United Farm Workers of America
Unveiling Holy Cross Memorial
Honoring the 28 ‘Deportees’
Labor Day, September 2, 2013—Fresno
Cesar Chavez was 20 and serving in the U.S. Navy when he heard of the plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon in 1948. It helped convince him that someone had to change how farm workers are treated . . . although he had no idea then that person would be him.
Today, the “deportees” finally have their names, thanks to efforts over the decades—from Woody Guthrie to Tim Hernandez and to Bishop Ochoa and Carlos Rascon with the Diocese of Fresno.
Honoring the 28 deportees with this Mass and memorial listing their names is long overdue.
Today, farm workers still produce the greatest bounty of food the world has ever known. Yet instead of calling them by their names, they are called names . . .
Illegals. Aliens. Lawbreakers.
So in a genuine sense, farm workers today honor their compatriots who now rest in peace here with their names by continuing to struggle . . . so one million immigrant farm workers can some day stand up and claim—in their own names—their rightful place in this society they sustain with their toil and their sacrifice.
Farm workers today honor their brothers and sisters who perished in 1948 by continuing to struggle for immigration reform . . . for the bipartisan comprehensive Senate bill now in the House of Representatives.
Farm workers today also honor their sisters and brothers who died sixty-five years ago by continuing to battle nonviolently for a better life through union contracts at companies like Gerawan Farming in Fresno.
May the Lord bless and keep the 28 who rest here. May the Lord also be with today’s farm workers as they struggle for the freedom and self-determination that are their birthrights as workers and as human beings.
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