On March 31, Michigan State University kicked off the 13th annual César Chávez and Dolores Huerta Commemorative Celebration with more than 300 students, employees and families in attendance. Each year, in conjunction with Farmworker Awareness Week and César Chávez Day, this event honors the legacy and stories of national and community leaders who recognize the history and challenges farmworkers and Latinx communities face in the United States.
This year’s celebration theme, Recordando y Progresando Raices: Remembering and Progressing our Roots, honored the hard work and dedication of current farmworkers.
The event featured a slideshow presentation of MSU students’ families picking crops to further connect the theme of understanding where food comes from and recognizing that farmworker labor feeds the country.
Edith Saavedra, organizer of the United Farm Workers, or UFW, Foundation began the event by reciting the Oración del Campesino en la Lucha, or Farmworker Prayer, with the audience repeating the words and following along in Spanish.
This year, Connie Perez-Andreesen, UFW vice president, was the keynote speaker and shared her journey and passion for fighting and being a voice for farmworkers in the U.S. She acknowledged the UFW Foundation, which has helped Michigan politicians and highlighted farmworkers’ economic contributions. MSU students in the College Assistance Migrant Program, or CAMP, have worked with UFW and traveled to Washington, D.C., to advocate for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and speak for the millions of farmworkers that are an essential part of the agricultural industry.
“On that great day, when immigration reform finally passes don’t forget it was the CAMP students from here at MSU who helped make it happen,” said Perez-Andreesen. “These students made a powerful, personal, moral and economic case for bipartisan immigration reform for Michigan’s congressional delegation, so now when you think of places where the farm working movement is strong, we will increasingly think of Michigan.”
Following the event, Rosa Hernandez, a CAMP scholar and member of the event’s planning committee, co-chaired the leadership awards portion of the celebration to recognize MSU’s faculty of the year, staff of the year, Latinx grassroots students’ organization of the year and the two student Aguila Awards.
During the luncheon, Mariachi Son de Mexico and CAMP scholar Kiara Lee Zarate performed “De Colores,” which is an important song that farmworkers sang during the 1971 La Marcha por la Justicia or the March for Justice.
Two workshops followed the luncheon: one for stories from current students in the CAMP program with a Q&A discussion about their journey to MSU, while the other provided guests the opportunity to listen and converse with the keynote speaker, Connie Perez-Andreesen.
