Alum Rock students celebrate Cesar Chavez Day at Mexican Heritage Plaza

Hundreds of Alum Rock Union School District students marched to the Mexican Heritage Plaza in East San Jose on Thursday morning, continuing a three-decade-long tradition to celebrate labor leader Cesar Chavez.

There were chants of “Sí, se puede,” and the students were treated to a string of performances by the district’s mariachi students, folklorico dancers, student poets and the Aztec dancing of Calpulli Tonalehqueh — interrupted only by a few speeches from grown-ups invested in the kids’ future. (While Cesar Chavez Day is observed as a holiday on March 31, his birthday, the school celebration takes place a day early.)

Those adults included Alum Rock Union School District Superintendent Hilaria Bauer; San Jose State University President Cynthia Teniente-Matson, whose grandparents were farmworkers and who took part in Cesar Chavez marches in San Antonio, Texas, while she was a university president there; and Anthony Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s grandson, who taught the kids how to do the famous “unity clap.”

He was just in third grade when his grandfather died in 1993, about the same age as many of the students he was addressing, and recalled that every year that passed, the history books would say a little more about Cesar Chavez and his work on behalf of farmworkers.

“Thirty years later, the memory of who Cesar Chavez was as an American hero has only continued to grow,” he said. “My grandfather was a source of inspiration for so many farmworkers but also for so many millions of others who never worked in the fields.”

CHAVEZ PARK PROPOSAL: McDonnell Hall at San Jose’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Church — the national landmark where Cesar Chavez first honed his organizing skills — could be part of a new Cesar E. Chavez and the Farmworker Movement National Historical Park, which was proposed in legislation introduced Thursday by U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and Southern California Rep. Raul Ruiz.

“On Cesar Chavez Day we commemorate the work and legacy of an iconic Latino civil rights leader,” Padilla said in a statement. “Establishing the Cesar E. Chavez and the Farmworker Movement National Historical Park will pay proper homage to Chavez’s tireless work for the dignity, respect, and equal treatment of farmworkers.”

This is a reintroduction of similar legislation from last year that didn’t get a vote in Congress. The park outlined in the bill would potentially encompass several sites in two states: the existing national monument, which includes La Nuestra Señora Reina de la Paz, in the town of Keene in Kern County, and — upon written agreement from the site owners — could also include historic sites related to Chavez and the struggle for farmworker rights: Forty Acres, a national landmark in Delano in Kern County; the Santa Rita Center in Phoenix; and McDonnell Hall.

DRAMATIC TWIST: Tabard Theatre Company is still closing after 22 years with Sunday’s final performance of “Once,” but Tabard Theatre itself will live on in downtown San Jose after all.

Jonathan Rhys Williams, Tabard’s executive director, announced the good news/bad news scenario to supporters this week that Tabard Theatre in San Pedro Square would continue to be a performance venue for music and comedy shows. It will, however, stop producing its own live theatrical shows.