Annotations for Subject-headings: Lowriders

They came by the thousands to the 40-acre ranch near Delano to pay their respects to the man who had fought an entire lifetime to give dignity and more opportunity to those who picked the food on America's tables. César Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers Union, the first successful attempt to organize agricultural workers in this country, died April 23 at age 66. In Delano, the mass procession behind Chávez's simple pine coffin was at times over two miles long, as everyone, from farmworkers to the famous, came to pay their respects.

We shall miss…we shall miss César's powerful voice. His life and its example call each of us to a higher purpose, to greater resolve, to right the wrongs, to correct the injustices that continue to plague our communities, whether it's urban or rural, industrial or agricultural. It is an honor to remember his valiant life and to recommit myself and that of my colleagues as we go forward to try to bring for our children and our children's children the vision and the dream that we share. Entonces, con su permiso…hablo poquito en Español.

[Crowd cheering]

César Chávez es mi hermano, mi amigo, mi compañero. ¡Viva la raza! ¡Viva la causa! ¡Viva César Chávez!

[Crowd cheering]

A proclamation by the President of the United States of America upon the death of César Chávez. "César Chávez came from the humbled yet proud beginnings of a migrant worker to lead those same workers in a movement that irreversibly shaped our nation and brought justice and dignity to thousands. After the Depression ..."

In 1965, I believe, or '66, we marched with César here in Delano. On the efforts to do something about publicizing the boycott and the plight of farmworkers.

He moved us in a way that has come to be known as el movimiento y la causa.

Repeat after me. Boycott grapes! Boycott grapes! Boycott grapes!

In his loving…in his loving memory, please, boycott grapes. Make sure that our children do not have to suffer the pesticides anymore. What has happened to César will happen to all of us, and may we all be as lucky as César and be able to lay our heads down, close our eyes while reading a magazine on the Aztec nation and go to sleep and end our lives in that manner. We should all be that lucky.

¡Nosotros venceremos! ¡Nosotros venceremos ahora!

The life of César Chávez, his commitment to a cause, inspired many across the country, and as thousands gathered at the memorial service in Delano, California, Diana Martínez collected these thoughts from friends and supporters of César Chávez.

Nosotros venceremos.

Whether from a celebrity, politician, or average citizen, everyone who came to pay their respect seemed to have a story about how César Chávez touched their lives.

His life was an example to people, and millions of Hispanics and millions of Americans who will never live on a farm had their lives changed by him.

Mark Grossman first met Chávez in 1969 as a student. Grossman worked summers and vacations on the grape boycott from 40 Acres, United Farm headquarters in Delano. He learned firsthand how César was always able to get people to do a little more than what they first expected. Grossman wound up working for the union for 24 years and became his press secretary and personal aide. No one, he said, worked harder than the labor leader.

No one could tell César Chávez to slow down. The man was working 20-hour days, traveling constantly. I can't count the number of times that I'd meet him at his yard…you know, at 3 o’ clock in the morning, because…at La Paz near Bakersfield, because we had to be in Sacramento or San Francisco at 11:00, and we'd spend a full day of appearances and rallies and news conferences and protests or negotiations and be back dropping him off at 3 o’ clock the next morning.

Before becoming a politician, California State Senator Art Torres also worked for the UFW. As a young man, he was inspired by his unbending principles.

I remember, one time, we were driving from…Thermal, California in 1973 and the two dogs were in the back, Boycott and Huelga, and we stopped at a gas station…and we had just come from a rally. We had collected all this money, and I said, "Well, brother, we need to pay the gas bill." He says, "You're not going to touch that money until it's accounted for, back at La Paz." I said, "But we have no money to pay for the gas." "Then you go out there and you find the money from somebody else, but you're not going to touch that money because that has to be accounted for. It's the workers' money."

Senator Robert Kennedy, Jr., says his family became more aware of the power of the Latino vote because of Chávez.

I remember in the 1980 campaign when he came to Arizona, which he didn't have to do, during a primary, when Senator Kennedy was already in bad shape in the election, but he produced hundreds of lowriders who came with him because they were devoted to him to get out the vote for us on primary election day. He went into the field, sent organizers, had them register actually in the field, and we won the state of Arizona just because of César.

My first job that César gave me when we came to Delano was to go get the money from the workers at $3.50.

Dolores Huerta was with Chávez from the very beginning. She said he always knew gaining rights for farmworkers would mean tremendous sacrifice.

I went back to César, and I said, "César, they can't afford that much money." And he said, "If they don't give that $3.50, they will never get out of their poverty.”

Father William Wood, president of the National Catholic World Life Conference, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, say Chávez will never be forgotten.

Because of our common faith, and especially with what I see here tonight, with the face of the people, I see that that it's really true when they say "Viva César Chávez." He really does live.

Chávez was a seed sower. He planted seeds of dignity, and those seeds will keep sprouting in the heart of people. As long as farmworkers fight for a decent wage, Chávez lives. As long as they fight against the horrors of the insecticides, Chávez lives. As long as they fight for the right to vote, Chávez lives. As long as they fight to build coalition, Chávez lives.

For Latino USA, I'm Diana Martínez.

Hollywood movies and television commercials often give us quick, concise images of people and places along the US-Mexico border. Going beyond those media-made notions towards real understanding is difficult, even impossible. Without firsthand contact. In the nation's capital, there was an attempt to go beyond those media images of the border. It was part of the Smithsonian Institution's annual Festival of American Folklife. But as Franc Contreras reports from Washington, real, cultural understanding required more than a taste of border foods or the sounds of border music.

[Natural sounds of Washington D.C.] Some young guys from Mexicali were standing in a crowd between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. They wore baggy pants, some had dark glasses, and others' headbands pulled way down low. To some people, they looked like gangsters, but they're not. They're cholos with a distinctive style of dress that comes straight from the border. Suddenly, they started speaking Spanish out loud.

Bueno, aqui pasa todo los dias la patrulla fronteriza. Que tal si sacamos la lengua?

Border patrol goes through here every day. Let's stick our tongues out at them.

[Natural sounds of Folklife Festival] Then from behind a food stamp where some beans were cooking, A guy came out wearing all white with a pointed hood clan style. [Highlight, natural sounds of Folklife Festival] It was the border patrol chasing down one of the Cholos people watching realized it was a play by a theater group from Mexicali, a border town south of California. The actors were hitting one of the main issues on the border, immigration. Their translator is Quique Aviles.

A lot of people complain that they don't understand because the show is being done in Spanish, but at the same time, that's what life is. When Latinos come here, we don't understand either. So, we were talking about that last night. It's sort of like returning the favor.

A woman walked past us, dressed like the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. She went past a display where a man was making guitars by hand, past a group of muralists from El Paso who were painting an eagle, and over to a food stand where a Black woman who speaks only Spanish was serving tamales and Tecate beer, and next to her was a woman from Texas.

We're breaking a lot of preconceived ideas, a lot of biases that perhaps have been most influenced by the media.

Cynthia Vidaurri teaches at the Southwestern Borderlands Cultural Studies and Research Center in Kingsville, Texas. She says, the American Folk Life Festival in Washington is an opportunity not only for people who've never seen the border, but also for people who've come here from the border to share their cultures.

The rest of the world perceives us as what the media makes us out to be, the movies, the news, and they're really thrilled to have a chance to say, this is who we are. We are living, breathing human beings that have the same needs as you do. We just take care of those needs in a slightly different fashion.

That sounds fairly straightforward, and some people walked away from here with more understanding about the people of the borderlands, but not without some effort. At one display, Romi Frias of El Paso was trying to explain to some people from Delaware, what a low rider is, you know, a highly stylized car, usually an older model with small thin tires, maybe a mural painted on the hood and lowered about an inch from the pavement.

[Laughter] I tell people that it's really going to mess you up. You're doing about 55 and there's this monster pothole and you've got about an inch clearance. I've got a lot of friends that face that situation and unfortunately hadn't learned the hard way.

Later under a shaded area, there was a storytelling session. It was supposed to be about women on the border. An Indian woman from the Mexican side sat on the left. On the right was a white woman who works for the US Border Patrol in the middle of the two women sat a university professor. He was monopolizing the discussion. Then at another storytelling session about immigration, the professor was taking over again. Some people in the back were saying it was typical. Here's this white male, the expert, not letting the others talk. After the session, I went over to him and learned his name is Enrique Lamadrid, a man of mixed races whose family migrated to the Americas from France and Spain like many others along the border. His family goes back generations. Lamadrid says he saw many surprised people at the folk fest who learned of the amazing cultural diversity along the border.

I mean, just the amazement that you can see in people's faces when they encounter these two black women over here from the black Seminole community. They're Mexicans. So these are really complex cultural entities.

Complex, like the land where they live. The border is often characterized by clashing cultural forces. Lamadrid says People living on the border cross the international boundary daily, but it's no big deal because it's part of their daily life. And he said the people living along the 2000-mile separating line did not come to the border. It came to them. Then he mentioned a series of treaties between the US and Mexico dating back to the late 18 hundreds. It's a complex history, a balancing act, he says, because the needs of border people compete with the national needs of Washington and Mexico City, and the result of that struggle is border culture.

But culture isn't in your blood. Culture is something that you learn. Culture and identities are things that are negotiated and forged every day of our lives as we live our lives out in specific areas of the country.

Lamadrid told me about a sewer line that broke during the festival Sunday morning. Smelly dark sewer water flooded a small area around some of the exhibits. He and the other said it reminded them of some border towns where pollution has become a major problem. But on the day the sewer broke, people taking part in the American Folk life Festival this year continued their efforts to share their life's experiences as the smell and humidity surrounded them. For Latino USA, I'm Franc Contreras in Washington.