CSU Bakersfield student Andres Chavez may not be following exactly in the footsteps of his  grandfather, Cesar E. Chavez, but he is trying to continue his legacy by helping people in a different way.
“There’s a lot of ways you can help people,” Andres said. “[Cesar E. Chavez] had a quote that the fight wasn’t so much about the lettuce or the grapes that the fight was about people, and that quote sits really well with me because that really speaks to the magnitude of who he was and how wholistic his view was. It also talks about the work that I can do to maybe continue his legacy.”
He said that there are so many ways to help people.
“You can help people in just about every profession that you choose to do, but it’s just about how you go about doing it,” he said. “Will I follow my grandfather’s legacy? Probably not step by step in the work he did, but I can do it by helping people and that’s ultimately what I want to do.”
Andres, 21, was raised in Keene, Calif. and is one of four siblings. He attended Tehachapi High School before coming to CSUB. He is currently a junior and is the third of his siblings to come to CSUB.
He is majoring in public policy and administration, and he’s hoping to work with economic development and reach out to communities that don’t have as many job opportunities to help them achieve the American Dream.
“The cool thing would be if you can go into these communities, invest in them and help them out, then I think that would make a world of difference…so if I can do something in those lines – creating more opportunities and hope for people in low-income communities – then I want to try to do that.”
Andres was born nine months after his grandfather passed away in April of 1993, but he was able to learn about him through literature and through stories that were told to him.
“A lot of people remember their stories with him,” he said. “I go to different events throughout the state, and you have people tell you these stories about him, so through my family, through friends and through random people I’ve met at different events I have gotten a pretty good idea of who my grandfather was.”
He added that a story he enjoys hearing is how his grandfather was in meetings, but his favorite story that he’s heard from other people about his grandfather is hearing about how he was as a grandfather.
“I like hearing just the stories that [my family] have shared about him and just some of the fun things he used to do,” he said. “The stories of him playing handball, and how we was really competitive. On Easter Sunday, we used to have a big softball game every year, and he would always be full-time pitcher because he always wanted to be on the winning team so kind of just funny stories like that.”
When he’s not at CSUB, Andres also helps with the Cesar Chavez Foundation as a curriculum specialist and a speakers bureau coordinator. As a curriculum specialist, he writes an after-school curriculum and as a speakers bureau coordinator, he gets speakers out to all the requests that the foundation gets for events.
“I work full-time and go to school full-time, so it can be tough at times, but I have managed to be pretty successful,” he said.
Back in October 2012 when President Barack Obama went to Keene, Calif. to commemorate the National Cesar E. Chavez Center becoming a national monument, Andres got to shake his hand. For the first time he was star struck.
“I’ve met movie stars before and seen movie stars before, but I never really have been star struck before,” he said. “However, when the president came out, he was a figure that seemed larger than life. We were so close. I was probably 15 feet away from him, so I met him and his charisma, his composure, his speech and kind of everything that transpired that day and just the emotions of this happening just made it a really good experience.
“It was an incredible honor and what it really meant is that the federal government was willing to recognize the important contributions of a Latino-American.”