Chávez march is slated for today
By Elaine Ayala, Staff Writer
17th annual César A. Chávez March for Justice
Program starts 9 a.m., march begins 10 a.m.
Hundreds of San Antonians are expected to join U.S. Reps. Joaquín Castro and Lloyd Doggett, Mayor Julián Castro and former Mayor Henry Cisneros at Saturday’s 17th annual César E. Chávez March for Justice.
Beginning at 10 a.m. at Brazos and Guadalupe Streets, the march will make its way to the boulevard named for Chávez, and end at the Alamo.
Organized by the César E. Chávez Legacy and Educational Foundation, the march is co-sponsored by the city and culminates several other events. On Friday, the foundation awarded $20,000 in scholarships.
The march commemorates the late labor leader’s legacy as founder of the United Farm Workers‘ nonviolent struggle for fair wages and safe working conditions.
His movement organized national boycotts of agricultural products, and gained world attention for his fasts.
Jaime Martinez, founder of the Chávez foundation, said this year marks 20 years since Chávez’s death, a funeral that drew 50,000 people.
Martinez said this year’s march will call for passage of comprehensive immigration reform.
In addition to mayors and congressmen, he said Guadalupe Ramos-Montigny of the Michigan State Board of Education will be among the marchers, as will Tejano singer José María DeLeón Hernandez, better known as “Little Joe” of Little Joe y La Familia.
Delegations from the Rio Grande Valley, Del Rio and Michigan are expected.
Participants are asked to bring canned or dry food for the foundation’s Yes We Can Campaign, which aims to collect 2,000 pounds of food for the San Antonio Food Bank.
UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, a San Antonio native who’ll serve as the march’s grand marshal, said farm workers have seen “significant gains” because of Chávez’s work.
“In the 1960s, there were no restrooms and no drinking water in the fields,” he said. “No protection at all from crop dusters spraying chemicals overhead.”
Rodriguez noted there are mushroom companies in California where 70 percent of the work force is under UFW contract. “They’re the best paid farm workers in the United States,” he said, earning up to $45,000 in long-term, year-round jobs.
Rodriguez — whose first wife, the late Linda Chávez Rodriguez, was the labor leader’s daughter — said U.S. farm workers on average make $12,000 to $18,000 a year in seasonal jobs.
“There’s still a tremendous amount of work to do,” he said. “There’s a lot of exploitation that continues in the field,” including exposure to heat and sexual harassment by foremen, supervisors and contractors.
Martinez and Rodriguez said a major focus of the UFW in the past decade has been immigration reform.
“If César were alive, he would be in the forefront fighting for immigration reform and full citizenship,” Martinez said. “Anything less than that will continue making the undocumented second-class residents and that is not acceptable.
“We need a full path to citizenship for the 11 million (undocumented immigrants estimated to be in the United States), including farm workers and DREAMers,” Martinez continued, referring to the students brought to the United States illegally as children. “Latino voters made it very clear in the last election.”