Audience charged to keep alive Cesar Chavez’s goals, faith
By Imani Tate
POMONA – In being honored for their faith and execution of Cesar Chavez’s values in their endeavors, Farm Workers Union champion Josefina Flores, Pomona activist Roberta Perlman, immigration reform leader Francisco Sola of Riverside and the widow of late educator Delfino Segovia of Upland charged Latino and Latina Roundtable officials and 300 community supporters Friday to keep their hands and hearts united in struggle.
Flores, Perlman and Sola were recognized at the ninth annual Cesar Chavez breakfast at Fairplex. Delia Segovia accepted the award for her late husband, an Inland Empire educator who believed, "God gave us two hands – the right for helping one’s self and the left to lift up others. "
Perlman
was among audience members rising to collective feet in thunderous applause for the 83-year-old Flores, a United Farm Workers Union champion who carried Chavez’s food to keep him from being poisoned and who was paralyzed for two years when a grape boycott strikebreaker’s seven bullets pierced her body. Her daily prayers to walk again so she could continue her uncompromising commitment to workers’ rights and social justice were answered.
Flores, who welcomes Inland Valley high school and college students making annual pilgrimages to Chavez’s Kern County grave, has kept her vow.
The program focused on the continuing struggle for justice and rights.
"Chavez and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in a language so the world listened; a language of social justice, service to others, peaceful, effective protest and most of all human rights," Perlman said, explaining why she shared their philosophy and actions.
She stressed education to develop each child’s power to individually make a difference, adult example to fuel their character, honesty and respect and communication so they become social-change champions. Community, school and youth activists must recognize the urgency of partnerships and collaborations to affect change and advocate for the underrepresented, she said.
"Education is a civil right," Perlman declared. "Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress people who are not afraid anymore. "
Flores was fired from her packing house job when she skipped work to meet Chavez, the man who wanted to change things in the field, others called crazy and naysayers claimed could affect no change.
"I would not be left out of the fight," Flores said of her decision 53 years ago to join the UFW struggle for equity and justice.
"It’s not just farm workers. It’s everyone. We are all brothers and sisters. We have to help each other so we can change the system," she said, choking back her tears as she offered a charge to new generations of activists.