La Oferta: Remembering Cesar Chavez: A Day of Service

Text and photo by Elena E. Robles

The Chavez Family Vision organized a march and celebration last Saturday to honor the birthday of the late labor leader, Cesar E. Chavez.

When I first arrived at the gathering place, eight police squad cars with rotating lights surrounded the City Hall Rotunda plaza, and startled me into thinking that something had gone wrong. But it was soon obvious that they were there to help keep families safe during the walk through busy downtown streets.

“Why are we walking in the street?” I was asked by a little blonde girl who was one of about 150 people who marched spiritedly down Santa Clara and Market Streets. Many more were waiting at our destination, Center for Employment Training on Vine Street, where Safeway Corporation was ironically one of the major sponsors of the children’s activities.

I was momentarily surprised by the question because, to me, marches were so fundamentally a part of the activist expression of dissent and opposition to prejudice and discrimination that I forgot not everyone marches in the street with their opinions on a placard or in a loud chant.

The guerita must have been about nine years old and her mother looked at me uncomfortably. Maybe she thought I would take offense. “Well,” I said, “We want to remind as many people as we can to be involved in their communities and to fight injustices that hurt people and if we march in the street more people will see us,” I said.    
“Oh,” she responded. “That’s good.”

“And they are watching carefully to see how we act while we are giving our message,” I added.

At the front of the procession was Nellie and Chris Longoria, carrying the traditional banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe. With a joyful spirit, it moved through streets at a fast pace and yet I knew that along the way there were most likely motorists who made mean-spirited comments and maybe even wondered what a nine year old blonde girl was doing with her family along side all us “illegal immigrants.”

Ignorance still remains a great challenge. ¡Que Viva la Causa!