I n d e p e n d e nt
Issue no.
S t u d e nt
V o ic e
o f
B o is e
S tat e
S inc e
1933
49
March
12
2012
Volume 24
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Boise, Idaho
First issue free
Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Week
Top Stories
Huck it!
Natalie Craig Journalist
Two Broncos earn recognition at NCAA Indoor Championships
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7
Rush apology
Sí, se puede Civil rights and labor activist, Caesar Chavez, leaves his mark Journalist
Learn how not to apologize from Rush Limbaugh.
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5
‘Project X’
Is this party flick worth an hour and a half and your beer money?
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4
Weather Today
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If you walk from the Albertsons Library to Friendship Bridge and pause just beyond the bus terminal, you will be on Cesar Chavez Lane. In 2005, faculty and students voted to rename this lane in honor of the civil rights and labor activist. Multicultural Student Services will present Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Week March 14-20. March 31, Chavez’s birthday, is widely recognized as a day of celebration and promotion of community service. In 1948, he found work in California’s orchards and vineyards where conditions for farm laborers had barely improved since the Great Depression. Migrant families still haunted Steinbeckian labor camps and barefoot children worked alongside their parents in the fields. Chavez was recruited by the Community Service Organization (CSO) to work as an organizer. In 1962, when the CSO turned down a request to organize farm laborers, Chavez and fellow organizer Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) which would later become the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). In 1965, when Delano, Calif. grape growers cut wages during the harvest, the NFWA joined the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) in a strike and boycott against growers. During the Delano
grape strike, farm workers demonstrated alongside other civil rights activists outside of supermarkets. The demonstrators asked consumers not to buy grapes until the Delano Grape growers had signed contracts granting fair wages and collective bargaining rights to agricultural workers. The Delano grape growers signed contracts with the union in 1969. Chavez and Huerta continued to lead the UFW as it worked to secure rights for farm workers. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) was founded in 1993, the year Chavez passed away. It is a grassroots organization of farm laborers currently working to secure fair wages and working conditions for agricultural workers in Florida. In 2004 CIW representatives traveled to Boise State to participate in protests against the naming of the Taco Bell Arena. At the time, CIW was in conflict with Taco Bell’s parent company Yum Brands, Inc. because the company was sourcing tomatoes from Florida farms where workers were subjected to inhumane working conditions. More recently, CIW was in the news when it signed an agreement ending a boycott of the Trader Joe’s supermarket chain. On March 5, CIW demonstrators began a six-day Fast for Fair Food with the goal of convincing Publix Supermarkets, Inc. to sign a Fair Food Agreement. Bob McCarl, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology at Boise State who was an
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I recall my dad talking about him (Chavez), thinking it was a great thing that finally a union was organized because when he and my mother were out in the fields, they didn’t have anybody to stick up for them. —Alicia Garza, Ph.D.
outspoken critic of the naming of the Taco Bell Arena and a proponent for the naming of Cesar Chavez Lane. McCarl views CIW as an organization that is continuing the work begun by Chavez, Huerta and the UFW. While McCarl is heartened by the successes of groups like CIW, he is wary of neo-McCarthyist rhetoric that uses terms such as “socialist” in an accusatory fashion “Right now, we are being told by a lot of people that unions are a threat,” McCarl said. “We’ve got to heal that wound and move on.” Alicia Garza, Ph.D., is a Spanish professor at Boise State. Garza grew up in Yuma, the same Arizona town where Cesar Chavez spent his childhood. Like Chavez, Garza’s parents had been farm laborers. When she was about 10 years old, Chavez and UFW organizers came to town asking workers from Yuma’s orange groves and lettuce fields to join the union. “I recall my dad talking about (Chavez), thinking it was a great thing that finally a union was organized because when he and my mother were out in the fields, they didn’t have anybody to stick up for them,” Garza said.
According to Garza, many aspects of Chicano culture, such as art and political theatre, grew out of the UFW movement. Enrique Camarena, a junior majoring in international business, is the current treasurer for the Boise State chapter of el Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano/a de Aztlán (MEChA). While Camarena is proud of his Chicano culture and heritage, the teachings of Cesar Chavez hit home in other ways. Camarena is from the rural agricultural town of Jerome, Idaho where he knows undocumented laborers who work in the dairy industry. In Camarena’s experience, these workers are often forced to suffer harsh working conditions because they have few alternatives. “Employers, especially in that industry, take advantage of them because they don’t know how to write, they don’t know how to express themselves and a lot of times they’re scared because they’ve got bills to pay,” Camarena said. Cesar Chavez died in San Luis, Arizona on April 23, 1993. He was in Arizona on union business. Chavez fought to protect the rights of farm workers until his death. The movement did not die with him.
Vehicles parked on Occupy camp removed The Occupy Boise movement woke up to two new protesters Friday morning. Canyon County Republican Women party chairperson Ronalee Linsemann and resident Ike Sweesy decided to park their vehicles on the Occupy camp. Sweesy’s black Corvette and Linsemann’s red hatch-back sedan represented a protest to the Occupy protest. Though camping on state grounds was ruled as a version of free speech, parking on state grounds is not. Ada Country has laws requiring individuals to park in a designated parking zone. The Idaho State Police shut down the connecting street between 6th and Jefferson to allow for Boise Valley Towing to remove the vehicles from the state property. The Occupy Boise protesters did not pay much attention to the vehicle removal. At 9:26 a.m. the Corvette was removed, followed by the sedan. Sweesy and Linsemann were each billed for the towing.
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Boise State and Multicultural Student Services will celebrate and honor Cesar Chavez’s legacy and struggle by providing students with information on Chavez and educating them about how to be heard. Starting Wednesday, March 14, a celebration dinner will be held from 6-8 p.m. at the Barnwell Room in the Student Union Building (SUB). This dinner will celebrate the hard work of the civil rights activists who helped form the United Farm Workers Union. A guest speaker will discuss Chavez’s life and impact on human rights. Thursday, March 15 a “Crossroads Of Identity” workshop will be held from 5-7 p.m. at the Barnwell Room in the SUB. The workshop will focus on building a movement. Local and regional movement organizers such as Occupy Boise, Free Palestine, Idaho Peace Coalition and Add the Words, Idaho will discuss the importance of coming together for a cause. Friday, March 16 an open house and birthday celebration will be held from 2-5 p.m. at the Student Diversity Center (second floor, SUB). This event celebrates Chavez’s birthday and the civil rights activists who founded the United Farm Workers of America. The free event includes birthday cake, beverages, music and games. Monday, March 19 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. in the Quad, students will act out street theater style skits based on Chavez’s life in an event called “Street Teatro.” Tuesday, March 20 from 11 a.m.-1 p.m. an open mic event called “Find Your Voice” will be held at the Student Union Brava! Stage. Participants will read and perform pieces that pay allegiance to Chavez’s work as a civil rights activist and inspiring individual. This event will conclude Cesar E. Chavez Memorial Week. For more information on the listed events and to RSVP for the March 14 dinner, call 426-5950.
CODY FINNEY/THE ARBITER
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