by Corey Schlosser-Hall

RICHMOND, June 30 - More than 100 people honored Lucas Benitez in English and Spanish during Tuesday evening's Hispanic-Latino Assembly dinner.

Benitez is a leader of the farmworkers in Immokalee, FL, who are the focus of the PC(USA)-supported national boycott of Taco Bell restaurants. The aim of the boycott is to pressure Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, to push tomato growers in Florida to raise the piece rate they pay workers for harvesting tomatoes - 40 to 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket they fill, a rate that hasn't changed since 1978.

The eclectic group of Hispanics and Latinos buzzed with fellowship, laughter and challenge. "We are family, brothers and sisters in Christ," Elder Ricardo Moreno, chair of the Hispanic-Latino Caucus, said in expressing gratitude to commissioners, caucus members, synod and presbytery staff, GAC staff and others who have been supportive of the Presbyterian church (USA)'s Hispanic-Latino ministries.

The Rev. Jean Marie Peacock, the Assembly's vice moderator, encouraged those in attendance to continue living into the "vision of a multicultural church - to cross borders and cultures, and be one in the Church and one in Christ."

Noe Juarez, from the Hispanic Caucus in Synod of Mid-Atlantic, provided music using four different instruments.

Benitez and two other leaders of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers received the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award for their opposition to slavery in the farm fields of the United States and their leadership of the boycott.

Three years ago, Benitez said, when he was leading a group of farmworkers to California for a demonstration at Taco Bell's corporate headquarters, he called Moreno and said, "We

don't know each other, but I need your help. We need a place to stay for 100 farmworkers."

Within two hours, he said, Moreno had arranged for Immanuel Presbyterian Church to shelter the workers, "and that's how the Taco Bell boycott got started."

The PC(USA) was the first church to sign on to the boycott. Since then it has been joined by the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), American Friends Service Committee (Quakers) and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, which represents 36 Protestant and Orthodox communions with more than 50 million members.

Chacon, introduced by Moreno as a "companero en la lucha," or partner in the struggle, said politics is "a gift from God so that justice can be realized in the world" and "the way to bring well-being to the people."

Chacon, noting that funding for Spanish-language curriculum was a casualty of the PC(USA)'s recent budget crunch, urged his listeners to "fight for our place in the denomination."

"Some of the fault is our own," he said, "because we are hesitant to involve ourselves in politics. We say no when we are asked to be involved in committees. . Fight for the justice of God by living a public life for the people of God. Know that the spirit of God is with us."