Melissa Medrano: Why Should we have a Holiday honoring Cesar Chavez?

Cesar Chavez’s legacy is everywhere and his contributions to this country should not be forgotten. The United States government should implement a national holiday honoring Cesar for his important contributions to ensure that the millions of people who bring safe, healthy foods to the American people were treated fairly. Society should know who stood up and broke the silence for those who were not considered to have rights.

People from foreign countries come to the U.S. to seek for a better life, trying to hunt the American Dream, but they face the cold reality and find themselves working from sunrise to sunset, so they could provide a better life their families. Back then, farmworkers were lacking their basic rights and were paid less than a dollar per hour, but the rules changed in the 1970s when Chavez decided to speak up for all farm workers so they could get fair treatment and a reasonable salary. He was one of the greatest leaders of this country for this reason alone.

Schools should teach their students more about him; in my opinion he is a role model, even though he didn’t have the possibilities to have a good education, he worked hard to accomplish what he thought was right and important to all the people. He was not thinking only about himself; he was also thinking about helping all the families ­isn’t that what school teaches us? We learn to have the character to respect others, the courage to be honest and fair to the ones around us, and to have commitment to help those who need our help. Cesar Chavez had all those characteristics and more, so the United States should implement a holiday in his honor to teach future generations his lessons of morals and equality.

The United States is a country known for the diversity of cultures it posses. Having a Cesar Chavez holiday it’s not only going to honor his accomplishments, his life and his hard work, but it will also be a day to honor the people that work everyday on the fields, under the sun for tireless hours with the purpose of bringing food to their table. Having a Cesar Chavez holiday will also expand the variety of cultures and at the same time a big problem called racism will decrease. The struggle continues, and people need to understand we all work the same way, no matter of our skin color. Cesar Chavez had brown skin and he suffered and sacrificed much to make great things for this country.

Hispanic students are the most likely to drop out of high school. I’m Hispanic and I heard about Cesar Chavez last year and he has inspired me to stay in school and make the best out of it because not everybody has the opportunity to have an education. I think that if more teenagers hear about him they could appreciate what they have and the percentage of dropouts would decrease. What a better way to hear and learn about him than a national holiday for Cesar Chavez?

In conclusion, the government of the United States should implement a day honoring Cesar Chavez because he has influenced the lives of many millions of people. He brought hope to the ones that most needed it. This should be recognized, and more people should know the important role he played and continues to play in the history of the United States of America.