Farmworkers Stage Protest Downtown

Several thousand farmworkers from as far away as Oregon marched in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday to celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez and protest proposed federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants.

The crowd at the march and rally, which culminated with a Mass honoring Chavez at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, was estimated by police at 3,800. The United Farm Workers, which organized the event, put the number at about 5,000 and said it was the largest gathering of farmworkers in Los Angeles in nearly four decades, when many came to support Robert F. Kennedy during the 1968 presidential campaign.

Many of the marchers said that, because they had to work Saturday, they were unable to take part in the march in downtown Los Angeles in which police estimated that more than 500,000 people protested the proposed legislation.

“This is another great awakening,” said Maricela Medina, 46, who came from Watsonville. “This is a great civil rights movement.”

Like many, Medina wore a red T-shirt emblazoned with the UFW logo. Nearby, others carried red flags that said “Si se peude” (“Yes we can”). Babies as young as 2 months old sported red outfits for the day. Banners and signs in English and Spanish carried messages such as “We Feed America; We are America” and “Farmworker Legalization Now.”

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to resume working on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal Tuesday. The Senate committee’s version includes elements of various bills, including a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation’s 10 million to 12 million undocumented immigrants. Other proposals to be debated include a plan that would crack down on employers of illegal immigrants and building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The marchers’ day in Los Angeles began early in the morning Saturday in far-flung agricultural towns across California and Oregon. More than 60 buses ferried the workers from places such as Salinas, Calexico, Delano and Oxnard.

Miriam Garcia, 32, a strawberry picker, said it was a long trip from Salinas with her three sons, including a 3-month-old baby. But she said she felt that legalization of undocumented workers and an end to discrimination were causes worth the journey.

“I feel very strongly,” she said, rocking her baby in his stroller as her two older sons stood beside her on the plaza outside the cathedral. “We want better for them. That’s why we are here.”

UFW President Arturo Rodriguez told the crowd that farmworkers’ labor feeds America. “This was the first opportunity farmworkers have had in almost 30 years to come to L.A.,” Rodriguez said, adding that workers were continuing Chavez’s work and “being part of the fight for immigration reform in this county.”

After a rally outside the federal building, the farmworkers marched to the cathedral, where Bishop Gabino Zavala led a capacity crowd of about 3,000 in a liturgy in honor of the life and legacy of Chavez.

Chavez, whose birthday is Friday, co-founded the UFW and led boycotts to publicize the working conditions faced by those who pick the nation’s food.

In a service that switched back and forth between Spanish and English and also included bits in Tagalog, Creole and Korean, Zavala drew parallels between Chavez’s work organizing farmworkers in the 1970s and the need to fight for immigrant rights today.

“Like Cesar, we can’t back down,” he said. “We all know that a broken immigration policy in this country has led to thousands of deaths in the desert and the cruel separation of hundreds of thousands of families.”

His words echoed an appeal by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, to priests in the diocese to defy a House bill that would make it a felony to aid undocumented immigrants.