30 years after the passing of the labor leader Cesar Chavez, the non-profit “Amigos de Guadalupe” gathered Sunday in front of the Chavez family home in San Jose to hold a special mass in his honor.
A Mexican-American farmworker and union-member since the 1940s, Chavez would become a full-time labor organizer after being laid off in the 1950s. He and another legendary labor leader, Dolores Huerta, founded an organization together which would eventually become the United Farm Workers Labor Union in 1962.
Even so many years after his death, Chavez’s legacy is still celebrated in the Bay Area.
Last year, Amigos de Guadalupe purchased the Chavez family home in the Mayfair neighborhood of east San Jose, where he and his family lived in the early 1950s.
They hope to transform the home into a center where people can gather and learn more about Chavez’s legacy.
Maritza Maldonado, the executive director of Amigos de Guadalupe, said the purpose of the event was to show that Chavez’s legacy was still alive.
“We are here to remember him, to remember his struggle. But more importantly, to remember that the legacy has not died that we will continue to fight for people’s rights and for justice for all,” she said.
Source: NBC Bay Area
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