Posted on 05/07/2002 3:01:35 AM PDT by snopercod
SAN LEANDRO -- Abraham Lincoln may have to forfeit his solo holiday to Cesar Chavez on the San Leandro school calendar.
Beginning next year, Lincoln's holiday may be dropped to honor labor leader Cesar Chavez on his birthday, March 31, pending school board approval. Several board members have already expressed support for the idea.
The San Leandro Teachers Association voted last month to make the change; 65 percent were in favor.
"The diversity of our community is growing, and it looks beautiful and we want to honor our Latino families," said Thomas Morse, political action chairman for the union. "And the other reason, which is very important for union members, is that Cesar Chavez was a labor leader."
Because changing school holidays falls under labor contracts, the district's two other unions, the Classified School Employees Association and the Teamsters/Trade union, need to give support before the board can bump Lincoln.
"We can celebrate his memory when we have Presidents' Day," Morse said, referring to the district's day off on Feb. 18 this year, celebrated as Washington's Holiday.
Hayward schools have holidays for both Chavez's and Lincoln's birthdays. The issue has not yet been seriously discussed in Castro Valley or San Lorenzo.
Sina Fattahy, a member of San Leandro High School's Latinos Unidos club, said he would use a Cesar Chavez holiday to participate in rallies or get together with other Latinos.
"It won't change my opinion about that day and how I feel about it," said the 17-year-old senior. "That day is always a special day for me. It's a day that you feel pride for being Latino. It's a feeling of energy and power."
Though the issue is scheduled for action at the school board's regular meeting Tuesday, it likely will be scratched from the agenda, said Mike Martinez, the district's assistant superintendent for human resources.
Martinez said he is recommending it be removed to give the other unions more time to poll their memberships. Because the district wants to get its calendar out soon, a change to the Chavez holiday may have to wait until 2004.
San Leandro resident Paul Vargas, 33, said he is offended by the proposed change.
"They're taking away Lincoln's birthday. I mean, who do these people think they are? They're trying to rewrite history," said Vargas, who attended San Leandro schools from kindergarten to 12th grade.
Board member Louis Heystek said he came up with the idea after looking at the district's demographics. To the issue of rewriting history, he said, "I would hope that our view of history does not remain stagnant."
Heystek said Chavez has been not only a significant figure in Latino-American history, but in American history overall, for spearheading a movement to unionize workers and leading the United Farm Workers labor rights movement.
"That had an impact for minorities and Americans all over," Heystek said.
"Those rights not delegated to the federal government by this Constitution, nor denied by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
See? Immigrants just want to assimilate.
The immigrants I work with just want to earn money.
. . . and then send it out of the country.
Well, it's their money; They earned it. And while they are here, they come to understand why America was the first country on earth to use the phrase "to make money". In their native countries, money was something to be "gotten". Maybe that idea will stick in their heads. (Many Americans could use a refresher course in that area as well.)
Anyway, how is that different that what Wal-Mart does? ...or Auto-Zone...or GE...? They all take money from Americans and send it out of the country, along with American jobs.
On the other hand, that means that you checked your common sense at the door, decided to ignore history and, for whatever fee income you generate thereby, you are willing to live on your knees before tyrants in black robes. That's OK for you and perhaps yours, but I have no desire for such a life of submission. Neither did Patrick Henry or the non-Federalist founders. Nor did John Adams and some of the Federalist founders. That the Supreme Court's worst elements purport an inability to read the English language as evidenced by their respective "opinions", does not change their duty or the law.
You and I have gone round and round on Civil War threads on this stuff and I simply do not find your mind or opinions worth engaging. This post will serve as a permanent expression of reasons why. You will find that I am as capable of ignoring you as you are incapable of reading the constitution AS WRITTEN. I have no desire to waste bandspace exchanging insults.
If you want me to answer here, you can answer my previous questions as to just what makes you think that you are conservative and why should Freepers not regard you as a liberal disrupter here. I wore out a keyboard asking you those on previous threads. For obvious reasons you refused to defend or even assert your credentials, if any.
I recognize no social obligations whatsoever to liberals who are, by definition, in the business of jeopardizing my life, liberty, property, Church and future of my children. I am not about to bootlick the Supreme Court. What makes your boots more lickable?
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