David Villarino-Gonzales believes the best way to honor the dream of his father-in-law, Cesar Chavez, is for schools to embrace the service-learning day inspired by the life of the famous farmworker organizer.

The Monterey County Board of Education celebrated the legacy of Chavez on Wednesday in a special ceremony.

"Cesar E. Chavez was a recognized national leader in the fight for civil rights, for meaningful social change by peaceful means, and for the betterment of the lives of not only Mexican Americans and Latinos, but of all racial minorities and women," board President Judy Pennycook said, reading from a commendation presented to Villarino-Gonzales.

Villarino-Gonzales, president and chief executive officer of the Farmworker Institute for Education and Leadership Development, accepted the commendation on behalf of his wife, Liz Chavez Villarino, who was sick and could not be present. Villarino-Gonzales thanked the board for the presentation, and spoke passionately about Chavez’s legacy and presence in the Salinas Valley.

"This is the place where the proverbial David conquered Goliath," he said. "The vegetable industry is a powerful constituent."

Villarino-Gonzales said Chavez, who died in 1993, believed Proposition 13, which capped property taxes, began eviscerating public education in California. Villarino-Gonzales said Chavez saw tinges of racism as an older, whiter community refused to support solid education for young Latinos. The result is a high dropout rate among Latinos, Villarino-Gonzales said.

This will have severe implications in the future, he said. Those who are unable to complete a college education will be unable to get jobs in an increasingly technological labor market and be relegated to low-wage jobs.

Schools can address the problem by fostering leadership, and the first step would be to adopt the service-learning day inspired by Chavez’s life, he said. On this service-learning day, teachers can use curriculums furnished by the Cesar Chavez Foundation for projects that benefit the community. They focus on the labor leader’s teachings about self-sacrifice, social justice and non-violence.

Teachers and students can come up with their own ideas to "step up for social justice," according to the foundation Web site at chavezfoundation.org.

Service-learning days are observed in hundreds of schools and universities across California on March 31, Chavez’s birthday.

Villarino-Gonzales noted that some of the most dramatic episodes in the life of Chavez and the United Farm Workers played out in the Salinas Valley. The union’s lettuce strike of 1970, one of the largest farmworker strikes in the country’s history, almost brought the local agricultural industry to its knees.

For his refusal to stop picketing, Chavez was jailed in Monterey County in December 1970, where he was visited by Ethel Kennedy, the widow of Robert Kennedy. Labor unrest went on for years until the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act was enacted in 1975.

"Through organizing, you can build power in order to strengthen the community," Villarino-Gonzales said. "He believed not so much to teach people new skills, they had skills. What people lacked was confidence in those skills."

Claudia Meléndez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@montereyherald.com