program to all latino voters, not just union members, in terms of voter registration, contact, and get out the vote. he is a union organizer par ex cellance and a community organizer like no other. he is a primary leader in california and across the nation in terms of how we fight for immigrant rights and build the latino community with support for reaching out to get latino voters registered and voting. he has fought for economic justice for workers in mexico as well. he has been a mentor for many of us in this room and a leader for both community and labor since he was 19 years old. that was the first time he was on a picket line with cesar

chavez. please give a warm welcome to the keynote speaker, one of the finest leaders anyone could ever have, whether in the latino committee, the union committee, or the community itself. please give a warm welcome to eliseo medina also happens to be the secretary-treasurer of the afl-cio. [applause] >> thank you. [applause] that was very nice, if little embarrassing. thank you so much. art and i have been friends and

colleagues in the battle for social justice for many years. i do not know how your hair stays the same color while mine gets white. thank you, art. your truly one of the great labor leaders of our time. i appreciate your very generous introduction. brothers and sisters, it is a great pleasure for me to join you this morning, to join mayor lee, all of my brothers and sisters, trade unionists, officials, for remembering one of the great leaders of our time. i want to thank and congratulate eva for organizing this event.

[applause] 12 years she has been doing this. let me just say that i have been too many cesar chavez events around the country. this is certainly one of the premier events i have never been to. thank you and congratulations. i also want to recognize eva martinez. [applause] father-son shows, -- father sanchez and our own olga from

the local union. [applause] let me say that we are so proud of olga. she has been in the trenches fighting so that janitors in san francisco are treated as first class citizens, to make sure they are honored and respected for the work that they do. thank you for your leadership for the local and the international union. we are proud of you. [applause] brothers and sisters, let me just say we're carrying on the legacy of cesar chavez. cesar chavez was a man and believed in the american dream region who believed in the american dream. cesar chavez was a man who

believed that all working people deserve recognition and appreciation for their contributions they make to our society. cesar chavez was a very humble man, which is what i always loved about him. he was not someone who would constantly call attention to himself. i remember the first time i met cesar chavez. i was an immigrant to this country. when i came to this country, they said to raise my right hand and promise i will obey every law and regulation in this country. if you do not, you could get deported about -- back. when i went to work in the fields full time at the age of 15 making 80 cents an hour, i

work in fields where there was no cold drinking water. we just had a can that sat out in the sun all day and tasted more like soup than water. there were no toilets in the field. if you needed to go to the bathroom, you had to go hide behind a tree or underneath the grapevines. if you were working somewhere where you did not have that edge recover, especially if you are a woman, other women have to stand around you and form a barrier to preserve your dignity. if we complained about the working conditions, we were told if we did not like it, we could quit. there was somebody else that could take our job. we were fired more times than i can remember for asking for our

wages to be raised, but i thought that was the way it was in america. i thought that if you complained, you would be breaking your oath that you made when you came to this country. we on this something was wrong, we just did not know what we could do about it. until one day i picked up a copy of the newspaper that translate to "ill bred," a not to child -- naughty child, someone who does not behave themselves. i read about how the farm workers association and its director, cesar chavez, had taken a labor contract before the labor commissioner. they had gotten him fined for

not paying workers their wages. to me, this was unheard of, that mexican workers could stand up, fight, and win. not only did they beat the labor contractor, this contractor happened to be the largest labor contractor in the delano area. he also happened to be white. to me, it was like a light went off in my head. then we started hearing that there was going to be a great -- grape strike. i was 19 years old. i did not know what that was. but i could feel the electricity in the air. i could feel the sense that something big was going to happen, but i just did not know what. one day my mother and sister

came running into the house and said, " we are on strike." they said they walked out. i had been at home because i had broken my leg. i was watching "i love lucy." [laughter] that took me away from watching it. i thought it was incredible. they said there is going to be a march. i went out and there were these workers, mexicans and filipinos, marching. there had never been a march in the city of delano. that night, there was going to be a strike meeting. i went. i could not stand the excitement of something big going on. i could taste it. i could feel it. i walked into the church of our lady of guadalupe in delano.

it was packed. people were all around the walls and yelling. for somebody to have created this, cesar chavez must be like 10 feet tall. he must have a voice like james earl jones, the voice of god. this man stands up, very well- spoken. do you remember a movie star called david niven? very distinguished, well-spoke i thought that must be cesar chavez. he was introducing siegler to of this -- he was introducing cesar chavez. then cesar chavez walks up. he is like 5'5"with a very soft

voice. it did not make sense. the more he began to speak, the more i forgot his height, what he looked like, because i focused on his message. he talked about human dignity, the rights of workers, the fact that working people have to sell their labor, but it does not mean they have to sell their souls or dignity. the more he talked, the more i understood the power we had as individuals and collectively. the next morning, i cracked open my piggy bank. oci paid three months' worth of used to join the union. [applause]

that was 47 years ago. cesar chavez was a life changer. he made you believe you were capable of doing much more than you believe you were capable of. he said that imagination in new and that belief in yourself. he fed that imagination and belief in yourself. i went to chicago. i just turned 21. he said we were going to start a boycott and they needed me to go to chicago. me. i had barely graduated from

eighth grade. i had been a farm worker all of this time, an immigrant. he said, you have to go to chicago for about two weeks. [laughter] i said, where is chicago? not far. [laughter] ok. but you have to take an airplane. i had never been on an airplane in my life. we're going to give you a name. when you get there, looked him up and figure it out. he gave me a bag of buttons to sell to raise money, one name, and $20. he put me on an airplane. who in their right mind wouldo to a city they have never been, you have no idea where it is, how big it is, with one name. it was not that i was dumb and

young, it was that i believed. i went to chicago. i was there for four years, not two weeks. but we did stop the sale. we did win the grape boycott. we did build the union. [applause] cesar was also a master strategist. he was a master at power jujitsu, using your opponent's strength against them. he was a firm believer in nonviolence. he also had a very strong moral core that grounded his work and police -- and belief in the

righteousness of the cause, social justice, and the belief that there is nothing you cannot accomplish when you are united and working together. those lessons are just as relevant today. today, many of the things that cesar fought for are in danger. today, we are facing difficult situations as a society. today, in the richest and most powerful country in the world, we are seeing such income inequality that we have never seen before. today, we have more millionaires and more poor people than in the middle class at any time in our history

before. the unions have always been the ticket to the middle class for working people. they are under attack like never before. look at wisconsin, ohio, indiana. look at the state of california where again the corporations are trying to take away the voice of working people. they are doing that because they believe if they are to control the wealth of the country and the ballot box that they must do away with independent political forces. the labor movement is the largest, best resource, independent political force in this country. they think they have to do away with that because it is what stands between them and complete control in this country. if you look around the country, you see all of these bills that have been introduced to limit

and restrict the right to vote for people of color, for students, for other people. you see the destruction of community organizations, acorn, it tends to defund planned parenthood. there is a coordinated attack going on in this country by the powerful in our society. it is not just that i am paranoid. if you just look at what is going on in state after state, it makes you understand that if we do not join together, we are going to see the american dream that cesar fought for, the martin luther king fought for, the out of the reach of average people in this country.

we have huge challenges in front of us. the best way to honor cesar chavez in june 19 together to make sure -- is uniting together to make sure his dream and vision for society come true. freedom is a hard-won thing. every generation has to win it again. the song was part of a movie made it was called "the inheritance." it is true. every generation has to win it again. i am glad that this event is bringing us together again. the war horses with the young, the next generation. together, we have to fight for this country, for this nation that lives on in our hearts and

dreams, a nation where it is a land of liberty and justice for all. that is our task. let's do it in memory of cesar chavez, but more importantly, let's do it for our children and grandchildren. thank you very much. [applause]

>> we are very pleased to be meeting here in san francisco. in this facility is named after a distinguished member of the california senate. it is our great honor that the mayor of san francisco is here to address us great mr. mayor, thank you so much from taking time -- is here to address us. mr. mayor, thank you so much for taking time. >> welcome to san francisco. thank you for meeting here. the northern california mlu that you have before you charts ecorse of our caltrain -- charts

a course of our caltrain corridor. i just want to give the nod to the empty seat -- mtc for putting this together. in san francisco, we consider caltrain to be the transit spine that connects the city to san jose and san francisco to silicon valley and all of our partner cities. caltrain electrification has had a broad regional support for many years. caltrain is the most important thing we can do for generations to come. here in san francisco, i am working hard to make sure we continue to be the innovation capital of the world. cities across this country and other nations are looking at its cities for solutions to

everyday problems. transit is our number one concern because we are a growing economy. we cannot increase roadways and airport runways there. that will not be a part of solutions for the future. you have a good solution. it is going to be affordable, it will be faster, and it will be better. i want to welcome you. as i came here this morning, i ran into a lot of great people. i know they represent a lot of generations of people. i hope, as i think many of you do, i hope to see the trains pulled through all the way from

los angeles to our valley, through our peninsula all the way to our transbay terminal. thank you very much. >> thank you, mayor. [applause] i also want to recognize, i appreciated the way you and your staff reached out to ensure that our business plan we are looking at today fully incorporates the service all the way to the terminal. and does not push that to the back of the line. we have tried to embrace that. you certainly have represented the people of discriminative very well. we have tried to listen to that. >> i do not regard myself as

simply the mayor of san francisco. i want to be a mayor that works with all the cities that are also concerned about the way we do this. we will exhibit our collaboration with them. >> thank you. >>