Fresno State to host Cesar Chavez ceremony
The Fresno Bee
Fresno State will host its 17th annual Cesar E. Chavez Celebration and Garlanding Ceremony with United Farm Workers vice president Armando Elenes in the university’s Peace Garden from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
The event is being held a week after Chavez’s March 31 birthday because classes are not in session because of spring break, said university spokesman Tom Uribes. The state will formally observe Cesar E. Chavez Day on Monday and the campus will be closed for the official holiday.
Thursday’s celebration will include mariachi and Mexican folkloric dance performances and a garlanding ceremony, followed by Elenes’ keynote address. Carnations will be provided free for people to place at the base of Chavez’s monument, Uribes said.
Elenes, who is one of four national vice presidents for the UFW that Chavez founded, serves as the organizing director for the union’s external organizing department in the San Joaquin Valley.
United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez talks about the progress of the table grape boycott at the 10th Constitutional Convention at the union’s "Forty Acres" headquarters West of Delano on Sept. 3, 1990. Chavez claims the boycott is working.
Cesar Chavez, farm labor union leader