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Cesar Chavez, the Movie

March 31 is Cesar Chavez’s birthday. Celebrate this week by seeing the new movie—in a theatre near you!

Meanwhile, Danielle Nierenberg, at foodtank suggests five things we can do to honor Chavez’s legacy:

cesar chavez1. Raise the U.S. Minimum Wage for Restaurant Workers (and all Tipped Employees)

2. Support Farmers Across the United States

3. Support Meat Packing and Processing Workers in the United States

4. Make the Transportation of Food Safer

5. Give Fast Food Workers a Living Wage

Learn why these steps are important on Daniell’s post.

And now some words from Cesar Chavez:

“When you have people together who believe in something very strongly – whether it’s religion or politics or unions – things happen.”

“If you really want to make a friend, go to someone’s house and eat with him…The people who give you their food give you their heart.”

“¡Si se puede!”

“People who have lost their hunger for justice are not ultimately powerful. They are like sick people who have lost their appetite for what is truly nourishing. Such sick people should not frighten or discourage us. They should be prayed for along with the sick people who are in the hospital.”

”Our opponents in the agricultural industry are very powerful and farm workers are still weak in money and influence. But we have another kind of power that comes from the justice of our cause. So long as we are willing to sacrifice for that cause, so long as we persist in non-violence and work to spread the message of our struggle, then millions of people around the world will respond from their heart, will support our efforts…and in the end we will overcome.”

“From time to time, you will hear our opponents declare that the union is weak, that the union has no support, that the union has not grown fast enough. Our obituary has been written many times. How ironic it is that the same forces that argue so passionately that the union is not influential are the same forces that continue to fight us so hard.”

“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore. We have seen the future, and the future is ours.”

“You are never strong enough that you don’t need help.”

Image: Carlos “Cookie” Gonzalez, Creative Commons.

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