A Las Vegas festival on Saturday celebrated the contributions of iconic union leader Cesar Chavez.
The city’s sixth annual Cesar Chavez Day Las Vegas festival was held at Gary Reese Freedom Park.
The event began with a march in memory of Chavez, a Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist who, along with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. The group later became United Farm Workers.
Chavez, originally from Arizona, was born March 31, 1927 and died April 23, 1993.
Saturday’s event also included traditional folk dances, songs, music, food and vendors.
MP Selena Torres, D-Las Vegas, said on Saturday that she helped launch the festival six years ago when she was 18.
Torres said she worked to launch the festival because “it is extremely important that our community honor and recognize the life and legacy” of Chavez.
She said she wanted to educate future generations about the labor activist and Latino culture as a whole.
“It was so obvious that the life and heritage of Latinos in the country was just a small paragraph in a really big textbook,” she said.
Torres said she admires Chavez for his community organization and work to improve the lives of farm workers in the United States.
“There were so many people with pockets much bigger than him who wanted him to continue to come to terms with the current condition,” she said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at [email protected] or 702-383-0240. To follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
