Did you know that last Friday was Mexican President Benito Juarez's birthday?
Juarez was born March 21, 1806, San Pablo Guelatao, Oaxaca, Mexico. Both his parents died of complications from diabetes when he was only three years old and he was raised by his grandparents. As a boy, he went to work as a domestic servant for a landed family and soon a Catholic priest saw the promise in him and arranged for him to get an education. He became a lawyer and then rose against the outrages of perennial Mexican president and dictator Antonio de Santa Ana.
After defeating the imperialist Maximilian armies, he died in office and soon thereafter Porfirio Diaz overthrew Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, who succeeded Juarez.
He is known in Mexico as "El Benemerito de la Americas" and was much admired by Abraham Lincoln who could only watch as the Juarez fled in internal exile in Mexico from Maximilian's troops. At the time Lincoln had his own problems with the Confederate States and the Civil War. Although they were camped across the Rio Grande from Texas in Chihuahua and could have ended their plight by merely crossing the river, Juarez and Lerdo chose to face the dangers with a price on their heads rather than hand over their country to the French invader.
His most famous saying: "El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz."
Almost 120 years and 10 days later, in the town of Sal Si Puedes (Get out if you can) near Yuma, Arizona, Cesario Estrada Chavez was born on March 31, 1927.
He knew all too well the hardships farm workers faced. When he was young, Chavez and his family worked in the fields as migrant farm workers. Chavez – also with encouragement from a Catholic priest – dedicated his life to improving the treatment, pay and working conditions for farm workers.
Cesar Chavez employed nonviolent means to bring attention to the plight of farmworkers, and formed both the National Farm Workers Association, which later became United Farm Workers.
He became a good friend to Robert F. Kennedy and the Rev. Jesse Jackson who accompanied him during his fasts to protests the treatment of farm workers.
One of his favorite syings: "If you really want to make a friend, go to someone's house and eat with him...The people who give you their food give you their heart."
Both of these men grew up in conditions of dire poverty and overcame their adversities to rise above them and pull along their fellow men with them. Last Friday, Mexicans everywhere celebrated Benito Juarez's birthday. On Monday, workers across the United States nation will Cesar Chavez's birthday.Feliz cumpleaños a Benito y a Cesar!
10 comments:
Juan, eres el Mapache del pueblo!
There is a school in the upper valley (I think is Mission, not sure) called Juarez-Lincoln in honor of Benito Juarez and Abraham Lincoln.
There is also a signing of a petition in the FaceBook page of the movie Cesar Chavez to ask president Obama to make Cesar Chavez birthday a NATIONAL holiday like MLK's birthday. Today's politicians and so called hispanic figures are nothing more than "puppets" of a system in which they got themselves tangled up. They serve too many special interests and forget those that elected them to serve and not to serve themselves. There are NO humble politicians, there are no humble "campesinos" that care about the average worker. Long live Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, long live the "Dream".
Awesome job by the students and Professors at UTB and TSC. If you have not been to the Arecibo Observatory before, then you should. It will help put things in perspective.
I love how Democrats take a racist like Cesar Chavez and rewrite history to show what a wonderful man he was. I wonder if the movie will show him calling the Mexican immigrants wetbacks like he did in real life? Probably not. This movie is unlikely to show the truth about this man but of what you WISH he were like. Before you scream out "long live the Dream" you may want to educate yourself on what the dream was they were really pushing.
Love the Aries revolutionaries.
Cersar Chavez is and was a known COMMUNIST end of story.
Joaquin please educate our local LOW INFORMATION PEOPLE IN THIS AREA.
Lincoln is the Benito Juarez of the U.S.
The aborigine mentality prevails in Brownsville. It will be under the leadership of Aunt Jemima, a powerful world leader.
Anyone intelligent enough to navigate through posting comments on this blog should be semi-capable of looking up information for themselves. I don't want you to take anyone's word for it. Look it up and find out for yourself the kind of man Chavez was. Sure, you'll find that in his old age, he was kind to immigrants. But by then, his union was working with the Democrats and dues were lining everyone's pockets. By then, Democrats were paying top dollar for each vote he brought them. No one cared about the workers anymore. Nothing's changed since.
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