damian trujillo: hello, and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo, and today we honor the legacy once again of the late civil rights leader cesar chavez on your "comunidad del valle." ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ damian: and that is our topic today. we're going to be doing that throughout the entire show of "comunidad del valle," honoring the legacy of cesar chavez.

with me is la raza historical society. beneath me is dr. joel herrera with la raza historical society, and then to my left and your right is dr. herman gallegos who is an expert in social justice. gentlemen, welcome to the show. herman gallegos: thank you. joel herrera: thank you. thank you, damian. so pleased to be here with you to honor an american hero. thank you so much. damian: no. thank you for being here. we'll start with you, dr. gallegos, because when we talk about the birthplace of la causa it's right in the sal si puedes mayfair area of san jose, and you are one of the few who actually saw cesar chavez spring out of nowhere and become the icon deservedly so that he is today. herman: yes. in 1993, i was present at the dedication of the plaza de cesar chavez from the park--plaza park that it used to be.

i was one of many speakers that spoke generously about all the things cesar had done and why the park being renamed was worthy of his name. now, there were many speakers, and my daughter liz was there with my granddaughter and midway through the many speeches my granddaughter arlene asked liz my daughter, "mom, is cesar god?" liz said, "no, no. he's human just like the rest of us." he did god's work, but he's not a god. so there are many ways of thinking about cesar. you can look at what he did, the things he accomplished, the things he tried to do. i'd like to speak a little bit about what made him tick, what was it that made him or helped him to become the energetic, appealing person--leader that he became. and since i was there in the beginning when we both started, i thought i'd share little experiences with you. now, i'm not a psychiatrist, i'm not a psychologist, but the fact

that i was there in the beginning with him is part of the reason why we get to know cesar as a person. now, we both started together in 1952. cesar at the time was 23 years old and an unemployed lumber handler. i was 21 and i was working at sternberg gasoline station on al--which was then on alum rock avenue near the barrio then called sal si puedes, get out if you can. that area is now called the mayfair district. and we met through father donald mcdonnell who was a dynamic young pastor of our lady of guadalupe mission on kammerer avenue in the barrio. and he told us about a person by the name of fred ross who was a community organizer with the very famous industrial areas foundation which in chicago built fame out of bringing

together the various ethnic racial groups in the back of the arts program and since has spread organizing throughout the country and is now very famous throughout the world. so he talked about what cesar had done in los angeles in building an organization that fought police brutality, that did so many things. we were excited. "yes, we'd like to meet him." so we met with cesar in front of the mission as we usually did. there was no pavement in the front of the mission. it was a very humble mission, i have to say. father mcdonnell didn't have a church bell to announce the masses, so he would whistle in the microphone that it was time to go to mass. and so--but he was there to introduce us to fred, and fred very calmly talked about what happened in los angeles about fighting police brutality, about improving neighborhoods; about citizenship classes, free immigration counseling, and

building people power. he talked about how when they tried running--a young man to run for the city council they lost very badly, so they went out and developed a voter registration program. and so when edward roybal ran again, he won and became the first mexican-american city councilmember in 81 years. so when we met with fred, we asked him, "fred, what can you do to help us build something like that here?" he said, "well, i can't do it for you. i can help you to learn how to do it, but it's you and it's the people must do the work." so that was, again, one of the lessons that cesar and i learned very early. so now we move to the next step. father mc--father--rather fred ross said, "the next step is to build trust, get to know the people. so we need to organize house meetings, small meetings of

68 people where i can tell the story about los angeles." and we did that. we had many, many house meetings, and each time we'd have a house meeting tell--fred would tell the story. and every time he did that, cesar and i just got very excited about the possibilities and we helped organize that. and then-- damian: let me pause you there, dr. gallegos, 'cause i do want to catch that in our second segment. so hold that thought. we want to let folks know that there will be a virtual platica with the la raza historical society on april 23rd from 6 to 7:30. there is the website for more information. we'll be back and let dr. gallegos finish his story here in "comunidad del valle." stay with us. ♪♪♪

damian: we're back with dr. joel herrera, la raza historical society; and dr. herman gallegos, an expert on social justice. finish your thought, if you--and apologies for the interruption. herman: we began to ask questions about the cso in los

angeles, and fred said, "look, why don't i--we just go down there and talk with the leadership?" so he drove cesar chavez, andy esparza, leonard ramirez and i to los angeles. we drove all night because the speed limit was very low and the car wasn't that great. so we met with the leadership there, and we were awed-struck by this leadership. they were older, very experienced. some were labor leaders, some were in the--edward roybal was there, and we were just infatuated with what we had heard. and we told them what we were doing, and they said, "look, if you do organize, we'd be happy to consider you as an affiliate chapter of the cso." so that built up more determination for us to go back. we learned to extend ourselves by learning from the experience of others not to think that we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps only by ourselves. it's a fallacy to think we do that. we all need outside help to move ahead if we're stuck,

and we were stuck. so what happened then is that we set about to do voter registration. what we needed were deputy-- volunteers to be deputized. so we had to go to the registrar of voters john tustin; and cesar, fred, and i went and we asked for six deputies and he refused. he said, "no, if i give some to you, i have to give some to japanese, i have to give some to the negroes, and i have to give some to--" "what's wrong with that?" they finally gave in, and he gave us three. so after the meeting, cesar and i were feeling kind of a sense that maybe we hadn't succeeded. he said, "herman, cesar," is what fred told us, "in organizing you sometimes learn how to compromise. maybe the next time we'll get six or more." so we can't always go there wanting one thing and ended up with zero so--but from that we learned how to plan an action. we learned how to evaluate an action.

what did we want to accomplish? so the process, again, from fred teaching us how to organize was very important in cesar's development. another influencer was father mcdonnell. many times after a meeting, cesar and i would get into father's old-battered jeep and we'd park in front of cesar's house someplace and he would talk to us about the catholic encyclicals not as a proselytizing document but to help us understand through the encyclicals about the rights of labor to organize, about the rights of immigrants, about economic justice, about social justice issues. so that gave us a platform of theology to understand that this was not something we had to dream up and invent all over, that people for years have grappled with these issues. so we began to understand that the world was opening out there wider than we ever expected. in addition to that, saul alinsky who was the man from the

industrial areas foundation--we used to meet with fred in monterey. cesar, fred, and i would drive to meet with saul. he would talk about power and he would say, "look, people can drink a glass of wine and it goes to their head. some people could drink a half a bottle and they're not affected by it." he said but the problem is that sometimes when ordinary people get a little bit of power they go on a binge and they've lost the confidence of the people that entrusted them to a position. so we learned little by little about how we needed to move ahead and recruit people for an organization. but when fred said, "it's not enough to just recruit people. we have to go out there and find people not only want change but are willing to take responsibility for responsible social change." and so that's what we kept in mind as we worked with people. and fred also said, "look, you can't bully people or make them

feel guilty about doing what they should be doing." he said, "they should do it willingly and because they see the possibilities of their engaging." because it takes a lot of time to do this work. you're away from your family. you make sacrifices. you begin to wonder if it's all worth it because, you know, sometimes your family doesn't understand everything you're doing. and i know there were times in cesar's life when helen and the kids were perplexed. i remember one time one of cesar's children was saying they wanted to go to disneyland. "dad, we want to go to disneyland." "no, we can't afford it, mijita." then they asked, "dad, will we always be poor?" so what cesar had to explain is, "look, there are many ways of being poor. you can think like a poor person. you can act like one. but you think about all the richness we have. we have family. we have our faith. we have each other." so that we need to make sure that people have hope. but he said it's not enough to have hope. it's not hope without taking a risk to making things happen.

now, we face times when we were told, "oh, you shouldn't move too fast. oh, you should be more patient." damian: i'm going to have you save that thought. again, we're going into another break. but this is part of what you're going to be able to listen at this virtual platica that's happening, again, on april 23rd 6 to 7:30 by la raza historical society. we'll be back and wrap things up with dr. herman gallegos and dr. joel herrera. stay with us.

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damian: we're back on "comunidad del valle" with dr. herman gallegos and dr. joel herrera. and, joel, we mentioned that this is part of what we can expect at the virtual platica. joel: yes-- damian, i'm showing my flag that i carried at cesar chavez's final march, his funeral march where there were 35,000 people. and this coming april the 23rd is the 30th anniversary of when his spirit left his earthly body, and la raza historical

society is having a virtual platica. you'll hear more from dr. herman gallegos. we also have a published poet who is the vice president of la raza historical society, rosanna alvarez, who has been commissioned to bring forth a new poem to recognize and commemorate the 30th anniversary of c so we really thank you for this opportunity that we can tell the public about this. i'd love to say-- damian: how lucky are we, dr. herrera, to have somebody like dr. herman gallegos on the show and tell us his rich history, being the founding president of the cso? joel: well, we're extremely lucky. he has his own rich history of giving back to the community in many ways. he has an honorary doctorate from university of san francisco. he's a very involved man. we just don't hear enough about him. but yes, cesar would have been 96, and dr. gallegos, as he stated already, is 2 years younger and he's here walking the earth and sharing stories--personal stories and

history and just--he's also, i'm pleased to say, a member of our advisory council for the la raza historical society. he's a resource to us. we honored him last year during our september la raza awards. he was an honoree. so thank you, damian, for your time and attention to this. for me it's a very important date that cesar's spirit left his body and went into the spirit world on april the 23rd, 1993. so in a couple of days--in a few days it'll be the 30th anniversary, and this is part of our recognizing his life and his work. thank you. damian: and we have a couple of minutes. dr. gallegos, are you--you're going to say no, but were you surprised at how willing cesar was to take that sacrifice with the help of helen and sylvia and all the other kids and do what he had to do for the greater good?

herman: well, the one thing that characterized cesar was he was tireless. he never asked anyone to do anything that he wouldn't do and more. and so--in fact, i sometimes had to remind him that, "cesar, not everybody is driven as hard as you are. so we're lucky to have some of the participation that we're getting from some of the folks, and they'll come along." but cesar was tireless. i mean, he didn't let up at all, and that came up not only in the barrio but later. when i became first vice president and national president, we directed an unprecedented statewide voter registration program in 1960 where we registered 160,000 new voters; and cesar was the executive director and he, again, tireless. he recruited our volunteers, and we headed up that program. we fought for civil rights legislation. we challenged police brutality. i'd like to tell one quick story about what represented his integrity.

now, we didn't do christmas-- damian: we have about a minute left, so sure. herman: getting people jobs is important. we had one box left over, and i said, "cesar, why don't you take it?" we had been asked to distribute the boxes. and he said, "no, i don't want it." i tried to persuade him, and then he said, "you know--" he looked me in the eyes. "you know why i can't." i said, "you're right. if word got out that we're officers of the organization and we took a box that somebody else needed, then we would ruin the integrity that we had." so we learned from each other. and so it's that history that cesar had that made him successful in whatever he tried to do. damian: wow. i--your words are gold, and we appreciate you being with us on this show. you can hear more of this at this virtual platica. there's now a movement. maybe one day make cesar canonize him and make him a saint. i know that there are some things going on behind the scenes. well, there it is, the virtual platica. we thank you folks so much. i wish we could have you on the show. we could do probably two shows with this,

but we appreciate your time. joel: damian, we want them to go to the website to register and also to download the "i promise to fast." and i invite you, damian, to fast for 1 day. no food, just water. thank you. damian: lord knows i need it. thank you so much. i appreciate you guys. herman: thank you. good luck, damian. joel: thank you, dr. gallegos. thank you, damian. damian: thank you. and there's a virtual platica once again. we'll be back here on "comunidad del valle" with another interview. so stay with us.

damian: if you want to get ahold of us on "comunidad del valle," here's our--well, there's a--you can follow me on instagram at @newsdamiantrujillo and on twitter at @newsdamian. and we thank you for sharing a part of your sunday with us on "comunidad del valle." we're going to leave you now with another interview and a little bit of music. we'll see you next week. damian: --it's called fuchilandia. with me back on "comunidad del valle" after popular demand is the artist, the man behind this concept, ruben dario villa. welcome back to the show. ruben dario villa: thank you very much, damian. i really appreciate being on here.

it seems like you're always the first to the story when i got something big to say. so i appreciate that. damian: you were mentioning you were on the show 8 years ago when you launched your fresh--your car fresheners, fuchila fresheners. and tell our viewers what i told you back then, i guess. ruben: the first line you said on that show was, "he's either a marketing genius or he doesn't know what the heck he's doing." damian: so it looks like it was the former. you're a marketing genius because--i mean, here's a concept. car fresheners or air fresheners are to--are aromatic. fuchila is completely the opposite. it means it's yuck. talk about the idea of naming your product and now your gallery there. ruben: yes. well, fuchila was a concept that was born inside of my office, and by office i mean my bathroom because that's where i do my best thinking there, especially now as i have kids. that's the only way to escape.

i came up with the concept of fuchila fresheners because i like the name that of--the ironic name. and i was also looking for a project and a business to start that i was able to infuse my cultural identity as a first-gen chicano here born in san jose and raised in gilroy. i wanted to infuse my design and my cultura into a product that is used on a daily basis like something like air fresheners. and so fuchila fresheners and alliteration was--when i came up with that name, it was just--i was just sold. i had to move forward with it, and, you know, i grew that business and i was able to at one point at the height of the--before the pandemic, at the height of the business i actually had over 100 wholesalers internationally in japan, australia, puerto rico, and all over the us. and eventually i knew that i had to continue pursuing this as

people started to call me mr. fuchila, you know. so i said, "okay, what's next?" and as i mentioned to you earlier, with a little nudge from god and from google as--you know, i was laid off. i was one of the 12,000 that was laid off from google. i decided that it was time to take that leap and open a studio that i could only call fuchilandia. damian: oh, that's a great concept. we have some video. it's actually from your website. in there we're going to see la virgen de guadalupe. tell us about what--the kind of art this is. you mentioned it's on display right now at st. mary's church in gilroy. we're going to show that video now. ruben: yeah--the piece is currently housed at st. mary's parish igilroy, but i wanted to commemorate la virgen de guadalupe during her feast december--which is december 1 12th. and so i finished the piece a couple of days before. i hit up a friend, carlos, who leads the youth group there and i said, "hey, you think we can get this in the church and have it be part of the procession?"

and he made it happen. so i was able to construct almost 6 foot tall by 3 foot wide virgen de guadalupe made entirely of chiclets, hand-painted chiclets at that because i used over 20 colors and chiclets only come in 5 colors. so i h had to get creative. and, you know, that was actually one of the bigger pieces of a series that i started that's all made entirely of chiclets, of which the first in the series was a frida kahlo mosaic that i made a few years ago that kind of blew up for me. so-- damian: and these are chiclets that the little kids sell at the border, right? ruben: yes, exactly. and that's exactly who i aim to commemorate. in fact, when i make this work, i always tell their stories about how going to--crossing the border, driving to mexico, vacation, i would see kids my age selling chiclets to me and,

you know, walking up to the window and selling chiclets. and i always tell their story because as a young child that was burned in my brain and now i try to honor them any chance that i get. damian: i love that. during the production of that virgen artwork, how many chiclets were consumed during the production? ruben: consumed? an unnumbered amount of--were consumed, including my kids who actually--whenever i put down chiclets, it's a very process--selective process. i do my own quality control, and when i find chiclets that i don't like the shape or the size or they've been morphed for some reason i start collecting them in another bucket that i allow my kids to use and create their own art out of those chiclets. so-- damian: see, there's the--one other benefits of being part of the villa family. what can people--what do they expect when they come visit fuchilandia? ruben: well, fuchilandia is actually a studio that's part of

a nonprofit group called 6th street studios and art center here in gilroy, and i'm one of the artists in residence. and so my thought was to open fuchilandia to sort of commemorate this milestone in my life and my artist career and kind of show people what i've been up to lately. you know, i have the studio about 6 months up to this point now and i've been, you know, making art, designing multiple pieces for the community and i was hoping that folks can come and check it out, including the piece that i mentioned, the virgen de guadalupe made of chiclets, my frida kahlo, my large piece also made of chiclets. and i have a wide variety of other art that i wanted to show off and let people check out, but the whole point is that the entire gallery is open for that event as a community open house and the hope is that the community from gilroy, san jose,

sal valley are able to kind of come through to the studio and check out the rest of the artists that are there show off the talent and--of art and culture that we have in gilroy and hopefully, you know, invite folks to keep, you know, checking out gilroy as a place that's, you know, up and coming in the scene. i've actually recently been elected as the art and culture commissioner for gilroy. so this in--big part is also a part of me trying to show off that gilroy has some really talented artists and some lively things are happening over here, too. damian: well, you're a good ambassador for that. so congratulations. but i'm intrigued by the way you've conceptualizezed this. you talked about your artwork involving chiclets, and it's an honor and an homage to the chavalitos selling chiclets. you also created one work in honor of farmworkers that you presented that--to some special people. ruben: yes.

a few months ago there was quite an amazing panel. of course, you know. you hosted. and we had visiting to gilroy for the first time dolores huerta, luiz valdez--

- [narrator] the following is a paid program that is paid for by cathedral of faith, where anything is possible. (high energy rock music)