Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 02/25/2014 4:12:57 PM PST by madison10
State Board of Education Encourages Schools to Include Cesar Chavez into Social Studies Curriculum Contact: Martin Ackley, Director of Public and Governmental Affairs (517) 241-4395 Agency: Education
February 13, 2014
LANSING – The State Board of Education this week unanimously adopted a resolution honoring the late Cesar E. Chavez as an American hero, a civil rights leader, Latino, farm worker, and a labor leader; a religious and spiritual figure; a community servant and social entrepreneur; a crusader for nonviolent social change; and an environmentalist and consumer advocate. State Board member Lupe Ramos-Montigny initiated the resolution to honor the life, legacy and contributions of Chávez.
Recognizing that local school districts determine their curriculum, the resolution adopted by the State Board strongly encourages school districts to include curriculum lessons on César E. Chávez, as appropriately referenced in the Grade Level Content Expectations and High School Content Expectations in the Social Studies Standards.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION RESOLUTION HONORING CÉSAR ESTRADA CHÁVEZ
WHEREAS, César Estrada Chávez, was an American hero, a civil rights leader, Latino, farm worker, and a labor leader; a religious and spiritual figure; a community servant and social entrepreneur; a crusader for nonviolent social change; and an environmentalist and consumer advocate; and
WHEREAS, César, a second-generation American, was born on March 31, 1927, near his family’s farm in Yuma, Arizona; and at age 10, his family became migrant farm workers after losing their farm in the Great Depression; and throughout his youth and into his adulthood, César migrated across the southwest United States laboring in the fields and vineyards, where he was exposed to the hardships and injustices of farm worker life; and
WHEREAS, César’s dream was to create an organization to protect and serve farm workers; and in 1962 he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers of America; and
WHEREAS, for more than three decades, César led the first successful farm workers union in American history, achieving dignity, respect, fair wages, medical coverage, pension benefits, and humane living conditions, as well as countless other rights and protections for hundreds of thousands of farm workers; and against previously insurmountable odds, he led successful strikes and boycotts that resulted in the first industry-wide labor contracts in the history of American agriculture; and
WHEREAS, His union’s efforts brought about the passage of the groundbreaking 1975 California Agricultural Labor Relations Act to protect farm workers; and today it remains the only law in the nation that protects the farm workers’ right to unionize; and
WHEREAS, César, a strong believer in the principles of nonviolence practiced by Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., effectively employed peaceful tactics such as fasts, boycotts, strikes, and pilgrimages; and
WHEREAS, in 1968 he fasted for 25 days to affirm his personal commitment, and that of the farm labor movement, to non-violence; and he fasted again for 25 days in 1972; and in 1988, at the age of 61, he endured a 36-day “Fast for Life” to highlight the harmful impact of pesticides on farm workers and their children; and
WHEREAS, César passed away in his sleep on April 23, 1993, in San Luis, Arizona, only miles from his birthplace of 66 years earlier; and more than 50,000 people attended his funeral services in the small town of Delano, California, the same community in which he had planted his seed for social justice only decades before; and
WHEREAS, On December 3, 2003, Governor Jennifer Granholm signed Public Act 225 of 2003 to designate March 31 of each year as César E. Chávez Day in the State of Michigan; and
WHEREAS, on May 5, 2012, the Navy christened and launched the dry cargo/ammunition ship the USNS César Chávez in a ceremony at the General Dynamics NASSCO Shipyard in San Diego honoring César who served the Navy during World War l; and
WHEREAS, on October 8, 2012, President Barack Obama established the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California. The site marks the extraordinary achievements and contributions to the history of the United States made by César E. Chávez and the farm worker movement that he led with great vision and fortitude. La Paz reflects his conviction that ordinary people can do extraordinary things; and
WHEREAS, on March 28, 2014, César Chávez: An American Hero, an upcoming film directed by Diego Luna will be released starring Michael Peña as Chávez and John Malkovich as the owner of a large industrial grape farm who leads the opposition to Chávez’s organizing efforts; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the State Board of Education recognizes the life, legacy and contributions of César E. Chávez; and be it finally
RESOLVED, That the State Board of Education recognizes that local education agencies determine curriculum, and strongly encourages the inclusion of lessons on César E. Chávez, as appropriately referenced in the Grade Level Content Expectations and High School Content Expectations in the Social Studies Standards.
Adopted February 11, 2014
This would be a good time to tell the kids to stay away from Ceaser Chavez Blvd, street, ave, lane, place..... and throw in MLK too.
I’ll bet students won’t receive instruction on Chavez’s attitude towards illegal aliens.
.
There goes another perfectly good word down the toilet.
was he also a commie?
During a 1967 strike in the Central Valley, for example, Chavez and the UFW demonstrated outside the office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Bakersfield, criticizing the agency for not arresting what they called “illegal aliens” and “green carders” (who were prohibited by an injunction from the U.S. Secretary of Labor from working in struck fields).
This soon led to the arrests by the INS of hundreds of undocumented agricultural workers.
In 1974-75, the union engaged in what it called the “Campaign Against Illegals.” The campaign’s most famous component was what the union named, in reference to “wetbacks,” the “wet line”: a vigilante group of a few hundred individuals wearing “UFW Border Patrol” armbands who policed a ten-mile or so stretch of the Arizona-Mexico boundary over a three-month period—with the effective approval of local and federal officials—--arresting and often roughing up those they encountered.
Chavez was simply reproducing an old strategy, opposing the use of migrant workers to undercut native-born ones, which he had utilized in protesting the Bracero Program beginning in 1959.
Historically, California labor relations featured --for well over a century --- the pathetic practice of one group of poor men desperately under-bidding another group of poor men to get the poorest-paid jobs in America. Chinese, Armenians, Filipinos, Mexicans, Central Americans, wave after wave of immigrants and "Okies" and "Arkies," too, arriving on the scene and dropping the wage scale over and over again.
It's the bane of agricultural workers: the constant competition from other desperate men willing to work for less.
Chavez saw this. His present-day admirers do not.
great another dofus progrom defined by the useless michigan education association. taxpayers have no say in this curriculi. garbage.
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