Thread: My Hometown Memory of Cesar Chavez

The following story from my hometown newspaper makes me proud. Proud that they haven't forgotten the true story of Cesar Chavez of what he really stood for. This article depicts how I grew up in Monterey, in a multicultural community, where we were all Americans not hypenated Americans.




TIMELY TRIBUTE: Chavez's story of forming union hits home in tough times
By CLAUDIA MELÉNDEZ SALINAS
Herald Salinas Bureau
Article Last Updated: 04/01/2008 11:13:46 AM PDT

Some of the first jobs Sergio Rangel held in the Monterey Peninsula were in restaurants and hotels. The pay wasn't very good and the treatment he received even worse, he said.

Then he got a job at The Lodge in Pebble Beach, where the workers had health insurance, paid vacation, and a host of other benefits he did not have elsewhere.

"What's the difference?" he said he asked his co-workers.

"It's the union," he was told.

Rangel, president of UniteHere Local 483, was one of the featured speakers at "Speaking History: Voices from Seaside's Labor Movement," an event organized by the Seaside History Project in honor of Cesar Chavez birthday.

Chavez, founder of the United Farm Workers, is recognized for having co-founded the first labor union in the United States to represent agricultural field workers. Nearly 15 years after his death, his birthday has become a California holiday, hundreds of schools nationwide bear his name and his rally cry, "Si se puede" — yes, we can — remains one of the most invoked chants at labor gatherings everywhere.

In keeping with the tradition of multiculturalism at the Seaside History Project, director Carol McKibben described Chavez as a member of a coalition of Blacks, Asians and Latinos who "successfully challenged occupational restrictions and the racial separatism that characterized American labor unions." While the role of labor unions in creating the American middle class is widely known, the racial divisions among them have not had the same dissemination.

"Instead of identifying by class, workers tended instead to identify by race, and to define union membership as white and restricted," McKibben said. "Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and minorities generally were excluded — particularly from trade unions — which effectively prevented them from moving up the socio-economic ladder."

In Seaside, however, because of the large presence of the military and strong activism from the African-American community, the story of labor has been somewhat different. Seaside Mayor Ralph Rubio grew up in a working-class town where the carpenters, plumbers, roofers were from all ethnic backgrounds. The workers all came together under a big family that talked politics around the kitchen table — like Rubio's father and uncles — to improve the lot of hundreds of residents.

"My father had a limited education, but through the union we got benefits and he was able to buy a brand-new home and provide us with dental and vision care and keep us healthy," he said.

Bill Monning, a law professor and candidate for the California State Assembly, spoke of the times when he worked with Chavez and the labor leader's commitment to nonviolence.

"The summer was hot. Three thousand workers had been arrested, and a lot of people were saying 'There's no justice,'" he recalled.

The young activists were threatening to go out and wreak havoc, burn sheds, damage tractors, Monning said. Word got to Chavez, who began his first fast to show how strongly he felt about nonviolent struggle.
Mel Mason, former president of the Monterey Chapter of the NAACP, said he visited Chavez in Salinas before he was arrested in 1970 during the lettuce strike, forming the African-American UFW support group afterwards.

Speaking from the lectern, Rangel delivered the most rousing speech of the afternoon when he urged the participants to continue the struggle that Chavez and other labor leaders had begun.

"If we're not united to improve our standard of living, we won't achieve the American dream," he said. "If we're not united, the great corporations will continue with their abuses, and the economic situation is getting harder and harder."

http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_8767249

Nothing about the fact that Cesar Chavez:

1. Was against illegal migrant farm workers.
2. Reported them regulary to the INS.
3. Recognized that unionizing and restricting the cheap labor apparent with illegal migrant farmworkers was the way to go about improving wages and working conditons for Mexican-American migrant farmworkers.

Boy the media and journalists bend over backwards to provide a PC view of an important person...

=8-(