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From: Carrillo, Francisco <francisco_carrillo@ios.doi.
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:56 AM
Subject: César E. Chávez National Monument Welcomes New Citizens on César E. Chávez Day
To: Francisco Carrillo <Francisco_Carrillo@ios.doi.
Cc: Celinda Pena <celinda_pena@nps.gov>, Joan Padilla <joan_padilla@ios.doi.gov>
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 10:56 AM
Subject: César E. Chávez National Monument Welcomes New Citizens on César E. Chávez Day
To: Francisco Carrillo <Francisco_Carrillo@ios.doi.
Cc: Celinda Pena <celinda_pena@nps.gov>, Joan Padilla <joan_padilla@ios.doi.gov>
Friends,
KEENE, CA – César E. Chávez National Monument and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) Fresno Field Office will present a naturalization ceremony on March 31. Twenty-three people will be sworn in as citizens at the visitor center of the César E. Chávez National Monument on the birthday of the legendary civil rights leader. Superintendent Ruben Andrade, the son of a farm worker, will welcome the visitors to the historic site and Paul Chávez, son of César E. Chávez, will give remarks.
César E. Chávez National Monument became part of the National Park System in 2012. The site includes a visitor center that features multimedia presentations and exhibits, and a memorial garden in which César E. Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, is buried.
The National Park Service and USCIS maintain a formal partnership to enhance citizenship ceremonies by holding them in national parks throughout the country.
In honor of Cesar Chavez Day, the National Park Service and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will welcome twenty-three new citizens at a naturalization ceremony being held today at the Chávez National Monument in CA. (Media advisory below and attached)
I'd also like to flag for you this story in today's LA times regarding a former Interior colleague who is now serving as the deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.
César E. Chávez National Monument Welcomes
New Citizens on César E. Chávez Day
KEENE, CA – César E. Chávez National Monument and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service’s (USCIS) Fresno Field Office will present a naturalization ceremony on March 31. Twenty-three people will be sworn in as citizens at the visitor center of the César E. Chávez National Monument on the birthday of the legendary civil rights leader. Superintendent Ruben Andrade, the son of a farm worker, will welcome the visitors to the historic site and Paul Chávez, son of César E. Chávez, will give remarks.
César E. Chávez National Monument became part of the National Park System in 2012. The site includes a visitor center that features multimedia presentations and exhibits, and a memorial garden in which César E. Chávez, founder of the United Farm Workers of America, is buried.
The National Park Service and USCIS maintain a formal partnership to enhance citizenship ceremonies by holding them in national parks throughout the country.
# # #
Francisco Carrillo
Deputy Director of Intergovernmental & External Affairs
U.S. Department of the Interior
Office of the Secretary
(202) 208-5541 w (202) 412-8846
I remember when I was five years old, my parents drove 500 miles from South Texas to Dallas to take my brothers and me to Six Flags, a well-known amusement park. It was a financial sacrifice for them, but they were not going to let summer go by without a vacation for their kids.
On our way home, we stopped at a restaurant just outside Dallas. I remember it seemed like an eternity as we sat there; no one came to our table. After a long time, my father asked a server why no one had come to take our order.
The woman wearing a brown uniform and a white apron told him: “We don’t serve dogs or Mexicans.”
I don’t recall what my father said in reply. I only remember an expressionless look on the waitress’s face.
Enraged, my father rushed us out of the restaurant.
On the road my brothers and I sat in the back seat scared, as my dad sped at a 100 mph and raised his voice as he spoke to my mom. I heard the words puff out of his mouth: mis hijos (“my children”) and hombre (“man”). My mother convinced him to pull over, and they spoke quietly in Spanish. After a while, we got back on the road and travelled home in silence.
Years later, I asked my mom about the incident, recalling my father’s anger. She told me how he had experienced discrimination countless times to the point where he had accepted it as the norm. But that day was different. What was a reality for him, he didn’t want it to be for his children. It turns out he had not been yelling at my mother in the car; rather, he was furious that we had witnessed it happening to him.
When I was about 11 years old, I learned about a man named Cesar Chavez, who was touted as a hero to farm workers in California. He inspired a movement that changed the lives of men and women who were exploited in the fields. California is far from South Texas, but my father spoke about him at the kitchen table with great pride.
When I first saw a photograph of Cesar Chavez, I couldn’t stop staring. This hero, whose rallying call, “¡Si, se puede!” echoed across the country, looked like my father: dark skin, dark hair, a man with courage and resilience etched on his face.
I felt a sense of belonging, a connection to a movement beyond my border-town life.
Cesar Chavez is a hero for millions of Americans, and on March 31, we have the opportunity to reflect on his sacrifices, commitment and relentless defense of workers. But for me, Cesar Chavez is a man more familiar. He looked just like my father, brothers, uncles and all the men in my life growing up. But he is important not just because of what he did, but because he was a Mexican American like me, and a true American hero.
Diana Rubio
ACLU Southern California
Cesar Chavez: A Man Familiar to Me
By Diana Rubio
I remember when I was five years old, my parents drove 500 miles from South Texas to Dallas to take my brothers and me to Six Flags, a well-known amusement park. It was a financial sacrifice for them, but they were not going to let summer go by without a vacation for their kids.
On our way home, we stopped at a restaurant just outside Dallas. I remember it seemed like an eternity as we sat there; no one came to our table. After a long time, my father asked a server why no one had come to take our order.
The woman wearing a brown uniform and a white apron told him: “We don’t serve dogs or Mexicans.”
I don’t recall what my father said in reply. I only remember an expressionless look on the waitress’s face.
Enraged, my father rushed us out of the restaurant.
On the road my brothers and I sat in the back seat scared, as my dad sped at a 100 mph and raised his voice as he spoke to my mom. I heard the words puff out of his mouth: mis hijos (“my children”) and hombre (“man”). My mother convinced him to pull over, and they spoke quietly in Spanish. After a while, we got back on the road and travelled home in silence.
Years later, I asked my mom about the incident, recalling my father’s anger. She told me how he had experienced discrimination countless times to the point where he had accepted it as the norm. But that day was different. What was a reality for him, he didn’t want it to be for his children. It turns out he had not been yelling at my mother in the car; rather, he was furious that we had witnessed it happening to him.
When I was about 11 years old, I learned about a man named Cesar Chavez, who was touted as a hero to farm workers in California. He inspired a movement that changed the lives of men and women who were exploited in the fields. California is far from South Texas, but my father spoke about him at the kitchen table with great pride.
When I first saw a photograph of Cesar Chavez, I couldn’t stop staring. This hero, whose rallying call, “¡Si, se puede!” echoed across the country, looked like my father: dark skin, dark hair, a man with courage and resilience etched on his face.
I felt a sense of belonging, a connection to a movement beyond my border-town life.
Cesar Chavez is a hero for millions of Americans, and on March 31, we have the opportunity to reflect on his sacrifices, commitment and relentless defense of workers. But for me, Cesar Chavez is a man more familiar. He looked just like my father, brothers, uncles and all the men in my life growing up. But he is important not just because of what he did, but because he was a Mexican American like me, and a true American hero.
Diana Rubio
ACLU Southern California
Posted: 31 Mar 2014 06:50 AM PDT
By Sarita Gupta / Alternet This month, a new film documenting César Chávez’s historic campaign to organize farmworkers in America was released in time with what would have been his 87th birthday. Chávez rose to prominence as a founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW), where he organized thousands of poor Latino workers laboring in fields throughout central California. Through nonviolent but aggressive tactics — many of which we’ve seen revived today — Chávez and the UFW successfully won higher wages, safer working conditions, and collective bargaining rights for generations of farmworkers, culminating in the passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975. So as we celebrate the legacy of this historic leader, we must also pause to consider that today farmworkers — and others laboring for low wages along the food supply chain — are still struggling. Back then, Chávez and his supporters famously camped outside grocery stores to encourage shoppers to boycott grapes until conditions and wages improved. But today, instead of a grocery store, he may indeed have been standing outside of a Walmart.
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s Statement Recognizing Cesar Chavez Day
by NewMexicoDemocrats
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement in recognition of Cesar Chavez Day:
“Today we celebrate the life and work of Cesar Chavez and the people who fought alongside him for social justice to ensure that migrant farm workers were treated with dignity and respect, and given proper work conditions and appropriate pay. Cesar Chavez worked tirelessly to organize communities across the country and encouraged a movement that not only led to the first farm worker contracts in history but changed our country for the better.“As we remember the farm workers’ struggle and Cesar Chavez’ leadership, we honor his legacy and vision by fighting for an increase in the federal minimum wage, passing comprehensive immigration reform to bring 11 million people out of the shadows, and working for legislation that will help expand opportunity for all Americans."
On this Cesar Chavez Day, new report finds majority of farm accidents go unreported
1 day ago
By Karen Finney – UC Davis
Futurity
Federal agencies responsible for tracking workplace hazards fail to report 77 percent of the injuries and illnesses suffered by US agricultural workers and farmers.
Researchers say the findings greatly reduce the chance that safety and health risks will be corrected.
“Whatever anyone might have assumed about gaps in government statistics for agriculture, our study shows that the problem is actually about three times bigger than previously suspected,” says J. Paul Leigh, professor of public health sciences at University of California, Davis.
Leigh says the primary reasons for the discrepancy are the government’s focus on mid- to large-sized farming enterprises, which represent less than 50 percent of employment in the agricultural industry, along with the part-time nature of farm work and undisclosed information about injuries.
Published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology, the study combines data for 2011 on nonfatal work-related injuries and illnesses in agriculture, such as chemical exposures and musculoskeletal injuries, from a variety of sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics databanks for the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), the National Agricultural Workers Survey, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, and Current Population Survey.
The sources encompass a range of farming environments, including corporate farms, self-employed, family-owned, and small farms. Researchers adjusted the figures based on well-established estimates of underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses from research literature.
The team estimated 74,932 injuries and illnesses for crop farms and 68,504 for animal farms, totaling 143,436 cases. They also estimated that the SOII—the government’s premier source for tracking workplace nonfatal injuries and illnesses—alone missed 73.7 percent of crop farm cases and 81.9 percent of animal farm cases, for an average of 77.6 percent for all agriculture.
BEYOND THE FARM
The new study is believed to be the first to estimate 34 percent as the contribution of farmers and unpaid family workers to the total number of nonfatal injuries and illnesses.
“Our analysis used a combination of datasets along with reliable ratios to arrive at a more reasonable and accurate assessment than any single government resource can provide,” Leigh says. “The data also include all farming enterprises, rather than just those with 11 or more employees.”
Undercounting workplace injuries and illnesses affects society as a whole, since the costs tend to be shifted to government social programs or charity care. It also limits the ability to identify areas where safety and prevention efforts should focus.
“Agriculture is a major driver of economic wealth as well as one of the most hazardous employment environments in the nation,” Leigh says. “It could be an even more powerful economic force if we accurately counted and addressed the causes of harm to agricultural workers and farmers.”
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health provided funding for the study, to which researchers from Old Dominion University contributed.
Source: UC Davis
Futurity
Federal agencies responsible for tracking workplace hazards fail to report 77 percent of the injuries and illnesses suffered by US agricultural workers and farmers.
Researchers say the findings greatly reduce the chance that safety and health risks will be corrected.
“Whatever anyone might have assumed about gaps in government statistics for agriculture, our study shows that the problem is actually about three times bigger than previously suspected,” says J. Paul Leigh, professor of public health sciences at University of California, Davis.
Leigh says the primary reasons for the discrepancy are the government’s focus on mid- to large-sized farming enterprises, which represent less than 50 percent of employment in the agricultural industry, along with the part-time nature of farm work and undisclosed information about injuries.
Published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology, the study combines data for 2011 on nonfatal work-related injuries and illnesses in agriculture, such as chemical exposures and musculoskeletal injuries, from a variety of sources, including the Bureau of Labor Statistics databanks for the Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses (SOII), the National Agricultural Workers Survey, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, and Current Population Survey.
The sources encompass a range of farming environments, including corporate farms, self-employed, family-owned, and small farms. Researchers adjusted the figures based on well-established estimates of underreporting of workplace injuries and illnesses from research literature.
The team estimated 74,932 injuries and illnesses for crop farms and 68,504 for animal farms, totaling 143,436 cases. They also estimated that the SOII—the government’s premier source for tracking workplace nonfatal injuries and illnesses—alone missed 73.7 percent of crop farm cases and 81.9 percent of animal farm cases, for an average of 77.6 percent for all agriculture.
BEYOND THE FARM
The new study is believed to be the first to estimate 34 percent as the contribution of farmers and unpaid family workers to the total number of nonfatal injuries and illnesses.
“Our analysis used a combination of datasets along with reliable ratios to arrive at a more reasonable and accurate assessment than any single government resource can provide,” Leigh says. “The data also include all farming enterprises, rather than just those with 11 or more employees.”
Undercounting workplace injuries and illnesses affects society as a whole, since the costs tend to be shifted to government social programs or charity care. It also limits the ability to identify areas where safety and prevention efforts should focus.
“Agriculture is a major driver of economic wealth as well as one of the most hazardous employment environments in the nation,” Leigh says. “It could be an even more powerful economic force if we accurately counted and addressed the causes of harm to agricultural workers and farmers.”
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health provided funding for the study, to which researchers from Old Dominion University contributed.
Source: UC Davis
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