CESAR CHAVEZ DAY: REMEMBERING A HISPANIC LEGEND AND ICONIC SAYING “SI SE PUEDE…YES WE CAN”

THE HISPANIC BLOG IS THE LATEST HISPANIC NEWS BY JESSICA MARIE GUTIERREZ

When Barack Obama campaigned to be the nation’s 44th president, he used the simple mantra, “Yes We Can” — a translation of civil rights leader Cesar Chavez‘s chant, “Si se puede.”Nearly four years after the presidential election, Obama’s paying homage to the man whose words helped him win office, decreeing Saturday, March 31st of 2012, the 85th anniversary of the civil rights icon’s birthday, Cesar Chavez Day.

This LA Times photo captures a moment of
friendship between Bobby Kennedy and Chavez
during Chavez's 25-day fast in 1960.

The civil rights leader, who fought for fair wages and humane treatment for California’s farm workers in California, championed principles of nonviolence through boycotts, fasts, and marches. In conjunction with Dolores Huerta, Chavez founded the United Farm Workers of America, an organization devoted to defending the rights of farmhands and field workers across the country.

Earlier this week, the White House honored ten local leaders who “exemplify Cesar Chavez’s core values,” inviting the activists, farmworkers, and professors to speak at a panel called, “Champions of Change,” hosted by HuffPost LatinoVoices blogger, Viviana Hurtado.

On March 10th, 1968, Cesar Chavez breaks his 25-day fast by accepting bread from Senator Robert Kennedy, Delano, California.
Left to right: Helen Chavez, Robert Kennedy, Cesar Chavez Photographer: Richard Darby

One of those “champions” was Rogelio Lona, a a farm worker, activist, and community organizer who worked in the fields of California for more than 47 years.

Unbearable working conditions lead Lona to join UFW in 1972. “We were treated as slaves, we did not have any representation in society, we were discriminated against and there were neither benefits nor labor protections,” Lona wrote in a blog on the White House website. Lona said that he accepted the award on behalf of all of those working in America’s fields, and was adamant that he will never be done fighting. “Rogelio, the struggle will never end, we must always be prepared,” Lona recalls Chavez telling him.

Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy and Cesar Chavez address the audience at an unknown meeting, possibly on the floor of the United States Senate.

Many of the panelists that spoke on Thursday focused on the importance of placing Cesar Chavez’s legacy in a modern context. A few of the activists said Cesar Chavez’s words should be remembered in the fight for comprehensive immigration reform, the Dream Act, and the on-going struggle to end harsh state immigration laws like those in Arizona and Alabama.

Activists in Tucson, Arizona say that Chavez’s fight against discrimination is especially alive in their city. After the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) banned the city’s Mexican-American studies program, organizers say that the annual Cesar Chavez march would no longer be held at a local high school because of further censorship from the school district.

According to Laura Dent, an organizer of the Arizona Cesar Chavez Holiday Coalition, the TUSD stipulated that there could be no mention to the elimination of Tucson’s Mexican-American studies program in order for it to be held at Pueblo High Magnet School, where it has been held for more than a decade.

“So the Chavez Coalition decided that with that kind of level of censorship, we would just move the staging area of the event,” Dent told NPR.

Viviana Hurtado, the moderator of the White House’s commemorative panel, told The Huffington Post that she was able to chat briefly with Cesar Chavez’s son about what advice his father would give us in a modern context.

Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union,
with McGovern for President supporters ("Grassroot McGoverners" in the language of the time) marching from the Civic Center to Union Square in San Francisco against Proposition 22 which forbade secondary boycotts.
Fall, 1972.

According to Hurtado, Chavez’s son believes his father would say, “Don’t just be frustrated with the situation ahead of you. Get up and do something. Take action.”

Arizona Ethnic-Studies Ban’s Unintended Result: Underground Libraries

Meet the Librotraficantes—the “book smugglers” protesting the state’s controversial ban on ethnic-studies classes—and putting Mexican-American works in students’ hands.

Some 30 students, teachers, and activists emerged from the bus carrying boxes of books. As they stepped onto the pavement Saturday and into the bright Tucson sun, they chanted in unison, “What do we want? Books! When do we want them? Now! Who are we? Librostraficantes!”

The Spanish term, which means “book smugglers,” is the brainchild of Houston Community College professor and author Tony Diaz, who with a few dozen supporters set out March 12 for Arizona to protest a 2010 state law that prohibits certain types of ethnic studies in public schools. In January officials shut down the Tucson Unified School District’s Mexican-American-studies curriculum. The Librotraficante Caravan traveled through Texas and New Mexico, stopping in cities along the way to hold literary readings, collect donated books, and establish “underground libraries” filled with titles from Tucson’s banned courses. Several authors whose works were discontinued participated—Rudolfo Anaya, widely considered the godfather of Latino literature in the Southwest, even invited the caravan into his Albuquerque home for posole, traditional pork stew.

“I’m much obliged to the Tucson Unified School District for creating this little book club,” Diaz said after arriving at a youth center that will be the site of Tucson’s “underground library,” home to copies of some 80 books taught in the now-defunct program, including The House on Mango Street by bestselling author Sandra Cisneros, Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, and The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea. “When Arizona legislators decided to erase our history, we decided to make more!” The law originated amid Arizona’s heated debates over the immigration crackdown spearheaded by Republican legislators, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Gov. Jan Brewer. The governor signed the ethnic-studies measure in May 2010, just weeks after signing into law the country’s toughest immigration bill in generations. (That measure, S.B. 1070, is heading to the Supreme Court in April.) Soon after, officials declared the Tucson program illegal, and a group of teachers sued the state in federal court. In January an administrative judge approved the courses’ elimination, and the classes’ books were boxed up and taken to storage facilities and school libraries. A district-court judge is scheduled to hear motions in the case today.

Megan Feldman

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne wrote the ethnic-studies law while he was the state’s superintendent of public instruction. Banning courses that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government, encourage resentment against a group of people, or are created specifically for one group, the law was aimed squarely at the Tucson Mexican-American-studies program. Its teachers, Horne claims, taught Chicano history and literature through a racist and politicized filter that wrongly informed students that they’re oppressed by white people. (He says he began looking into the program in 2007 after labor leader Dolores Huerta told Tucson students that Republicans hated Latinos, and when he sent a Latina Republican aide to the school to counter that view, some students turned their backs and raised their fists in the air.)

“It’s a fundamental American value that what matters about us is what we know, what we can do, and what is our character—and that what race we were born into is irrelevant,” Horne says. “This program is teaching students the opposite—that what matters about people is their race.” In a recent court brief, he cites former district teachers who claim students became resentful and mistrustful of authorities after taking the classes, as well as a white student who said Hispanic students ceased speaking to her because of her race. The program’s teachers and many of its students dismiss such accusations. Alfonso Chavez, 20, says the classes helped him understand his culture and history while getting an education that included the state-mandated core curriculum. “These classes are very relevant, especially here in the Southwest,” he said at a Librotraficante breakfast hosted by a Tucson gallery. “It helped me grow as a person, and my grades started improving.”

“THE BIG CULTURAL AFFRONT TO ME IS THAT THEY WALKED IN THE CLASSROOMS AND BOXED UP THE BOOKS IN FRONT OF THE LATINO STUDENTS. THAT WAS THE SINGLE ACT THAT GALVANIZED US AND THIS WHOLE MOVEMENT!”

Erin Cain-Hodge, a 19-year-old University of Arizona student, says being one of three white pupils in one of the now prohibited courses was valuable. “I took the classes because I was constantly hearing from the same white male authors,” she says. “I thought, ‘There has to be more.’” Horne says the state’s standard courses include Chicano authors and even instances of historical oppression, but Mexican-American-studies supporters say Latino history and literature are underrepresented.

“Many of my students would come in and say they’d never read any Chicano literature before,” said Curtis Acosta, a plaintiff in the case who has taught in the Tucson schools since 2003. In a district that’s more than 60 percent Latino, teaching Chicano history and literature is crucial for students’ sense of belonging and academic development, he said. As for claims that he taught students to resent white people? “I think Horne needs to take credit for his own work,” Acosta said. “If he feels that anger, we definitely didn’t have to teach it, because he’s teaching it to them.”

CESAR CHAVEZ DAY: REMEMBERING A HISPANIC LEGEND AND ICONIC SAYING “SI SE PUEDE…YES WE CAN”

Earlier this week, the White House honored ten local leaders who “exemplify Cesar Chavez’s core values,” inviting the activists, farmworkers, and professors to speak at a panel called, “Champions of Change,” hosted by HuffPost LatinoVoices blogger, Viviana Hurtado.

One of those “champions” was Rogelio Lona, a a farm worker, activist, and community organizer who worked in the fields of California for more than 47 years.

“So the Chavez Coalition decided that with that kind of level of censorship, we would just move the staging area of the event,” Dent told NPR.

Viviana Hurtado, the moderator of the White House’s commemorative panel, told The Huffington Post that she was able to chat briefly with Cesar Chavez’s son about what advice his father would give us in a modern context.

THE “BOOK SMUGGLERS” PROTEST ARIZONA’S CONTROVERSIAL BAN ON ETHNIC STUDIES CLASSES: MEET THE LIBROTRAFICANTES

Arizona Ethnic-Studies Ban’s Unintended Result: Underground Libraries

Meet the Librotraficantes—the “book smugglers” protesting the state’s controversial ban on ethnic-studies classes—and putting Mexican-American works in students’ hands.

Some 30 students, teachers, and activists emerged from the bus carrying boxes of books. As they stepped onto the pavement Saturday and into the bright Tucson sun, they chanted in unison, “What do we want? Books! When do we want them? Now! Who are we? Librostraficantes!”

“THE BIG CULTURAL AFFRONT TO ME IS THAT THEY WALKED IN THE CLASSROOMS AND BOXED UP THE BOOKS IN FRONT OF THE LATINO STUDENTS. THAT WAS THE SINGLE ACT THAT GALVANIZED US AND THIS WHOLE MOVEMENT!”

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CESAR CHAVEZ DAY: REMEMBERING A HISPANIC LEGEND AND ICONIC SAYING “SI SE PUEDE…YES WE CAN”

Earlier this week, the White House honored ten local leaders who “exemplify Cesar Chavez’s core values,” inviting the activists, farmworkers, and professors to speak at a panel called, “Champions of Change,” hosted by HuffPost LatinoVoices blogger, Viviana Hurtado.

One of those “champions” was Rogelio Lona, a a farm worker, activist, and community organizer who worked in the fields of California for more than 47 years.

“So the Chavez Coalition decided that with that kind of level of censorship, we would just move the staging area of the event,” Dent told NPR.

Viviana Hurtado, the moderator of the White House’s commemorative panel, told The Huffington Post that she was able to chat briefly with Cesar Chavez’s son about what advice his father would give us in a modern context.

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THE “BOOK SMUGGLERS” PROTEST ARIZONA’S CONTROVERSIAL BAN ON ETHNIC STUDIES CLASSES: MEET THE LIBROTRAFICANTES

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