United Farm Workers bring voting rights march from Manteca to Stockton
STOCKTON -- Dozens of United Farm Workers union members and supporters walked 17 miles from Manteca to Stockton on Saturday as part of the 335-mile, 24-day "March for the Governor's Signature" walk.
It's the final leg of a march that started earlier in August in Delano, near the UFW's headquarters. The historic "Forty Acres" complex is where the union began 60 years ago, in September 1962.
The path was first walked by civil rights leader Cesar Chavez in 1966 from Delano to Sacramento when the union was in its early years.
At the time, Chavez, alongside Dolores Huerta, founded UFW to bring more attention to exploitive and dangerous conditions in the field.
Now, in 2022, marchers are urging Gov. Newsom to sign AB-1283, which would allow farmworkers to vote in union elections from home. The act, they say, would eliminate intimidation and enable union members to vote without fear.
In triple-digit temperatures, hundreds have marched over the last two weeks with purpose. By Saturday, their spirits stayed high with appearances from Martin Luther King III, Cesar Chavez's family members, and California labor movement leader Lorena Gonzalez.
"My grandparents were field workers, my parents were fieldworkers; it's important to support the union, trying to get some awareness going out there," said Isabel Fuentes Espinoza.
Espinoza brought her son to the march Saturday and handed out water to marchers as they marched toward Stockton.
They completed the 17-mile march just before 4 p.m. Saturday at Constitution Park in Stockton. They were greeted when they arrived by Huerta and community members who set up food, water, and music to welcome them.
One woman told CBS13, "It's an honor and a privilege to walk with all of these good, hardworking people who have been mistreated for too many years."
There are twenty-five full-time marchers who have been joined throughout the march by hundreds of supporters, according to the UFW website.
The "March for the Governor's Signature" is scheduled to end at the state Capitol on Aug. 26, which Gov. Newsom proclaimed as "Farm Worker Appreciation Day."
