Modern Parallel on Cesar Chavez Birthday

Denied legislation this week that would have created a state holiday to honor Cesar Chavez, many in Southern California celebrated anyway--marking the birthday Friday of the revered labor leader with speeches and parties.

In Orange County, the battle Chavez led for the rights of rural workers was translated into an urban context by a group seeking to win better pay and benefits for the predominantly Latino work force of janitors.

More than 40 nonunion janitors marked Chavez’s birthday by exposing what they say are labor violations in local office buildings. Joining the rally were aides to Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), state Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) and Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim).

“Chavez was a fighter for farm workers and for the working poor,” said Lety Salcedo, an organizer with Justice for Janitors, which is seeking to duplicate in Orange County the success it has achieved in Los Angeles.

“Janitors today took up his fight and want to have a living wage and protections on the job, including health insurance.”

Representatives of other unions and organizations attended the rally to mark Chavez’s birthday and support the janitors’ complaints of long hours and low pay, said Blanca Gallegos, communications director for the Los Angeles-based Service Employees International Union.

“These workers are at the bottom of the rung,” said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, who said the rally had special meaning for him on Chavez’s birthday. “They are the worst-paid and the most abused. They are the forgotten ones.”

At school assemblies and civic events in Los Angeles, Chavez was remembered as a soft-spoken but highly effective leader whose United Farm Workers challenged powerful California growers in the 1960s and 1970s, showing dramatically how one individual can bring about change.

“The California dream is uniquely a dream of starting here and going anywhere you want,” Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) said during a rally at Belmont High School near downtown Los Angeles. “That is what Cesar Chavez was all about.”

The birthday celebrations were part of a monthlong series of rallies honoring Chavez.

Since Chavez’s death April 23, 1993, schools, streets and plazas across California have been renamed to honor him, including the former Brooklyn Avenue in Los Angeles. He is the centerpiece of a new photo exhibit at the Latino Museum in downtown Los Angeles. There is also a growing movement to develop a standardized curriculum so his life story can be taught in public schools.

Latino elected leaders had hoped they would be able to celebrate Chavez’s birthday this year with a new law making March 31 a paid state holiday. But the bill got stalled in the Assembly.

The legislators, in speeches and comments to reporters, said they would not give up. Nearly 100,000 Californians have signed letters and postcards sent to Gov. Gray Davis and state lawmakers supporting the holiday idea.

“We won’t stop until a paid state holiday is won,” said Evilina Alarcon, the statewide coordinator of the campaign.

Chavez’s fight to organize farm workers and improve their lives was portrayed in speeches as a struggle for dignity and human rights, a courageous battle against overwhelming odds that was based on a reverence for the humblest of laborers.

“Cesar Chavez represents not just farm workers,” state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) said at the Belmont High rally. “Cesar Chavez represents coming from humble beginnings to rising to the greatest challenges and succeeding. I can’t see a better place to send that message than right here at Belmont High, where they have not had enough victories.”

Earlier in the day, Alarcon joined hundreds of students at three assemblies at San Fernando Middle School in San Fernando.

The assembly, following a format duplicated at other schools, began like a farm worker rally, with the UFW’s distinctive rhythmic hand clapping and shouts of “Si se puede,” the farm workers’ rallying cry that means “Yes, you can.”

The students listened to mariachis and watched grainy snippets from a documentary about the organizer’s life. The United Farm Workers flag hung from the walls, along with festive paper decorations in green, white and red.

“He was fighting for something, for the good of the people,” said Jennifer Sandoval, 12. Among other things, she had heard about prolonged fasts by Chavez to further his cause. “He didn’t eat for 25 days,” she said, but wasn’t quite sure why.

“He was one of the people who fought for the Mexicans,” said 12-year-old Zulema Rojo, who played the violin in the mariachi band.

Times staff writers Elaine Gale in Orange County and Hilary E. MacGregor in the San Fernando Valley contributed to this report.