Fillmore Updates March 2025 — Cesar E. Chavez Day

Thank you, Mayor Villasenor, for presenting One Step A La Vez, Friends of Fieldworkers, Inc., and House Farm Workers! with the Proclamation naming March 31st, 2025, as Cesar E. Chavez Day and thanking us for continuing Cesar Chavez’s work in raising awareness and supporting the needs of our local farm workers.

Proclamation Text

Proclaiming March 31st, 2025 As Cesar E. Chavez Day

WHEREAS, Cesar Estrada Chavez was born on March 31st 1927 and raised by Farm Workers who lost their home and livelihood during the Great Depression. He toiled alongside men, women, and children who performed daily backbreaking labor for meager pay and deplorable conditions, and who were denied the most basic protections, including minimum wages, healthcare, and access to drinking water; and

WHEREAS, Having witnessed such conditions Cesar Cesar Chavez resolved himself to bettering the plight of the farmworker, thus encouraging the organization of the national Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962, later known as the United Farm Workers of America, wholeheartedly championing the cause of the farmworker, organizing multiple hunger strikes, marches, and nonviolent resistance; and

WHEREAS, Because of his extraordinary accomplishments on August 8, 1984, Cesar Chavez posthumously became the second Mexican American to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, and was honored by the State of California by the declaration of Cesar Chavez Day on the day of his birth, and

WHEREAS, Cesar Chavez has left a legacy as an educator, environmentalist and a civil rights leader, reminding us that every job has dignity, every life has value, and that everyone, no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they come from should have the chance to flourish; and

WHEREAS, the city of Fillmore has historically benefited as a community from the rich diversity of agricultural laborers who would become an integral part of its social and economic, fabric continuing its farming tradition, many members of which are still actively involved with the agricultural community; and

WHEREAS, Santa Paula our neighboring City in the Santa Clara Valley is home to the first monument dedicated to farmworkers in the United States unveiling 15 years ago in 2010; and

WHEREAS, Today, several local organizations continue to honor the work of Cesar Chavez in raising awareness and supporting the needs of our local farmworkers, including One Step a la Vez, which has hosted an immigration information forum and the farmworker Appreciation Day, giving out supplies like gloves, scissors, lunch bags, and fruit sacks that farmworkers need families here in Fillmore. House Farm Workers!, whose mission is to promote affordable, safe and stable housing for Ventura County farmworkers and their families through education and advocacy and the Friends of the Fieldworkers, whose supportive programs include providing emergency funding to farmworker families in Ventura County who are experiencing a variety of crisis situations such as illness, injury, or loss of housing.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, THAT I, Christina Villaseñor, Mayor of the City of Fillmore, and on behalf of the Fillmore City Council, do hear by Proclaim March 31, 2025, as Cesar E. Chavez Day in the City of Fillmore and encourages all residents to promote service to the community and honor of Cesar E. Chavez’s life and work.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the city of Fillmore, California to be afixed on this 11th day of March 2025