What would Donald Trump think if Cesar Chavez were alive and working for immigrant farm worker rights today?
There’s of course no way to tell, but that question may be more relevant this year on Cesar Chavez Day Friday than ever before in the almost quarter century since the Central Valley labor leader died.
Regardless of Trump’s views, Chavez is being honored in California as state offices, including the Department of Motor Vehicles and Los Angeles Superior Courts, are closed all day Friday to observe the state holiday.
As it’s only a state holiday, federal offices and services, including the U.S. Postal Service, will be open.
Then-Gov. Gray Davis signed legislation in 2000 creating the state holiday honoring the late labor leader credited with improving work and quality- of-life conditions for immigrant farm workers in Central California.
Chavez, an advocate of nonviolence, is remembered for spearheading a grape boycott in 1965 that went nationwide in 1968 and lasted until 1978, resulting in higher wages for farm workers and focusing national attention on their plight.
Born March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona, Chavez dropped out of school after the eighth grade to help support his family by joining them in the fields as a migrant farm worker, witnessing the many adversities migrant workers faced daily.
Chavez joined the Latino civil rights Community Service Organization in 1952, urging Latinos to register to vote.
In 1962, Chavez joined Dolores Huerta in co-founding the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.
Chavez and the UFW played an instrumental role in the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, which made California the first state to give farm workers the right to seek union representation and bargain collectively within an established legal framework.
“Californians of every generation and background continue to be inspired by the leadership of Cesar Chavez,” Gov. Jerry Brown wrote in his proclamation declaring Friday Cesar Chavez Day. “On this anniversary of his birth, I ask all Californians to join me in continuing to build on his dream of a world where all workers are treated with dignity and respect.”
Brown signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act into law.
Chavez died in 1993 at age 66.
—City News Service