Visalia marchers honor Chavez legacy
Roberto Bustos, 68, of Tulare, an associate of labor organizer César Chavez, gathers with other participants for Saturday’s parade in Visalia. / GERALD CARROLL
GERALD CARROLL
It’s all about freedom — for all.
Area residents celebrated Chavez’s birthday, which actually falls on March 31, with a march and celebration Saturday in north Visalia.
"That is why we honor César Chavez today, in much the same way we have for the last 45 years," said Tulare resident Roberto Bustos, 68, who was on the front lines in Chavez’s heyday, when membership in the United Farm Workers soared to more than 50,000 and marches were taking place all across the state.
Bustos was one of the first in line at Saturday’s march, which started at College of the Sequoias and ended up — with a stop at Redwood High School — at the Wittman Center on Pearl Street in north Visalia.
At the height of the Chavez-led movement, in March 1966, some 5,000 striking grape workers marched from Delano all the way to the office of then-Gov. Edmund Brown Sr. to finally give farmworkers the national profile they sought.
"We were on strike in Delano, the [grape] fields were shut down and nobody knew about it," said Bustos, who was appointed leader of that particular march.
The march began St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, and ended April 10.
"It took us 25 days to get there," Bustos recalls in an online oral history on the UFW’s website. The governor, however, wasn’t there.
However, the vice mayor of Sacramento presented Bustos and the marchers with a key to the city, Bustos said.
"I still have the key," he said.
Although Chavez and the UFW’s influence has dwindled over time since Chavez’s death in 1993, the courage displayed has inspired people over all ethnic and cultural lines, said Visalia resident Ron Webb, 71, who also marched Saturday.
"Chavez has often been compared to Martin Luther King, but it goes much further than that," he said.
Chants, banners and red flags all put forward the idea of political — and economic — freedom for all Americans.
Oral histories
Remembering the legacy of César Chavez through those who created it, including Tulare’s Roberto Bustos, can be heard on oral histories online at http://farmworker®movement.org/media/oral_history/