IN EACH OF HER 17 years as a teacher at Concord’s Glenbrook Middle School, Aurora Rodriguez organized an assembly to commemorate the legacy of Cesar Chavez.

Singing, dancing and even poetry were part of the festivities, but the unmistakable focus of each gathering was his historic role in society.

Rodriguez had marched alongside Chavez years earlier when he led nonviolent protests and boycotts, and she wanted students to understand that his lifelong fight for farmworkers’ rights was only part of his pursuit of social justice for the disenfranchised.

"I like to think I made an impact on my students," said Rodriguez, who retired in 2004. "When I run into them now, which I do a lot, they all remember who Chavez was."

She fears, however, that many others do not. The years have faded the landmark accomplishments of a man who overcame powerful opposition to bring dignity and self-respect to those on labor’s lowest rung.

The topic arises because Thursday is Cesar Chavez Day, precisely 84 years after he was born. State workers know it as a holiday, but the honor will otherwise pass largely unobserved. Nearly all California public schools will be in session — the holiday is celebrated at the discretion of each school board — and the rest of the country will treat it like any other day on the calendar.

Chavez, the son of migrant farmworkers and a farmworker himself, is best remembered for uniting peers in demanding fair wages and better working conditions. Workday rest breaks, restroom accommodations, medical coverage and the elimination of hazardous pesticides were among the many improvements he helped secure for workers in the fields.

He even fought for the elimination of the short-handled hoe, which Rodriguez counts as his most overlooked accomplishment.

"Now they use the long-handled hoe," she said. "The short hoe was breaking the backs of farmworkers. Cesar had worked in the fields, and he saw his parents and others exploited. Their pain always weighed on him."

Perhaps as amazing as any aspect of his career was the path that Chavez followed. He dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help support his family, then served two years in the Navy before joining the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights group.

There, he developed organizational skills — coordinating voter registration drives and anti-discrimination campaigns — that prepared him to found the National Farm Workers Association (now United Farm Workers), which successfully lobbied for bargaining rights with the 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. Chavez was active in the organization until he died in 1993.

"I was with him for 20 years," UFW President Arturo Rodriguez (no relation to Aurora) said. "I felt privileged to learn so much from him. He gave hope to farmworkers, as well as millions of others, that anybody, any one person can make a difference. He was a living example of that."

Aurora Rodriguez said that her lasting impressions of Chavez, who admired the nonviolent practices of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., are of his determination and self-control.

"He went about everything with patience and tolerance," she said. "He didn’t lose his cool, and he didn’t allow violence, not with workers in the fields or when they were boycotting. He was a totally peaceful man."

In 1994, Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As Aurora Rodriguez said, he deserves to be remembered.

      
Contact Tom Barnidge at tbarnidge@bayareanewsgroup.com.