Celebrating the life of Cesar Chavez
Schools, parks, libraries and streets have been named in his honor across the country.
His birthday, March 31, is a holiday in eight states, including California.
Fifteen years after his death, Cesar Chavez is still revered by Latinos.
"I felt close to him because there was something about him that was God-like," said the Rev. Patricio Guillen, a Roman Catholic priest who runs a San Bernardino nonprofit that provides assistance to Latino immigrants.
Guillen gave the keynote speech on Friday at the sixth annual Cesar E. Chavez Breakfast at American Legion Post 650 in Redlands.
Guillen called the labor leader a "prophet" and "a man of faith who spoke to the conscience of the people."
Chavez led strikes and boycotts that galvanized public support for farm workers’ rights to better wages and working conditions.
"These people provide and harvest the food we eat daily, yet they are the most underappreciated and ignored persons in our society," Guillen told about 100 people at the breakfast.
For all his successes, Chavez and the union he led had a mixed record on immigration issues.
The United Farm Workers, the union co-founded by Chavez and fellow activist Dolores Huerta, was concerned that illegal workers from Mexico were depressing wages of Mexican-American field hands.
The union engaged in controversial actions, such as marching to the U.S.-Mexico border to protest growers’ use of illegal immigrants as strikebreakers.
Chavez and the union also reported illegal immigrants who served as replacement workers to immigration authorities.
Guillen, a strong supporter of efforts to legalize undocumented immigrants, said those incidents don’t tarnish Chavez’s legacy.
"The farm growers took advantage of immigrants to break the efforts to unionize," said Guillen, who met Chavez several times. "[Chavez] was not very happy about it. He was sensitive to the immigrant and his family who needed work."
In 1984, Chavez initially supported an immigration bill that contained strong sanctions against employers who hired illegal immigrants.
His position angered some Latino activists.
"He wasn’t always in line with what some of the activists were doing to organize and defend immigrant farm workers," said Armando Navarro, an ethnic studies professor at UC Riverside.
Navarro said Chavez deserves to be recognized as an "incredible charismatic leader."
But Navarro said Chavez was not a reformer who seriously threatened the social, economic and political interests of the country.
"While he was a great leader, I think there’s a great mythology that’s been created to catapult him to the level of a Martin Luther King. That he wasn’t," Navarro said.
"What we see happening today with parks, schools and streets being named after him, that’s all fine. He deserves that. But I think it’s a little overblown. For all his greatness, Chavez only focused on the farm worker. There were other [Latino] leaders who were important in many other ways who are not acknowledged at all," Navarro said.
Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, has tried several times to pass legislation to honor Chavez with a national holiday.
"Cesar Chavez was not a supporter of guest-worker programs that brought in excess foreign labor – but he was a champion of justice, equality and human rights," Baca said via e-mail. "Because of his work to create equal treatment and respect for all, Cesar Chavez remains a beacon of hope and perseverance to people everywhere today."
Tony Bocanegra, who helped organize Friday’s breakfast in Redlands, said he holds Chavez in the highest regard.
"The great leaders – Martin Luther King, Robert F. Kennedy and Cesar Chavez – all had their flaws and imperfections," Bocanegra said. "The bottom line is they were trying to better the human race. That’s what we all admire."