Doc on Cesar Chavez Shoots in Loma Linda Market
The Daily Bulletin reports:
LOMA LINDA – This normally politically placid town was briefly transformed into a hotbed of ’60s activism this week.
A film crew from Los Angeles descended on Loma Linda University to shoot scenes for a new documentary about the late labor-rights activist Cesar Chavez.
“Viva La Causa,” (Long Live the Cause) chronicles a critical juncture in the struggle to improve conditions for farm workers.
The 40-minute film, due out in August, tells the story of the Delano grape strike, a five-year grass-roots effort to pressure table-grape growers to allow workers to join unions and pay them fair wages.
It was commissioned by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of a program called “Teaching Tolerance.”
The documentary is intended mainly for high school students, said Olga Arana, associate producer for Bill Brummel Productions in Studio City.
“It teaches children that good causes are worth standing up and fighting for,” Arana said. “No matter who you are, with determination and a strong will, you can accomplish anything.”
The film company used the Loma Linda Market as a backdrop because it looks like grocery stores did in the ’60s, Arana said. Scenes in the movie depict protesters and union organizers urging customers to boycott California grapes.
As a child, I walked to Loma Linda Market from Star Street, in the 1980s, with my mother, to buy stuff out of their big bins of bulk grains. I used to also love watching the machine in the back corner make fresh peanut butter. Apparently I had a 1960s childhood. . .
