Valley Parade Commemorates Cesar Chavez’s Birthday

More than 1,500 people gathered in Mission Hills on Sunday to commemorate the late labor leader Cesar Chavez’s birthday with equal amounts of pageantry and social activism.

Led by a flourish of feathered headdresses adorning the heads of Aztec dancers and ending with the angry chants of strikers against the Price Pfister Co., the fourth annual Cesar Chavez Peregrinacion and Cultural Arts Festival followed a two-mile route along Brand Boulevard from Brand Park to San Fernando Recreation Park.

From those who had marched alongside Chavez to those who only knew of him through school history lessons, reminiscences of the United Farm Workers founder, who died in 1993 at age 66, were both reverent and personal. His birthday would have been March 31.

“I admire him tremendously,” said Marjorie Britt, a labor activist who has lived in San Fernando for 45 years. “Even now it is hard for me to speak about him. This is so emotional.”

At a pre-parade ceremony, participants waved red United Farm Workers flags and held placards with the names of their schools and unions as they listened to speakers such as Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon, Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar) and Alejandra Torres, who represents the Price Pfister strikers.

Torres said the strikers were protesting what they felt were inadequate severance packages in recent layoffs at area plants, as the faucet manufacturing company moved some of its local operations to Mexico.

The parade was led by dancers and drummers from the Los Angeles-based group Danzantes Aztecas Cuauhtemoc, an organization that preserves Aztec heritage through traditional dances.

Sam Baldia of San Fernando said he has come to the parade since its inception three years ago because he feels he is part of Chavez’s legacy.

“I have never worked on a farm, but my parents worked on a farm when they came here to San Fernando,” said Baldia, who came from Juarez, Mexico, with his family when he was 3. Today, he crafts cylinders for an airplane manufacturing company. “This man, he helped my family because he fought so that workers who lived on nothing could have insurance and better pay.”

Britt carried a photograph of herself standing with Chavez.

“He was so self-effacing. It was clear that he was not doing this for glory or medals but from his heart,” she said.

Parade organizer Xavier Flores of the San Fernando-based Cesar Chavez Commemorative Committee said this year’s parade was the largest. The first parade attracted about 400 participants, he said.

Along the parade route, the rhythm was kept by the Pacoima Elementary School drum line--its members wearing headbands emblazoned with the United Farm Workers eagle--and the hoofbeats of the Rodriguez Solis Charro group. This was the San Fernando-based riding troupe’s first parade appearance.

Three generations of riders proceeded side-by-side in the parade, with 3-year-old Jerry Ascencio decked out in fancy charro dress astride his horse. Next to him was his father, Gerardo Ascencio, and grandfather, Javier.

“He’s so excited,” Ascencio said as young Jerry waved to onlookers.

For many of the parade’s younger attendees, the celebration was a way for history to come alive.

Nathaniel Richmond, 14, of North Hollywood, came with a group of students from Sun Valley Middle School.

“I’m proud that I’m African American, and I’m proud that Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King Jr. did the same thing,” Nathaniel said. “They wanted peace for our communities, and for blacks, whites and Latinos to get together.”

San Fernando resident Sandra Ornelas, 10, who attended the parade with her mother, brother and sister, was among those holding placards hailing Chavez.

“I learned about him from my family,” she said. “He was a great man and he did good for people. I came because he was nice, and I care for him.”