didn't feel like she had the space to tell them.

Anna Margia: You know, I didn't know how he would react because he was Caesar's compadre. I didn't know if he would be mad at me. I didn't even know if he would believe me. and I didn't want to find out.

Natalie Kitroeff: What about the others that were in this community in La Paz? Did they get suspicious about this? Did it raise any red flags for anyone else?

Sarah Herz: No. Even though she had to pass by several people to enter his office where he would then lock the door.

Anna Margia: I mean, come on. I'm a 13year-old girl going into his office and spending half hour, 45 minutes, an hour there just when he's supposed to be. be so busy. How could they not know?

Sarah Herz: But then one day,

Anna Margia: I was on my way to Caesar's office and I ran into Debbie because Debbie's

Sarah Herz: on the path to Caesar's office. She runs into Debbie who's 12 at the time when Anna is 13.

Anna Margia: And I ran, well, where are you going? And I told her where I was going and she looked at me like like what? I'm like, yeah. And so we started talking.

Sarah Herz: They quickly realized that they're both going to his office and doing the same things.

Natalie Kitroeff: Oh wow.

Anna Margia: We looked at each other and we said, "Wait, you know, we both said the same thing." Well, he told me not to tell anybody because they would get jealous and she would. And so it felt really like a sort of relief to have someone to finally be able to share her secret with. You know, it her and I would talk to each other because we were the only ones we could talk to. You know, we felt safe with each other.

Sarah Herz: But it doesn't change Anna's dynamic with Chavez. He continued to keep her close. And over the next few years, he would bring her with him often on tour.

Anna Margia: And I thought that was the coolest thing, you know, because I got to meet John Bayz. crops are rolling and the lettuce is rotting. The oranges are

Sarah Herz: she is also accompanying him in the summer of 1975 where Chavez and his organizers are preparing this long march broken up over multiple days through California. After almost 20 years of union organizing in California, Cesad Chavez has won his biggest victory legislation

Cesar Chavez: and they call it the Thousand Miles March.

SPEAKER: It's a very long march and uh it's going to be difficult, but we're determined that that we're going to get the message to every single worker.

Sarah Herz: And the goal is to draw public attention to their recent victory that gave farm workers the legal right to unionize in the state of California. that we have to walk, we can't fly and we can't drive because uh driving and flying is just uh too rapid.

Sarah Herz: And so Anna is joining him in the middle in Fresno was Debbie, her friend.

Anna Margia: It was exciting because you know we were participating to me. We're participating in something really good.

Natalie Kitroeff: Yeah.

Anna Margia: So Debbie and I you know we traveled with Caesar and his guards. We stayed at the same houses. It was fun. I mean, it was we were always in that circle with Caesar. Made us feel very special.

Natalie Kitroeff: It sounds like he's really at the peak of his influence, Chavez, and of his movement's success. Like, I assume the girls can feel that as they're with him, that adoration he's being showered with.

Sarah Herz: Absolutely. It definitely has an impact on them in the way that uh their secret is even more tightly held because here they are these two girls from farm workers family who seem to think that they're nobodyies in contrast to this great hero of the people.

Anna Margia: Why would I want to destroy the cause for me for my life? how it affected my life. I was nobody. I was just a kid. We'll be right back.

Natalie Kitroeff: So, when does Anna start to break free of Chavez? It

Sarah Herz: was a long process. It took several years, but it begins the same year as the march.

Anna Margia: No, it was my 15th birthday. He asked my parents if I can go with him to a fundraiser in Bair.

Sarah Herz: And it's when she traveled to Bair at a fundraiser's house. there. I think I was looking for him and I walked into the kitchen

Anna Margia: and

Sarah Herz: she stepped in on him kissing another woman

Anna Margia: and she tells me that she felt disgusted by that

Sarah Herz: and had the sense of feeling betrayed

Anna Margia: because he always made it seem like I was the only special one in his life. I finally had somebody there that wanted just me.

Natalie Kitroeff: And And why do you think it was this moment that hit her so hard? Like what about it do you think really shook her in this way?

Sarah Herz: I think that she realized something that she probably knew but hadn't quite come to grasp is that she wasn't someone whom he loved or whom he saw himself being with. She was just someone who he was using and she starts pulling away. Our relationship eventually started to break down some, you know, because he I guess he started saying he couldn't control me as much as I got older. You know, I would speak out more.

Sarah Herz: She spends less and less time with him. She eventually decides she wants to leave the community for good.

Anna Margia: I needed to get away. I I needed to get away. So, I left.

Natalie Kitroeff: That's got to be a freeing moment for her.

Sarah Herz: But it's not. She ends up becoming rapidly hooked to her. So, while it's supposed to be a moment of freedom, it's supposed to be a moment where she's finally not under the grip of this one man. She is starting to use

Anna Margia: tried a couple of times even to OD intentionally. And I went to La Paz because my family was there so that I could try and get away and get clean from my heroin use.

Sarah Herz: She decides that the only safe place to go is to the only family that she knows which is you know the family living in Laaz but also the man whom she had trusted. So she goes back and once she arrives, Caesar Chavez summons her to his office. He summons her the way he did it when she was a child. He calls her house and he says, "You need to come to my office."

Anna Margia: And so I went, you know, I didn't think anything of it. I went

Sarah Herz: But unlike all the other times, he's not alone. He's with a bunch of board members

Anna Margia: who are around Caesar and who all surround her and who start verbally attacking her.

Natalie Kitroeff: Saying what?

Anna Margia: Saying that they didn't want me there.

Sarah Herz: She's a danger to the community.

Anna Margia: Um they didn't want me bringing drugs there.

Sarah Herz: That she's bringing in drugs.

Anna Margia: Told me to get out.

Sarah Herz: That she is no longer welcomed.

Anna Margia: I was devastated. you know, to me, you know, I gave my life for this cause and I never asked for anything back. And the one time I went to ask for help, I was treated, I was being thrown out like trash.

Sarah Herz: And she never talked to him again.

Natalie Kitroeff: So that is obviously a very devastating story, incredibly difficult to hear and to think about. I want to just pull back and ask to what extent is Anna's experience reflective of broader patterns that you all uncovered in this reporting?

Sarah Herz: Anna's story matched the other stories we were hearing from other women. The way that Cesar Chavez sort of created that special bubble for Anna to make her feel special to have her work for him and do different tasks and to spend time together alone in the office. that matched up with how he treated Deb. The same sorts of things that he was doing with Anna, he was doing with Deb. So, we've now talked to seven women with a range of allegations against him of sexual abuse, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. And what we've heard from talking to those women as well as others is that he would sometimes have consensual affairs with adult women and he would have also non-consensual sexual encounters with adult women as well.

Manny Fernandez: And one of the most prominent examples of that is Dolores Werta, right? a civil rights icon in her own right who also came out to say that she too was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of Chavez. This is a 95year-old woman. This is Doloresa. This is Caesar Chavez's top female partner in the entire movement that he created. This is the woman who coined Cis P. This is perhaps the most famous Latina activist in America. We sat down with her for two hours and she told us Caesar Chavez sexually assaulted me and he also manipulated me into sex in a hotel room

Manny Fernandez: and she told us both of those sexual encounters led to pregnancies and she had those babies in secret and she has held on to this secret for 60 years. We have not independently verified what Dolores told us. However, it does match a pattern that we've heard from several women about how Caesar Chavez operated.

Natalie Kitroeff: And what about that concern that Deborah shared with you early on that her story might prompt this wave of anger towards her from people close to the movement? Has that materialized?

Manny Fernandez: No, it hasn't really. They've been flooded with support. I think in many ways like some of the backlash that they feared in coming forward has actually been directed more towards Cesar Chavez and any sort of public displays of his name and his face. I graduated from Fresno State University. There was a statue of Scissor Chavez on campus after our story published. People at first put a black cloth over it and then they put a plywood box over it to cover the statue. Uh and now that statue has been removed. Similar things have happened in other cities across California, across the country. His name has been removed from buildings, street signs. I have received emails and texts and phone calls from people who are Mexican-amean who tell me that they were just devastated that it was it was painful for them to read this. It was painful for them to lose a hero. I think the country is in the middle of reckoning with his legacy.

Natalie Kitroeff: Manny, I want to ask, these women had kept this secret for decades and decades, 60 years in one case, and Caesar Chavez died in the '9s. So, why did they decide to come forward now after all these years?

Manny Fernandez: You know, I was talking to Deborah the other day after the story published because she was hearing or seeing in the media this sort of question of why now? And Deborah said why not now? And I think her point was sort of like there was never a perfect moment for Deborah to do this. And Deb said, "He has been a shadow over my life and I want it to end. It's time.

Natalie Kitroeff: Sarah, what do you think about that question about why now for Anna?

Sarah Herz: I think for Anna, there are several factors that come into play. It's not just one big reason. The first one is her dad. I didn't want my dad to be so disillusioned by this movement, by this man that he worked so hard with to help bring about change for the farm workers.

Sarah Herz: About a year and a half ago, her father passed away.

Anna Margia: You know, he died thinking this man did a good thing.

Sarah Herz: And so that was one of the reasons why she thought it was okay to tell her story. It made it easier.

Natalie Kitroeff: Oh wow.

Sarah Herz: And so there's that. And then there's also this one moment that she describes where she went back to Laaz when it had opened as a public monument as a place where people could visit learn about Caesar Chavez's life about the movement's history. And she had decided to go back. And there she saw pictures of Caesar, pictures of the people in his movement. until she came upon his office.

Sarah Herz: And his office, they have it now behind a glass wall and it was set up how he had it. And

Sarah Herz: and as she looked at the office right in the corner was the mat. The yoga mat.

Natalie Kitroeff: She saw the yoga mat.

Natalie Kitroeff: Oh god.

Anna Margia: I was like, I can't believe they put that there. It's brought back so many memories. So I was like, I didn't go back anymore.

Sarah Herz: It it's just so unique, so rare to have a place where someone was abused to be on display to the wider public. At the same time, she also has come to realize that her life didn't necessarily have less value than than the leader, than his, than Caesar Chavez.

Anna Margia: You know, I'm sorry to his family, the Chaveis family, for doing this to their dad. And I just want them to know that I'm sorry, but I couldn't hold it anymore. It's time. People need to know. They need to quit worshiping this person. He's just a man. He's not the Gaussa. There were many men, women, and children that sacrificed for this cause.

Natalie Kitroeff: Yeah.

Anna Margia: And many lives uh many lives were changed because of the cause, not because of the man. It's time for the people that he hurt to speak out. Now I don't have to look at his name on a street every time I drive by. Now I can breathe easy. I don't have to carry this secret anymore. That's all.

Natalie Kitroeff: Well, Manny, Sarah, thank you both so much.

Manny Fernandez: Thank you. Thank you for for having us. Thank you.

Natalie Kitroeff: We'll be right back.

Natalie Kitroeff: Here's what else you need to know today.

SPEAKER: If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem with it. Do you worry that that helps?

Natalie Kitroeff: The White House signaled it was softening its effective oil blockade on Cuba, allowing a Russian tanker full of oil to reach the island.

SPEAKER: We allowed this ship to reach Cuba in order to provide humanitarian needs to the Cuban people. These decisions are being made on a case-byase basis.

Natalie Kitroeff: The move comes after the administration has been blocking energy shipments to Cuba since January and threatening to punish any nation that sent fuel there. Russia said it had discussed the shipment in advance with the US and that it had a duty to support Cuba.

Natalie Kitroeff: Today's episode was produced by OliviaNat, Lindseay Garrison, and Rob Zipco. It was edited by Michael Benois and Liz O Balin. Original music by Dan Powell and contains music by Marian Lozano, Pat McCusker, and Alicia Ba. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. That's it for the Daily. I'm Natalie Ketroac. See you tomorrow.