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news
Students march
for Chavez
By Jamie Rogers
On-line Forty-Niner
More than 100 community
members, students and children marched from the McIntosh Humanities
Building to the University Student Union Ballroom Monday night
in celebration of the first day of Cesar Chavez week.
The Chicano and
Latino Students Association organized the event, which included
American Indian drumming and speeches by Cal State Long Beach
associate professor Victor Rodriguez and California State
Monterey Bay professor Diana Garcia.
Rodriguez encouraged
the crowd to remember the things Chavez accomplished and honor
him by continuing his movement.
"We should
not allow him to become a myth, a legend or a saint,"
Rodriguez said. "Instead, Cesar Chavez would like us
to remember him as an organizer."
If Chavez is thought
of as a saint, Rodriguez said, he fears people will believe
that social change took place because these larger than life
people magically set off a chain of events.
He encouraged young
people to become active in the community and not to be discouraged
by negative images of youth in the media.
"It is important
for this generation of Latinos, African-Americans, Native
Americans, Asians and whites ... to challenge stereotypes
of young people as violent just as Chavez challenged the stereotypes
of farm workers as apathetic," he said. "We cannot
build a coalition with out challenging ideas that support
self doubt."
Garcia, a well-known
poet, portrayed images of the life of immigrants in the field
while reading from her work. She dedicated one poem to her
mother, who lived in labor camps as a young woman.
"Living in
the camps meant sometimes you could not be the kind of person
you wanted to be," Garcia said. The poem was written
for teen-agers "who wanted to smell pretty and look clean.
Exiting the fields with sweat dripping, they did not smell
pretty and they did not look clean."
She discussed the
devastation caused by tuberculosis, which ravaged the camps.
Garcia said those stricken with the disease were sent to a
sanitarium in Yosemite, just down the road from people vacationing
at a glamorous hotel. The ill lived in cleaned-out horses'
stalls.
"Imagine the
distance in class," she said. "Imagine the distance
in wealth."
Earlier in the
evening, Alex Negrete, president of the CHLSA, welcomed the
crowd before introducing CSULB lecturer Eduarda Diaz-Scwarzbach
and student Jorge Reyes. Diaz-Scwarzbach offered a blessing
while Reyes moved throughout the crowd with burning sage.
"We use the
sage to bless, to cleanse and to purify," Reyes said.
The night closed
with signing by Dr. Anna Sandoval, assistant professor of
Chicano and Latino studies, accompanied by guitarist Steven
Marcelo.
Cesar Chavez week
will continue today with informational tables set up between
11 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the USU South Plaza. It will close Thursday
with a discussion, "Assessing the Chavez Legacy and the
UFW," at 2 p.m. in the USU ballroom.
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