Denver offices to be closed Monday to honor life of César Chávez
Cesar Chavez Day was proclaimed a federal commemorative holiday in 2014 and honors the activist's legacy in the civil rights and labor movement during his life. Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association in 1962, which was later dubbed the United Farm Bureau.
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Chavez was also known for using boycotts, marches, strikes and other tactics to garner support and new members for farm labor unions in the U.S. He was also a sailor with the U.S. Navy during World War II, returning from war to fight for freedom in the U.S. agriculture industry alongside Dolores Huerta.
Together, the pair of activists adopted the phrase 'Si, se puede,' as a rallying cry during a fast they conducted in 1972. The phrase means 'Yes, it can be done' in English and has been hailed as the crux of the pair's conviction to nonviolent tactics to enact change.
On Monday, most Denver offices will be closed in observation, including the libraries, courts, clerk and recorder's office and motor vehicle title and registration offices. A full list of what is closed can be found here.
Because it is a holiday, street meters in Denver will be free, but time restrictions still apply. Trash, recycling and compost collection will be provided as normal.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Los Angeles Times
11 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Japan marks 80th anniversary of WWII surrender as concern grows about fading memory
TOKYO — Japan paid tribute Friday to more than 3 million war dead as the country marked its surrender that ended World War II 80 years ago, as concern grows about the rapidly fading memories of the tragedy of war and the bitter lessons from the era of Japanese militarism. On Friday, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba expressed 'remorse' over the war — the first time a Japanese leader has used the word in an address — since former premier Shinzo Abe shunned it in 2013. Ishiba called the war a mistake, but did not mention Japan's aggression across Asia or apologize. 'We will never repeat the tragedy of the war. We will never go the wrong way,' Ishiba said. 'Once again, we must deeply keep to our hearts the remorse and lesson from that war.' He vowed to pass his peace pledge to next generations. In a national ceremony Friday at Tokyo's Budokan hall, about 4,500 officials and bereaved families and their descendants from around the country observed a moment of silence at noon, the time when Emperor Hirohito's surrender speech began on Aug. 15, 1945. Participants later offered chrysanthemum flowers for the war dead. Just a block away at the Yasukuni Shrine, dozens of Japanese rightwing politicians and their supporters gathered to pray. The shrine honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including convicted war criminals. Victims of Japanese aggression, especially China and the Koreas, see visits to the shrine as a lack of remorse about Japan's wartime past. Ishiba stayed away from Yasukuni and sent a religious ornament as a personal gesture instead of praying at the controversial shrine. But Shinjiro Koizumi, the agriculture minister considered as a top candidate to replace the beleaguered prime minister, prayed at the shrine. He told reporters that he made the no-war pledge to the spirits. 'It is important to not forget those who sacrificed their lives for their country,' he said. Koizumi is the son of popular former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who outraged China when he visited Yasukuni as a serving leader in 2001. Rightwing lawmakers, including former economic security ministers Sanae Takaichi and Takayuki Kobayashi, as well as governing Liberal Democratic Party heavyweight Koichi Hagiuda, also visited the shrine Friday. A non-partisan group of 87 parliamentarians led by Liberal Democrat Ichiro Aisawa also prayed at Yasukuni, pledging 'to uphold peace' in Japan and in the Indo-Pacific region. Separately, Sohei Kamiya, head of the populist far-right Sanseito, prayed with 17 parliamentarians and 70 local assembly members from his party. He told reporters that the prime minister should visit Yasukuni. China and South Korea reminded Japan of its wartime atrocities in their countries and elsewhere in Asia. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized attempts in Japan to 'whitewash and deny aggression, distort and falsify history and even seek to rehabilitate the accusations of war criminals.' 'Only by facing history squarely can we gain respect, only by learning from history can we forge ahead into the future,' he added. In Seoul, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, ahead of an upcoming trip to Japan for a summit with Ishiba, called for the two U.S. allies to overcome grievances from Japan's brutal colonial rule. He said some historical issues remain unresolved, urging Tokyo to face up to 'our painful history and strive to maintain trust between our two countries.' Japanese emperors have stopped visiting the Yasukuni site since the enshrinement of top war criminals there in 1978. Emperor Naruhito, in his address at the Budokan memorial Friday, expressed his hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated while 'reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse.' Naruhito reiterated the importance of telling the war's tragic history to younger generations as 'we continue to seek the peace and happiness of the people in the future.' As part of the 80th anniversary, he has traveled to Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Hiroshima, and is expected to visit Nagasaki with his daughter, Princess Aiko, in September. Hajime Eda, whose father died on his way home from Korea when his ship was hit by a mine, said he will never forget his father and others who never made it home. In a speech representing bereaved families, Eda said it is Japan's responsibility to share lessons about the emptiness of the conflict, the difficulty of reconstruction and the preciousness of peace. Several teenagers took part in the ceremony after learning about their great-grandfathers who died in the battlefields. Ami Tashiro, a 15-year-old high school student from Hiroshima, said she joined a memorial marking the end of the battle on Iwo Jima last year after reading a letter her great-grandfather sent from the island. She also hopes to join in the search for his remains. As the population of wartime generations rapidly decline, Japan faces serious questions on how it should pass its history to the next generation. The country has faced revisionist pushbacks since the 2010s under Abe, who pushed to correct a 'self-deprecating view' of Japan's wartime history and regain national pride. Since 2013, Japanese prime ministers have stopped apologizing to Asian victims, under the precedent set by Abe. Some lawmakers' denial of Japan's military role in massive civilian deaths on Okinawa or the Nanking Massacre have stirred controversy. Naoya Endo, 64, came to Yasukuni in place of his late father who was among a few out of his unit's 50 members who returned from Taiwan. He said he worries about the growing global tension and hopes there will be no war in his lifetime. He lamented that many Japanese have lost pride and a love of their homeland. In an editorial Friday, the Mainichi newspaper called on Japan to work together with Asian neighbors as equal partners. 'It's time to show a vision toward 'a world without war' based on the lesson from its own history,' the Mainichi said. Yamaguchi writes for the Associated Press. AP journalists Mayuko Ono, Ayaka McGill and Reeno Hashimoto in Tokyo; Huizhong Wu in Bangkok and Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea contributed to this report.
UPI
40 minutes ago
- UPI
Japanese PM Ishiba calls for 'remorse' during WWII ceremony
1 of 5 | Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba offers flowers during the memorial service for the war dead of World War II marking the 80th anniversary at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan on Friday. Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo Aug. 15 (UPI) -- In an address at the National Memorial Ceremony for the War Dead in Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba called for remorse over Japan's actions during World War II. "Eighty years have now passed since the war ended," Ishiba said in a speech Friday that Japanese prime ministers deliver each year at the memorial. "Today, generations with no firsthand experience of war make up the great majority. We must never again repeat the horrors of war." "We must never again lose our way," he added. "We must now take deeply into our hearts once again our remorse and also the lessons learned from that war." His predecessors Shinzo Abe, Yoshihide Suga and Fumio Kishida hadn't mentioned the word "remorse" when they delivered the prime minister's address annually since Abe first left out the word from his speech in 2013. A tradition of including a recommendation of remorse had started with former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama, who in 1995, during the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, said in his address that he had "feelings of deep remorse" concerning Japanese past bellicosity. He further offered an apology for Japan's past "colonial rule and aggression." Murayama's 1995 address has since been viewed as an impactful speech known as "The Murayama Statement." Successive prime ministers had continued to mention remorse until Abe's 2013 presentation. Japanese Emperor Naruhito also spoke during the ceremony Friday, and he too included the word and a need for repentance. "Looking back on the long period of post-war peace, reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never again be repeated," he said.
Chicago Tribune
41 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Two priests who serve the poor at Evanston church could be forced to leave US, parish fears
Walking out of Catholic mass at St. John XXIII parish in Evanston Thursday morning, Lois Farley Shuford expressed alarm that the parish's two priests, who both came to the United States with a mission to serve the poor, might be forced to leave the country. The possibility of losing the immigrant priests intensifies the worry for people in the parish, where about half the congregants are immigrants from Mexico. They're facing heightened fears as they see news reports about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seizing immigrants on the streets. The priests, Rev. Koudjo K. Jean-Philippe Lokpo, of the west African nation of Togo, and Rev. José Manuel Ortiz, of Mexico, are here on R1 religious worker visas that permit them to serve in the United States. But the federal government is so backed up in processing paperwork that Rev. Lokpo might be forced to leave in October, and only an attorney's intervention saved Rev. Ortiz from having to leave the country by the end of July. That has upset parishioners, who say the two men have devoted their lives to serving others, and have done tremendous good for the people in the parish. 'We were scared,' Lois Farley Shuford said after leaving the church service. 'I mean, in this [President Donald Trump] administration, we're scared about everything.' 'We're scared for many of our parishioners,' added Bob Shuford. About half of the St. John XXIII's parishioners are Hispanic in the multilingual parish, which offers mass in English, Spanish and French Creole. 'We're aware of what's happening with our priests,' Bob Shuford said. 'It's a part of a larger concern that we have, and we've all been through training on how we can best support our fellow parishioners.' The Archdiocese of Chicago consolidated the parishes of St. Nicholas and St. Mary to form St. John XXIII parish in early 2022. By the end of that year, Lokpo led the parish as its pastor, assisted by Ortiz as the parish's associate pastor. 'The core of this place, particularly at St. Nick, but the core of the whole parish has been that all are welcome. That's a critical thing here in this parish home, and so I think that has been extended to Jose and Jean-Philippe as well,' Lois Farley Shuford said. Ortiz remains philosophical about the possibility of being forced to leave St. John XXIII and return to Mexico. 'It is what it is,' Ortiz said. What really matters to him is his connection to the members of his parish, he added. 'You try to do what's best for the parish and for the people.' In an April letter to the parish, Lokpo wrote his initial concerns that his and Ortiz's green card application for continued residency had yet to be processed by the federal government, despite submitting his required documents to the government in 2022. At the time, he anticipated that Ortiz's visa would expire in July, which would require him to return to Mexico; however, immigration lawyers were able to obtain a 240-day extension on Ortiz's visa due to the time lost because of the pandemic. Lokpo is now seeking the same extension, according to Ortiz. Lokpo's visa is set to expire at the end of October. 'I ask for your prayers and your understanding as we navigate this challenge. I am concerned about the disruption this will cause for our St. John XXIII Parish, yet I trust in God's hand in this and in His care for our faith community,' Lokpo wrote. St. John XXIII is administered by an international Catholic organization called Comboni Missionaries, according to Comboni's Senior Communications Specialist Lindsay Braud. Comboni ministers to the 'world's poorest and most abandoned people,' according to its website. Comboni has 3,500 missionaries worldwide and operates in 41 countries, according to its website. Comboni's priests in North American parishes are selected by the Provincial Superior Rev. Ruffino Ezama. 'We are an international religious order,' Ezama said. 'Wherever there is need, we don't look at if someone is an immigrant or not, because we go there to serve the church.' Despite the mission serving in 41 countries, Ezama said the United States has the most rigorous requirements for religious workers. Comboni priests take vows of poverty, which prevents them from being paid for their work, chastity and obedience, which beholds them to orders from their superiors at Comboni. Lokpo did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Shelley Benson and Tom Lenz, the chair and vice-chair of the Parish Pastoral Council, respectively, responded on Lokpo's behalf, asking Pioneer Press to speak to the Archdiocese of Chicago. The Archdiocese commented, 'While we hope the federal government recognizes the special status of religious workers, we do not discuss personnel matters.' The archdiocese, like many others in the United States, is facing a shortage of priests as fewer men choose that vocation. Some Chicagoland parishes rely on immigrant priests to fill the gap. Nearly 60% of younger diocesan priests — under the age of 50 — who serve in the Archdiocese of Chicago are immigrants, according to a 2023 report. The number is a considerable contrast with priests over the age of 50, of whom 81% were born in the U.S. The average age of a priest in 2023 was 64. Prior to 2023, it would typically take 12 months for the government to process for a green card. That's well within the five-year time frame that an R1 visa gives a religious worker, according to immigration lawyer Tahreem Kalam, with Minsky, McCormick and Hallagan. But that changed drastically after a 2023 decision from the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration. That created a significant backlog, according to Kalam, who said the five years might run out for some R1 visa holders. She said they're in an 'impossible' situation. A workaround that some attorneys try for their clients is to have them apply for an H-1B visa, Kalam said, but that won't work for most religious since they take vows of poverty. 'It's a huge problem in the community,' she said. 'Especially an institution like the Catholic Church — It's a global [institution] — They send people to different countries all the time.' She represents a large group of Catholic nuns, and 'they've all just kind of come to terms now that they have to leave [the country],' she remarked. At the national level, some dioceses are taking their demands to government. Last year, the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, and five of its priests sued the federal government over its backlog of green card approvals. Steps are being taken in the U.S. House and Senate to bring a resolution for religious workers' status, according to the Associated Press. 'I think the only way for changes in their visas is if some of these bigger religious organizations were to lobby and show Congress how much they are being affected by losing their religious leaders,' Kalam said. On a warm summer evening on the grounds of St. Nicholas Church, one of the two churches that make up St. John XXIII parish, attorney William Quiceno volunteers his time to give immigrants free legal consultations every other month. He has been doing so for the past 10 to 12 years. On this particular July evening, he had eight new clients. Of those, he really only had a path forward for three, he said. 'People have more fear, for sure,' Quiceno said. 'They're worried more about their future, their kids, the lives they've established here. They're looking for any kind of way they can fix their status.' 'A lot of them have known they haven't had any options, but they're hoping that one day, there would be an option. Now that kind of hope disappears.' 'Their hope kind of disappears,' he repeated to himself. Inside the makeshift waiting room, Teresa Infante and Mireya Terrazaz take names on a sign-up sheet and usher clients into the lawyer's temporary office. In the wake of promises from the Trump administration to crack down on immigration enforcement in Chicago, Infante and Terrazaz confirmed the renewed tensions felt in the immigrant community. In the months since Trump's return to the Oval Office, as many as 22 people signed up for free consultations one evening, creating the need for the lawyer to stay one hour later than he usually volunteers. What the two didn't count on, after decades of volunteer work for the parish, is that their own priests would be in danger of not being allowed to stay in the country. 'It was very sad,' Infante said of Ortiz's situation. A group of parishioners had met over the weeks to pray for Ortiz to stay in the country. 'Please, don't take our priests away,' Terrazas said. Now they wait to see whether Lokpo's visa will be extended past October. 'We have to pray,' said Infante. 'A lot.'
