Long Beach Celebrates Chavez Day Today

Long Beach today observes its 10th annual Cesar Chavez Day Celebration at Chavez Park with the dedication of the Jenny Oropeza Community Center, named for the state senator who died in October. 

The free event begins at 3 p.m. with the center dedicaton and continues until 7 tonight with music, performances, food, information tables and activities for children and families.  For more information see the Long Beach Community Hispanic Association website: centrocha.org. 

Because Chavez Day is a state holiday, state offices, including the Department of Motor Vehicles and Los Angeles Superior Courts, are closed. 

Chavez was born on this day 84 years ago in Yuma, Ariz. and went from migrant farm worker to labor and civil rights activist. He co-founded the National Farm Workers Association--forerunner of the United Farm Workers--with Dolores Huerta in 1962, and is credited with improving work and quality-of-life conditions for immigrant farm workers in central California. He gained widespread attention for leading a grape boycott in 1965 that became national in 1968 and lasted until 1978, bring higher wages for farm workers and focusing national attention on their circumstances. He died in 1993 at age 66.

His birthday became a state holiday in 2000 and President Barack Obama today proclaimed March 31 of each year as Cesar Chavez Day, calling "upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community and educational programs to honor Cesar Chavez's enduing legacy.'' 

Obama said: "Through boycotts and fasts, he led others on a path of nonviolence conceived in careful study of the teachings of St. Francis of Assisi and Mahatma Gandhi and in the powerful example of Martin Luther King Jr. He became a community organizer and began his lifelong advocacy to protect and empower people."