By Steve Walker
The
upcoming Cesar E. Chavez March reminds us of the celebration of the legacy of
the civil rights activist who with Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm
Workers Association later known as the United Farm Workers Union.
A Mexican-American, Chavez became the best known Latino
American civil rights activist with the help of the labor movement who
supported his nonviolent tactics. Those tactics helped the farm workers’
struggle become a moral cause with national support.
His famous expression, “Si Se Puede,” has become
synonymous with the struggle of all minimum wage workers to receive better
working conditions as well as the better wages
His birthday March 31st is a Texas State Holiday and in San Antonio Durango Boulevard
was re-named Cesar E. Chavez
Boulevard a few years ago after many years of the
Latino population lobbying for the name change along with local Icon Jaime
Martinez.
For many
immigrants over the years who have crossed the border from Mexico with the ultimate dream of obtaining full
citizenship, many of them have worked the fields to obtain a better life in America and Texas in particular.
As one
who has marched for the 18th consecutive year in San Antonio, to honor
the late Cesar E. Chavez who died in 1993, I am proud to say I have not only
met Cesar Chavez, but as a KENS-5 reporter in 1982, I interviewed him.
Last year
around this time I wrote a column on that interview on his striking soft
spoken, articulate calm demeanor. I equated him to another activist for civil
rights, Mahatma Gandhi.
To this
day I am in awe that it was my fortune to do the interview over senior
reporters. If I remember they asked who wanted to do the story and I had enough
sense to raise my hand first. I vividly recall questioning him on his mission
to protect the farm workers.
He spoke
about the discrimination against field workers, forced into the hot sun for long
hours of grueling work and low compensation.
Ironically
many low wage earners in other jobs today are facing some of the same
discrimination and inadequate pay as the farm workers before them. Ironically
you could say History repeats itself.
As one
who taught in Southside ISD in the late 70s, many of my students were the children
of migrant worker’s who toiled in the fields in and around San Antonio . I was acutely aware of what he
was saying in the interview.
Ironically
I had my own personal experience of working in the fields when I travelled to Israel in 72
and worked on a kibbutz for only a week. It gave me a small taste what it was
like to work in the fields as I picked apples and tomatoes.
For
anybody who has ever worked a field picking commodities, it is back breaking
work. Anyone who tells you it is not uncomfortable bending over for eight or
more hours a day picking whatever in a field, is not telling you the truth.
Remember
March 31st to celebrate the holiday by remembering the contributions
of Cesar E. Chavez to the struggle. To him I say, “Si Se Puede.”
And as
always, what I write is “Just a Thought.”
Steve
Walker is a Vietnam Veteran and former Justice of the Peace and Journalist.
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