[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 17881]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



             INTRODUCTION OF CESAR ESTRADA CHAVEZ STUDY ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SOLIS. Mr. Speaker, in the wake of the most horrific attack in 
the United States history, we have seen many modern American heroes 
among us.
  Today's heroes are firefighters, police officers, chaplains, 
paramedics, steelworkers and those who have fought to prevent further 
destruction, and the families of the victims who display the strength 
of going on and living.
  Their heroism is in the spirit of those who have gone before them 
such as Martin Luther King, Junior, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, 
and Cesar Chavez, former founding president of the United Farm Workers.
  Today, Mr. Speaker, I proudly introduce this bill that will honor one 
of our past heroes, Cesar Estrada Chavez, founder of the United Farm 
Workers and passionate champion of human and civil rights. These values 
and beliefs and dedication to all working men and women, regardless of 
socioeconomic background, make him truly an American hero.
  This bill will highlight his contributions by studying the ways to 
honor him within the National Park Service. It is a first step in 
honoring his tremendous accomplishments and the local communities where 
he placed his footprints.
  Cesar Chavez was a humble man. Little did anyone know of the 
greatness he would bestow upon future generations. In his early 
childhood, Cesar was raised as a farm worker in Yuma, Arizona. Raised 
during the Great Depression, his family lost everything and were forced 
to join thousands of farm workers that wandered the southwest just to 
find work.
  During his youth, the Chavez family migrated throughout the southwest 
working on various farms that fed our country. The young Cesar Chavez 
experienced firsthand the hardships and injustices of thousands of farm 
workers at that time. His home was barely livable and his school hardly 
fit to be called a schoolhouse.
  Unfair labor practices, harassment, abuse, long hours, low pay, 
hazardous working conditions and limited educational opportunities kept 
many farm workers from being self-sufficient and empowered citizens. 
Witnessing and experiencing this type of lifestyle, Cesar Chavez sought 
to make changes in the way farm workers were treated throughout the 
country.
  He united many others who suffered similar atrocities with those who 
empathized with the struggle and became a part of the union movement, 
and back in 1952, he left the fields and joined the Community Service 
Organization. There he conducted voter registration drives and 
campaigns against racial and economic discrimination.
  In 1962, he took that vast experience, his compassion, along with his 
brothers and sisters and developed a multiethnic struggle and started 
the National Farm Workers Association, which today is known as the 
United Farm Workers of America.
  The UFW, as it is known, succeeded in organizing the oppressed. They 
overcame this opposition through boycotts and pickets, and when all 
else failed, Cesar Chavez almost died by participating in a hunger 
strike.
  Chavez was a student of Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent philosophies. He 
knew that he could not unite people through violent means but he could 
connect them by joining hands in peaceful demonstrations.
  Since its inception the UFW has achieved incredible results 
throughout the country. Fair wages, better health care coverage, 
pension benefits, housing, pesticide regulations and countless other 
rights and privileges that protect all farm workers in the fields of 
the United States.
  In the past, we have honored other heroes like Martin Luther King, 
Jr., and the civil rights movement, through the national parks and 
land. The life of Cesar Chavez and his family provides an outstanding 
opportunity to interpret the history of agricultural labor in the 
United States through honoring him through this particular National 
Park Service.
  Most importantly, this bill that I introduced today provides an 
excellent opportunity for us to honor a true American hero.

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