For the first time, organizers of Denver’s César Chávez annual memorial march are partnering with two other groups to honor the memory of Chávez by promoting immigrant rights and comprehensive reform and by supporting Chicano student activists.
The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, or CIRC, and the student group M.E.Ch.A. approached the César Chávez Peace and Justice Committee of Denver and asked to participate in the sixth annual march Saturday.
“Our mission is to promote the work of César Chávez in labor struggles, so there is a connection to other societies,” said Ramon Del Castillo, a committee founder and professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver. “The question of labor and wages is a universal human right that we all have, and he promoted that. In the end, César Chávez was a civil-rights activist and not just a union organizer.”
The march includes a multidenominational Mass. The march will begin at Auraria campus and end at West High School. The day culminates with an awards ceremony that honors leaders in the Latino community.
Organizers hope for between 1,200 and 5,000 participants.
The immigrant groups will be calling for fair immigration reform and will use the event to kick off a week-long economic boycott – Sunday through April 1 – intended to show how much undocumented immigrants and their supporters contribute to the economy, said Julien Ross, coordinator of CIRC.
“César Chávez utilized the boycott through his career, and it’s fitting and just that as we honor César Chávez, we will be utilizing one of the tactics that he made so effective,” Ross said.
The student group is working on the march because of the connection to both Chávez and immigration issues, said student Serrina Duran, a member of M.E.Ch.A. at Metro State.
Nearly 1,000 student members from around the country will be in Denver for the organization’s annual conference.
“If you believe in everyone receiving equality, then this is just one way of showing that and coming together with people,” Duran said. M.E.Ch.A. stands for Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.
The collaboration, organizers say, is significant because it’s the first time an event organized and intended for Chicanos has included recent immigrants and their cause.
Chávez organized migrant farmworkers in California and fought for better conditions and wages in the 1960s and ’70s. He later founded the United Farm Workers. Chávez died in 1993.
New immigrants are usually not familiar with Chávez or his work.
“It really reminds us that we are flowers from the same garden,” Del Castillo said about longtime U.S. Latinos and recent immigrants. “Those of us in this society for two and three and four generations and longer have reaped benefits of that (previous) movement and should use our knowledge for work with the undocumented workers to help them.”
Staff writer Elizabeth Aguilera can be reached at 303-820-1372 or eaguilera@denverpost.com.
