SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS

March 27, 2007

Chavez's sister continues his drive to help others

Elaine Ayala
Express-News Staff Writer

Rita Chávez Medina, the 81-year-old sister of César Estrada Chávez, doesn't remember the American hero and icon as much as she recalls her little brother — the boy she took to school on his first day and the man with whom she would take long walks.

He was a born leader who recognized the importance of family meetings. Thanks to these early negotiations, the leader of the nation's farm workers won the Chávez kids an important victory, a little red wagon. He would rise to lead the nonviolent farm workers' struggle for human, civil and environmental rights. And from the helm of the United Farm Workers, he brought their cause national and international attention.

On Saturday, cities across the country will hold marches, lectures and festivals in his honor. This year, his big sister will be in San Antonio to serve as grand marshal for the 11th annual César E. Chávez March for Justice, a two-mile walk from the city's West Side to Alamo Plaza, and she's looking forward to stretching her legs.

Before traveling to the Alamo City, she answered a few questions from her California home.

Q. How were you involved in the farm workers' movement?

A. Locally we did a lot of picketing and boycott work. I was really involved in the Community Service Organization. My first volunteer job was voter registration. I'm still involved in voter registration in Santa Clara County. I register people, then I work in the polls. César got me involved in everything. My house was the depot for the big grape strike. One day he called me before the big march in 1966, and said, "Rita there's going to be a meeting at your house tonight. Just have some coffee." When I asked, "When are you coming?" He said, "I'm too busy. You run the meeting." He had me in charge of this and that.

Q. Where does this drive for service come from?

A. My mother always said, you need to help people. You have to help your neighbor. She was a very helpful person, and she didn't know how to read or write. She was just like César.

Q. How was he like your mother?

A. He had a good eye for who was good.

Q. Describe your childhood.

A. I remember how poor we were. My parents couldn't get any jobs. There was just farm work. There was no union in those days. It was pretty hard, but we had love. A lot of people have money, but they don't have love.

Q. Describe your relationship with your brother.

A. We were very, very close. I knew he was this big famous person, but when I saw him he was just my brother. When we were young, I used to say, "When I get married, you'll be my best man." And he'd say. "You'll be my maid of honor." When I got engaged, I wrote him a letter saying that we would wait for him to come home (from the Navy) to have the wedding. He wrote back that he and (his future wife) Helen, wanted to get married on the same day. So, he was my best man, and I was his maid of honor. We celebrated our anniversaries together. Once he called me from Barcelona on our anniversaries. He was married to Helen for 45 years, and my husband and I were married for 55 years. (Her husband, José Medina, died three years ago.)

Q. Describe César as a child.

A. He was so cute. He used to call me Tita for Hermanita. I had to take him to school on his first day. It was a three-room country school. After the teacher wrote his name down, she told him to sit down. He said, "No, I'm sitting with my sister." I was in the second grade (in another classroom). When she said no, he started to cry. Then he took off. I'll never forget that time. I ran after him, and he said he didn't like the teacher and that he was going home. He used to laugh a lot about that. When we got back to the school, the teacher had already put a desk by me. He held my hand. On the third day, he was OK. But he never liked the teacher.

He always wanted a little red wagon. But our parents couldn't afford it. A wagon was $3 in the Sears, Roebuck catalog. That was a lot of money back then. Finally, they got us a wagon. We used to call it César's wagon, because he's the one who wanted it. We used it for chores. But we'd also take it up a hill and ride down. We had a lot of fun. Once, it started to rain, and we came tumbling down like Jack and Jill, full of mud. César was grounded afterward. We cleaned up and cried. But he always believed in having family meetings even when we were little. He told me, "I know how to get my wagon." In the morning, my mother told César to go get the milk, but he said, "I can't. I don't have a wagon." She must have forgotten he was grounded. He got the wagon back.

Q. What was he like as a young man?

A. He was a hard worker. He loved to dance. He had a lot of fun. He had a lot of girlfriends. He was always very helpful. His favorite music was the blues and mariachi music.

Q. What childhood experiences made the biggest impact on your lives?

A. Losing the farm (in Yuma, Ariz.). I cried and cried. It was real, real painful. We left everything behind. We moved around a lot. César went to about 30 different schools. If the crops weren't good, we had to leave. We never had a residence. We had to run and run to follow the crops all over California until the '40s. César went into the Navy, and I started to work in the cannery during World War II.

Q. Describe working with him in the fields.

A. He always set goals for us the night before. We all went along with him. When my dad said he wanted to stop, César said, "Sit in the car Dad. We're going to finish." Every day he had a goal. He'd search through the field and spot a big patch (of unpicked crops).

Q. What are you doing to preserve his memory?

A. During February, March and April, we're busy in schools, colleges and organizations to keep his legacy alive. We also get involved in different things, feeding the hungry, reading in schools.

Q. Supporters are working on making his birthday a federal holiday. What would you want people to do to honor his legacy?

A. Service to others, not just taking a day off. He would have liked young people to help clean a yard for an older person, any service, not just go to the beach. Rest in the morning, but then do something for someone else in the afternoon.