[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 54 (Wednesday, March 28, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E655]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ON URGING THE ESTABLISHMENT AND OBSERVATION OF A LEGAL PUBLIC HOLIDAY 
                      IN HONOR OF CESAR E. CHAVEZ

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. SILVESTRE REYES

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 27, 2007

  Mr. REYES. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Res. 76, 
urging the establishment and observation of a legal public holiday in 
honor of Cesar E. Chavez.
  Cesar Chavez is an iconic figure of the Civil Rights Era, a man 
Robert F. Kennedy noted as ``one of the heroic figures of our time.'' 
Cesar Chavez was born on March 31, 1927, in Yuma, AZ. He spent most of 
his youth working on farms throughout the Southwest and California, and 
it was there that Cesar Chavez came to understand the uniquely arduous 
conditions agricultural workers face in the U.S.
  For more than 3 decades, Cesar Chavez worked as a community 
organizer, labor leader and civil rights activist. Influenced by 
figures such as Mahatma Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he 
embraced strategies of nonviolence in working to improve the conditions 
of America's agricultural working poor. He cofounded the National Farm 
Workers Association (NFWA), which later became the United Farm Workers 
(UFW) of America. As a labor leader, Cesar Chavez employed peaceful 
tactics such as fasts, boycotts, strikes, and pilgrimages toward 
achieving fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits and humane 
living conditions for thousands of workers everywhere. These efforts 
resulted in the first industry-wide labor contracts in the history of 
American agriculture, and led to the passage of the 1975 California 
Agricultural Relations Act, a bill designed to serve California's farm 
workers.
  Cesar Chavez died on April 23, 1993, and in 1994, President Clinton 
posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to him, the 
highest civilian honor in the U.S. Now, 5 States, including Arizona, 
California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, celebrate Cesar Chavez's 
birthday as a State holiday. I ask my colleagues in Congress to join me 
in supporting H. Res. 76, urging and establishing Cesar Chavez's 
birthday, March 31st, as a national holiday, and commemorating the 
legacy of one of the most heroic figures of our time.

                          ____________________