Cesar Chavez Day celebrated in city
Third annual event held downtown, at park
By Corey Pride / cpride@losbanosenterprise.com
Los Banos Enterprise
Friday, Apr. 03, 2009

Continuing the fight against injustices and practicing nonviolent dissent were the themes of Saturday’s third annual Cesar Chavez Day march and rally.

The event, which began at City Hall and concluded at Pacheco Park, honored the deceased civil rights leader who would have celebrated his 82nd birthday last month.

“He was convinced that the truest act of courage was to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice. We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline,” said Nancy Romero of the United Farm Workers.

Chavez is the late founder of the United Farm Workers Association. Chavez’s grape boycotts and farm workers’ rallies attracted worldwide attention and led to improved work conditions for farm laborers.

Romero, and others who spoke at the event, still see a great need to carry on Chavez’s work. Romero accepted money at the event to be put toward farmworkers’ efforts to secure better health benefits and win contracts.

Tomas Alejo of the Brown Berets — a Chicano civil rights group in Watsonville that is patterned after a group by the same name that existed in the 1960s — laid out the conditions that led to the rise of his organization in 1994.

“There was many hardships that were going on in our community, violence between barrios, poverty, discrimination, harassment by police, inadequate schools,” Alejo recounted. “A lot of us were mad and angry… so we wanted to get involved in creating a change in our community. A lot of us said this was enough, we’re tired of it.”

Alejo said the Brown Berets were inspired by the civil rights groups of the past. He urged more young people to get involved in trying to create change non-violently.

“Non-violence doesn’t mean staying at home. Non-violence doesn’t mean just coming out to a march. Non-violence, like Cesar Chavez, meant to organize,” he said.

Most of the City Council attended the march, or at least some part of it. Councilman Tom Faria wrote a speech that he delivered in Spanish and then performed a song in the language as well. When he was finished Faria thanked the audience for adding to the cultural diversity of Los Baños.

Mayor Tommy Jones stressed the importance of education when he spoke.

“Cesar saw conditions that made him cry at night and he knew he had to do something to change those conditions for his people,” Jones said. “Today there is conditions that should make us cry. When we see more young men going to prison than young men going to college we ought to cry. We ought to do something to change those conditions.”

Councilman Mike Villalta and Councilwoman Elizabeth Stone also attended portions of the event.

The rally featured a performance by the Azteca Dancers and a reading about Chavez’s life by 7-year-old Alizabeth Lopez.

Henry Dominguez, one of the event’s co-organizers, spoke out against Hispanic gangs using the eagle symbol of the farmworkers movement to represent their criminal alliances.

“The symbol should always represent something that identifies with the sacrifice that the farmworkers have started. You should not disrespect the symbol of what that means. It took a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice, for that symbol to identify with the suffering. It identifies that we are indigenous people, that the eagle is something sacred and we should never use it as a gang symbol to fight against one another,” Dominguez said.

Enterprise staff writer Corey Pride can be reached at 388-6563 or cpride@losbanosenterprise.com