Media round up from 10th Annual Cesar Chavez March!

The 10th annual march is a rap and a huge success! Here’s what the media is saying about the 1000-strong march.

Two preview stories set the tone for the march. Action 4 news started their morning show saying, “Cesar Chavez is one of the most recognizable Hispanic figures and a true leader in the civil rights movement.” See the video interview here.

The Rio Grande Guardian followed up the pre-march excitement:

LUPE Executive Director Juanita Valdez-Cox said the big issue for LUPE members this year is winning immigration reform that is “comprehensive and humane.” She said the 10th Anniversary March will “send the message” to elected officials that the Rio Grande Valley needs immigration reform for Valley families, the Valley’s economy and the safety of the community.

“2012 was the dawn of a new day of political empowerment of Latino and other minority voters that has brought the light of immigration reform to the horizon,” Valdez-Cox told the Guardian. “Latinos were instrumental in the outcome of the 2012 elections and immigration reform was a mobilizing issue. We are calling on Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to embrace this new day and support immigration reform that brings the light of justice to the Rio Grande Valley and the state of Texas.”

Dolores Huerta, Spreading a Legacy of Love

LUPE leaders with Dolores Huerta (center) on Tuesday in McAllen. Click photo for more pictures from the event.

This week, members of the Union visited with UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta during two events planned by the Hermes Music Foundation to honor the farmworker leader’s “legacy of love.”

The Dolores Huerta Foundation and the Hermes Music Foundation have worked together to contribute to the empowerment of local communities through music, including distributing instruments to farmworker youth and promoting the CD, “Claro Que Se Puede,” which features artists like Carlos Santana, Ramon Ayala and Willie Nelson.

Dolores Huerta and Hermes Music founder Alberto Kreimerman see their work as complementing each other. Kreimerman says that Dolores Huerta and her foundation spread love and acceptance through community organizing and political awareness. And Huerta sees Kreimerman’s work spreading music as an important part of the empowerment of the communities her foundation serves.

At a press conference Tuesday, as a testament to the labor leader’s dedication to others, Huerta shared her own spotlight by recognizing the contribution of LUPE director Juanita Valdez-Cox and other LUPE members and former UFW leaders for their contribution to improvements in Texas. Under the direction of Rebecca Flores, Juanita worked as an organizer for the United Farm Workers in South Texas. Her and farmworker leaders throughout the state organized for and won clean water and toilets for agricultural workers and workers’ compensation for on-the-job injuries, among other farmworker victories. Now, as director of LUPE, Juanita leads the organization’s efforts to improve living conditions for Hidalgo County’s over 150,000 colonia residents.

Huerta said that her foundation is doing work very similar to our own work with colonia residents. She said that in California there are also neighborhoods without paved roads, streetlights and proper drainage. All funds raised by her foundation go to employing organizers from low-income working class communities and training them using a grassroots organizing model. Natural leaders are developed by their participation in community projects, which they prioritize by analyzing their neighborhood and community needs.
To learn more and support the Dolores Huerta Foundation, visit their website at http://www.doloreshuerta.org/

RGV Equal Voice Network End Primaries GOTV Campaign

LUPE GOTV captains celebrate end of primaries civic engagement campaign.

Statement by RGV Equal Voice Network

Since the 2008 presidential campaign, the members of the Rio Grande Valley Equal Voice Network have been actively encouraging the civic participation of their constituents from across the Valley.

This participation is not limited to voting or encouraging communities to turn out the vote. Rather, the members of the RGV-EV Network seek to have the residents of Valley play an active role in the decisions that would impact the lives of our families. These decisions take place in Washington, DC, and in Austin, Texas, and we seek to have our representatives understand in a precise way the seriousness of the
challenges to our communities’ well-being.

Decisions that affect our communities are made on a local level as well, and for that reason, during this primary season, the Equal Voice Network membership sponsored a number of candidates’ forums.

During those encounters, we sought to inform candidates on the nature of the issues that our families have decided are most important to the political agenda. These issues included concerns about: immigration reform; decent, affordable housing; access to medical care for all residents of the Valley; well-paying, long lasting jobs; and equitable funding for our schools.

However, voting is a unique and privileged moment in our civic life, and the Network has collaborated in a number of ways to seek to encourage our families to vote. We have registered new voters, trained hundreds of volunteers in the non-partisan promotion of the vote, and taken to print and mass media to get out our message for this season—“Tu Voto es Tu Voz.”

We are particularly grateful to our volunteers, both the youth and the more mature. We look forward to the second part of this election season and will be encouraging the full participation of all citizens in this fall’s election.