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Tucson Recalls Cesar Chavez


A fading legacy

Children to hear union leader's message of activism
By Lourdes Medrano
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 03.27.2006

About two decades ago, scores of young people, many of them Mexican-Americans, grew up not eating grapes for the sake of those who picked them.
The youths snubbed the fruit in support of C¨¦sar E. Ch¨¢vez, the late labor-rights leader who called for a grape boycott in 1984 in protest of harmful pesticide use in California fields.
Today, more than a dozen years after Ch¨¢vez's death, youngsters know little, if anything, about a man whose legacy many adults work to keep alive.
"Isn't he the boxer?" asked Jessica Vazquez, 13, confusing Ch¨¢vez with Julio C¨¦sar Ch¨¢vez, the Mexican boxing legend.
This week, which marks Ch¨¢vez's 79th birthday on Friday, community leaders will go to various Tucson schools to educate youngsters such as Vazquez about his message of activism. Their hope is to spark youthful enthusiasm for nonviolent social change, in the stride of Ch¨¢vez.
"If you ask most young people today, they don't know about the grape boycott," said Regina Romero, who will be among those conducting classroom workshops at various schools.
Grapes were a forbidden fruit in her home in Somerton, near Yuma, said Romero, the youn-gest of six children in a family of farm workers.
"My dad would tell us, 'It's for C¨¦sar Ch¨¢vez, for the good of everybody,' and that's just the way it was," said Romero, 31. To this day, she noted, her diet excludes grapes.
Romero said she remembers only Ch¨¢vez's third boycott, which lasted for years. But Ch¨¢vez and what is now the United Farm Workers union, which he founded with Dolores Huerta, also launched boycotts and strikes in the '60s and '70s to secure bargaining agreements with growers. Ch¨¢vez also fasted to bring attention to his cause.
His name sounded vaguely familiar to Vazquez's friend, Tania Gutierrez, 13. But if he's not in boxing, she said, "then I'm not sure who he is."
The girls are seventh-graders at Wakefield Middle School, but they said they don't recall ever learning about Ch¨¢vez in any class.
Tabiatha LaValley, 18, her brother, Blade Cook, 11, and friend Travis Stratton, 13, said they know about civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. but not Ch¨¢vez. < /DIV>
The teenage girl is a senior at Star Academy, and her brother is in fifth grade at Santa Clara Elementary School. Their friend, who just moved to Tucson, soon will attend Apollo Middle School.
Jos¨¦ Arreola, 13, said all he knows about Ch¨¢vez is the name because he has seen the school that bears it in South Tucson. He is a seventh-grader at Wakefield.
Noe Mencias, a freshman at Pueblo High School, said he recently learned about Ch¨¢vez and his efforts to improve living conditions for farm workers and others.
"He helped us with our education," the 15-year-old said. "All the stuff he did ¡ª like the marches ¡ª it helped us."
Darlane Santa Cruz, 21, said she graduated from Desert View High School in 2002 without hearing about Ch¨¢vez, who was born in Yuma to farm workers and moved to California as a boy. It was in college that Santa Cruz started delving into his history and that of the Chicano Movement.
"I'v e always seen C¨¦sar Ch¨¢vez as our Martin Luther King," said Santa Cruz, who is part of the Arizona C¨¦sar E. Ch¨¢vez Holiday Coalition sponsoring the week's workshops and related events. The group, which successfully pushed for a Ch¨¢vez holiday in Pima County, opted to visit schools this year to reach more students rather than, as in the past, stage a youth leadership conference.
Santa Cruz, a University of Arizona senior, said she will use underground hip-hop music with a positive message as a tool to teach students about Ch¨¢vez's humanity and willingness to help people.
She said she will make it a point to talk to students not just about Ch¨¢vez but also Huerta, whose tireless work with the union and on behalf of women's rights sometimes is overlooked.
"I think it's very empowering for students to know that there are people they can look up to who look just like them and came from the same background," she noted, adding that the goal is to motivate youngsters to mobilize and together bring about change on matters important to them.
Rub¨¦n Reyes, who also belongs to the coalition, said the coming week won't be about waxing nostalgic. "It's about social justice, the philosophy of C¨¦sar Ch¨¢vez and how we can make our communities better."

Contact reporter Lourdes Medrano at 573-4347 or lmedrano@azstarnet.com.

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