Hundreds Mourn Chavez, Propose Making His Home a Landmark : Oxnard: Admirers of the labor leader want to seek historical status for his boyhood house in La Colonia. The present owner would have to agree to the request.

Hundreds of mourners marched in Sunday’s midday heat to remember labor leader Cesar Chavez and support efforts to turn his boyhood home in Oxnard’s La Colonia district into a historical landmark.

Bearing roses, carnations and red-and-black United Farm Workers union flags, farm workers and labor rights activists filled the street outside the humble barrio dwelling where Chavez lived as a child.

“We want to give people a place they can look to with pride,” said event organizer Armando Garcia, an Oxnard paralegal and former UFW employee. “Making this place a landmark is one small step.”

Rosie Aguilar-Moreno, a former field laborer who worked with Chavez as a translator, said she supported the effort to make his home a landmark.

“This is a sad day, but I am also very proud to go on with Cesar’s work,” she said. “His house is a special place that inspires me to continue.”

Jorge Guillen--a factory worker who now lives in the three-bedroom house at the north end of Garfield Avenue with his mother, brother, two sisters and baby niece--said he didn’t know until Friday night that Chavez had lived there.

“I came home from soccer practice and my mother told me that people were coming by all evening, saying he died in the morning and they wanted to pay their respects,” Guillen said.

Marchers said they plan to ask city and county officials to consider designating the site a historical landmark.

To make the house a landmark, the owner would have to agree to the request, said Sandra Sanders, staff assistant for the county’s cultural heritage board. The group then would consider the proposal and, if it met the board’s standards, would send it to the Oxnard City Council for final approval, Sanders said.

“As far as the City Council is concerned, I don’t think there would be any problem,” said Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez. “It would be a real positive thing.”

The owner of the property, Elena Ortiz, said she wasn’t yet sure whether she would agree to designate the house a landmark.

“I don’t have any problems with it,” said Ortiz, who lives in the house in front of Guillen’s. “But I just found out about it today. I need to think it over.”

On Sunday, Ortiz and Guillen agreed to let the parade of mourners pass through their yards and deposit flowers on a card table Guillen set up by his front porch.

Some marchers snapped up frozen fruit bars from a vendor before heading down Garfield Avenue to 5th and B streets, waving flags and shouting “Viva Cesar Chavez!”

African American Chamber of Commerce Vice President Andrew J. Rucker followed the procession in his white stretch limousine.

Rucker, who owns a limousine service, wheeled out the car to help escort some longtime Chavez friends and supporters, Paula Gonzales, 82, and her husband, Eluterio Gonzales, 93.

“I think my father is the oldest living person who knew Cesar Chavez,” said their daughter Sophie Rojo. “I remember when Cesar lived in that house. It’s good to see so many people here marching to honor the great man who lived there.”

The procession ended in an empty lot across from the old Vogue Theater, where another round of songs and speeches began.

Frances Guzman-Flores, who stood at the front of the crowd with her father and brother, said she would not be satisfied to put away her flag at the end of the day.

“I want to see something positive come out of this,” she said. “Making the house a landmark is something we can work towards.”