Bakersfield College’s MAIZE club held a ceremony celebrating Cesar Chavez Day in the Fireside Room on March 28.
People all over the country honored the birthday of the United Farm Workers founder and civil rights leader from Delano who fought for fair working conditions for farm workers, particularly those in the Central Valley.
Lori de Leon, a representative of the Dolores Huerta Foundation and daughter of the civil rights leader for which the organization is named, spoke about her experiences with Chavez growing up as a little girl.
De Leon told the story of “La Marcha de la Reconquista,” a march that began on May 5, 1971 and went from Calexico to Sacramento to gain support for the Chicano movement. Even after the ceremony in Sacramento was over, said de Leon, Chavez continued marching up California with hardly anyone behind him, going from town to town informing people on the movement. “It just really showed his dedication,” she said.
De Leon then introduced Richard Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s younger brother, before he came on the stage, explaining his integral role in helping to establish the UFW, how he built the first UFW office, and how everyone went to his house to use the phone, as he was the only one who owned a telephone in the neighborhood. Richard could only stay for a short time as he had to speak in Los Angeles that afternoon.
Richard focused his speech on two issues facing the farm working community today: this winter’s citrus freeze and immigration.
Richard talked about how the low temperatures this winter made the citrus crops freeze right on the tree and how UFW, in collaboration with a number of organizations, are doing what they can to assist in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared a state of emergency for farm workers.
“We are trying to do everything to help these workers. I’m sure that if Cesar were here, he would be right in the thick of it,” he said.
Richard then gave his opinion on the current immigration controversy in the United States, saying that undocumented workers do the hard work that no one else wants to do and that if they weren’t here, “the economy of this country would collapse in two days.”
“A lot of people in this country think that all that beautiful produce in their grocery stores grows right there on the shelf,” Richard said.
Richard believes that there should be restrictions on immigration, but “we can’t think of [undocumented workers] as less than human beings. We have to find a way that they have to work for their keep.”
Everyone then proceeded from the Fireside Room to the Campus Center, where Americorps acted out a piece based on “Teatro Campesino,” a theatrical troupe formed in 1965 to entertain striking farm workers.
The skit was about two girls oblivious to any of the accomplishments of Cesar Chavez, but eventually grew to respect him when someone else explained his legacy.
Everyone then proceeded back into the Fireside Room where BC history professor Jack Brigham spoke about his experiences with Chavez and various members of the Chicano movement.
Brigham’s most memorable experience was at a political focus group for Richard Ibarra. Brigham, along with 11 other people in the focus group, wrote down five things they felt were important to the Ibarra campaign on a poster and hung it on the wall. Chavez then found what everyone agreed with and created a platform based on it.
“That focus group was the most important thing about me understanding Cesar,” said Brigham.
Two films were shown during the ceremony. The first, “Fighting For Our Lives,” is an Oscar-nominated documentary about the 1973 grape workers strike, where grape workers from Coachella to Fresno quit their jobs to fight for a union contract. The second, “The Fight in the Fields,” was a PBS documentary profiling Cesar Chavez and the farm workers’ movement.
A display in the middle of the Fireside Room had a picture of Cesar Chavez with candles lined up in front. To left and right of his portrait were posters supporting the 1973 grape boycott and the UFW.
Efforts for organized labor in the agricultural industry started long before the inception of the UFW. The first agricultural labor strike was initiated by Japanese and Mexican beet workers in 1903 in Oxnard, California.