San Fernando in Forefront of Drive to Honor Chavez

Asked to describe Cesar Chavez just eight weeks after the legendary labor leader died, 18-year-old Eric Garcia was at a loss.

“You mean the boxer?” he said, referring to junior welterweight Julio Cesar Chavez. “No? Well, was he a city councilman?

“Oh,” Garcia said, recognition dawning. “You mean the grape guy.”

Determined to keep Chavez’s memory alive, the San Fernando City Council has apparently become the first city in the nation to declare his March 31 birthday a legal holiday, a move that gives the city’s 135 employees the day off with pay.

The unanimous action last Monday puts this town of 22,580 residents in the forefront of a statewide effort to pay tribute to the organizer of the grape boycott of the 1960s who sparked the Chicano power movement in California.

Other government agencies, including Los Angeles County and the Santa Ana Unified School District, have tentatively approved renaming streets and facilities after Chavez. Last week, an expanded Chicano studies program at UCLA was named after the farm labor leader. Sacramento has taken steps to create a holiday honoring him, but needs the approval of the unions that represent the city’s 4,000 employees. And state legislation has been introduced to make his birthday a holiday for schoolchildren from Eureka to San Diego.

The honors are a boon to Chavez’s United Farm Workers union, which is crippled by sagging memberships and, just last week, a $2.9-million civil judgment against it. But in San Fernando, which is 83% Latino, a former farm worker now on the City Council joined community leaders in proposing the civic memorial in hopes of rekindling interest in Chavez’s cause as well as his life.

Despite Garcia’s difficulty in recalling Chavez, “a lot of families here in San Fernando identify with Chavez and his struggle,” said City Councilman Jose Hernandez, 62, who picked crops in the Midwest every summer until he was 20 years old. “More than ever, we’d like to keep his ideas alive for the youth to emulate.”

Chavez’s birthday will replace Admissions Day as one of 12 city holidays, a move that will not require any additional city funds. Admission Day recognizes California’s statehood.

Establishing a legal holiday in honor of a modern-day hero is extremely rare, but not unprecedented. Earlier this year, New Hampshire became the last of 50 states to commemorate the birthday of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King.

“There are very few celebrations to recognize the achievements of Latinos, yet we are rapidly becoming the largest minority in California,” said Miguel Santana, a spokesman for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “In this case, the union is still very active, the issues are still very alive, and part of the celebration should concentrate on that.”

That’s exactly what concerns the California Table Grape Commission, which represents the state’s 804 table grape growers. A commission official said the city should recognize Chavez’s forestry or fishing industries, according to the 1990 U. S. Census. The majority of residents in the 2.4-square-mile city are employed in factories, retail shops or do clerical or repair work. But many residents were once farm workers or are the children of farm workers, Councilman Hernandez said.

Immediately after Chavez’s death, members of several San Fernando community organizations, including the Chicano Roundtable and Pueblo y Salud Inc., a health agency, began lobbying the council to establish the holiday.

“There was no opposition,” said Everto Ruiz, another former farm worker and a professor of Chicano studies at Cal State Northridge who testified in support of the holiday.

The council, which has had a Latino majority since 1986, established ties with the union about two years ago. The UFW had sought its support in boycotting the local Tianguis, a supermarket that caters to the Latino community.

Chavez did not personally meet with City Council members, but other union officials urged the city to lead a boycott against the market because its parent company, Vons, refused to honor the UFW’s grape boycott.

But the council declined, pointing out that it had spent about $2 million in city redevelopment funds to help build the shopping center.

“We were very sympathetic, but we had funded that project to remove a blighted area,” San Fernando Mayor Daniel Acuna said. “A lot of us stopped shopping there, though.”

Local schoolchildren will not get Cesar Chavez Day off because they attend schools run by the Los Angeles Unified School District. But Ruiz and others said they hope it will inspire schools to devote programs to Chavez’s achievements and cause. The city also plans to hold a cultural day in Chavez’s honor.

“There is a lot of confusion with the boxer among young people,” Ruiz said. “We must make sure people know that it wasn’t just grapes, that he stood for the human rights of all people regardless of color.”