Farmworkers, Community Organizers, and the Po’ Poets of POOR Magazine march in the 2nd Annual Cesar E. Chavez Holiday Parade And Festival.
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by Joseph Bolden/PNN My last dollar goes to the 14 bus on its way to Embarcadero. My 7th day straight working and I’m not feeling as enthusiastic as the rest of the POOR staff but here we go.... We meet up with huge crowds at the Embarcadero, a multitude of signs, people, shape, sizes, creeds, sex, national origins. This brother wonders where are the TV camera’s, digital camera’s etc, so if the police get rude it can be caught instantly on the web, sent globally before they can stop the evidence from being seen and have their stories of what caused the incidents. As I record the array of voices and sounds on my trusty recorder, Mari, Jewnbug, and Charles are debating stuff I can’t hear because band music on a flatbed truck is playing and being in front of it guarantees an ongoing trail of salsa/banda I will be way behind the march because I’m not walking fast Charles talking a deep south or midwest dialect about the march sounding like an authentic, salt-of-the-earth farmer guy in solidarity with the march. My only critique of today is it doesn’t seem quite as well organized as last year. As we creep up Market Street, I am told by Tiny "The low wage workers" and other people are up the next block." There is a split or section in the middle of the street where we’ve stopped in the shadow of a huge gray, granite, cement and steel buildings blocking the sun - there is a slight wind makes it colder. At 388 Market st, The 1st Republic Bank on Fremont walking down Market Street. Supervisor Mark Leno appears and begins to join the march here. Then we are all guided to stop in deference to a trollycar containing Nancy Pelosi and other VIP’s. More children from Horace Mann Middle School and others join in the parade at 4th street. At 6th street we walk by my tenderloin hotel and I run in for a restroom moment. I use the bathroom, clean up and return to the march still in progress. Just like last year the marchers take the long way around 8th street before ending the Cesar Chavez March at the Civic Center where a great celebration ensues replete with a Hip Hop artist who is Cesar’s nephew rapping bout globalization and issues concerning low wage workers locally and globally We set up the POOR Magazine outreach table (aka the Po’ table) at the festival, which has moldy green smudges on it but with a little creative use of our signs as a tablecloth it is serviceable. All in all it was a beautiful day for us poor folks to celebrate what I like to think of as one of our own, a true hero de la gente, Cesar E. Chavez. |