Students of Voices College-Bound Language Academy honored Cesar Chavez on the holiday named after the farmworkers’ rights activist by hosting a march and demonstration at Nordstrom Park in east Morgan Hill.
The afternoon of March 31, known as Cesar Chavez Day in California, about 140 elementary students from the charter school marched with parents and teachers from their campus on Murphy Avenue to the park. Along the way, they chanted motivational slogans such as “Si se puede!” and held up pictures of Chavez and other activists.
Some of the adults marching played hand drums and bells. Voices principal Juan Carlos Villasenor led the march while directing the students through a megaphone.
Shortly after the march concluded at Nordstrom Park, Villasenor handed the megaphone to Monica Delgado, a granddaughter of Chavez.
“It’s very important to my grandfather that we come together as a community to honor the people who bring fruits and vegetables to our plates—the farmworkers,” said Delgado, who works for the City of Morgan Hill as budget manager. “When you think of Cesar, you should always think of farmworkers.”
Chavez, who died in 1993, was an American labor and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. He became known as an influential Latino rights activist who dedicated his life to supporting farmworkers.
Every year, March 31 is Cesar Chavez Day in California, Colorado and Texas.
The demonstration was also a celebration of activism more broadly, one of Voices Academy’s key values. At one point while the students were assembled at Nordstrom Park, Villasenor asked the second-grade students to tell an adult in the audience something they have learned about activism.
Luis Casas, 7, approached a Times reporter and told him about Mahatma Gandhi, another world-renowned activist who peacefully led the Indian independence movement in the 1940s.
“Gandhi said, ‘We don’t fight, we talk. We want peace,’” Casas said.
Students who participated in the march were in grades transitional kindergarten through second, Villasenor said.
Voices Language Academy is a dual-language charter school organization that opened an elementary school in Morgan Hill in 2015. The school is currently housed at Advent Lutheran Church on Murphy Avenue, but is in the process of acquiring a permanent facility in Morgan Hill.
