UC San Diego to Hold
Cesar Chavez Celebration in April

March 17 , 2009

By Pat JaCoby

The life and achievements of César E. Chávez, labor leader and champion of human rights, will be observed with a month-long series of diverse activities during April at the University of California, San Diego.

Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez.

Chávez’s March 31 birthday will be honored with a state-wide holiday and a UC San Diego campus observance on March 27. UC San Diego celebratory and educational Chávez activities begin April 6. All events are free and open to the public.

Chavez was the principal figure in the Chicano civil rights movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s. A leader in the struggle for working families and an advocate for non-violent solutions and respect for immigrants and all Americans of Mexican descent, his legacy will be the guiding thread in lectures, a film presentation, a panel discussion, a cultural celebration, a youth essay contest, a student field trip, and an artistic collaboration with the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.

Lecturers will include a noted scholar of Filipino and Chicano farm labor, and a panel of UCSD emeriti professors who participated in the Lumumba/Zapata educational reform movement of 1969.

Joan Cordova, associate professor and director of the Multicultural Collaborative at Drexel University School of Education, Philadelphia, will speak at noon April 13 on Filipinos in the Fields--Conflicts and Coalitions in the Cross-Cultural Center at UC San Diego.  Nancy Magpusao, a member of the UCSD César E. Chávez Recognition Planning Committee, said Cordova will discuss the history of farm labor unions in California and the alliance created in the 1960s between Mexican American and Filipino workers.  

Original participants in the Lumumba/Zapata educational reform movement at UCSD will return April 24 for a 40-year reunion.  In 1969, students and faculty proposed a new vision for Third College that would be more inclusive of communities of color, offer a curriculum grounded in the pressing issues of the day, and allow for more democratic policies that stressed student governance.

Although the Lumumba/Zapata experiment did not achieve all of its goals, it is a landmark moment in the history of activism and progressive change at UC San Diego. According to Jorge Mariscal, professor of Literature, the Lumumba/Zapata student demands foresaw many of the most pressing educational issues affecting communities of color that are still unresolved today.

Other activities in the month-long salute to César E. Chávez include:

• The High School Essay Contest Awards Presentation and Breakfast, 7:30 a.m., March 30, San Diego Convention Center. Presented by the Early Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) and the César E. Chávez Recognition Planning Committee. Keynote speaker:  Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union.
• A panel discussion on Chicano Studies: Past, Present, Future, 5 p.m., April 2, Cross-Cultural Center. Presented by UCSD Colectiva Chicana and the Cross-Cultural Center.
• The 24th annual Cultural Celebration, all day, April 4, UC San Diego’s Thurgood Marshall College. Music, dance, food, and art from around the world.
• Screening of the film, A Class Apart, 4:30 p.m., April 23, UCSD Cross-Cultural Center. The story of the first Mexican American attorneys to argue in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• A field trip to Chicano Park for the 39th Celebration of the Park in Barrio Logan. April 25, 11:30 a.m. Food, vendors, entertainment, free transportation. UC San Diego students only. Presented by the Center for Student Involvement.
• The César E. Chávez celebration finale April 30 will feature theatrical performances, poetry, and art at the Centro Cultural de la Raza in Balboa Park.  Called the "Voices of the New Califas," the event will include local artists as well as performers from Los Angeles and Oakland. Among these are the acting troupe “headRush” from the San Francisco area, spoken word artist Cesar Cruz, and local San Diego artists.

Literature Professor Mariscal chairs the UCSD César E. Chávez Recognition Planning Committee, comprised of student and staff volunteers from across the UC San Diego campus. For further information on Chávez activities visit the website, http://blink.ucsd.edu/go/chavez, or call (858) 822-4059.

Media Contact: Pat JaCoby, 858 534-7404