César E. Chávez, 1927-1993
Berkeley Celebrates “Si Se Puede!”
Chávez Commemoration Home • Calendar of Events • Resources
» C O M M U N I T Y E V E N T S
BERKELEY FARMERS' MARKETS
March 20th through April 20th
- Special information and displays celebrating César Chávez's leadership
- The history of the farm worker’s movement
- Current ways to get involved to protect farm workers and the environment.
Saturdays: 10am - 3pm, Center St @ MLK, Jr. Way
Tuesdays: 2pm - 6pm, Derby St. @ MLK, Jr. Way
Thursdays: 3pm - 7pm, Shattuck @ Rose St
bfm@ecologycenter.org
SPRING
EQUINOX GATHERING (Planting season begins)
Monday, March 20th, 5:30pm - 6:30pm
(click image to enlarge)
Workshop by Science Educator David Glaser
Meaning of the Seasons/Update on Chávez Memorial
Location: Interim Solar Calendar, César Chávez Park
Directions: http://www.solarcalendar.org
EARTH TEAM
Saturday, March 27, 10am – 1:30pm
Environmental Service Project
Middle & high school students, teachers & youth leaders
Habitat Restoration Project/Chávez Celebration
Location: Berkeley Aquatic Park
For reservations (Space is limited)
(510) 520-1111, chicoryb@earthteam.net
www.earthteam.net/
ECOLOGY CENTER
Thursday, March 30, 2006, 7pm - 8:30pm
Cesar Chavez Day Film Showing: Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame"
The plight of America's farm workers entered the country's consciousness with a bang in 1960. On Thanksgiving Day, CBS broadcast Edward R. Murrow's documentary "Harvest of Shame." The film was a graphic portrait of the terrible labor and living conditions of the very people who helped put the traditional Thanksgiving meal on the table. "Harvest of Shame" focused on workers in Florida's Palm Beach County. The resulting public outcry helped put farmworker conditions on the political agenda and helped pave the way for the farmworkers' movement that was to follow.
(Running time: 52 minutes.) Bring seat cushions and snacks.
Location: Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way, Berkeley.
Cost: No charge.
Info: 510-548-2220 x233.
CÉSAR
E. CHÁVEZ STATE HOLIDAY
March 31st
César Chávez Day was established by legislation authored by Senator Richard Polanco and signed by Governor Gray Davis on August 18, 2000. The César Chávez Day of Service and Learning program promotes service to the communities of California in honor of the life and work of César Chávez . State workers, including the students and staff of the University of California, have the day off.
CÉSAR
E. CHÁVEZ PARADE & FESTIVAL 2006
Saturday, April 1st, San Francisco
11 am - Assemble for parade, La Raza Park, 25th & Potrero
12 noon - Parade on 24th Street
1-5 pm - Program & Festival (23rd St & Valencia)
Music, food, entertainment
Info: 415-621-2655-2911 / cecparage@yahoo.com
GREEN
HOME EXPO
Saturday, April 29th
Civic Center Park
12 Noon -5 PM
Berkeley’s Green Home EXPO offers residents a chance to continue Cesar Chavez’s work of environmental and human health protection by getting rid of toxic waste materials in their homes. The theme of this year’s Chavez Commemorative Period is on Environmental Justice. Click here for more information.
BERKELEY FARMERS' MARKETS
Saturday, July 15, 2006
César Chávez "Fast for Life" Commemoration
- Speakers, cultural performers, organizational tabling. Endorsed
by the César Chávez Commemoration Committee.
Starting on July 17th to August 21, 1988--At age 61, Chavez conducted his last--and longest--public fast, his Fast for Life, for 36 days in Delano to call attention to farm workers and their children stricken by pesticides.
César said about the fast, " A fast is first and foremost personal. It is a fast for the purification of my own body, mind, and soul. The fast is also a heartfelt prayer for purification and strengthening for all those who work beside me in the farm worker movement. The fast is also an act of penance for those in positions of moral authority and for all men and women activists who know what is right and just, who know that they could and should do more. The fast is finally a declaration of non-cooperation with supermarkets who promote and sell and profit from California table grapes. During the past few years I have been studying the plague of pesticides on our land and our food," César continued "The evil is far greater than even I had thought it to be, it threatens to choke out the life of our people and also the life system that supports us all. The solution to this deadly crisis will not be found in the arrogance of the powerful, but in solidarity with the weak and helpless. I pray to God that this fast will be a preparation for a multitude of simple deeds for justice. Carried out by men and women whose hearts are focused on the suffering of the poor and who yearn, with us, for a better world. Together, all things are possible."
» S C H O O L E V E N T S
BERKELEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT
César Chávez School Day of Service & Learning
- Each teacher is encouraged to incorporate the State Approved Chávez Curriculum (K-12) into their lesson plans.
- School-site commemorations will be held on March 23rd
- Students are encouraged to engage in service-learning to honor Chavez during the commemorative period as an alternative to a school holiday.
Info: Mark Coplan, 981-6320, www.berkeley.k12.ca.us/
Thousand Oaks Elementary School
(click photos to enlarge)Thousand Oaks was awarded the 2005 Chávez Legacy Award by the Chávez family for its continuous and outstanding participation in the commemorative efforts.
This year, fourth and fifth grade students developed a curriculum and spent the day teaching students in the lower grades about the environment and non-violence. Here students (Jordan Baker & Antoun Eggleton, in the farmworkers T-shirts) staged a role play with third graders. The girls froze (Emma Moriconi in Poncho and Lakendra Griffin-Edwards) at this point, while other third graders gave examples of how to solve their problems non-violently.
Oxford Elementary School
Carla Inniss' 5th grade class will be presenting information about Cesar Chavez' life at a Community meeting on Friday morning at 8:00am. All day, classes will be planting in our school garden (lettuce and strawberries) and Chris Nakao, our gardening teacher, will be incorporating lessons about Chavez' life.
Janet Levenson, PrincipalMalcolm X Elementary School
The garden program at Malcolm X will be honoring Cesar Chavez Day by giving each student (K-3rd grade) a strawberry plant to take home. During this strawberry give-a-way, the garden teacher will be finding out what they know about Cesar Chavez and having a discussion about who he was and what he did for the farmworkers.
Cheryl Chinn, Principal* No planned activities submitted by other Berkeley schools. *
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
Thursday, April 20th, 12-2pm
“Fighting for the Environment and Transforming our Communities”
(Heller Lounge/MLKing Bldg)
• Linda Richardson, Bayview Hunters Point Project Area Committee and Co-founder of the Southeast Alliance for Environmental Justice
• Dr. Devon Peña, Professor of Anthropology at University of Washington. Author of The Terror of the Machine: Technology, Work, Gender, and Ecology on the U.S.-Mexico Border, Chicano Culture, Ecology, Politics: Subversive Kin, and Voces de aqua y tierra: Four Hundred Years of Acequia Farming in the Rio Arriba, 1598-1998
Sponsored by: MSD/City of Berkeley and the Ecology Center
Thursday, April 20th, 5:30pm-6:30pm
Ethnic Studies Book Celebration - 30 Stephens Hall/UCB
Dr. Peña (photo on the right) will speak on his new book titled: Mexican Americans and the Environment: Tierra y Vida
Sponsored by: Multicultural Student Development, Ethnic Studies Library,
Ecology Center and Chicano/Latino Alumni Club.Friday, April 21st, 5-7 p.m.
Welcome by UCB Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau and
Mayor of Berkeley, Tom Bates
• Dr. Devon Peña, a Prof of Anthropology and environmental justice scholar at Univ. of Washington will talk on the disproportionate impact of environmental toxins on poor people, particularly Mexican Americans.
•Susana de Alba, Center of Poverty, Race and the Environment, Fresno - Winner of the Rising Tortuga Award
•Recognitions & Scholarship Awards
-Chavez Angel Award presented by the East
Bay Farmworkers Support Committee
-Multicultural Student Development Scholarship
Awards
-DUE Awards for Door/Cubicle
•Performers/Booths
Location: Cesar E. Chavez Atrium, Chavez Student Center
Info: 510-642-1802, lupeg@uclink4.berkeley.eduApril 25 & 26, 2-6pm. (Reception)
Photo Exhibition: Dream What We Can Become and Rejoice,
A multimedia, bilingual exhibit of the farm worker’s experience “Dream What We Can Become and Rejoice” by George Elfie Ballis. This powerful art exhibit represents an important call for community empowerment through organizing on a broad range of social justice issues. “Dream...” displays 106 large black and white photos, short organizing docu-poem videos, music, and smellavision — simulated pesticide odor in a tiny room showing video of farm workers being sprayed with pesticides.
All photos and videos are by George Elfie Ballis, 80, a cutting edge movement photographer-film maker and organizer with over 50 years of experience. “Dream” runs through May 1st by appointment.
Center for Social Justice,
145 Boalt Hall, Univ. of California
FREE
Photo: George Elfie Ballis
» C I T Y E V E N T S
March 31 - April 27
Poster Exhibit
Berkeley Celebrates "Si Se Puede"
Prints courtesy of Alliance Graphics and other private collections
Cypress Conference Room
City Hall, 2180 Milvia (lst Floor)
BERKELEY PUBLIC LIBRARIES
March 20th – April 23rd
March 21 - March 30, 2006
Poster Exhibit
Display Cases Central LibraryA booklist has been printed and will be available at all city libraries. Also accessible at: http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/system/CHAVWEB06.pdf
Web based resources:
http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/system/Web_sites_featuring_César_Chávez.pdf
April 25th
Please join us for a showing of Chicano! (Episode 2).
The Struggle in the Fields: history of the Mexican American civil rights movement / produced by National Latino Communications Center and Galán Productions, Inc., in cooperation with KCET, Los Angeles
Central Library, 6:30 p.m.
3rd floor Community Meeting Room
2090 Kittredge St. (Downtown)
510-981-107
CITY COUNCIL
The Mayor & Council will issue a Proclamation honoring César E. Chávez and encourage the community to join them in commemorative activities and in service to the community
Info: cdevries@ci.berkeley.ca.us
VISIT
CÉSAR E. CHÁVEZ PARK
(click photos to enlarge)
The City will add brief biographical signage to the existing park signs. The 90-acre park was renamed by the City Council in 1996 to honor the labor leader. Visit the Interim Solar Calendar to understand seasonal agricultural cycles. The Calendar is the future site of the proposed Chavez Memorial.
Location: Near Berkeley Marina / DoubleTree Hotel
Info: http://www.solarcalendar.org
