hello and welcome to "comunidad del valle." i'm damian trujillo, and today we celebrate the 50-year anniversary of the united farm workers. today we speak with cesar chavez's son and the president of the united farm workers, plus a special concert. this is your "comunidad del valle." ♪ we begin this special show here on "comunidad del valle" with rich casey.

president on a great endeavor over in west africa. welcome to the show, sir. >> thank you, damian. >> you sent us a video clip and it shows the map of where you go, here it is, it's a long trip. tell us what you do and why you do t. >> what we do is try to prevent babies from getting aids from their infected mothers. as you know, the aids epidemic has shifted to africa, where 70% of the new cases happen and we think the most tragic parts is when babies get infected at birth, so our objective is to prevent all of those, and, in fact, our motto is getting to zero, zero infections of newborns within five years. >> how is it you decided let's do this half a world away, this is where we need our efforts. >> to give you a background, the project was started in 1989 when our president got up in front of

the club and said, you know, unfortunately, my son came down with aids. in those days, people didn't want to talk about it, but the club rallied around him and formed the first aids project in the rotary world, so the last 20 years, their objective was to educate people about what aids is, how you get it, then try to reduce stigma, but that's pretty much been accomplished in the united states, anyway, but in the meantime, the epidemic shifted to africa, so when i joined the group about four years ago, i said i really think we should refocus our efforts on africa where the problem really is, and this particular problem of babies being infected at birth, which doesn't need to happen, because in the u.s., every single pregnant woman is tested for hiv status, so we know immediately if she's positive, and if she is, she's immediately put on drugs to lower her viral count, and no babies in america get infected at birth, but in africa, there are about 300,000 a year who get

infected, so we're trying to eliminate that. >> i'm sure financing has a lot to do with that, but education mostly? >> what we do is mostly education. in fact, i just came back from liberia, where i took about eight health care educators there from here to educate about 50 or 60 doctors, nurses, midwives on the techniques on identifying women who are at risk, educating them about why they need to be tested, getting them tested, and getting them on the drug. so education is the biggest part of what we do. >> you, obviously, saw some children who were -- >> yeah, yeah. >> your reaction? >> it's very sad -- i mean, you know, we went to this one orphanage run by the sister theresa, mother theresa, most of the kids are hiv infected or lost their mothers and fathers through aids. it's a terrible tragedy but one that doesn't have to happen. for a small amount of money, we

can prevent all those babies from being infected and treat the mothers and keep the mothers alive, so it reduces the number of orphans created. >> you've been doing this for awhile now, what kind of success have you had so far? >> the only thing we can measure at the moment is the number of women we've treated, so we've treated at this point about 5,000 women, which in liberia is quite a number. but our ultimate goal is to be able to measure the babies a year and a half after they are born to see if they have any virus in their blood, because that's the true measure whether you've had an effect. >> what kind of reward you think you come back with? >> just a personal reward. when you see these little babies, i remember the first time i went two years ago to liberia, we were taking a tour of this one hospital, and they were giving a small newborn, born about three hours earlier, a little syrup in his mouth, it was medicine we had bought through rotary through the

hospital, so we were preventing the baby from getting hiv. >> that's powerful. >> it was a wonderful moment. of course, that's what we're trying to do with all the babies. >> is it -- i'm assuming it's not difficult to convince your fellow rotarians this is something -- >> no, but there's a lot of them, about 1.2 million, so it's nice on a program like this, more of our friends will hear about it. but no, we're aiming to make this one of the biggest international health projects in the rotary world. we're rinding down on the polio-plus program, i hope this will be one of the new international health projects. >> that is great, if you do want to help, whether you're a rotarian or not, find out by logging on to the website for more information and find out about this special aids project and the wonderful things they are doing half a world away. thanks for coming on, i comin it. coming upex n so avapa" ch, ezofcon cesar chavez. just a little bo,

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50 years ago, cesar chavez founded the united farm workers when chris kristoferson found out, he called the foundation and said i want to help, i want to participate. he's having a special concert here on june 22nd with the tex maniacs. we're going to play a video clip, but in celebration of 50 years, we sat down with paul chavez to reminisce about those 50 years. >> you know, it's extremely, extremely large, you know, many people thought that it couldn't be done, that you could not establish a union for farm workers because they were too poor, they were immigrants, and what my father showed, it can be done, so we're here celebrating 50 years of struggle. even during my father's lifetime, the union had been off two or three times, but the things my father always reminded

us of and something we take to heart, he said that you only lose when you give up, that you only lose when you refuse to get up and continue to struggle, and when you look at the leadership and the folks involved in the daily work, we're committed today just like the founding delegates were committed when they started this in 1962. you know, the thing about this work, the work never ends, there's victory and setbacks, in the civil rights movement, old saying you have to fight for justice every day, that's what we find in the field. we're proud of our successes in the past, but we also recognize there's a lot of work to be done, that's why it's important we come here, celebrate our 50-year anniversary, but more importantly, we can recommit ourselves to representing and organizes farm workers across the country. you know, it helps when you have a lot of luminaries and celebrities and politicians that support us, and it's always important, you know, the work is done on a daily basis out in the

fields, talking to workers, so we have a good delegation of farm workers, we expect more over the weekend, because that's when farm workers have their days off, but there was an announcement this morning, 800 workers just have a new collective bargaining agreement, this is a struggle that's gone on for over 15 years and they stuck with it and showed if you never, ever, give up, you can win. it's important, [ speaking spanish ] --

>> we were not known, and no one would come to our support. we were hungry and frightened and need our help. >> there was nothing flamboyant, nothing flashy about cesar chavez, just a man on a national crusade for a cause many questioned. >> thought he was crazy. >> rita is cesar's older sister, she saw a man who ignored the doubters because he knew firsthand how much the farm workers needed him. >> he was always thinking about the farm workers on the field that didn't have anywhere to live, and the cows, the horses, that's the way we lived when we were farm workers. >> chavez formed the united farm workers of america in 1962. there were death threats, and cesar put the safety in his hands of two german shepherds.

>> he believes that service to others was important and believed in public action, volunteerism and non-violence. remember those values. >> cesar died 19 years ago, but his legacy continues. streets and buildings are named after him. there is a campaign for a national holiday in his name, and on may 5th, the pentagon unveiled a cargo ship named after the navy veteran. >> there was something i'll never forget, it was beautiful, beautiful. i could feel him there. i could feel spirit, you know, at that time. >> the ufw today continues its fight for farm workers, some who have died from heat-related illnesses in the fields. >> we need to be committed to assisting farm workers, because the struggle continues. >> struggle that's on the agenda at the ufw's 50th national convention, also a celebration

of cesar's legacy, a man who's still in the minds of many. >> every day. >> and in celebration of the united farm workers 50th anniversary, chris kristoferson and the texowntown san jose, make it and join the festivities. we'll be back and speak with arty, the president of the ufw, when we continue today. good morning! wow.

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well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy he took over as president for cesar chavez of the united farm workers, he sat down with "comunidad del valle" a short while ago to talk about the 50th anniversary and about that special concert with kris kristofferson and the tex man c

maniacs. >> kris kristofferson has been a legend and a support for decades, and when he heard about we're celebrating the 50th anniversary of the united farm workers, he said right away, called us up and said i want to donate several concerts to raise funds for your organizing work, and we started talking with kris, and so now during the month of june, we're going to do six different concerts in six different cities throughout the state of california thanks to kris kristofferson. right now we have legislation introduced here in california to be able to control the heat deaths that are taking place here for farm workers when they work out in the heat when it's 100-degrees-plus temperature out there and the bodies get extremely hot because of the fast pace that they work. we're hoping this legislation will enforce the laws that exist to protect farm workers and ensure that growers and farm labor contractors don't continue violating the rights of farm workers and treat them with the respect and dignity they

deserve. this is where cesar chavez began his work back in the 1950s with father mcdonald, and so there's a lot of history here. he came out of the vallo, the neighborhood, and he began working, first of all, with the community service organization. he along with fred ross at that time build a network of community service groups throughout the state of california, and it was from there that cesar chavez really got his inspiration to go out and to organize farm workers here in the state of california and throughout the nation, and it was through those humble beginnings as an organizer that he learned the power of bringing people together, of uniting behind a cause about an issue that was important to the community, and as a result, the national farm workers association was born in 1962, but soon afterwards became the united farm workers. there's a tremendous amount of work to be done, but there's been so much that's been

accomplished because of all the support, all the help that we've gotten from people throughout the united states over the years, and the boycotts and the marches and the protests in front of the supermarkets. all that has really begun to change things for farm workers and give them minimum wage coverage under state and federal laws, give them working compensations and unemployment insurance when they are not employed and a host of other good legislative changes that have been made, and in addition to that, because of contracts farm workers sign with employers, we have the first medical plan for farm workers and the first pension plan for farm workers and much better working conditions out there in the fields during the heat, during the winter days, whatever there were. cesar chavez was one of the -- the main, the primary civil rights leaders in our nation. he fought along with martin luther king and so many others and learned from gandhi the whole importance of utilizing non-violence as a way to bring

about change, a way to get people engaged and involved and participating, and so all of that has come together, really, to create a movement that we have today that has accomplished a lot in the past, and we have a lot to be proud of and so much to continue to do, and we know that and we understand that, so as a result we continue planning and working with people and ensuring a better future for farm workers and to ensure food safety for consumers today, because we know our issues are not just important for farm workers, but we also have to think about the consumer and making sure that food is safe and that it's tested and that it's harvested in such a way that it's going to protect children as well as adult consumers here, not only in the united states, but throughout the world. [ speaking spanish ] [ speaking

spanish ]. and there's the information for the 50th anniversary celebration, a special concert in san jose with kris kristofferson, the tex maniacs, june 22nd, there's the website where you can get your tickets. we'll be back and listen and watch the tex maniacs. you're going to love these guys when we continue.

now here's what's happening in your comunidad. ♪

♪ and celebrating their special day. ♪

and here is our address for next week, pick up a copy of our newspaper and support your bilingual weekly all across the area. also, follow us on twitt twitter @newsdamian. we thank you again for sharing a part of your sunday with us here on "comunidad del valle." don't forget, that concert, june 22nd with kris kristofferson and the tex maniacs. in fact, we do have video we wanted to share with you. these guys are awesome. ♪ ♪

♪ >> traditional instruments and going to another level. >> being open. breaking things up a little bit in tradition. ♪

♪ >> i like to mix, you know, blues but with a little funky jazz y stuff, you know. ♪

you know, doing that thing, boom, boom. >> generally, this instrument is played with two fingers at the same time, but i like using it sort of like the upright and using single strings for the higher ones. ♪ so that's what i like doing, to mix it up, break up the sound a little bit. ♪ ♪

>> the proper way to play, you know, is -- it's got 12 strings on it, so, you know, they are there for a reason, you know, you got to play all 12, you know? some people take the strings off and just use, you know, so many, the bottom four or three or whatever, but back when there was no bass guitars, you know, perfect example, one of my idols, that guy was a rocker, man, he was rocking out on that back then, you know? there was no bass, you know, so he was kind of like -- ♪ here you go little man.

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