Two years ago, a presidential contender touting his roots as a community organizer endorsed the idea of a national holiday to honor a legendary organizer.

"As farmworkers and laborers across America continue to struggle for fair treatment and fair wages, we find strength in what Cesar Chavez accomplished so many years ago," said Barack Obama, then on the verge of his own improbable victory. "It's time to recognize the contributions of this American icon."

An icon, according to Webster's, is "an object of uncritical devotion." And that's precisely the problem: Cesar Chavez has been elevated to iconic status, his name reverently placed on schools, streets and postage stamps, without his legacy having been critically examined.

Chavez merits an important place in the history books, as a civil rights leader, an inspiration for a generation of Chicanos and the founder of a movement that transformed thousands of lives. But the history is more complex than the hagiography, and more enlightening. His birthday, March 31, should be an occasion to educate new generations about Chavez's remarkable accomplishments, and to learn from his life in all its complexity and contradictions.

Chavez masterminded a grape boycott in which uneducated farmworkers fanned out across the country, persuaded millions of consumers to shun the fruit and forced growers to sign the first-ever labor contracts. Then he doomed the contracts by administering them poorly.

He taught workers how to exert power, then fired leaders who rose up from the fields to use their newfound power.

He brought the men and women who pick our fruits and vegetables into the public consciousness for