Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared March 31 as Cesar Chavez Day
Oregon Governor Kate Brown declared March 31 as Cesar Chavez Day Thursday afternoon.
Dozens of Oregonians clad in orange shirts donning the word "causa," or cause, surrounded Brown as she signed her proclamation that celebrates Chavez's work in founding United Farm Workers, a farmworkers rights organization that advanced livable working conditions and fair pay for farmworkers in the 1960s.
"Today as we celebrate Cesar Chavez's life, we also reflect his legacy," said Alberto Moreno, chair of Oregon Commission on Hispanic Affairs. "It is easy to think of Cesar as liberator and emancipator, as the one person who could end the injustice that’s faced by farmworkers, but I don’t think that was his purpose."
Instead, Moreno said, Chavez used his position as a leader of the farmworkers rights movement to plant the seed of justice, and allowing future generations to sow that seed.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.
