Hundreds of people gathered at the Southside Park in Sacramento for the 23rd annual César Chávez March on Saturday, March 29. Clouds of palo santo and the sound of horns made of conches filled the air as a group of Native American dancers opened the day’s events with a blessing in the form of a song and dance. Their backdrop was a colorful Chicano art mural painted in 1977 by artist Juan Cervantes.

One by one, speakers took to the steps to share impassioned words honoring the life and legacy of the iconic worker’s rights leader, as people in the crowd shouted, “Sí se puede!” — “Yes, it can be done !”

There has never been a more urgent time to educate the public on the worker’s rights movement than now, with the current presidential administration taking aim at union rights and middle class jobs. 

“Realize that we have a big fight ahead of us the next four years. We have to keep what we have and not give up any ground to this administration,” said Andy La Torre, SEIU 1021 Executive Board member serving on the budget and finance committee. 

Chávez was a farm worker who began to organize communities in the 1950s in the face of economic hardship and injustice at the hands of farm owners. Chávez insisted on peaceful protests and was known to fast for weeks to get his message across. The United Farm Workers union that he and Dolores Huerta started launched a nationwide boycott of California grapes in 1968, which led to Governor Jerry Brown signing the country’s first and only law guaranteeing farm workers the right to organize: the California Labor Relations Act of 1975.

“We need to make sure that the youth are connected to the past and understand the sacrifices that have happened in order to keep the legacies alive,” said Bruce Boyer, an SEIU 1021 member and employee of the Sacramento City Unified School District. 

“Especially now, we need to support workers rights and stand in solidarity. One of the things the city council recently did was reaffirm our status as a sanctuary city,” Sacramento City Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum. “The attacks that are coming to working populations and immigrants right now are unprecedented and unconscionable, so this is where we’re all called upon to stand together to support each other. I’m proud to be able do that.”

Some fruits of the work of Chávez and the farm workers’ rights movement include a burial program, construction of affordable housing, creation of the first credit union for farm workers, health clinics, daycare centers, and job-training programs.