Texas has 21 legal holidays. Of these, 10 are federal holidays celebrated across the country, such as New Year's Day, Thanksgiving, and Independence Day. The 11th is a national holiday and is considered optional — government offices, community colleges, libraries and public schools can choose to close and send employees home to commemorate the special historical day. One of these is Cesar Chavez Day, which is celebrated on March 31 to commemorate the Mexican-American civil rights activist’s birthday and legacy in Texas, California and Arizona. In some areas, where the Hispanic population is predominantly Hispanic, this holiday is actually worth celebrating.
Chavez was working as a community organizer in the 1950s and 1960s when he had a new but clearly necessary mission - to help those responsible for and harvesting the nation's food be able to feed their families and themselves. Today, it’s a cause that’s still worth fighting for and celebrating.
Chavez was born in Arizona in 1927 and supported various farm worker movements until his death in 1993. He grew up working in the fields, and later his family moved to California as immigrant farm workers, even dropping out of school there. Seventh grade helps support his mom.
But with only a junior high school education, Chavez joined his first civil rights organization, the Community Service Organization, in 1952 and eventually became its national director. In 1962, he founded his own National Farm Workers Association with activist Dolores Huerta.
During Chavez’s lifetime, the NFWA (now known as the United Farm Workers) fought for farm workers’ rights through protests and strikes, including the Salad Bowl Strike, the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history.
Chavez is an advocate for the rights of one of the most vulnerable people in America, and their work touches the lives of everyone who has ever shopped at a grocery store or farmers market — but Cesar Chavez Day is just a Texan Legal holidays in California, Texas, and the United States. Colorado, even though President Obama supported making it a national holiday in 2008. Some cities not only mark his birthday - Laredo, Texas, is famous for celebrating Cesar Chavez Month, but also holds an annual parade in his honor.
Today, even though the day has not yet achieved the status of a federal holiday, there is still work to be done and ways to celebrate Chavez's legacy. There are an estimated 3 million migrant and seasonal farm workers in the country, and although they support a multi-billion dollar agricultural industry, men and women often suffer unfair wages, dangerous working and living conditions, and sexual harassment.
The good news is there are groups looking to give farmworkers a voice. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers, a human rights group, opposes abuses in Florida's tomato fields and a labor system they call modern slavery. There are currently calls for a boycott of Driscoll's Berries because of its mistreatment of their workers. Earlier this year, California farmworkers fought for the right to unionize.
Their work seems to be catching on. This month, the Los Angeles Times reported that agricultural workers in the Mexican state of Baja California learned protest and self-advocacy strategies from their experiences as immigrant workers in the United States
Photo credit: Jay Galvin /Flickr (2); USDA/Flickr
