Cesar Chavez Day
US commemorative holiday on March 31
Cesar Chavez Day is a U.S. federal commemorative holiday, proclaimed by President Barack Obama in 2014. The holiday celebrates the birth and legacy of the civil rights and labor movement activist Cesar Chavez, a cofounder and president of the United Farm Workers union, on March 31 every year.
In March 2026, following public allegations that Chavez had sexually abused women and minors, the United Farm Workers union halted celebrations of the holiday, joined by other organizations and local and state governments. Several jurisdictions, including California, renamed it Farmworkers Day to celebrate the broader movement.
Observances by state
Origins
Cesar Chavez (born Cesar Estrada Chavez, locally [ˈsesaɾ esˈtɾaða ˈtʃaβes]; March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist, who, with Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, later the United Farm Workers union, UFW.
It is commemorated to promote service to the community in honor of Cesar Chavez's life and work. Some state government offices, community colleges, libraries, and public schools are closed. Texas recognizes the day. It is an optional holiday in Arizona (official holiday in the cities of Phoenix and Tucson) and Colorado. Americans are urged to "regard this day with appropriate service, community, and educational programs to honor Cesar Chavez's enduring legacy."
There are celebrations in his honor in Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska, and New Mexico. It was observed in California from 1995 to 2025, and in Colorado since 2001 as state holidays (optional in Colorado).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cesar Chavez Day” as uS commemorative holiday on March 31. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4158139. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2026, 1927 and 1993.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cesar Chavez Day” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.