We Are Also Responsible: Cesar Chavez 1971/2008 (2008)

Summary:
Public reenactment of a speech given by Chicano labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez at a Vietnam veterans memorial rally at Exposition Park in Los Angeles on May 2, 1971. Chavez speaks about organizing migrant farm workers, the importance of sacrifice for justice, and offering youth an alternative to violence and war. Ricardo Dominguez, artist and co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater, delivered the speech on location on July 19, 2008. Based on a 10-minute speech.

"It would be easy to put all the blame on the generals and the police and the growers and the other bosses. Or on violence in TV or the movies or war toys. But we are also responsible. Some husbands prove to their children that might makes right by the way they beat on their own wives. Most of us honor violence in one way or another, in sports if not at home. We insist on our own way, grab for security and trample on other people in the process... And so too often our sons go off to war grasping for their manhood at the end of a gun and trained to work and to sacrifice for war."

"For the poor it is a terrible irony that they should rise out of their misery to do battle against other poor people when the same sacrifices could be turned against the causes of their poverty. But what have we done to demonstrate another way? Talk is cheap and our young people know it best of all. It is the way we organize and use our lives every day that tells what we believe in."


This movie is part of the collection: Open Source Movies

Director: Mark Tribe
Producer: Mark Tribe
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Language: English
Keywords: Cesar Chavez; Mark Tribe; Port Huron Project; video; art; new; left; Vietnam; war; protest; anti-war; poor; farmers; labor; performance; reenactment; fear; guns; approval; violence; children; sacrifice; justice; Army; manhood; kill; misery; organize; non-violence; discipline; struggle; youth; brothers
Contact Information: http://www.marktribe.net/art/port-huron-project/

Creative Commons license: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0