Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1993 17:40:36 -0700 (PDT)
From: GSANTOS@CSBINA.CSUBAK.EDU
Cc: GSANTOS@CSBINA.CSUBAK.EDU
Subject: CESAR CHAVEZ'S FUNERAL, PART II
Status: OR
                 CESAR CHAVEZ'S FUNERAL, PART II

Yesterday, April 29, over 40,000 people accompanied Cesar in his last march
through the fields around Delano, California, where he organized his first
huelgas, boycotts, and marches in the early 1960s. This event is the single
largest farmworker mobilization in the history of the United States, the 
largest ever of any kind in the San Joaquin Valley, and the second largest in
the history of Latinos in the United States (only smaller than the 1970 Chi-
cano Moratorium Against the Vietnam War in L.A.).

People began gathering at the "40 Acres" United Farmworkers compound on Wed-
nesday the 28th, quickly filling up a massive tent holding 10,000 chairs and
then spilling out around it. Cesar's body was laid in an open, humble pine
casket made by his brother, and a huge throng of people filed by him to pay 
their last respects. It went on like that well into the night, followed by a
night-long vigil in which thousands of people periodically prayed rosaries for
him. 

By day break, from about 6 am on, buses, trucks, and cars began to unload peopleand began to assemble along a street in Delano. By 10:00, when the marcha fune-
bre started, there were people lined up in a three-mile-long procession, a full
lane deep. Cesar's body led the procession, carried by teams of people who took
turns every three minutes. The march proceeded to the 40 Acres compound, about
six miles from Delano, with thousands of people holding red or white flags with
the union's symbol, the black Chicano eagle, stenciled on them. It was a specta-cular sight, especially when one of the five media helicopters swooped by to
film the march, and everyone waved their flags vigorously and chanted slogans
like "QUE VIVA CHAVEZ!" "QUE VIVA LA UNION!" "QUE VIVA LA SOLIDARIDAD!" "QUE
VIVAN LOS CAMPESINOS!" "BOYCOTT GRAPES!" "ABAJO CON LOS RANCHEROS!" "SI SE
PUEDE!" and many other slogans.

People came from all over and from all classes, although mostly the turnout
consisted of Latino workers and their families. There were delegations of other
unions, a visible number of youth and elderly (some in wheelchairs, some too
old and frail but still walking), and a VIP cluster that included Jesse Jackson,
Congressman Dellums, the Archbishop of L.A., The widow of Robert Kennedy and se-veral of her grown children, representatives of both Clinton and Salinas, 
artists like Edward Olmos, Cheech Marin, and Paul Rodriguez, Jerry Brown, and a
host of California notables.

CONTINUED IN PART III.........  MY EDITOR CAN'S HANDLE TOO MUCH MEMORY.......