Free Republic

There is no affection between Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Joe Baca (D-Calif.) and the Sanchez sisters — as the recent attempted coup against him made plain. And Baca burned his bridges yet further on Monday by declaring that lawmakers should not take off work in honor of Cesar Chavez’s birthday, which was last Saturday. Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) was the only member of the caucus to close her office Monday in honor of the Hispanic civil rights leader. Baca had these choice words for her decision. “Cesar Chavez worked his whole life toward achieving equality and fair labor rights. I...

LOS ANGELES -- High school students said they planned to walk out of school at schools across the Southland on Friday, to demand that Cesar Chavez Day be declared a national holiday. Shortly before 8 a.m., dozens of students could be seen leaving the campus of Roosevelt High School, at 456 South Mathews St., and continuing in an orderly procession. "Scattered walkouts" were reported at other schools in Los Angeles, NBC4's Justin Jaeger said at 8:30 a.m...

SAN DIEGO -- Courts and San Diego city and county government offices will be closed Friday for Cesar Chavez Day. Refuse and recyclables will be collected one day later in the city of San Diego, according to the city's Mona Favorite-Hill. Garbage collection will return to its normal schedule on Monday. Tickets won't be issued for expired parking meters or parking in areas scheduled for street sweeping, Favorite-Hill said. All other parking restrictions will be in effect and enforced. All city and county branch libraries will be closed, as will the city of San Diego's community service centers, police storefronts,...

With Internet postings urging a revival of student protests over immigration reform, California school administrators were ready Friday to lock down campuses or use other measures to prevent mass walkouts. The school day began quietly in Los Angeles County, where the week began with the largest of protests that occurred in California and other states - some 36,000 students marching out of two-dozen school districts to influence Congressional debate on proposals affecting millions of illegal immigrants in the United States. No walkouts were reported by early morning. "Nothing. Maybe they're all pooped," said Monica Carazo, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles...

Cesar Chavez, MinutemanThe UFW leader was no friend to illegal immigration— until he became an ethnic figurehead.By Steve SailerIn California, only three birthdays are official state holidays: Jesus Christ’s, Martin Luther King’s, and Cesar Chavez’s. Beatification as a secular saint, though, isn’t always good for the soul. A recent four-part exposé by reporter Miriam Pawel in the Los Angeles Times revealed how the labor leader turned revered ethnic icon descended into paranoia, megalomania, and general crack-pottery in the 15 years before his death in 1993. Today, his United Farm Workers functions less as a union—it represents only 2 percent of...

# The movement built by Cesar Chavez has failed to expand on its early successes organizing poor rural laborers. As their plight is used to attract donations that benefit others, services for those in the fields are left to languish. Red letters flash inside the famous black eagle, symbol of the United Farm Workers: "Donate," the blinking message urges, to carry on the dreams of Cesar Chavez. Bannered on websites and spread by e-mail, the insistent appeals resonate with a generation that grew up boycotting grapes, swept up in Chavez's populist crusade to bring dignity and higher wages to farmworkers....

Red letters flash inside the famous black eagle, symbol of the United Farm Workers: "Donate," the blinking message urges, to carry on the dreams of Cesar Chavez. Bannered on websites and spread by e-mail, the insistent appeals resonate with a generation that grew up boycotting grapes, swept up in Chavez's populist crusade to bring dignity and higher wages to farmworkers. Thirty-five years after Chavez riveted the nation, the strikes and fasts are just history, the organizers who packed jails and prayed over produce in supermarket aisles are gone, their righteous pleas reduced to plaintive laments. What remains is the name,...

A former school official in San Antonio wants to change the name of an elementary school from one with Confederate connotations to one with socialist ones because the former is racist, reports the San Antonio Express-News.

The debate comes down to this: Was Stonewall-Flanders Elementary School named for the legendary Confederate general Stonewall Jackson or for stone fences that adorned front yards in the neighborhood? Harlandale Independent School District trustees will consider the question as they decide whether to grant a former district administrator's request to rename the school after César Chávez, the late social activist. "We don't have any historical evidence that it was, indeed, named for Stonewall Jackson," district spokesman David Ochoa said Monday, when the Board of Trustees heard the proposal. Nick Calzoncit thinks otherwise, though he can provide no concrete evidence to...

Founders of the Cesar Chavez charter schools yesterday formally opened their second high school in the District with the expectation of continuing the perfect record of every graduate being accepted into college. "Every child in America should have access to a facility like this," founder Irasema Salcido said to a gymnasium packed with parents and students at the new Chavez Parkside campus. Principal Susan Flora has been with the Cesar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy since the first one opened in 1998 with 60 students in the basement of a Safeway grocery store. "Thank you for making education...

Miguel Contreras, the Los Angeles labor chief who rose from the ranks of Cesar Chavez's farm labor movement to head one of the most powerful unions in the nation, died Friday of an apparent heart attack, officials said. He was 53. Contreras, as executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, took control of the umbrella organization of unions and built it into a potent political force that today includes more than 300 affiliates and 800,000 members and wields enormous influence across Southern California. Details were sketchy about what occurred Friday, but officials said Contreras appeared to...

If Cesar Chavez were still alive, he would have wanted this day named in his honor to be more than a celebration, according to his friend, Father Patricio Guillen of Ontario. "Everyone can celebrate, but we need to do more than celebrate," said Guillen, executive director of the San Bernardino-based immigrant service organization Libreria del Pueblo. "We need to continue to struggle, promote and defend the rights of farmworkers today, especially since many of them today are undocumented and they have greater problems as far as being able to organize." While Chavez is being commemorated today - his birthday -...

It was no accident the College Republicans at Western Michigan University picked Thursday to host conservative commentator and three-time presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. They intentionally picked the day that commemorates Mexican-American civil-rights leader Cesar E. Chavez to make a statement about illegal immigration from Mexico. "Viva Buchanan! Celebrate Cesar Chavez Day with Pat Buchanan," reads one poster advertising Buchanan's 7 p.m. speech. "College Republicans declare March 31st America First Day," reads another. A third poster features a quote attributed to Buchanan: "American soldiers defend the borders of Korea, Kuwait and Kosovo. But nothing is at risk on those borders, half...

From everything I've heard and read, Cesar Chavez was a wonderful man. I'm not just saying that, either. I just want to make it clear that I have nothing against him, personally. But, another state holiday, for crying out loud! I don't even want to get into the cost in tax dollars for these paid-vacations. But, surely enough is enough, already. We are told that Senor Chavez is the first Latino so honored here in California. He may be the first, but I can assure you, with the fast-growing number of Hispanics in the state, he won't be the last....

...But for the Republicans this is unadulterated good news. It vindicates "Jorge" Bush's hunch that aggressively pursuing the Hispanic vote would pay off. His familiarity with Mexican-Americans in Texas formed in him an instinct.... The Hispanic entry into Republican ranks comes, for many, at an earlier phase in their American journey than for other immigrant groups. Just think of the Irish, Italians and Jews, who generations after arrival on these shores can still reflexively pull the Democratic lever. Their vestigial loyalty is the result of what has been the Democratic Party's strategy for over a century. The bargain back in...

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...

César Chávez: Let Us Speak His Name By Santiago Casal Special to the Planet (03-30-04) There is an old saying that “to speak the name of our ancestors is to keep them alive.” Today I speak the name of labor leader and environmentalist, César Estrada Chávez. He was a man who died prematurely at 66, a life worn out by dedicated service, personal sacrifice, constant threats to his and his family’s life; and the formidable efforts of agribusiness, Teamsters, and government agents to derail everything he tried to accomplish. Those of us who lived during the tenure of his...

Statement from Kerry on Cesar Chavez Day 3/29/2004 12:20:00 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: National Desk Contact: Laura Capps of John Kerry for President, 202-712-3000; Web: http://www.johnkerry.com SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Today, John Kerry visited the 4th Annual Cesar Chavez Youth Forum in Sacramento to talk with a group of children working on a service project commemorating Cesar Chavez Day. Kerry met with children and read an excerpt from Kathleen Krull's "Harvesting Hope," a children's book that details the story of Cesar Chavez's 340-mile march to protest the working conditions of migrant farm workers in California. The holiday...

Advocates push for Cesar Chavez school EUGENE, Ore. (AP) - A coalition of Hispanic advocates is gaining support in its effort to name a new elementary school in honor of Cesar Chavez, the labor union organizer who led successful boycotts in support of migrant farm workers in the 1970s. The name is one of five under consideration for the building under construction next to Ida Patterson Elementary School on the city's south side. The Eugene School Board will hear from the public next Wednesday before naming the school in March. Jim Garcia, diversity coordinator at Lane Community College, said...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - If anyone deserves a quiet retirement it's Dolores Huerta, but the co-founder of the United Farm Workers, who raised 11 children even as she led marches and strikes that repeatedly put her in hospitals and jails, isn't slowing down. She re-learned how to walk in time to march on Sacramento last year after a near-fatal aneurism left her incapacitated. And now she's giving away a $100,000 award she recently received for her lifetime of service, to launch a new foundation in her name.