Cesar Chavez

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November 11, 2011 | 9:05 AM | By

American snapshot: Veterans Day

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

I came across this banner with a familiar name last year while driving through the southeast L.A. County city of Bell Gardens, where banners displaying the names of the city’s predominantly Latino military members adorned light posts along the main streets. (And no, the Marine mentioned on the banner is not the late civil rights and labor leader, who served in the Navy.)

To Mr. Chavez, his fellow Marines and other members of the U.S. military, along with their families, thank you for your service, and for the many difficult sacrifices you have made.

Happy Veterans Day.

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Bell Gardens, Cesar Chavez, Veterans Day
May 24, 2011 | 11:09 AM | By

Navy names ship for Cesar Chavez, but controversy hasn’t died down yet

A similar U.S. navy cargo ship, the USNS Lewis and Clark, in Greece, February 2011. Photo by Official U.S. Navy Imagery/Flickr (Creative Commons)

The criticism lobbed at the U.S. Navy since last week by some politicians and pundits for its decision to name a ship after the late labor leader and civil rights icon Cesar Chavez didn’t stop the Navy from moving forward.

Last week, the Navy formally announced that the latest ship in its Lewis and Clark class of cargo vessels would be named for Chavez, who served in the Navy between 1944 and 1946, to honor the many Latino shipbuilders responsible for the construction of these and other ships. But the firestorm that has surrounded the vessel’s name has yet to completely die down.

Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, a Republican from East San Diego County and former Marine who set off the controversy after he complained about the Navy’s decision, has now introduced legislation directing the Secretary of the Navy to name the next available ship after the late Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta.

Peralta, a green card holder who grew up in San Diego, was recommended posthumously for a Medal of Honor after accounts that he smothered a grenade with his body in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, saving fellow troops. The medal is the highest distinction awarded for service. After a Defense Department board questioned whether he actually pulled the grenade under him, it was later decided to award him Navy Cross instead, a decision that outraged many Marines.

From a letter that Hunter wrote to Navy secretary Ray Mabus:

Naming the last ship in the Lewis and Clark-class after anyone other than hometown hero Rafael Peralta misses a valuable opportunity to honor the service and sacrifice of a U.S. Marine who was wrongfully denied the Medal of Honor. Even with this class of ships dedicated to visionaries and pioneers, there is no better choice than Sergeant Peralta for his service and sacrifice.

Over the past week, the naming of the ship after Chavez became a conservative cause celebre. Most famously, talk show host Glenn Beck compared naming a ship for Chavez to naming a “USS Stalin,” or a “USS Margaret Sanger” whose cannons would “shoot out fetuses.”

The controversy also angered many Latinos. In a recent opinion piece on the News taco site, Texas political science professor Henry Flores wrote about the political objection to naming a ship after Chavez:

Some would call it racism, and I guess it is, but it also reflects a great deal of historical ignorance. I’m not saying that these folks are dumb, what I am saying is that they never learned how important Cesar Chavez is, not only Latinos, but to the entire country. This ignorance results partially from the  exclusion of Latinos from our history books, and from every day public discourse.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Cesar Chavez, Rep. Duncan Hunter, U.S. Navy
May 18, 2011 | 11:09 AM | By

The naming of a Navy ship after Cesar Chavez draws political fire

Photo by jay galvin/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A UC San Diego mural honoring Chicano history and Chavez, April 2010

Multi-American’s sister blog Home Post at KPBS in San Diego, which reports on the military, has posted a piece on the controversy over the naming of a U.S. Navy ship after the late labor leader Cesar Chavez. From the post:

The United States Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus, is headed to San Diego tomorrow to announce that a ship will be named after labor leader Cesar Chavez. General Dynamics NASSCO spokesman James Gill told the Associated Press it’s a way to pay homage to the Latino workers who built the dry cargo ship, and the neighborhood (Barrio Logan) General Dynamics calls home.

But Congressman Duncan Hunter Jr. of East San Diego County, a Republican whose retired congressman father was a driving force behind construction of the border fence, is complaining about the decision. From his press statement:

“This decision shows the direction the Navy is heading. Naming a ship after Cesar Chavez goes right along with other recent decisions by the Navy that appear to be more about making a political statement than upholding the Navy’s history and tradition.”

Cesar Chavez was in the military, serving two years in the Navy after he enlisted in 1946. Hunter, who served as a Marine in Iraq and Afghanistan, has suggested that the ship might instead be named after a Latino military hero like Marine Corps Sergeant Rafael Peralta.

The naming of the ship is to be officially announced today. Home Post has featured a few readers’ comments.

What do you think? Is naming a ship after Chavez a good way to honor Latino shipbuilders? Does Hunter have a valid complaint?

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Cesar Chavez, Duncan Hunter, U.S. Navy
April 1, 2011 | 12:00 PM | By

The forgotten history of the Filipino laborers who worked with Cesar Chavez

Photo by Marc Tarlock/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A mural commemorating the late labor leader Philip Vera Cruz, who worked alongside Cesar Chavez, May 2010

For those closely related to the farm labor movement of the 1960s and 70s, the story of Asian American farm workers and the extent to which these workers were involved in the movement is fairly common knowledge. But for many others familiar with the legacy of labor and civil rights leader César Chávez, whose birthday was celebrated yesterday as a state holiday, the story of the Filipino laborers who worked side by side with him is a piece of near-forgotten history.

The Filipino American culture website BakitWhy.com featured a film trailer yesterday for a documentary titled “The Delano Manongs: Forgotten Heroes of the UFW” that tells the story of United Farm Workers of America leaders Larry Itliong, Phillip Vera Cruz, Pete Velasco, and Andy Imutan, all of whom were instrumental to the farm labor movement.

On its website, the UFW recognizes the Filipino workers and the union they initially belonged to, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which spearheaded the landmark 1965 Delano grape strike. Shortly before that strike, AWOC had led a walkout of Filipino and Mexican grape harvest workers in the Coachella Valley, where growers employed guest workers from Mexico. From the site:

When Coachella grape growers attempted to pay the local workers less than the imported workers, the Filipinos, many of whom were AWOC members, refused to work.

Coachella grapes, grown in southernmost California, ripen first in the state. Getting the grapes picked and to market quickly is crucial to the Coachella growers’ profits. After ten days the growers decided to pay everyone $1.25 per hour, including Chicanos who had joined the Filipinos. Once more, however, no union contract was signed.

At the end of summer the grapes were ripening in the fields around Delano, a farm town north of Bakersfield. Many of the farmworkers from the successful Coachella action had come up to Delano, trailing the grape harvest. Farmworkers demanded $1.25 per hour, and when they didn’t receive it, on September 8 nine farms were struck, organized by AWOC’s Larry Itliong.

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FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Economy, Politics/Justice, Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez Day, Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong, Philip Vera Cruz, United Farm Workers