March honors Cesar Chavez
Maggie Ybarra
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About 90 people marched Saturday to honor civil rights leader Cesar Chavez.
The march started at the Sanchez Farm on Arenal Road at 9 a.m. They planted seeds and worked the land before marching about two miles to the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Student Elizabeth Silva said that as a member of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán, the march was a way to remind Hispanics that it is important to give back to their community like Chavez did.
"Most of us that are here know that Cesar Chavez was one of the greatest leaders that the Mexicano people had," she said. "He fought for equality for farm workers and the workers’ rights. And basically, that’s what MECHA tries to uphold to this day, trying to get equality and justice in the institutions and trying to get students who are Hispanics or Mexicanos or Latinos involved and empowered and to be leaders of their community."
Christopher Ramirez, council chairman of the Graduate and Professional Student Association, said the graduate students at the rally wanted to show their solidarity with the community.
"All of the graduate students have connections in the community," he said. "They live in neighborhoods in either Albuquerque or other communities in New Mexico, and celebrating something like Cesar Chavez is really about recognizing our links back to the community."
Amilcar Funes, an international student from Ecuador, said he attended to show his support for the Hispanic community.
"I would like to see more Hispanic people going to school and trying to work hard to change their life," he said. "I see some Hispanic guys getting in gangs, and sometimes it’s because of poverty. I’m from a country where you can see a lot of poverty, and I know that a lot of guys decide to join gangs because they don’t have another choice."
Funes said the rally symbolized the hardship that many generations of Hispanics endured in order to provide a good life for their children. Getting an education is the best way for them to pay it forward, he said.
"If they go to school and learn something good, they can build their life and help their families as well as their communities," he said.