Cesar Chavez Day celebrated at namesake school
Before Cesar Chavez died 22 years ago, he made one important dedication — Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Coachella. It’s the first and only school he personally dedicated before he died.
Every year on Cesar Chavez Day, March 31st, students march in his honor. They all wear red and chant “si se puede!”, waving Mexican and American flags.
A civil rights icon, Chavez fought for the rights of farm-workers and day laborers. He’s know for forming United Farm Workers, a movement that directly impacts many of the kids here.
“For them, it’s not just a story, in a book, for them it is their life,” says Principal Robert J. Hughes. “A lot of their parents do work from before the sun comes up, to when it goes down in the fields.”
Coachella Councilman V. Manuel Perez knows the school quite well. His two sons went there.
“There’s a lot of pride here because they see their parents going to work every day, working hard, 4 in the morning, coming back at 5 in the afternoon,” Perez says, “kids come to school and realizing what their parents are going through, and understand they have a responsibility and obligation to get education, possibly a higher education, and come back home to help others.”
Chavez once said, “Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.” It’s a message that hit home for young Mia Escarsega.
“He was respectful,” explains the seven-year-old girl, adorning a red “United Farm Workers” shirt like her peers, “he helped a lot of farm workers.”
“There’s many schools named after him in the United States,” says Councilman Perez, “but this was the first, right here, where the movement began.”
