Posted on 04/01/2004 8:02:35 AM PST by chance33_98
Berkeley Children Pay Tribute to Cesar Chavez
“Viva la raza, Cesar Chavez!” yelled 40 youth as they paraded around a North Berkeley neighborhood, holding red flags and wearing cloth bands in remembrance of the Mexican-American labor leader. In the Live Oak Recreation Center after-school program, started in the 1960s, elementary school children celebrated Cesar Chavez Day for the first time.
“We’re remembering Cesar Chavez and all the hard work he did to help farmers and the crops,” said 9-year-old Kelechi Okereke.
When he died in 1993, Chavez left behind a legacy as the civil rights leader who organized the first successful union for agricultural workers, now called the United Farm Workers of America, and fought for fair wages, medical coverage and better living conditions.
“In honor of Cesar Chavez’s birthday, we thought the kids should commemorate the fact that he fought for the liberties of farmers and poor people,” said Patricia Hirabara, recreation coordinator for the program.
After marching around the block in single file yelling the community leader’s name to remind pedestrians and motorists of the state holiday, the children gathered to present the red, green and white flags they created. They read poetry in English and Spanish as they donned red armbands imprinted with the eagle seal of the United Farm Workers of America.
“He was a good person who liked to help people who worked in the fields and dedicated his life to others,” recited 10-year-old Gaby Baldauf in Spanish. She said learning about Chavez made her proud of her Mexican heritage.
For two weeks, recreation activity leaders Ana Buendia and Ofelia Perez prepared the children for their presentations. They knew little to nothing about Chavez, but the children soon picked up books about him, discussed his contributions and wrote poems about his life.
“The kids feel he was an important role model and even compared him to Martin Luther King,” Buendia said. “This event really gave them a chance to learn more about an important leader who is usually familiar to only the Latino community.”
Employing tactics such as fasts, boycotts and strikes, Chavez helped farm workers attain the first industrywide labor contracts in American agriculture. His union’s efforts brought about the passage of the 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the only legislation today that protects farm workers right to unionize.
Chavez spent much of his life working in the fields to support his family. The poverty and disenfranchisement he encountered inspired him to become a community organizer.
“He was a good humanitarian and a good man,” said 9-year-old Yvette Abhulimenllo. “If he was alive today, then he would be the greatest person here.”
I might photo shop this and put it out as a April Fools joke at DU and see how they respond. Maybe put the president's seal on it and say they were saying "Long live the republic"
She said learning about Chavez made her proud of her Mexican heritage.
I think this illustrates a big problem with the lefty/"civil rights hero" approach to learning about history.
What this poor kid seems to be saying is that she had no pride in her Mexican heritage UNTIL she heard that there was a guy named Cesar Chavez who was Mexican, and who did some things her teacher considers great and finds it necessary for them to learn about. Message: "if there had been no Cesar Chavez or someone like him, my Mexican heritage wouldn't have been worth a pile of crap - at least that's what my teacher thinks"
"Pride" is all 100% dependent on having a lefty folk-hero in your heritage.
This all may go some way to explaining 1. why lefties often seem so dissatisfied and melancholy, 2. why they feel the need to seek out and identify every last lefty folk-hero they can squeeze out of history, and 3. why they seem to try to style their lives in such a way as to become a lefty folk-hero themselves - worthy of having some lefty teacher in the future force her kids to give a little parade with construction-paper signs in his/her honor.
Because if that doesn't happen, what use has their life been? Much of leftism has often struck me as a subconscious attempt to please some lefty teacher/parent of one's childhood.
Two weeks of indoctrination, and the little puppets are ready to perform. Amazing! I wonder if the Live Oak Recreation Center receives federal funding.
The problem is more fundamental IMHO. The problem is with the concept of some Historical Figure being needed to make a kid "proud". Contrary to what lefties claim, white American kids are not burdened with this concept. White American kids don't feel "proud" or "not proud", they just are. That's a happier way to be. (At least until the big MLK-worshipping unit is first introduced; then the unproudness may start to creep in...)
I am really starting to see this notion that "Role Models" are needed to make nonwhite kids "proud" of themselves as an insidious burden to place on those nonwhite kids. Why shouldn't they be happy just the way they are, not knowing Cesar Chavez, or MLK, or whoever, existed? Teachers are implicitly telling them they shouldn't be: "Without Cesar Chavez, Mexican-descent kids are NOTHING!" I suspect that's what these kids are hearing. I find it sad. (For them.)
I don't see ANY white kids, either. I guess they got out of the district REAL quick.
The white kids of Berkeley will tend to be children of professors, postdocs, visiting scholars, grad students, lefty activists who work for nonprofits, etc. They will be sent to local private schools (unless the parents have the point of view that being around many nonwhite kids will be "good for" their kids; in which case they will be sent to public school). But also, note that this is an after school program, not school itself, and it was "started in the 1960s". No doubt it was created "for" nonwhite kids, to teach them the reasons they should be proud of themselves (i.e. because Cesar Chavez, MLK, etc existed); in other words, to teach them that ordinarily, they *shouldn't* feel happy with themselves (without that after-school program). In all likelihood there are no white kids in this after-school program because they're busy riding their bikes, playing sports, doing fun activities, etc.
Only non-white kids would need this after-school program. After all white kids can feel proud of themselves just the way they are, *without* knowing that some Lefty Folk Hero existed who was white. In a way this is a remedial program; these black and Hispanic kids are learning that they are inferior and need extra help in order to feel an equal amount of "pride" as the white kids, who are normal and need no such program.
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