Cesar Chavez

CESAR CHAVEZ

MARCH 31, 1927

SI SE PUEDE

by Mike Alewitz

Oxnard, CA/ 1993/ Approx. 14' x 14'

Dedication:

FOR THE CHILDREN THAT WORK IN THE FIELDS

FOR THE CHILDREN  OF THE FARM WORKERS

FOR THE CHILDREN  OF THE UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS

Two years further down the line, Alewitz' mural on the side of the Cesar Chavez High School in Oxnard caught the departed figure as a Chicano Martin Luther King, Jr.  The project was spearheaded by actor Martin Sheen, an Alewitz supporter who has consistantly put his celebrity status behind a variety of peace and justice campaigns.

 

The mural portrayed Chavez over an open book bearing a text of his own on faith and sacrifice: 

"We need a meaningful education, not just about the union, but about the whole idea of the cause...the whole idea of sacrificing for other people."

 

Appropriate for a school of largely Mexican-American children, it bore the affirming slogan, "!Si se Puede! Yes! It Can Be Done!" In the background, along with the agree-business fields, a UFW banner and strike sign("Huelga!") could be found a Virgin de Guadeloupe (here a worker), and a definitive, mustachioed Mexican sun, winking.

 

As Eric Gordon pointed out, more than a thousand attended the dedication program including UFW President Arturo Rodriguez, Sheen, Chavez's widow and son. The mural, like the program, offered historical depth to the ongoing political campaign for the rights of undocumented workers and against racist Proposition 187. Alewitz used the press coverage to blast the attempts by right-wing politicians like Pete Wilson, and so-called liberals like Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein, to play to the right-wing anti-immigrant hysteria.

- Paul Buhle, Insurgent Images