Posted on 10/10/2007 1:10:44 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
AUSTIN – It took 124 years, but the largest university in Texas on Tuesday unveiled a monument to a Latino leader, Cesar Chavez.
“Cesar would be humbled to be acknowledged in this way,” said Juan C. Gonzalez, vice president for Student Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Chavez’s granddaughter, Christine Chavez, and the nation’s head of higher education were among the speakers as more than 1,000 people sang, cried, cheered remembered the legacy of the Mexican-American labor organizer who grew up picking crops in California and went on to found the United Farm Workers union.
The statue is a symbol of how far the campus has come in including various ethnicities, said Lety Garza, a second-year government student from Brownsville.
“I guess it’s better late than never,” Garza said.
The bronze statue came about by a student-led initiative that began in 2000.
Christine Chavez was the last to speak during a two-hour dedication ceremony. She remembered a trip she and her sister took as teenagers with their grandfather to New York City, where he had a speaking engagement.
On the plane ride, they read the itinerary and learned that trip organizers scheduled him to stay at the swanky Park Plaza Hotel. Knowing he preferred to stay with fellow labor organizers when he traveled, the girls begged him to try the fancy hotel instead. Chavez reluctantly agreed, she said.
When they arrived at the hotel, workers had formed a picket line to protest job conditions. Instead of staying there, Chavez insisted they spend the weekend walking the line with the picketers, she said.
It was typical of his dedication to the labor cause and of his insistence on solidarity with other organizers, she said.
“I’ve never witnessed that level of commitment or dedication in any person before or since,” she said.
Chavez was born in 1927 on a farm near Yuma, Ariz. When he was 10, his father lost his farm in the Depresssion, sending Chavez and his family migrating for work in the fields of the Southwest.
After laboring in the fields with his family for decades, he began to organize workers, and in 1965 he led the first boycott of California grape growers to protest working conditions.
His work organizing labor resulted in higher wages for those who harvest crops and affected other labor movements around the country.
Chavez died in 1993.
I had no idea he was that old.
(Good writing)
Are their a lot of migrant workers in the UofT program? Shoosh, isn’t there a Mexican-American with greater qualifications than lettuce picker organizer? I’ve met a lot of Mex/Americans, I don’t recall any of them being all that excited about Ceasar Chavez. BTW, wasn’t Ceasar a resident of California?
Are their a lot of migrant workers in the UofT program? Shoosh, isn’t there a Mexican-American with greater qualifications than lettuce picker organizer? I’ve met a lot of Mex/Americans, I don’t recall any of them being all that excited about Ceasar Chavez. BTW, wasn’t Ceasar a resident of California?
February 27, 2006 Issue
The American Conservative
(excerpt)
Cesar Chavez, Minuteman
Growers fought back by busing the reserve army up from Mexico. In 1979, Chavez bitterly testified to Congress:
… when the farm workers strike and their strike is successful, the employers go to Mexico and have unlimited, unrestricted use of illegal alien strikebreakers to break the strike. And, for over 30 years, the Immigration and Naturalization Service has looked the other way and assisted in the strikebreaking. I do not remember one single instance in 30 years where the Immigration service has removed strikebreakers. … The employers use professional smugglers to recruit and transport human contraband across the Mexican border for the specific act of strikebreaking…
In 1969, Chavez led a march to the Mexican border to protest illegal immigration. Joining him were Sen. Walter Mondale and Martin Luther King’s successor as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Ralph Abernathy.
http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_02_27/article.html
When does Jimmy Hoffa get his statue? Both were union leaders.
He’s wearing red. How appropriate.
I saw him speak publicly one time. He was organizing a boycott of table grapes because they were “dangerous”. People asked him about the pesticides he was warning “us” about and if they should also boycott rasins, California wine, jelly, etc. and he said that those were diffent unions and did not have the “same risks”. He later let it slip that he wanted better health plans for workers’ families.
Socialists lie. This was towards the end of his life so I don’t bring it up as an “early mistake”. He was seizing upon the apple “scare” and using it to persuade college kids to support his union led boycott of table grapes.
Ceasar Chavez went on record stating his opposition to illegal immigration, due to the depression of wages it caused.
Barf Ping
I saw him once, too. George McGovern came to Phoenix in 1972 to support Cesar Chavez. As I recall, there was a short march to where Chazez waited. I stood right next to McGovern on the street and couldn’t think of one word to say to him - in fact, no one spoke to him at all. It was very odd.
The crowd quietly walked to the meeting location. I was a Nixon supporter and I imagined that everyone must know. I thought they might turn on me, but the crowd, and McGovern, were strangely reverent as if this was a religious event.
I can’t remember if there were speeches or if we just stood around watching the two greet each other. It so creeped me out that I just left.
One of Austin’s main streets is named Caesar Chavez.
Ding Ding Ding, we have a winner. You do know your history. Chavez was a union labor organizer. He was also an American Patriot. Today he would be condemned as as a bigot or fool. "May you live in interesting times."
How come none of the articles written about this man ever bring up the fact that he and his henchmen would threaten to rape the wives and daughters of the farm workers if they didn't join his union?
I remember well the summer Chavez and his thugs rolled into my little farming town. The scariest time of my life (my dad's, too!) They didn't leave until after they slashed all the tractor tires of all the farmers. The Japanese farmers shouted racism and the Fresno Bee printed a big story on it. Did I mention I hate this guy?
SEGUÍN, JUAN NEPOMUCENO (1806-1890).
SEGUÍN, JUAN JOSÉ MARÍA ERASMO (1782-1857)
MENCHACA, JOSÉ ANTONIO (1800-1879
Juan Abamillo
CRUZ Y AROCHA, ANTONIO
BADILLO, JUAN ANTONIO (?-1836)
HERRERA, PEDRO (1806-?)
LOSOYA, JOSÉ TORIBIO (1808-1836)
FLORES, MANUEL (ca. 1801-1868)
GOLIAD CAMPAIGN OF 1836
NAVARRO, NEPOMUCENO (ca. 1810-1877)
ESPARZA, JOSÉ MARÍA (1802-1836)
or maybe
BENAVIDEZ, ROY P.
Rank and Organization: Master Sergeant. Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group, Republic of Vietnam
Place and Date: West of Loc Ninh on 2 May 1968
Entered Service at: Houston, Texas June 1955
Date and Place of Birth: 5 August 1935, DeWitt County, Cuero, Texas
Citation: Medal of Honor
Cesar Who?
Oh you mean
Cesar Chavez
Born March 31, 1927(1927-03-31) Yuma, Arizona
Died April 23, 1993 (aged 66) San Luis, Arizona
Occupation Farm worker, labor leader, and civil rights activist?
Now just what is his affiliation with Texas again?
Just about says it all doesn’t it?
W
Another evil spawn of Saul Alinsky.
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