State Hornet: Cesar Chavez’s birthday should be a national holiday

Anna Torres

Living in California I have the opportunity to celebrate Cesar Chavez – a man who fought for social justice and civil rights for thousands who have faced discrimination and unfair treatment. He served to help all immigrants and farm workers across America, so why should his life only be celebrated and recognized by California? Why can’t he be recognized nationally for his passion for social justice?

Coming from a Hispanic/Mexican-American family, many of the privileges I now have are owed to Chavez.

My grandfather came from a family of Spaniards who settled in the Southwest state of New Mexico before it was part of the United States. When he came to Sacramento, he faced the social discrimination present at that time. He even had to change his last name once from Torres to Jones to hide his ethnicity so that landlords would allow him to rent from them.

Working in the tomato fields here in Sacramento, he also supported Chavez’s movement to establish better working conditions for migrant workers. When marches and protests were held in Sacramento, he would take my father with him to support Chavez.

Chavez was born in Yuma, Ariz., in 1929; he then moved to California with his family in 1938. Moving back and forth between Arizona and California, his family finally resided in San Jose. While living in California, he was a migrant worker working in the fields of Gonzales, Oxnard, Brawley, Atascadero, King City, Delano, Salinas, McFarland, Wasco, Mendota, Kingsburg and Selma.

Working in the fields of California, Chavez saw the inhumane conditions migrant workers faced, such as unbearable heat, pesticides and intolerable work hours. However, because of the discrimination Hispanics faced in the U.S., it went unrecognized.

He fought not only to bring safe working conditions to migrant workers in California but also across the nation, in states like Texas, Florida and parts of the Midwest.

With his activism to promote change, he became a leader organizing activists, students and religious leaders to help nonviolently with strikes and boycotts in order to demand justice. Gaining the support of Americans across the nation, he succeeded in establishing the United Farm Workers union in 1969.

The union was created to help establish policies that would nationally bring better working conditions and treatment of migrant workers. PBS’s article "The Fight In The Fields: Cesar Chavez And The Farm Worker’s Struggle" said "Over the years the (United Farm Workers) would become a significant political force, demonstrating that Mexican-Americans could and would participate in electoral politics when their concerns were at stake."

Today, the union promotes legislation dealing with issues ranging from education to labor conditions and bringing justice to migrant workers and their families. Currently the union is fighting against prohibiting the use of pesticides like Endosulfan, which "has been linked to dozens of accidental deaths."

When I think of a migrant worker in this country, I think of my grandparents who, like Chavez, were all legal citizens and residents of the U.S. working and struggling to support their children and give them better opportunities to succeed. Chavez’s determination for social justice in California and his contribution toward civil rights qualifies him to have a day in which the country can recognize all that he has done.

Anna Torres can be reached at atorres@statehornet.com.