The Intercultural Community Center (ICC) and Student Leadership, Involvement, & Community Engagement (SLICE) hosted the Dolores Huerta Days of Community, a two-day event including a community conversation and a field trip honoring Women’s History Month, March 27-28.
The event was originally titled, “Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta Days of Community,” but following the news of Chavez’s abuse of young women and Huerta’s March 18 statement in which she accused Chavez of raping her in the 1960s, the event was retitled to omit Chavez’s name.
Assistant Director of Student and Community Engagement Taína Morales and Director of the ICC Vanessa Gonzalez-Wright planned this event together, revitalizing an annual celebration for March 31 that stopped during the pandemic, according to Morales. March 31, which is usually Cesar Chavez Day, was renamed Farmworkers Day on March 26, only a day before this event.
“Last year, SLICE collaborated with Project SAFE, and we gave out kits to day laborers,” Morales said. “This weekend, technically, is the first Days of Community, rather than the Day of Service.”
The first Day of Community event, a “Community Talk,” took place Friday at the ICC backyard. Jesus Sanchez from The Eastsider LA, a NELA-based news organization, was present, along with Stephanie Rodriguez from Amara Colectiva, a nonprofit organization based in El Sereno.
“One of the things that I thought about with this event [was] highlighting local organizations,” Gonzalez-Wright said. “I was really trying to focus on Northeast Los Angeles especially, and so that’s why we ended up picking somebody from the Eastsider, our local newspaper, to talk about the impact of journalism, particularly in the Latino community. And then we had [Rodriguez] come speak about how she just saw needs in her community.”
Morales said after the news about Chavez broke, organizers immediately decided to make the event survivor-focused.
“How do we still go through with this event, still highlight the amazing work that has been done in the community?” Morales said.
A variety of cards on the tables in the ICC backyard had questions on them that said, “How have you been feeling since hearing the news about Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez?” and “How should we move forward with honoring this day at Oxy?”
Students, staff and community members at the event spoke about how or if they had learned about the Farmworkers Movement growing up, their connections to California and the Chicano identity and how the recent news had affected them.
“We wanted to honor the day with focusing on the history,” Gonzalez-Wright said. “But after hearing the news, we realized that we also wanted this to be a processing space for folks.”
Morales and Gonzalez-Wright planned the second Day of Community to take place off-campus. With free transportation provided, students had the opportunity to visit La Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Olvera Street and Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights.
“Our first stop, La Plaza de Cultura, there is a museum that […] takes you through Latina history in California,” Morales said. “There are so many students who are not from California, so we want to make sure we are creating spaces for those students to learn too. This is the history from start to finish, over the time that Mexico became California and everything that’s happened.”
Noemi Justino-Ruiz (junior), who attended the field trip, said the group received a tour of La Plaza de Cultura y Artes from a UC Riverside professor who has an exhibit currently on display there. According to Justino-Ruiz, the group ate taquitos at Cielito Lindo on Olvera Street and shopped at the stalls.
“As someone from outside of California, I had always heard about the community rather than actually [met] those identifying with the Chicano/Chicana label,” Justino-Ruiz said via email. “To then come to LA and Oxy, and see first hand how loud and proud this community is, warms my heart, knowing what it means for the Latino community as a whole.”
According to Gonzalez-Wright, when she started at Occidental, the college celebrated March 31 by having a Mexican-food themed menu at the Marketplace. Gonzalez-Wright said she hopes these Days of Community can continue to be an important celebration for the college.
“I hope that we continue to honor the past, how it’s influenced the things that we do now and make intentional time for that reflection, to bring the Oxy community together,” Gonzalez-Wright said. “I hope we can continue to honor this day, but I’d be curious to know how students would like to recreate this day or how they would like to use it moving forward.”
Contact Ava LaLonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
