Duarte event honors labor leader's legacy

  U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu (D-CA 32nd District) speaks at Cesar Chavez Community Volunteer Project.

"Cesar Chavez really embodies what it means to give to others," said U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu at the March 27 event. "He decided that he was going to make life better for migrant farm workers. He was the ultimate volunteer."

Duarte resident Cookie Oseguera, 52, was just a teenager when she began working with the United Farm Workers in the mid-1970s, while a high school student in San Diego, and later at San Diego State University. She remembered marching at events, picketing Safeway stores and visiting a

Duarte Mayor Margaret Finlay speaks to teenagers during the city's sixth annual Cesar Chavez Community Volunteer Project at Westminster Gardens on Saturday, March 27. (Photos by Lafayette C. Hight, Jr. / Staff Photographer)

"The way they lived, there was no running water," said Oseguera about her visit to the city of Delano. "Some of those children didn't even go to school. I remember the homes. You would have thought it was a concentration camp. The way they lived, it was bad."

The extremely harsh working conditions migrant farm workers experienced included long hours without any overtime pay, and exposure to the poisons and pesticides that were sprayed on the crops.

"They were sick, coughing," she said. "They would work hours and hours and hours."

She heard Chavez speak once at Southwestern College, prior to a large rally and march to the Mexican border.

"He was a very soft-spoken man," Oseguera said. "When I heard him it was like everything that he was talking [about] just seeped in. He wasn't a radical -- not screaming or raising his hands. He was a very soft-spoken man. He told us ... if we're going to win the battle, we're going to win it by getting an education."

Duarte's sixth annual Chavez Community Volunteer Project drew dozens of volunteers who, in addition to the yard work, cleaned several meeting and conference rooms.

Though working conditions for farmers have improved drastically since the UFW was formed in the 1960s, Chu said there are still some struggles.

After a farm worker died from heatstroke after working in high-temperature conditions, Chu said she worked to pass a bill in 2003 to address that, though she admitted that it's not being enforced as well as it should be. Eleven farm workers have died from heat-related conditions since.

"All it would have taken was rest, water, shade," she said. "[But] if Chavez hadn't come along, we wouldn't be [anywhere] near where we are today."

The Chavez state holiday is celebrated on the labor leader's birthday, March 31.

    
lafayette.hight@sgvn.com

626-962-8811, Ext. 2703