Strange Little Progressive

(Thank you for your patience as I’ve gotten this article typed out. Unfortunately Delano media is for the most part comprised of luddites stuck in the 20th century, so I have had to transcribe the article – Annaleigh)

Obama still wants “fair” immigration policy, Salazar says
Bob Cane, Delano Record
February 24, 2011

The Obama Administration will continue working with the United Farm Workers of America and other individuals and organizations to work out a “fair” and “dignified” way of dealing with immigrants, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told an audience of several hundred gathered at the former UFW headquarters, outside Delano, Monday, for its dedication as a national historical monument.

“We’re going to get this done,” he assured the crowd, in a speech in which he said making the UFW’s “Forty Acres” site, three miles west of Delano, a historical monument would help tell an “untold” part of American history, apart which some would “sweep under the rug.”

“There is a reality that…not all of the American Story has been told…Part of what we’re doing [at the interior department, now] is telling all of “that story, which includes a lot of as yet unfulfilled promises, including the promise to ‘work for just and dignified immigration reform,” he said, to which the crowd responded with a unified call of the UFW motto: “¡Si se puede!”

Salazar said the UFW and the administration will continue to have to deal with places of resistance, where there is still “hate” in the country, “which will have to be met with the same courage [that] moved Cesar [UFW co-founder Cesar Chavez]”

He added there are still problems that must be solved, such as the improvement of migrant and non-migrant education, and the improvement of farm worker wages so that farm workers and migrant families will have enough money to support a decent quality of life.

“All of us who are here, we are celebrating an inconic significance in our lives and in our history,” said Salazar, who noted his long association with the union and the Chavez family. Salazar noted how the union campaigned for him when he was running for office and how he helped write the legislation which made Forty Aces a national historic site.

Chavez staged several hunger strikes at the facility, including his last one, in the 1980s; and the first UFW contract with growers was signed here, with the aid of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-New York) an ardent supporter of Chavez and a nation-wide boycott which the union began here.

Chavez “really spoke and walked the prayer of St. Francis,” which includes the line: “When we give, we receive,” the interior secretary said. And the work that he started, in Delano, “is far from having been completed,” he said. Because of an unclear and unfair immigration policy there are still farm workers who “walk in the shadow of fear” that they will be picked up, perhaps even wrongly, and suddenly separated from their loved ones.

“Giants walked, – and still walk – these Forty Acres,” said Chavez’s successor as UFW president, Arturo Rodriguez, in introducing Salazar, “Names like Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta [UFW co-founder], Walter Reuther [whose United Auto Workers made a $50,000 grant to support the union], Kennedy and the Cardinal Roger Mahony – plus countless other gians whose names few recall.

But today’s ceremony is also historic because it is the first time a president’s cabinet secretary has come here. And if the young people in the audience learn anything about what went on, and goes on, at the Forty Acres, each of you will know you have the potential to be a giant too. All of you can tell your grandchildren that you were here today to see the Forty Acres granted our nation’s highest recognition.

The union has moved its national headquarters to the small town of Keene, in the mountains, in eastern Kern County, however it still uses the Forty Acres site for organizing in the Central San Joaquin Valley and several meetings and health-related activities, Rodriguez said.

In his welcoming remarks, Paul Chavez, president of the Cesar Chavez Foundations, also referred to giants.

“The Forty Acres was very much a place where giants walked,” he said, “But the work continues, from the San Joaquin to the Salinas to the Rio Grande Valleys and from Delano to San Francisco to Phoenix – wherever the farm worker movement organizes, campaigns for change, builds affordable housing, broadcasts Spanish-language educational radio, provides educational services for our youth and runs visitor and conferencing centers that train future generations of leaders.”

“The influence of those giants also reached far beyond this place, into the hearts of millions of Americans who were inspired and empowered by the examples set by my dad and countless other giants who made tremendous sacrifices and achieved great things, but whole names are largely lost to history.

Today we honor those set us on this course by their labors and sacrifices. But our movement also honors them by working hard each day to continue the work they began here at Forty Acres.”

Other speakers where: Huerta, U.S. Rep Jim Costa (D-20th dist) and National Parks service Director Jonathan Jarvis.

Before the dedication, entertainment was provided by the Delano, Robert F. Kennedy and Cesar Chavez high school choirs, the Cesar Chavez High School Titans Groove Band, and Los Charritos, a mariachi band composed of second to eighth grade Delano Union School District students.

As an aside, a neighbor of mine just suffered her husband’s deportation here in Delano the other day. Get to it Mr. President!