    [United States Statutes at Large, Volume 124, 111th Congress, 2nd Session]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    PROCLAMATION 8487--MAR. 31, 2010

    Proclamation 8487 of March 31, 2010
    Cesar Chavez Day, 2010
    By the President of the United States of America
    A Proclamation

    The rights and benefits working Americans enjoy today were not easily
    gained; they had to be won. It took generations of courageous men and

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    women, fighting to secure decent working conditions, organizing to
    demand fair pay, and sometimes risking their lives. Some, like Cesar
    Estrada Chavez, made it the cause of their lives. Today, on what would
    have been his 83rd birthday, we celebrate Cesar's legacy and the
    progress achieved by all who stood alongside him.
    Raised by a family of migrant farm workers, Cesar Chavez spent his youth
    moving across the American Southwest, working in fields and vineyards,
    and experiencing firsthand the hardships he would later crusade to
    abolish. At the time, farm workers were deeply impoverished and
    frequently exploited, exposed to very hazardous working conditions, and
    often denied clean drinking water, toilets, and other basic necessities.
    The union Cesar later founded with Dolores Huerta, the United Farm
    Workers of America (UFW), still addresses these issues today.
    After serving in the United States Navy, Cesar Chavez became a community
    organizer and began his lifelong campaign for civil rights and social
    justice. Applying the principles of nonviolence, he empowered countless
    laborers, building a movement that grew into the UFW. He led workers in
    marches, strikes, and boycotts, focusing our Nation's attention on their
    plight and using the power of picket lines to win union contracts.
    ``The love for justice that is in us is not only the best part of our
    being, but it is also the most true to our nature,'' Cesar Chavez once
    said. Since our Nation's earliest days of independence, we have
    struggled to perfect the ideals of equal justice and opportunity
    enshrined in our founding documents. As Cesar suggests, justice may be
    true to our nature, but as history teaches us, it will not prevail
    unless we defend its cause.
    Few Americans have led this charge so tirelessly, and for so many, as
    Cesar Chavez. To this day, his rallying cry--``S!, se puede,'' or ``Yes,
    we can,''--inspires hope and a spirit of possibility in people around
    the world. His movement strengthened our country, and his vision lives
    on in the organizers and social entrepreneurs who still empower their
    neighbors to improve their communities.
    NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of
    America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and
    the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2010, as
    Cesar Chavez Day. I call upon all Americans to observe this day with
    appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor Cesar
    Chavez's enduring legacy.
    IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of
    March, in the year of our Lord two thousand ten, and of the Independence
    of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-fourth.
    BARACK OBAMA