Cesar Chavez Holiday Term paper
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Cesar Chavez Holiday
Former United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez unmasked our institutions and our leaders and exposed them for to what they really were -- not what they pretended to be. Chavez did it in life, and now he does it in death. Chavez is once again the subject of a controversial issue, but this time it's not about workers rights. When the California Senate considered a bill to memorialize Chavez by making his birthday, March 31, a state holiday, the masks came off. The Senate approved the bill, 23-0, and sent it to the Assembly. But 16 senators abstained. The dissenters, Republicans, who opposed the bill, didn't even have the guts to make a counter-argument for fear of appearing anti-Latino, given the affection that many, but not all, Latinos feel for Chavez (Arnette, B2). This fear is not unfounded, Latino voters make for a high percentage in California today. Strip away the politics and the reasons for a Cesar Chavez holiday are clear. But will this bill pass?
What reasons are there to have a Cesar Chavez holiday? Many people equate his work to that of Martin Luther King's work for African-American people. But is another holiday needed?
When it comes to Cesar Chavez, separating the man from the myth can be troublesome. He was a great leader, but a complicated man. Chavez began to organize grape pickers in 1962, when he also established the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). He led a successful grape and lettuce boycott in order to raise wages and working standards. His nonviolent methods proved to be very effective against the farming agents. Chavez remained committed to nonviolence in spite of pressures to abandon it. He declared that the "truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice" (Levy, 31). Many people do support a Chavez holiday. It can't be denied that by bringing toilets, clean water, and collective bargaining into the fields and taking the debilitating tools such as the "short hoe" out of them, Chavez and the UFW brought common sense, fairness, and dignity to field work.
Chavez's victories didn't just benefit farm workers, but the whole agricultural industry. In the same way the Abolitionists and the Civil Rights movements helped save the soul of America by forcing it to keep its promises and fulfill its greatness, the UFW helped save the soul of American agri-business by prodding it toward humane reforms. Today there are farmers who recognize that, and who are ready to give Cesar Chavez his due.
Are we going to get another state holiday? The Chavez holiday is a bigger political issue than most would think, but is it mostly politics? The ag bureaucrats who run the farming associations that claim to speak for all farmers on all issues, have turned his cause into a business, and battling the ghost of their old nemesis is big business. . Cesar Chavez caused much grief among ag businessmen and farmers as a whole. And now, far from the fields, these old ag...
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