zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.ufw.org/sernast.html
STATEMENT FROM ARTURO S. RODRIGUEZ, PRESIDENT
UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA, AFL-CIO
AT MARCH FOR MAYOR JOE SERNA JR.
Nov. 10, 1999--Sacramento, Calif.
Good morning. Buenos dias. I say good because we gather to celebrate and honor the life of a man of conscience and commitment. We are not at just any place. This place symbolizes the love this man had for his hero, Cesar Chavez.
This plaza will beautify the legacies of Joe Serna and Cesar Chavez for generations to come.
* * *
Farm workers honor Joe Serna not because he was born the son of farm workers.
Or because he was brought up in impoverished farm labor camps near Lodi and knew the torture of toiling with the short-handled hoe. Or because his roots were with the farm workers. Lots of people worked their way out of the fields--as Joe did--went on to better lives and never looked back.
We're here because Joe Serna never forgot where he came from. And to his dying day, he never stopped caring for the people whose plight he had shared.
For more than 30 years, Joe championed the United Farm Workers in Sacramento. He organized car caravans to Delano with food and clothing for the grape strikers. It seemed he spent much of the '60s and '70s organizing and picketing for the UFW.
Cesar Chavez often called on Joe for help and support of boycotts, demonstrations and political campaigns. Joe always dropped whatever he was doing to respond.
There are men and women all over America who were Cesar's pupils going back to the '60s and '70s. As they matured, an incredible number of them became elected officials, leaders of labor, civil rights and social service organizations, and successful professionals. Joe was one of them.
But not as many remained true to Cesar and the farm workers all the way through the good times and the darker days. Joe was one of them.
On Saturday, the day before Joe died, Cesar's widow, Helen, and his son, Paul, came to spend time with Joe, Isabel and the Serna family at their home in Curtis Park.
Paul was interviewed that day by a local television news crew. "My father was a hero to many people," Paul Chavez said, "and we all loved him. But Joe Serna was my hero."
I was privileged to come on Friday, and help the family bring Joe home from the hospital. That afternoon at the house, Philip Serna asked me to take a framed photo of Cesar that Joe's brother, Reuben, had taken years ago and nail it on the wall at the foot of Joe's bed so he could look at the image of his hero. On Joe's shirt was pinned a UFW button with a photo of Cesar and the words, "Nonviolence is our strength."
I was moved by the reverence with which Joe held Cesar. But let me repeat, Joe Serna was our hero.
* * *
In keeping with the traditions of the UFW, Joe's family asked that we bring him to the cathedral farm worker style--by marching behind his casket.
Many of you may not have marched with the farm workers. It all began with the 343-mile march--or pilgrimage--that Cesar led from Delano to Sacramento in 1966.
For Cesar, marches, strikes and boycotts were how he got masses of people to participate in their own cause.
Cesar was convinced that democracy is best experienced through participation and self-determination.And Joe Serna's entire life--from farm worker organizer to big-city mayor--was an affirmation of democracy.
The beauty of a march, Cesar believed, was that everybody can participate. Race or ethnicity or religion doesn't matter. You can be young or old. Marching is a way to show how much you believe in what you are doing.
And it is the ultimate mark of respect for a fallen hero and leader.
You will hear another symbol inside the cathedral during Mass. The music will be provided by a choir of children from schools throughout the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Perhaps Joe's greatest triumph as mayor was reforming the city's public schools. Joe made a better education for the kids the biggest priority for himself--and for the entire city.
By singing, the students will symbolize the debt of gratitude this entire community owes to its mayor.
* * *
One word about the remembrances that the Serna family has requested. We are deeply humbled that Joe asked that money be contributed to the farm workers. But I want you to know that Joe didn't want your donations used for charitable purposes.
He wanted it used to help fulfill Joe's and Cesar's dream--our dream--to help farm workers organize to win respect and dignity.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.house.gov/pelosi/flserna.htm
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi Honoring the Late Joe Serna
November 19, 1999
Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, Joe Serna was a good man and an outstanding Mayor. I was honored to join my colleagues this week and support House Resolution 363, recognizing and honoring Sacramento, California, Mayor Joe Serna, Jr., and expressing the condolences of the House of Representatives to his family and the people of Sacramento on his death.
As a son of an immigrant farm worker, he learned the values of hard work which exemplified his career. Eager to help others, Joe entered the Peace Corps in 1966. When he returned to California, he joined the faculty at California State University, Sacramento, in 1969 becoming a professor of Government. He was so good at energizing and inspiring his students that in 1991 he received the Distinguished Faculty Award.
Joe Serna decided to continue serving his community by being first elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1981 and reelected in 1985 and 1989. He was then elected mayor of Sacramento in 1992 and again in 1996.
Joe Botz of Sacramento wrote a Letter-to-Editor in the Sacramento Bee last week, which I believe embodies Joe Serna's legacy as a political role model and as a leader. Botz wrote, `Most citizens look at the day when citizen-politicians governed us. Serna was a living and working embodiment of those days. He was brash and arrogant as he looked after Sacramento and its citizens' best interests in the larger political level. But on an interpersonal level, he expressed deep concern and intense compassion of all River City citizens, particularly the poor and disadvantaged.'
Joe Serna possessed an unparalleled commitment to helping others. He fought for the underdog and befriended those who needed him the most. For that Mr. Speaker, I will always look up to Joe Serna.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/11/08/MN62151.DTL
Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr. Dies
First Latino in the job, loyal ally of Cesar Chavez
Chronicle Staff and Wire Reports
Monday, November 8, 1999
Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr., who rose from his roots as a farmworker to become Sacramento's first Latino mayor in modern history, died yesterday of kidney cancer and complications from diabetes.
Serna, 60, had briefly slipped into a diabetic coma Wednesday and asked to return home from the hospital Friday. He died at 3:47 a.m. surrounded by his family, said Chuck Dalldorf, a spokesman for the mayor.
Serna was a city councilman for 18 years and became mayor in 1992. He may best be remembered for helping reinvigorate downtown Sacramento and reforming his city's public schools by campaigning on behalf of new school leadership and a $191 million school bond.
``Joe led a movement to recall a large number of school board members, elect a reform slate, adopt a reform program and upgrade standards,'' said Phil Isenberg, a former Sacramento mayor and state assemblyman.
Serna was a loyal friend of the late Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union since the 1960s, when he organized one of the state's first food caravans to feed striking grape pickers.
``He continued in every way he could to fight for the low-income (people), for the farmworkers, for the people that, for whatever reasons, were not being provided the respect and dignity they deserved,'' said United Farm Workers Union President Arturo S. Rodriguez.
Serna also transcended ethnic politics, according to close friend and political adviser Richie Ross.
``He was never thought of in Sacramento as anything other than Mayor Joe, everybody's mayor,`` said Ross.
BORN IN STOCKTON
Serna was born in Stockton and used to tell how his parents, poor Mexican immigrants who worked the fields, brought him home from the hospital in a cardboard box. He grew up in Lodi, picking grapes and tomatoes as a youngster to help support his family.
He earned his bachelor's degree from Sacramento State University, and attended graduate school at the University of California at Davis. He served in the Peace Corps in Guatemala as a community development volunteer specializing in cooperatives and credit unions.
Serna dubbed himself an ``activist'' who hoped to ``be the best mayor I can be so that the next ethnic person who . . . wants to be mayor can become the mayor, and it won't be a big deal.''
STRONG LEGACY
``Joe was a true giant in the Latino community, and a visionary leader for all of Sacramento,'' said Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in a statement. ``He leaves a great legacy of public service, whether he was standing in the fields fighting for farmworker rights or visiting the White House advocating for the city he so dearly loved.''
Serna served on the Sacramento- area support committee for the United Farm Workers, and was a former member of the Sacramento Central Labor Council.
He also served on an array of municipal bodies, including the Sacramento Regional Transit board of directors, the Employment and Training Agency, the Metropolitan Cable Television Commission, and the Air Quality Management Board.
Serna and his wife Isabel have two grown children, Philip and Lisa. The family lived in Sacramento's Curtis Park neighborhood.
The mayor announced to the public in June he would not seek a third term because of his deteriorating health.
Since Serna died with more than a year left in his term -- a year and a day to be exact -- a special election will be held to determine a successor.
Serna's supporters expect a large turnout Wednesday, particularly from among farmworkers, for a funeral march from Cesar Chavez Plaza across from Sacramento City Hall to the Cathedral for the Blessed Sacrament. Serna's family requested that all donations be directed to the UFW union.
Page A - 3
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.usmayors.org/uscm/us_mayor_newspaper/documents/11_15_99/in_memoriam.htm
In Memoriam: Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr., 60, died at his California home November 7
In a White House statement, President Clinton paid tribute to Mayor Serna, saying he was a great leader of Sacramento and a "source of inspiration to the Hispanic community and all Americans."
Serna was the first Hispanic mayor of a major california city. His career in public service spanned nearly two decades and included his experience as government and ethnic studies professor at Sacramento's California State University since 1970.
Serna, mayor since 1992, has also been a city council member representing Oak Park, Curits Park and Hollywood Park -- all areas of Sacramento -- called himself an activist mayor, and press reports credited him with energizing public education in Sacramento, and in promoting Sacramento's downtown development when the regional economy was foundering in the 1990's.
Vice mayor Jimmy Yee has been appointed to fill the unexpired term of Mayor Serna.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.ufw.org/serna.html
Details on services for Mayor Joe Serna Jr.:
7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9: Rosary at Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament, 11th &
K Streets, downtown Sacramento
9 a.m., Wednesday, Nov. 10: a farm worker-style march behind Mayor Serna's
casket begins at Cesar Chavez Plaza outside City Hall, 9th & "I" Streets,
downtown Sacramento. Speaking is UFW President Arturo Rodriguez. The march
will proceed to the Cathedral at 11th & K Streets for the Mass.
Farm Workers Mourn Sacramento Mayor Joe Serna Jr.
The son of farm workers, Joe, his two brothers and sister were raised in impoverished farm labor camps near Lodi, Calif. All of them worked in the fields from a young age‹from picking wine grapes to harvesting beets with the short-handled hoe.
Joe Serna worked his way through college and served in the Peace Corps, organizing campesinos in isolated villages in the mountains of Guatemala.
For more than 30 years, he championed the United Farm Workers in Sacramento. He organized car caravans to Delano with food and clothing for the grape strikers. He spent much of the 1960s and 1970s organizing UFW boycotts and picketing area stores. Cesar Chavez often called on Joe for help and support; Serna never turned him down.
He was elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1981. In 1992, he became the city's first Latino mayor. He was considered the most activist and influential mayor the city has ever had.
His greatest achievement as mayor was reforming the city's poorly performing public schools, which mostly serve Latino and minority children. Serna made better quality schools his biggest priority. He recruited and elected a new reform school board.
Today, test scores are up and the Sacramento City schools are a national model of how an urban school district with poor and minority kids can turn itself around. Everyone says Mayor Serna deserves the credit.
After Cesar died in 1993, Joe got the City Council to pass a law making Sacramento the first major city in American to create a paid municipal holiday on Cesar's March 31 birthday.
In 1997, the major got the City Council to rename the park in front of City Hall Cesar Chavez Plaza. It is the most important park in the city, after nearby Capital Park that houses the state Capitol. Joe also got Gov. Pete Wilson's administration to give $1.5 million to renovate Cesar Chavez Plaza from money being used to build the new Cal-EPA state office building across from the park.
As he was dying from kidney cancer late last week, the mayor's family asked UFW President Arturo Rodriguez to hang a framed photo of Cesar Chavez on the wall at the foot of the mayor's hospital bed in his home so he could look upon his hero. Joe also wore a button with Cesar's face that read, "Nonviolence is our strength."
After an heroic battle with cancer, he died at home on Sunday, Nov. 6, 1999. Thousands of people in Sacramento--Latino and non-Latino alike--are mourning their mayor.
The Serna family has asked that instead of flowers, people remember Joe by making contributions to the UFW. The mayor also asked that the union's black-eagle flags be prominently displayed at his funeral.
zzzzzzzzzzzz
http://www.csus.edu/sernacenter/about/sernas.htm
The Sernas
Joe Serna Jr.
Mayor and Government Professor, 1939 – 1999
As Sacramento's activist mayor, Joe Serna Jr. brought the same passion for change and empowerment for the disadvantaged to City Hall that guided his distinguished career as a university professor.
The son of farm workers, Joe, along with his two brothers and sister, was raised in impoverished farm labor camps near Lodi, California. Together with his family, Joe labored in the fields with a variety of crops, from wine grapes to sugar beets.
Joe completed high school and attended Sacramento City College. He transferred to California State University, Sacramento and graduated in 1966. He joined the United Farm Workers and married his first wife, Evelyn, who convinced him to join the Peace Corps. His Peace Corps service convinced him of the importance of becoming active in politics and government.
Returning to Sacramento, Joe began decades of service as a professor of government at Sac State, community activist, city council member, and mayor. He was elected to the Sacramento City Council in 1981, the same year he married his second wife, Isabel Hernandez-Serna.
When he was elected mayor in 1992, Joe set a busy tone at City Hall, establishing an activist agenda from an office having little constitutional power. Re-elected in 1996, Joe implemented the theme of his second mayoral campaign: "Everyone reads. Everyone works. Everyone votes." He launched a movement to reform Sacramento's public schools, rallying citywide support and electing a new school board.
A complex man deeply grounded in family roots, Joe Serna died of kidney cancer in November 1999.
++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. Isabel Hernandez Serna
Administrator and Ethnic Studies Professor, 1945–2000
Dr. Isabel Hernandez-Serna was born in the southern Spanish province of Almeria. Her mother, Rosa, was an American citizen and her father, Juan, supported the Republican forces that battled fascist Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War.
Facing hard times in post-World War II Spain, the Hernandez family moved to California when Isabel was 10 and settled in Vacaville. Isabel labored in the nearby tree fruit orchards and packing sheds.
After attending Sacramento City College, Isabel earned a bachelor's degree at Sac State in Latin American literature in 1970, a second master's degree in English as a Second Language from Stanford University in 1976 and a Ph.D. in bilingual/bicultural education and sociolinguistics from Stanford in 1980.
Isabel was part of the generation that created the Educational Equity Program for poor and minority students at Sac State. She joined the Sac State faculty in 1970 to teach in the Spanish Department. Later she moved to the School of Education and in 1986 was appointed Associated Professor of Ethnic Studies. She also served as Director of Outreach Services at Sac State from 1988 to 1994, and as Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs from 1994 to 1999.
As a top administrator, Isabel initiated many innovative programs at Sac State that opened doors and encouraged students from all backgrounds to continue their education. She served on numerous boards and commissions, and was the recipient of numerous awards for her service to the community.
A respected citizen leader, Dr. Isabel Hernandez-Serna died of breast cancer in September 2000.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
No comments:
Post a Comment