A Holiday’s Roots

For years, Oxnard has celebrated Cesar Chavez’s March 31 birthday with marches, Masses at local churches and a pilgrimage to the spot in La Colonia where he once lived as a boy.

But some local officials and activists wanted more.

After Gov. Gray Davis designated the late labor leader’s birthday a state holiday last August, Oxnard moved to do the same for city workers this year.

But Councilman Dean Maulhardt recently asked whether it would be more meaningful to spend the money the holiday would cost--about $65,000 in overtime pay--on educating people about Chavez’s life, or to support farm workers’ issues.

When given the choice, Oxnard’s employees opted for a three-day weekend.

However, saying there wasn’t enough time to arrange a city holiday in less than two weeks, Oxnard officials will use this year’s $65,000 for educational programs about the life of the farm worker, who died in 1993 at age 66. City employees will receive their first paid holiday next year.

“I am not unhappy about the holiday; I would just like to think of some other way to celebrate it like the way we do with Martin Luther King Day,” said Maulhardt, a former farmer. “In a city of 160,000, giving 800 people the day off doesn’t seem the best way to honor Cesar Chavez.”

The number of affected employees is closer to 1,100, according to Oxnard City Manager Ed Sotelo.

Across the county, Moorpark city leaders also voted this month to make Chavez’s birthday a holiday, but unlike Oxnard, Moorpark’s 50 city workers will get this Friday off.

“These people work hard all year, there was no reason to delay,” said Councilman John Wozniak.

Wozniak explained that when Chavez’s birthday falls on a Saturday, workers will get the previous day off; when it falls on a Sunday they will receive Monday off. Moorpark authorities say the holiday will have little budgetary impact.

Other cities that give municipal employees the labor leader’s birthday as a paid holiday are San Diego, Sacramento, San Fernando and Inglewood, according to the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation in Los Angeles.

But it seems more personal in Oxnard, a community with deep agricultural roots and a population that is about 60% Latino.

Chavez first came to Oxnard as an 11-year-old in 1937 during the Depression. His family had lost its farm in Arizona’s Gila Valley along with the store and poolroom it operated. As they traveled up and down the coast picking cherries, plums and apricots, their car fell apart in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood. A friendly shopkeeper took pity on them and put up the seven-member family in a small home behind his store on North Garfield Avenue.

Chavez attended school at Oxnard’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, then left with his family to follow the crops. As he grew into the quiet-yet-charismatic organizer who preached justice and nonviolence, Chavez returned to Oxnard in 1958 as an organizer for the Community Services Organization, which taught English to Latinos and registered them as voters. He also led marches and demonstrations.

And he left a deep impression on those who saw him.

Jose Garcia said he was a hot-headed young farm worker back in 1972 who often wanted to pummel tyrannical supervisors. His union, the Teamsters, did little to stop farm bosses from taking a new employee’s first paycheck or giving the dirtiest jobs to undocumented workers, he said.

Garcia heard that Chavez’s “Chav-enistas” were in the area urging workers to unite.

“My first image was of them as revolutionaries on horses,” said Garcia, who now works at PictSweet Mushroom Farm in Oxnard. But Chavez was anything but flamboyant. When they met, Chavez told Garcia to dismiss the violent thoughts.

“Cesar told me I would never get anywhere with violence,” he said.

Garcia was soon hired as a bodyguard and walked beside Chavez during marches throughout Ventura County. He also guarded Chavez’s house and car during frequent visits to Oxnard.

“He was a person who spoke in a way that made you have confidence in yourself,” Garcia said. “He spoke to us about our rights as farm workers. He told us how to protect ourselves against injustices.”

Despite Chavez’s popularity in the Latino community, some don’t believe he has been properly recognized for raising consciousness about farm workers and his role in founding the United Farm Workers union.

“I teach seventh- and eighth-graders and a lot are the children of Mexican immigrants who have been here for years,” said Denis O’Leary, an Oxnard teacher who heads the local chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens. “Issues like this are no longer relevant to them. I ask who is Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and they all raise their hands. I ask who knows Cesar Chavez and a handful of kids raise their hands.”

At the county level, Supervisor John Flynn said he is considering a way of honoring Chavez on a countywide basis.

“We have to make it a real celebration of his life and not just an excuse for a day off,” Flynn said.

One of the ironies of the holiday is that few farm workers will likely get any extra time off.

“I don’t think I am subject to that holiday,” said Cecil Martinez, an Oxnard strawberry farmer with 111 employees. “In this business, it would be hard to set aside a day and say I will pay for it. Berries are perishable. When they are ripe you just can’t stop.”

Typically, local celebrations of Cesar Chavez’s birthday have taken place on Sundays--a day when farm workers are already off work.

“Yes, it is ironic that farm workers don’t get the day off,” said Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez, who knew Chavez when he lived in Oxnard. “But the holiday helps farm workers attain a certain status they wouldn’t have otherwise.”

An organizer for the Oxnard chapter of the United Farm Workers union, Jessica Arciniega said the holiday was what mattered.

“I think we were fortunate it was an officially recognized day,” she said. “I believe one day we will get the day off.”

But extra time off seemed unimportant to Favio Calderon Villaneuvo of Oxnard. The mushroom worker met Chavez when he was 20 and said he has never forgotten him.

“I think Cesar won the holiday because he struggled and he fought,” he said. “No one gave it to him, because he earned it.”