NMS students celebrate Cesar Chavez Day by committing to peace, non-violence, community service

--- Published on March 31st 2015 ---
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They committed themselves to peace, nonviolence and community service in honor of Cesar Chavez on his birthday Tuesday (March 31).

Dozens of Natomas Middle School students participated in a campus peace rally attended by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty and by Cesar Chavez’s niece, Becky Chavez. They signed “Pledge for Peace” banners, to be displayed at NMS, celebrating non-violence.

Earlier, the school’s leadership class met privately with McCarty and Becky Chavez to discuss the life of Cesar Chavez, labor leader, civil rights activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers. The session ended with the class voting to reach out to local foster youth as a community service project in Cesar Chavez’s memory. They will create ties with a local foster care facility, visit several times a year, and sponsor a fundraising drive to buy books, clothes or other necessities.

Becky Chavez, who lives in Sacramento, reminisced to NMS students about her “Uncle Cesar” and about a childhood in which she spent endless hours picketing and marching in a campaign to improve farmworkers’ living conditions.

Her 13th birthday came on the very day that thousands of farmworkers reached the California state Capitol after a historic protest march from Delano, she said. She has fond memories that day of 10,000 people yelling, “Si se Puede!” – meaning, “Yes we Can!”

“It’s something I’ll never forget,” she said.

Becky, daughter of Chavez’s brother, Richard, remembers her father and brother helping to design the black Aztec eagle insignia that became the UFW’s symbol and the centerpiece of its flag.

She provided personal insight unavailable in history books.

Becky Chavez remembers, for example, years in which her family had little income – maybe $5 a week -- and lived largely off donations from others. “We had absolutely nothing but our spirit, but our spirit was alive,” she said.

She remembers 1960s picket lines at which she approached strangers, seeking support for farmworkers, by describing lax working conditions in isolated farm fields with no running water or toilets.

Becky Chavez remembers being told by some unsympathetic passers-by to “go back to Mexico.” She smiles at that childhood memory. “We’d never been to Mexico,” she said. “We were as American as anybody else.”

She urged students at Natomas Middle School to reach out to others and to embrace community service. “Please keep up with your education,” she added. “It’s important. We need you to grow up to be leaders.”

Assemblyman McCarty pointed out to students that, throughout history, many individuals who have changed the world were ordinary folks with no fancy title or elected office. He named a few: Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Rosa Parks, and Mahatma Gandhi.

“Ordinary people who made a difference,” he said. “Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

The message was clear: With passion and commitment, students, you can make a difference, too.

So dare to dream big -- like Cesar Chavez did.