WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Lois Capps released the following statement celebrating Hispanic civil rights leader César E. Chávez’s birthday. 

Statement of the Honorable Lois Capps

Committee on Natural Resources

Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands

March 29, 2007

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I wanted to thank you for recognizing the importance of the Cesar Estrada Chavez Study Act, introduced by my colleague, Ms. Solis, and for holding a hearing on this bill.  I am a proud cosponsor of this bill, and I hope that this subcommittee will pass this bill soon.

The Cesar Estrada Chavez Study Act would require the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a study of sites relevant to Cesar Chavez’s life and work for social justice in Arizona, California, and any other relevant states. 

The study would determine if any of these sites needed to be preserved and interpreted for future generations, as well as if any of the sites were appropriate for listing on the National Register of Historic Places or designation as a National Historic Landmark.  The study is to be conducted in consultation with the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation and the United Farm Workers Union.

Cesar Chavez’s campaigns for farm worker justice changed the face of agriculture in this country, by improving living standards for migrant workers, reducing the use of harmful chemicals on farms, and awakening Americans to the process by which agricultural products go from the fields into homes.  By using nonviolence and by bringing together different groups of people—including Mexicans, Mexican-Americans and Filipino-Americans—his campaigns continue to be a model for us today. 

I represent Oxnard, California, where Cesar Chavez lived as a child with his parents, who were migrant farm workers, for several seasons.  He returned to Oxnard as an adult to lead one of the first successful UFW organizing campaigns, in 1958-1959, and later to march for social justice.

We need to preserve and honor his legacy.  This bill will provide the Department of the Interior and Congress with the information that we need to make sure that future generations will be able to enjoy and learn from the places that touched Cesar Chavez’s life, and the places where he organized men and women and showed them a path to a better life. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing, and I hope that we can pass this important bill soon.

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Pictured above: (center) Congresswoman Capps meets with Central Coast firefighters to discuss emergency preparedness.