'He inspired people from all walks of life': How Arizona, home of Cesar Chavez, honors his legacy
Javier ArceWhenever March 31 comes around, it's a time for celebration for Andres Chavez and his family. They spend the day doing acts of service in their communities — helping out people in their neighborhood, cleaning up a park, sharing glimpses into the life of the civil rights leader Cesar Chavez.
Andres Chavez remembers his grandfather fondly, and every year, as Cesar Chavez Day comes around, he makes his way to different events in the community to honor his legacy. This year, that legacy brought him to Phoenix, where he proudly attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Cesar Chavez Community Center in Laveen on Thursday.
"He inspired people from all walks of life," Andres Chavez said, adding that it's for this very reason he is remembered and celebrated every year.
Cesar Chavez Day, a federally recognized holiday since 2014, commemorates the birth, legacy and continuing labor movement that Cesar Chavez initiated in California in the 1960s. He created organizations, led boycotts and strikes all to ensure that farm workers had dignified, safe and better-paid working conditions.
And although most of his activism was carried out in California, Chavez never forgot his home state: Arizona.
It's where he was born, on March 31, 1927, near Yuma.
It's also where he died, on April 23, 1993, in San Luis.
And it's where he led one of the three fasts he carried out throughout his life as he sought better working conditions for farmworkers in Yuma and San Luis.
His legacy in Arizona isn't as known or as celebrated, save from the usual event held in his name. According to his grandson, who applauded the newly built center in Laveen, inaugurating buildings and parks in Chavez's name is not enough.
“There is still a long way to go before people learn about our history and understand that Latinos, immigrants, people who look like me, have played an important role in the development of this country in the fabric of society”, he said.
Honoring his legacy involves seeking inspiration in his work, following his lead, he said.
Honoring his memory:Is civil rights icon Cesar Chavez's legacy ignored in his hometown of Yuma?
Activism that began in California
The Mexican-American activist grew up in the 1930s in a farming community near Yuma, Arizona. In 1937 his family was forced to move to California after losing their land due to the Great Depression, according to United Farm Workers archives.
Chavez began working at the age of 11 in the agricultural fields in Central California, where he witnessed countless injustices and humiliations against the workers, which led him down the path of activism.
Although a Labor Relations Act enacted in 1935 gave employees the right to join unions to collectively challenge unfair labor practices, it excluded farm and domestic workers, positions held predominantly by immigrants, Latinos and other people of color.
In 1952, Chavez began working with the Community Service Organization, organizing people to advocate for labor law reform that would allow farm workers basic human rights, such as safe working conditions and living wages to support their families.
His activism led him to organize strikes, fasts and protests, pushing for his fellow laborers to demand better conditions for themselves and their families, and ultimately creating the United Farm Workers of America alongside activist Dolores Huerta. The organization remains active to this day and is the leading nonprofit in the fight for agricultural labor rights.
Fasting in Arizona for worker rights
South of downtown Phoenix, near Seventh Street and Buckeye Road, is Santa Rita Hall, the same site where Chavez led a 24-day fast on May 11, 1972, the same day the Arizona Legislature and then-representative Jack Williams passed a bill outlawing tactics that unionized farmworkers used to demand fair working conditions.
The bill prohibited collective bargaining, secondary boycotts and strikes at times of harvest, all of which were used by Chavez and were essential to his nonviolent and self-sacrifice-based protesting principles.
Chavez ended his fast in protest on June 4, 1972.
Eventually, Chavez's efforts resulted in the government granting farmworkers the right to negotiate with their employers for fair wages, benefits and protections.
More:CPLC honors Cesar Chavez on 50th anniversary of historic Phoenix fast for farmworker rights
Chavez's legacy is respect for laborers
Santa Rita Hall is home to the UFW Arizona location — the only office outside of California.
Chavez's activism in the 1970s did not go unnoticed, but he did not have as much momentum as he did in California.
According to Salvador Reza, an activist with the Tonatierra group and the Barrio Defense Committees in Phoenix, the harsh laws in Arizona at the time prevented the success that Chavez achieved in California from being replicated in this state.
“Arizona is a right-to-work state so it's harder to unionize. The laws favor big businessmen and are not in favor of the people, of the worker,” said Reza. “In capitalist countries, when social fighters like Cesar Chavez are alive, they criticize them, speak ill of them. It happened with (Francisco) Villa and (Emiliano) Zapata,” Reza said. "But once they die, monuments are erected in their name."
Chavez never wanted to be a Latino leader, Reza said. His legacy lies in fighting for laborer rights.
“Many people get confused, they think that Cesar Chavez wanted to be the leader of the Chicano movement, but he never wanted to do that. What he was focused on was having a union that would ensure the rights and security of the working poor, improve the conditions of the workers, and ultimately that was his legacy,” said Reza
Johnny Lozoya is known today as the pioneer of the Lowrider movement in Arizona and has lived in Phoenix for decades. But he remembers his upbringing in the 60s and '70s working the farm fields in Oxnard, California. He was in charge of making the boxes in which the lettuce, cabbage and celery were packed.
Lozoya agrees that Chavez's main legacy is that workers and laborers are respected, paid a living wage and able to work in fair conditions. There's still plenty of work to do in order to achieve that, he said.
“Conditions have not changed much, today workers earn a little more than before but not fair enough for everything they do,” Lozoya said. “During the pandemic, field workers were unable to work from home like most... If it is very hot they do not get paid more, if it is very cold or it rains they go out to work and continue earning the same, and it is something that is not recognized."
For Andres Chavez, and for the rest of his family, that fight continues, but it starts with leading by example.
"Of course (Cesar Chavez's fight) was about working conditions, of course it was about better pay, but I also think it's about applying my grandfather's example to your own struggles, to your own life,” he said.
“By mobilizing farmworkers, he showed that regardless of the color of your skin or your socioeconomic status, if you work hard, anything is possible."
Reporter Laura Daniella Sepúlveda contributed to this report.
Reach La Voz reporter Javier Arce at javier.arce@lavozarizona.com or on Twitter @javierarce33.