Writing Contest Lauds Legacy of Cesar Chavez

It began as a simple question about Latinos by the daughter of Los Angeles School Board member Victoria Castro: “Why don’t we have leaders like Martin Luther King?”

The end result was 450 entries from students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District for the first Cesar Chavez Essay/Poetry Contest. The winners--including Leslie Rivera, a senior at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley who won first place in a Spanish-language category--were honored at the Mexican Cultural Institute at Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles.

The contest called upon students to write on the theme “Cesar Chavez: The Benefits of His Work.”

“Cesar Chavez was not only a leader among Mexican Americans, but a world leader,” Castro said at the ceremony, where winners were given cash awards of $150, $125 and $100 for first, second and third place.

The contest was sponsored by the school district’s Mexican American Education Commission, the Assn. of Mexican American Educators, USC Civic and Community Relations and Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Los Angeles, as well as the Mexican Cultural Institute.

“It is important to have this new generation be a part of the fight for which Cesar Chavez fought,” said Carlos Felix Corona, deputy consul general of Mexico in Los Angeles. “It’s important to have a contest like this to honor a man like Cesar Chavez.”

Rivera wrote a poem that said, in an English translation: “Your goodness was such, that no one could repay you, even with all the gold in the world. . . . I would like to have just a small portion of your strength.

“It is not enough just to grow up, but to do something for someone.”

Rivera, who plans to attend Mission College this fall with the hope of eventually becoming a teacher or a journalist, said writing the poem was not difficult. “If you put all your feelings into it, then it’s not hard,” she said.

Rivera came to the United States from El Salvador with her family in 1984. Even though she is not Mexican, she had no problem relating to Chavez. “I’m not from Mexico, but we’re all Latinos, we’re all the same,” she said.

A third-place winner in the middle school English-language category was Sepulveda Middle School ninth-grader Andrea Alicia Alarcon, daughter of Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon.

“I’m here today not as a politician, but as a father,” Alarcon said. “I am very proud. My daughter honors me with her writing.”

The students were not the only ones to have learned something by participating in the contest. Manuel Ponce, director of the district’s Mexican American Education Commission, said he had not known much about Chavez prior to the contest.

But after reading all 450 entries as one of seven judges, he said: “I now live the man, I sleep the man. . . . I feel I now know him man to man.”

Other San Fernando Valley winners were Blanca Estela Ortiz, a 12th-grader at Polytechnic High who placed third in the Spanish-language category, and Lisa Calderon, a 10th-grader at San Fernando High School who won third place in the English category.