Honor the Chávez Holiday!

The Leaders of Our Generation

A great shift is occurring in our nation. The outcome of the national election is still months away, and yet something much greater has already changed: we have changed. Our generation is gleaming with optimism and excitement. For the millions of young people asserting political demands for the first time, what began as opposition to the Iraq war and the historic marches of millions across the country in spring 2006 for the rights and dignity of immigrants and the Latina/o community has grown into a declaration of hope for becoming a nation no longer separated along lines of gender and race. It took only a few months for our generation to brush aside old notions that once seemed invincible. Yesterday’s view was that a fundamental change for the better would have to wait until some indefinite point in the future; today’s view is that such a change is really possible now. And all of this happened while our elders were still droning on about the apathy of the younger generation and the dim prospects for humanity.

This swift change of views has arrived at an important moment for California. Now is the time to win real rights and dignity for all regardless of legal status. Now is the time to fight to actually remove all of the barriers of race and gender that deform opportunity in our nation. The fight for the rights and dignity of the Latina/o and immigrant communities is the single most important political question for our nation today. Only we can resolve this question in our favor. California, as the single largest Latina/o state in the nation, will lead the country. Monday, March 31st, is our chance to continue the fight we have already begun and take an important step toward winning some of the rights we deserve.

Monday, March 31, 2008, marks the 8th anniversary of the California César Chávez Birthday Holiday. In 2000, Antonio Villaraigosa, now mayor of Los Angeles, sponsored and secured a California law which made March 31st, César Chávez’s birthday, a school and public workers holiday throughout the state of California meant to be honored in the same manner as Presidents Day or Martin Luther King Day. Across the state, many public workers get the day off in recognition of the holiday. San Francisco and Oakland public schools as well as many colleges and universities across California close during the holiday. However, the majority of predominantly Latina/o school districts in California, including LAUSD, San Jose, and Sacramento, do little to nothing to honor the holiday. The vast majority of public schools, colleges and universities in our state hold no celebrations to honor his legacy, no school-wide assemblies to teach the young people of our state about his importance to the history of our nation. All of this, despite the fact that the law urges schools to close and hold school-wide assemblies in honor of the holiday. This year, UCLA, UC-Berkeley and other UC’s are diminishing the holiday by celebrating it when students are off the campuses and holding their first day of classes on the designated Chávez holiday.

César Chávez was the most persistent Latina/o civil rights leader of the 20th century. His name is synonymous with the struggle of the Latina/o and immigrant communities for equality, justice, and respect. The civil rights and union movement he led lifted Mexican-American and other immigrant workers from invisibility and turned our communities into a powerful force for freedom in this society. Across the country, streets, schools, parks, and other public institutions have been named in his honor. Murals emblazoned on buildings pay tribute to his memory and the movement he led. Yet young people, in particular in our state, are deprived of any real knowledge of him or the struggles he led.

The purpose of our education must be to learn about who we are, how we can express our creativity and talents, and about the society we live in and how we can change it for the better. Our education would be improved immeasurably if we attended schools which treated us and our communities with respect and refused to accept maintaining Latina/o invisibility. Instead of holding boring and demeaning assemblies to lecture us on bad attendance or poor test scores, we need school administrators prepared to hold assemblies on how we can successfully struggle to end the forced segregation and racism which deform our opportunities to learn and go to college. We need assemblies which give us the collective opportunity to learn how we can successfully struggle to win our rights and equality.

Too often, attending school feels more like a prison sentence than an opportunity to learn. We languish in overcrowded, run-down schools without the resources we need to succeed. Learning should be exciting and joyous. The schemes of politicians and well-paid educators to “improve” our education—mayoral takeovers, charters, small schools, academies, and stripping us of our right to self expression by putting us in uniforms—have all failed. Simple, obvious, and cheap solutions like showing us respect, treating us with dignity, listening to our concerns and building up our pride and self-worth through events like celebrating the Chávez holiday are never put into practice. It is clear that the powers-that-be fear our asserting our power and improving our lives more than they fear our failing.

We deserve better.

We demand school-wide assemblies for the Chávez Holiday so that we can learn about how the determination of ordinary people like us can change history. We demand the opportunity to celebrate who we are. We need to experience the pride we feel when the contributions of the Latina/o and immigrant communities are recognized by ourselves and others. We want the schools we attend—from the teachers on up to the school district superintendent and Board members—to show in action that they truly believe in our ability to succeed. Holding school-wide assemblies for the Chávez Holiday and closing schools to recognize the César Chávez Birthday Holiday is an easy way for the district to make that declaration. We want the César Chávez Holiday to be recognized in the same way that Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Day are recognized. This demand is not complicated or hard to meet. We can win it, if we fight.

The University of California system needs a change of direction too. UCLA and UC-Berkeley in particular have been moving backwards since they began implementing the state ban on affirmative action over twelve years ago, against the interests of the majority of the student body and Latina/o, black, and Native American students in particular. While our generation has distinguished itself for breaking the racial and gender barriers to the American presidency, college campuses in California have experienced a fortification of those barriers against minorities and women gaining a college degree. At UCLA and UC-Berkeley, the enforcement of Proposition 209 has driven down underrepresented minority enrollment to the token levels that existed forty years ago. California’s top public institutions have become hovels of hostile treatment for the few underrepresented minority students who gain entry to them. We cannot accept these conditions any longer, not in the face of a young generation so eager to do away with the old social divisions.

Our generation needs a voice to speak for our own interests and aspirations. Our demands for progress need to be heard beyond the vote tallies in primary caucuses—we need to be heard here and now. In this state. On this campus. Everywhere. We need our own leaders, and we need to BE leaders, ourselves. That is why the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAM) exists. We are the leaders of our generation. Join BAMN and march for equality, dignity, and respect on the César Chávez Birthday Holiday!

A Political Program and Perspectives for Our Movement

• BAMN Declaration on Immigrant Rights

• Where We Go From Here: Report on the March 30, 2007 walkouts and perspective for our how our struggle for dignity and equality can win.

• Call to Action for Leaders of the New Civil Rights Movement: Report and perspectives coming out of the spring 2006 mass mobilizations.

• Youth Declaration for a New Civil Rights Movement

• BAMN's Principles

States that officially recognize the Chávez Birthday but give no holiday:
Arizona, Colorado, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin

States with an official Chávez Holiday:
California (state government offices close, but holiday is ignored by most schools, city governments, and workplaces)

Schools that shut down for the Chávez Holiday:
Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego (some schools only), Hayward

University of California

CSULA (California State University-Los Angeles)