Volunteers visit farms to pay tribute to revered immigration
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Morgan Hill – A week of protests ended with a celebration.
As South Valley students congregated again on Friday to demonstrate against proposed federal immigration legislation, a group of volunteers visited valley fields and makeshift work camps to honor the life of Cesar Chávez, the patron saint of immigrant laborers.
“The cause of his sainthood may not be formal,” said the Rev. Jon Pedigo, of St. Julie Billiart Parish in south San Jose. “His beatification is in the lifting up of the dignity of every immigrant and the conditions of their work.”
Chávez, who founded what became the United Farm Workers and led a grassroots movement to improve the lives of farmworkers across the country, died in 1993. He would have been 79 Friday.
His birthday has been an official holiday in California since 2001, and for the last four years a group led by San Jose resident Monica Gomez has marked the day by delivering bag lunches to South County farmworkers and day laborers.
Gomez’s husband, Damian Trujillo, grew up on the broccoli farms of King City. Trujillo now reports news for NBC 11, but members of his family still work in agriculture. His father recently “retired” from a life of hard labor.
“It’s back-breaking work and not everyone will do it,” Trujillo said. “And when you’re too old to pick up a shovel, you retire.”
Friday, a group led by Gomez and Trujillo brought lunches to more than 150 workers in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, spreading joy to immigrants who have endured a long, rainy winter with little work, and the message of the man who fought so hard to make their lives better.
“When the holiday began, I wanted to do something to give back,” said Gomez, who met Chávez when she was a young girl. “The best way is to honor the farmworkers. That’s what Cesar would have wanted. It’s not a holiday for laborers.”
The volunteers visited the Day Laborer’s Center in Morgan Hill, Chiala Farms and a strawberry field in Gilroy. At each stop, a folk singer played the work songs and protest ballads of the farmworker movement and Pedigo offered a blessing.
“I thanked God for the gift of these men and women who come to work in this country and give us a better life,” said Pedigo, formerly of St. Catherine’s Parish in Morgan Hill. “I asked that they be protected from storms caused by the climate and storms caused by the politics of anti-immigration.”
The songs, performed by Yaocoatl Montoya, recalled migrant workers’ decades-long battle for the same rights afforded native workers. He sang about striking workers holding out for more than a plate of beans and the hardluck lives of farmworker children.
“The songs I performed are the same songs performed on the picket lines,” Montoya said. “It’s my responsibility to continue that history, especially for the young people. My contribution is to sing the very same songs I sang with [Chávez].”
The life of Chávez is taught to California school children, but most immigrant workers have never heard of him. Although the workers didn’t understand why they were being honored, they were deeply grateful.
Gloria Diego, who is a supervisor of a production line at Chiala Farms said she knew little of Chávez except that “he did a lot of stuff for people who worked in the fields.”
“it means a lot,” she said of Friday’s celebration, “to know they care about helping us have a better life.’
