Kamala Harris' story boycotting grapes doesn't lineup with Cesar Chavez dates

Vice President Kamala Harris recently tried to flex her union cred by talking about how she never had a grape until her 20s out of respect for the United Farm Workers boycotts in California.

But observers pointed out that the third, longest UFW grape boycott spanned the entirety of that decade.

“The farmworkers movement was very much a part of my childhood,” Harris said during a Labor Day interview with The Nation, claiming her mother was “very deeply rooted” in “movements for economic, social, and racial justice.”

“This sounds quaint, and so I’m reluctant to say it, but, you know, I didn’t eat a grape until I was in my 20s. Like, literally, had never had a grape. I remember the first time I had a grape, I went, ‘Wow! This is quite tasty.’ It was absolutely ingrained so deeply in me: Never cross a picket line.”

However, the vice president’s story is inconsistent with the three major grape boycotts led by the UFW under Cesar Chavez, reports the New York Post.

Their third grape protest began in June 1984, just four months before Harris’s 20th birthday, and lasted until Nov. 2000 – when she was 36.

Latino farmworkers used a series of boycotts to pressure growers into concessions, like union contracts and other protections under law. The first two, in 1963 and 1970, enjoyed widespread public support and were celebrated as victories.

The third, which began in 1984 over the use of pesticides, was called off 16 years later. The Los Angeles Times called it a “pale imitation” of the two earlier protests, noting it did not galvanize the door-to-door spirit of the past two.

Harris has become associated with gaffes regarding experiences in her youth. During the 2020 Democratic primaries, she drew fire from conservatives and marijuana activists after she appeared to claim she smoked pot in college while listening to Tupac and Snoop Dog – neither of whom released an album until after she graduated from Howard University.

Her critics also accused her of plagiarizing a famous anecdote of Martin Luther King Jr.’s in an Elle magazine interview where she claimed that after attending a protest as a child, she told her parents she wanted “Fweedom.”