young woman

When the Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” premiered during the early months of the first Trump presidency, it was seen by many as a timely prophecy — the crimson cloaks and white bonnets of the story’s eponymous sex slaves became a symbol of protest against a president who, though not a religious man himself, embraced many policies supported by the far-right Christian minority, especially those regarding the reproductive and civil rights of women.

This was not the plan, of course, or at least not as regards the Trump factor. The book was written in 1985, the show greenlit long before Trump became president, which only proves the grim resilience of Atwood’s themes. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the sequel series, “The Testaments,” also has name-specific cultural resonance. Plum-cloaked in a YA-leaning, high school drama that owes as much to “Pretty Little Liars” or “Gossip Girl” as it does to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Testaments” gives us an apocryphal version of the Epstein files.

Based on Atwood’s 2019 Booker Prize-winning novel, “The Testaments” takes place some years after the final events of “The Handmaid’s Tale” series and revolves around Ardua Hall where Aunt Lydia (Ann Dowd), having regained her Gileadean status, oversees the instruction of young women as they prepare to take up their lives as obedient wives and, Under His Eye, fruitful mothers.

Agnes (Chase Infiniti) is our initial central character and narrator. Though we know from her backward-looking tone that change is coming, her initial main worries are her mean stepmother and when (or if) she will finally begin to menstruate. She and her friends — Becka (Mattea Conforti), Shunammite (Rowan Blanchard) and Hulda (Isolde Ardies) — have all graduated from the “Pinks” (little girls) to the “Plums” (young women) but only Becka has achieved the “blessing” of menarche, which means she can now be chosen by an unmarried (or widowed) Commander or other man of lesser rank.

This particular form of reaping occurs midway through the season at a dance where all the eligible girls meet with all manner of young bachelors, only to discover that the oldest and most powerful members of the elite get first choice. Watching as the men joke among themselves before staking their claims, it is difficult not to think of Jeffrey Epstein parceling out young women to his powerful male friends (albeit not for marriage).

Though touched on throughout “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the horrifying connection between status and the systematic procurement of women is the sinister force that drives “The Testaments.” A global infertility crisis may have been the catalyzing force for Gilead’s rise but this “privilege” of power is not about repopulation; Agnes and the Plums are simply victims of sexual grooming taken to its pathological conclusion.

Becka is the only one who is less than thrilled by her “prospects” — everyone else, including Agnes, can hardly wait to be married off and, with any luck, quickly become pregnant (not that they know anything about sex, forced by the state or otherwise).

Having been raised in a beautiful home with no material wants, Agnes knows little about the outside world. Like most women in Gilead, she is not allowed to read or write, and she and her friends coolly accept public executions, torture and other means of corporal punishment as the inevitable consequence of breaking any of the many rules drilled into them. They accept that their bodies are instruments of the devil designed to compel men to commit lustful acts and that they are responsible for ensuring that this does not happen.

Ann Dowd reprises her role as Aunt Lydia in “The Testaments.”

(Russ Martin / Disney)

But girls will be girls and even under the stern eye of Aunt Vidala (Mabel Li) and the more kindly countenance of Aunt Estee (Eva Foote), they tease each other and romp together, compare hairstyles and trade snarky comments about the Aunts as they dream of a happy ending.

In its own way, that’s even more chilling and resonant than the horrors of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Enslavement will always require some level of violence, but violence tends to spark rebellion — indoctrination is always more effective. Training people to believe they are fated, or even happy, to live without freedom, rights or real choice is the only way a totalitarian society can survive.

Showing this is far less exciting than the images of grown women being killed or stripped of their rights as presented in “The Handmaid’s Tale” (though “The Testaments” does offer a few very chilling flashbacks). But as social commentary, it’s difficult to beat the sight of young women, recognizable in so many ways as modern teens, complying with their own enslavement, out of ignorance and, as events proceed, the gut-wrenching fear of what the truth might mean.

Gilead’s future hangs on whether the Plums remain ignorant and compliant, as does the story of “The Testaments.” Agnes may not share Becka’s unhappiness with forced marriage, but she is soon given other things to worry about, including a growing attraction to one of the Eyes who guards her and a request to mentor one of the school’s new “Pearl Girls.” These young female missionaries, dressed in white, have been sent into Canada to draw girls to Gilead’s cause. Among the recruits is Daisy (Lucy Halliday), who Aunt Lydia puts under Agnes’ care.

Shunammite, the sharpest-tongued of Agnes’ friends, is convinced Daisy is a spy. Daisy, whose backstory includes, in the first episode, a brief glimpse of Elisabeth Moss’ June, certainly upsets things, most often by reacting to Gilead’s penchant for public atrocities the way a non-sociopath outsider would.

Over the course of the season (upon which many, many plot-point embargoes have been placed), Agnes and Daisy form a bond that threatens Agnes’ worldview, as well as her friend group. The novel “The Testaments” is a much larger and more complex book than “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Each are presented as historical records of a government long gone, but where Bruce Miller, who adapted both, had to first spin a series out of “The Handmaid’s Tale’s” relatively short and fairly elliptical story, he has much more to work with here.

He does so carefully, and perhaps a tad too slowly. Much of the first season is spent getting to know the girls, especially Agnes (whose pre-Gilead identity is obvious to anyone who read or watched “The Handmaid’s Tale.”) Coming off her Oscar-nominated performance in “One Battle After Another,” Infiniti masterfully conjures the rigorous placidity of a young woman so accustomed to holding herself in check she has a hard time recognizing the difference between her mask and her real self.

Her friends share the same disability, though to greater and lesser degrees. As their characters, Conforti, Blanchard and Ardies, deftly carve out discrete personalities beneath their plum-colored homogeneity, each playing a role that is, in turn, playing a role while also remaining desperately human.

Halliday as Daisy is the rawest nerve among them, but all the main characters, including the Aunts, are people trapped inside uniforms and all allow their intelligence to shine through state-imposed ignorance, embodying both the tense acceptance of indoctrination and the disorientation that strikes when it begins to crack.

Dowd, of course, is next level. Compressing and occasionally revealing all that she has been through in “The Handmaid’s Tale” and before, what she manages to make Aunt Lydia is both Dorian Gray and his portrait. What exactly Aunt Lydia is doing by handing Daisy into Agnes’ care is not made clear but she is obviously doing something.

Both “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments” were written as historic documents gathered from a fallen regime; it doesn’t break any embargo to say that at some point Gilead will fall. Whether that fall begins, or occurs within, the action of “The Testaments” remains to be seen.

But we all know what happened to Epstein in the end.

The United Farm Workers said it would not participate in celebrations of its founder Cesar Chavez amid what the labor union described as “troubling allegations” against the iconic Chicano figure.

The union, in a statement released Tuesday, did not detail the accusations against Chavez but said they were concerning enough for the organization to take action. But several events around the country honoring Chavez including events in Tucson, Houston, Corpus Christi, San Antonio and San Bernardino have been canceled in recent weeks, with little explanation given by organizers.

The claims against Chavez “are incompatible with our organization’s values. Some of the reports are family issues, and not our story to tell or our place to comment on. Far more troubling are allegations involving abuse of young women or minors. Allegations that very young women or girls may have been victimized are crushing. We have not received any direct reports, and we do not have any firsthand knowledge of these allegations,” the union said.

Canceling events, the union said, would “provide space for people who may have been victimized to find support and to share their stories if that is what they choose.”

Chavez is a towering national figure credited with organizing and raising the lives of migrant farmworkers in California and beyond and giving voice to the struggles of Mexican Americans.

Bursting into national prominence in the mid-1960s in the San Joaquin Valley, Chavez galvanized public support on behalf of them after organizing community groups across Central and Southern California. For decades, agricultural laborers had lived in substandard housing and were paid terrible wages. Efforts to organize migrant laborers were usually crushed violently by farmers and local law enforcement.

Chavez and his associates joined a grape pickers’ strike in 1965 launched by Filipino organizers centered around Delano, the heart of California’s table grape crop. Those early years were marked by bitter and sometimes brutal incidents involving picketing farmworkers who screamed “Huelga!” — “Strike!”—and growers who vowed never to give in to Chavez and his movement.

Sen. Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez as Chavez ended a 25-day fast.

(Bettmann Archive)

That eventually transformed into a boycott that earned international attention. Chavez, drawing on his Catholic faith, fasted for 25 days in 1968 to draw attention to the violence swirling around the effort, ending it by sharing bread with then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Two years later, the UFW was able to secure contracts for more than 10,000 grape pickers.

Those successes made Chavez an almost mythic figure. The UFW flag — a stylized black Aztec eagle against a red background — became synonymous with the Chicano movement that was emerging at the same time. Posters and murals featuring Chavez’s beatific face sprouted in the Southwest and beyond. He traveled across the United States espousing his philosophy of nonviolence, union and dignity for farmworkers.

A 1983 poll of Latinos by The Times found Chavez to be the most admired leader.

But Chavez’s legacy became increasingly tarnished as the years went on. Labor victories became fewer and fewer. His fierce criticism of illegal immigration — Chavez argued that they undercut his unionization efforts — put him at odds with immigration activists. A 2006 Times investigation detailed how dozens of former associates and workers left the UFW because of what they described as Chavez’s increasingly autocratic ways.

Cesar Chavez talks to striking Salinas Valley farmworkers.

(Sakuma / Associated Press )

When the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors decided to change the name of Brooklyn Avenue in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights to Cesar Chavez Avenue after the labor leader’s death in 1993, many in the community opposed it, citing the economic burden businesses would undergo to update their addresses and the erasure of the community’s history on the street.

Yet his standing among Latinos nationwide was such that schools, streets and parks were renamed in his honor in the years after his death. In 2012, President Obama went to tiny Keene, Calif. — where Chavez had set up both his home and the operational headquarters of the United Farm Workers — to dedicate the César E. Chávez National Monument.

It’s unclear the source of the new allegations or when they might become public. But there has been rumbling for weeks among activists that something about Chavez was coming.

A Corpus Christi march was called off last week after labor leader Dolores Huerta withdrew, the San Antonio Express-News reported.

Huerta is not commenting on the issue at this time, said Eric Olvera, spokesperson for Huerta.

The news comes two weeks before Cesar Chavez Day, observed March 31.

Local organizers in Los Angeles haven’t announced whether they will cancel their events.

The UFW was vague about the claims but suggested they were serious enough for extreme action.

“These allegations have been profoundly shocking. We need some time to get this right, including to ensure robust, trauma-informed services are available to those who may need it.

“We understand this will be tremendously painful for many and we encourage our community to seek mental health support if they experience distress.”

Tuesday morning, the Cesar Chavez Foundation said in a statement that it had “become aware of disturbing allegations that Cesar Chavez engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with women and minors during his time as President of the United Farm Workers of America.”

The foundation said it was working with leaders in the farmworker movement to be responsive to these allegations and support the people who might have been harmed.

“In partnership with the UFW, we are establishing a safe and confidential process for those who wish to share their experiences of historic harm, and, if they choose to, participate in efforts toward repair and reconciliation,” the statement said. “In addition, we are investing time and resources to ensure the Foundation promotes and strengthens a workplace culture that is safe and welcoming for all.”

In the 48 hours before the UFW and Cesar Chavez Foundation made their statements, La Unión del Pueblo Entero, a community-based union and nonprofit in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, which was founded by Huerta and Chavez, erased the names and affiliation with the leaders from its website.

The new allegations could have implications beyond Chavez’s place in history. If he has been accused of sexual abuse, a legal expert said it could spark legal claims against the union he ran for so long.

In California, Assembly Bill 250 opened a two-year window to file sex assault claims beyond a previous statute of limitations. The Catholic Church, Scouting and public school districts, as a result, have been hit hard with lawsuits.

“It is [a] matter [of] who knew what and when,” said John Manly, a sexual abuse attorney, adding that Chavez’s leadership role could create liability for the UFW.