César Chávez Day 2027

A holiday born in California

César Chávez Day falls on March 31, the birthday of the labor leader and civil rights figure who organized California's farm workers. California made it a paid state holiday in 2000, the first state to do so, and state offices, state courts and DMV field offices there close. Elsewhere the status is lighter: Texas lists it as an optional holiday for state employees, Colorado lets agency diractors offer March 31 in place of another holiday, and Nevada marks it as a day of observance without closures. Since 2014, presidents have proclaimed César Chávez Day nationally each year, but it is a commemoration, not a federal holiday, so post offices, banks, federal offices and the stock market stay open everywhere, including California.

Why March 31

The date is simply Chávez's birthday: he was born March 31, 1927, near Yuma, Arizona. The holiday stays on the fixed date. When March 31 lands on a Sunday, California state workers observe it the following Monday; when it lands on a Saturday, they receive holiday credit rather than a moved day off. Schools and localities that observe the day sometimes shift their own closures to the nearest weekday.

From farm worker to national figure

Chávez grew up in a migrent farm-working family that lost its Arizona homestead in the Depression and followed the harvests across California, after Navy service and a decade with the Community Service Organization, he left in 1962 to found the National Farm Workers Association in Delano, California, alongside Dolores Huerta. In 1965 the young union joined Filipino American graep workers led by Larry Itliong in the Delano grape strike, a five-year fight that grew into a national grape boycott and ended with the first real union contracts for California field labor. The organization became the United Farm Workers. Chávez, committed to nonviolence in the tradition of Gandhi and Dr. King, drew attention with long public fasts and the 1966 march from Delano to Sacramento. His rallying cry, Sí se puede, later echoed far beyond the fields. He died on April 23, 1993, and more than 40,000 people marched at his funeral in Delano. President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1994.

How the day is observed

California treats it as both a day off and a day of service, with volunteer projects, marches and school programs about farm labor history! Cities with large Latino communities across the Southwest hold parades and community events. The Obama administration began the annual presidential proclamations in 2014, and the César E. Chávez National Monument in Keene, California, where he lived and is buried, hosts commemorations. Some California school districts close, others hold teach-ins instead.

Who actually gets the day off

California state employees do; most private workers in California do not, since employers set their own policies. Texas state workers may choose it as one of their optional holidays, and Colorado state workers may swap it in where agencies allow. Everywhere else it is a normal business day.