Cesar Chavez (born Cesario Estrada Chavez) was born on March 31, 1927, in Yuma, Arizona and was an American labor leader and civil rights activist.  Cesar spent two years in the United States Navy before working as a manual laborer.  He moved to California when he got married and became involved in the Community Service Organization (CSO) in Los Angeles where he helped laborers register to vote. He became the CSO’s national director in 1959.  
 
Cesar left the CSO in 1962 to co-found the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Dolores Huerta in Delano, California.  Later that decade he began organizing strikes among farmworkers, most notably the successful Delano grape strike of 1965–1970. Amid the grape strike, his NFWA merged with Larry Itliong’s organization, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to form the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1967. Chavez emphasized direct but nonviolent tactics, including pickets and boycotts, to pressure farm owners into granting strikers' demands. 

Lunar New Year is a celebration of the arrival of spring and the beginning of a new year on the lunisolar calendar. It is the most important holiday in China, and it is also widely celebrated in South Korea, Vietnam, and countries with a significant overseas Chinese population. While the official dates encompassing the holiday vary by culture, those celebrating consider it the time of the year to reunite with immediate and extended family.

Commonly known as the Spring Festival in China, Lunar New Year is a fifteen-day celebration marked by many traditions. At home, families decorate windows with red paper cuttings and adorn doors with couplets expressing auspicious wishes for the new year. Shopping for holiday sundries in open-air markets and cleaning the house are also beloved traditions. The Lunar New Year’s Eve reunion dinner is the highlight that kicks off the holiday, a feast with a spread of symbolic dishes, such as a whole fish representing abundance, that bring good luck and fortune. The fifteenth and final day of the holiday is the Lantern Festival, during which people have tangyuan, or sweet glutinous rice balls, and children carry lanterns around the neighborhood at night to mark the end of the celebration.

In the Chinese zodiac, 2024 is the year of the dragon. Different regions across Asia celebrate Lunar New year in many ways and may follow a different zodiac. We also acknowledge that many Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders do not observe the Chinese/lunar zodiac.

https://asia.si.edu/whats-on/events/celebrations/lunar-new-year-celebration/

In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month, calling upon the public to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.” Black History Month has evolved as a time to honor the contributions and legacy of Black people across U.S. history and society—from activists and civil rights pioneers such as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X , A. Philip Randolph, and Rosa Parks to leaders in industry, politics, science, culture and more.

 

The Black History Month 2024 theme, “African Americans and the Arts,” explores the key influence African Americans have had in the fields of "visual and performing arts, literature, fashion, folklore, language, film, music, architecture, culinary and other forms of cultural expression."

Join in on the Martin Luther King Holiday by attending any of the following events:

https://norcalmlkfoundation.org/mlkcelebration/mlk2024/

RSVP for our General Membership dinner: 
Registration Link: https://form.jotform.com/233535270569158

You must register for the meeting by clicking or copying and pasting the link below no later than Friday, January 12, 2024 by 4:00pm. You can also go to our website at www.opeiu29.org to register. Please remember to register with your PERSONAL email address, as no work email addresses will be approved.

(Reminder : our member portal is now available, you can update your personal information, view your contacts and make payment of union dues; you will be prompted to create an account, if you are not yet registered. Please visit: www.opeiu29.unionimpact.com