Assemblyman Jose Solorio’s office is quite thrilled about the upcoming 8th Anual Cesar Chavez State Holiday. Here are excerpts from a Solorio press release touting an event coming up in Santa Ana in celebration of Chavez’ birthday:
On Saturday, March 22, 2008, Santa Ana will be celebrating its 8th Annual Cesar E. Chavez State Holiday at Cesar Chavez Delhi Park (2314 S. Halladay Street) from 1 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., with a full program of entertainment, family activities, and a community fair. A formal program featuring a keynote address by labor leader and granddaughter of Chavez, Christine Chavez, will take place from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. A rally and memorial march will begin at Cesar Chavez High School (2128 Cypress Ave.) to the celebration site at 11:45 a.m.
As the co-founder and president of the United Farm Workers (UFW), Chavez devoted his life to raise awareness of the plight of farm workers in this country. He fought consistently throughout his lifetime to eliminate the unhealthy and intolerable working conditions that farm workers endured. Beginning in 2001, March 31st became an official state holiday for Cesar E. Chavez.
Councilmember Vince Sarmiento commented,
My understanding of Cesar Chavez’s views on illegal immigration had more to do with undocumented workers acting as scabs for the powerful farmers. I think that calling him a Mexican hater is a stretch. If you think about the economics of things, illegal labor undercuts the wages of union workers. It doesn’t matter whether the illegal workers come from Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, or Honduras.
Now, I don’t think that calling Cesar Chavez a minuteman or Mexican-hater is fair. Do you think you would see Gilchrist or the other Minutemen working to organize Raza farmworkers who are in this country legally? I doubt it.
Cesar Chavez was human. He had a specific agenda to protect the legal farmworkers on this side of the border (providing better wages, working conditions, a union credit union, etc). He wasn’t a religious figure or larger than life like some have made him out to be some 15 years after his passing.
I think a more fair criticism would be asking why Dolores Huerta, co-founder of Chavez’s UFW is supporting Hillary Clinton in light of the senator’s ties to Wal-Mart, Monsanto, and Tyson Foods. Don’t you think?
You might check this out:
http://www.alternet.org/story/34329/
Adriana,
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. What Chavez did was mirrored here in Orange County last year when our bus drivers went on strike. Nativo Lopez supported the strike, while the poor Latinos who use the buses suffered horribly. Many lost their jobs for lack of transportation. Their kids went hungry because of the strike.
I am told that one of the reasons the strike ended was that the Latino bus drivers were threatening to become scabs. They felt awful about what was happening to their Latino brethren, and they wanted to work so their own families could eat.
Unions will always be at odds with the poor. The goal of unions is to artificially increase wages. Letting immigrants come to this country does not fit into that equation, since immigrants are willing to work for lower pay.
What really soured me on Chavez was reading that his followers, including his brother, regularly beat up Mexican immigrants trying to come here to work. That is just awful. Even the Minutemen don’t beat up immigrants. They just report them.
If Chavez really wanted to help the farm workers, the key was to make sure their kids got a good education, so they could do something other than slave away in the sun.
Things by the way are not much better today. Cal/OSHA put an outdoor heat illness regulation into effect a couple years ago because so many farm workers were dying for lack of water and shade.
Chavez’ legacy is, to be honest, nil. Farm workers cannot say that their current lot is any better than that of their ancestors.
I grew up doing janitorial work with my dad. Today I am one of the three percent of Latinos with a Master’s degree. I make more than twice the income today that I used to when I had only a B.S. degree.
Education is the key. Not unions and certainly not striking so you can make a dollar more an hour…
Adriana,
One last note. Farm workers DO NOT get the day off on Chavez’ Holiday. In fact the ONLY people that do get the day off are well-paid government workers. Talk about ironic. The government workers take the day off to celebrate a guy who hated immigrants. While the workers Chavez ostensibly championed still have to go to work, like they do every day.
Art,
I also find it ironic that farm workers don’t get Cesar Chavez day off. Actually, I don’t care for the day off. Cesar Chavez worked most of his life. So I don’t really think that taking a day off is the best way to honor him. Doing something in honor of workers would be a better way to support his vision.
I agree w/ you re: education. The only real way to lift oneself out of poverty is education unless of course, you are a professional athlete or entertainer. We, as Latinos, don’t honor our educational leaders. Most people don’t know who Tomas Rivera, France Cordova, or Rodolfo de la Garza are… and they probably don’t care to know either. But our people will get excited about Cesar Chavez and even Dolores Huerta, who isn’t very relevant today.
Art,
You MUST stop with your asisne BS about illegal immigration opponents being Mexican haters. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Chavez was right, a vast pool of readily available illegal labor hurts EVERYONE.
You’re a disingenuous race-baiting fool who perpetuates the myth of hate – when will you EVER be honest about this issue?
Bashing unions is a popular pastime amongst ignoramus’s who have no idea of the benefits the labor movement has bestowed upon them. The weekend, occupational safety and child labor laws to name a few. All workers, skilled and unskilled have seen their standards of living raised through unionization [it’s no coincidence that management literally busted union organizers heads]. Workers rights MUST be supported on BOTH sides of the border. Cesar Chavez was right, you can’t secure DECENT wages and working conditions when you have a continual stream of workers willing to work and settle for less [ big business loves illegal immigrants for that very reason]. NO ONE BENEFITS when EVERYONE is EXPLOITED!
“Unions will always be at odds with the poor.”
Art, of all the silly things you could say about unions and Chavez, this really tops it! 😮 Whose really more at odds with the poor, the companies that starve them or the unions that raise their wages and produce fairer working conditions? Unions were invented by poor folks to protect their own rights and interests against increasingly powerful capitalists who depressed wages. And BTW, that was Chavez’s point in 1979; he’s not anti Mexican; he’s opposed to the way Mexicans were and still are used by wealthy North American interests. The world is not as simple as “for” and “against” sometimes man. But also, there is nothing “artificial” about a contract between a union and an employer… it stems from the Lockean notion of contract. It is a fundamental freedom. What strikes me as really artificial is the way corporations are an organization of individuals collected together for market power, but when workers with only their labor to sell want to bind together they are somehow doing something artificial. The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of assembly… unions evolved out of that. It’s not “artificial”… it is deomcratic economic power. Wow!
Enjoy your union-won weekend! 😉
Poster 6,
Are you serious? The unions did not give us a day of rest – God did! Look it up, its in the Bible.
As for whom to side with, I will always side with the poor – not the union fat cats!
BTW, I am a union member. I belong to the American Federation of Teachers.
thesunkenroad,
Read my response to #6. The day of rest is a Biblical notion. If the unions cribbed it, then bully for them.
I am a union member by the way. But that doesn’t make me a union hack. I don’t like that unions pay everyone the same rate. You should be paid according to your ability and production. A lazy SOB should not merit the same pay by virtue of his years on the job.
As for the poor, the fact is once people get in a union they immediately bar the doors to everyone else. That is not wise. GE became a huge success because they regularly promoted those who did well – and fired the slackers.
In California, unions used to handle 95% of all painting contracts. But they categorically refused to use spraying and rolling equipment. They logged more hours by brushing paint on. Today the union painters control perhaps 5 to 10% of the painting business in our state. They fumbled the ball and will never again recapture the market due to their selfishness and greed.
Poor people have more opportunities in the open market. In fact Latinos make up only 13% of union workers, for a reason. Things have not changed that much since Chavez’ followers were beating up Mexican immigrants…
If you believe that God provided the weekend, may I suggest that the next time you want a raise, you pray. Mark 11:24 “Therefore I tell you, ask in prayer,believe that you have received and it will be yours.” It probably works for bigger houses and fancy cars too, you live in a mansion and drive a mercedes don’t you schmuck? I just pray that with reasoning skills like yours that you’re NOT a teacher.
#10,
I have a nice five bedroom house and two SUVs. No mercedes.
The fact is irrefutable. The Bible starts off with the creation tale, wherein God takes a rest on the seventh day. And asks us to do the same.
Your reasoning skills by the way leave much to be desired.
“The Bible starts off with the creation tale” ….its not a tale, its a FACT!
Adriana –
What are Clinton’s ties to Wal-mart? And why has Obama been reluctant to “fully” disclose his ties to the felony indicted Rezko?
News about Obama’s recent visit with the Chicago Sun Times revealed he did not come clean about the total dollars Rezko raised for his campaigns. And now Obama is embroiled in the Wright
fiasco.