For more than a decade, troubling claims about César Chávez’s sexual abuse were already documented. Miriam Pawel’s 2014 biography, The Crusades of César Chávez, explored both his extraordinary achievements and the darker corners of his personal conduct, including allegations of coercion and sexual abuse. Yet the story remained largely unspoken, held back by reverence, hero worship, and structures that protected power. When a New York Times investigation resurfaced these allegations, for me, sorrow came first — for the women whose lives were scarred, for the movement that carried hope across fields and classrooms, and for the part of me that needed Chávez to be a saint.