Cesar Chavez Day 2011
Today (Thursday March 31) is Cesar Chavez Day.
California state offices (including the Department of Motor Vehicles and Los Angeles Superior Courts) will be closed.
Chavez was a labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the group which later became the United Farm Workers.
Los Angeles city offices will be open, as it observes Cesar Chavez Day on the last Monday in March.
Federal offices and services (including the U.S. Postal Service) will be open.
Banks, Metro bus, subway, train and trash collection services will all operate on their regular schedules.
Observances are planned on the 84th anniversary of his birth at the El Camino College Compton Center and Torch Middle School in Industry and a Long Beach park bearing his name.
- Cesar Chavez.
County and state offices (as well as state and federal courts) will be closed Thursday in observance of the Cesar Chavez Day holiday.
County parks will remain open, and essential services (such as law enforcement) will continue during the holiday.
County library branches also will be closed in honor of the late labor leader.
Chavez (who died in 1993) helped create the United Farm Workers union that improved wages and working conditions for farm laborers.
All county offices and courts will resume normal business hours on Friday.
Chico — About 300 people (mostly Chico State University students) – are expected to do service projects in the community today in honor of Cesar Chavez.
They’ll meet at 9:30 a.m. on the lawn between Trinity Hall and the Bell Memorial Union on campus. There they will pick up work assignments for such things as cleaning up areas around town, helping the homeless and participating in a canned-food drive.
In the last few years in Chico, Cesar Chavez Day has been the occasion for rowdy parties and even incidents in which Latinos were mocked, said Tray Robinson – director of university diversity programs at Chico State. “We’re trying to discourage that.”
The service work is being organized by the Associated Students at Chico State.
On Tuesday, members of the university’s multi-cultural sororities and fraternities set up informational booths on campus to point out the values Chavez promoted, Robinson said.
“We recognize that many people don’t know who he was and what his contribution has been” – he said.
“We’ve put together an awareness campaign and have distributed a poster with the image of Cesar Chavez to our students and the community as well.”
On Tuesday, Robinson’s office e-mailed the campus community a newsletter that included information about Chavez.
It noted that Chavez (who grew up in a family of migrant farm workers) educated himself and in 1962 formed what would become the United Farmworkers of America. Born in 1927, the labor leader died in 1993.
The newsletter stated in part: “Using non-violent tactics, such as fasting, boycotts, strikes and pilgrimages, Chavez led the organization to improving respect, wages, medical coverage, pension benefits and humane living conditions for farm workers and their families.”
March 31, Chavez’s birthday, has been designated Cesar Chavez Day by a number of states.
Robinson said he’d like Chico State to work more closely with the Chico community next year on planning service work to honor Chavez’s memory.