Stamp Honors Chavez

In honor of Cesar Chavez’s tireless efforts to bring attention to the dangerous work and low wages that farm workers endure, the U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp of the activist.

“Every day, hundreds of men and woman toiled under the sun to put food on our table. Until Cesar Chavez, Americans chose to look other way,” said Gov. Gray Davis. “No one deserves this honor more than Cesar Chavez.”

The 37-cent stamp was sold exclusively in Los Angeles on Wednesday, starting at a downtown ceremony.

“It’s a significant recognition of a true American hero,” said Andres F. Irlando, executive director of the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation in Los Angeles.

The event, also marking the 10th anniversary of Chavez’s death, attracted politicians, Postal Service officials, relatives and friends of Chavez to the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration.

Speakers, praising Chavez and vowing to continue his work, expressed their hope that the stamp bearing his image will introduce millions of people to his life and, most important, convey his dream of equal rights and justice.

“It would be a great tragedy to pay tribute to my father as a man and ignore his message,” said Chavez’s son Paul.

More than 75 million Chavez stamps have been printed. Originally unveiled in September, the stamp shows a smiling Chavez against a backdrop of empty grape fields, symbolic of the strikes and boycotts he organized to gain better working conditions for farm workers.Of the 40,000 nominations the Postal Service receives yearly for commemorative stamps, only 25 to 40 are chosen, said David Mazer, Postal Service spokesman.

“It’s going to be one of our best sellers,” said William Almaraz, Los Angeles district manager for the Postal Service. Chavez became a migrant farm worker at 10 after his family lost their farm during the Great Depression in 1938.

In 1962, he founded the United Farm Workers of America to unionize field workers. Chavez succeeded in raising public awareness about their working conditions and obtaining benefits for them, including fair wages, medical coverage and pensions.

He was credited with helping pass the 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act, a law that protects farm workers’ rights to unionize.

“I hope young people look at this stamp and see themselves in my father,” his son Paul said.

Chavez, who had an eighth-grade education and never earned more than $6,000 a year, succeeded when many believed he would fail, his son said.

“If someone like Cesar Chavez can do it,” said Paul Chavez, “everybody has it within them to make a difference.”