Teacher remembers encounter with Cesar Chavez
Carmen Dominguez Nevarez remembers her last encounter with Cesar Chavez.
The famed civil rights pioneer and labor leader had been honored with a testimonial dinner (along with Dolores Huerta) at Raincross Square in Riverside.
"I spoke to him regarding a court case I was involved with," Nevarez said.
" ‘I’ll give you my number and call me,’ he told me. He was looking at me and gave me a goodbye hug."
Nevarez said she cherishes the program from that dinner, on which Chavez wrote his name and phone number.
That was March 1989.
She never saw him again. Cesar Chavez died in April 1993. Today would have been his 83rd birthday.
Nevarez, an author, retired teacher and social activist, began her friendship with Chavez when he came to San Bernardino in the 1950s to work among Latinos.
In 1954, an organizational meeting of what would later be called the Community Service Organization (CSO) was held in the Del Rosa area home of Nevarez and her then husband Cruz E. Nevarez.
Both Carmen and Cruz Nevarez were pioneer Latino school teachers in the San Bernardino City School District.
"Cesar Chavez was a humble and gentle man – so calm and quiet, he was more like Ghandi than an activist. He always spoke to me in Spanish because he knew I was bilingual," she said.
"Those beginning, learning years with the local people, helping `voiceless and forgotten’ migrant agriculture workers, helped launch Cesar into the arena of his life’s work," she said.
He was an important part of her life, said Nevarez, who herself is 85.
Her biography of Chavez, Inland Empire Paves the Way for Cesar E. Chavez, was published in early March by Zoe Life Publications.
Nevarez documented the historical years as she witnessed them, she said. "I am honored that this great man touched my life."
For more information, visit CDNevarez@yahoo.com.