Thursday, March 27, 2003
The Weekly Calistogan

Placido Garcia:
Hispanic Citizen of the Year
By Mike Lynch
News Editor

Recently named Napa Valley’s Hispanic Citizen of the Year Placido Garcia – a musician-singer, foreman and community leader – cannot be described in a sentence or phrase. But his simple account of his early years in the Napa Valley is revealing of how he thinks. In the 1960s he was living at what is now the Calistoga Farmworker's camp as he worked the fields to bring his family to California.

“It was a hard time but it was a beautiful time too,” Garcia said about the days when he picked grapes for $1 an hour and paid $50 a month for an apartment.

In part, because of that positive outlook, Garcia will be honored with a proclamation by the Calistoga City Council at its meeting on Tuesday. He will also receive a Lifetime Achievement Award sponsored by California State Senator Wes Chesbro and endorsed by both the State Senate and Assembly.

Garcia started working for Chateau Montelena in 1974, where he is now vineyard foreman.

He is active in the community, church and school affairs. He was one of the original founders of Clinic Ole, which brings health and social services to farmworkers and their families throughout Napa County. He helped facilitate the acceptance of the matricula consular by the City of Calistoga. He has worked to promote cultural diversity and bring together all segments of the community. In addition, he has shown his appreciation of Mexican traditions by chairing the Napa Valley Cinco de Mayo Committee and the annual Our Lady of Guadalupe Processions. He was supportive of the appointment of Susan Villasenor to the School Board and was on the screening committee for the new guidance counselor and principal at the middle and high schools.

“I always like to do something for somebody else if I can,” Garcia said.

Early years

Garcia grew up in a small town outside Chihuahua four hours south of the border city of Juarez. He later moved to Chihuahua where he worked as an assistant mechanic while he was a teenager.

An accomplished musician who is known through the Napa Valley region for his operatic baritone voice, Garcia started playing music on street corners as a child with his friends, just looking for fun and extra money.

“We used to serenade the girls,” said Garcia, who has performed in recent years with Zarzuela production mounted by the Jarvis Conservatory of Napa.

At the age of 18, he moved to the United States to pick fruits and vegetables. Eventually, he became part of the Cesar Chavez labor movement and played union songs outside stores to support picketers. Garcia credits those times with influencing his outlook on life.

“It opened my eyes. We can make changes,” he said. “That’s when I started seeing things different.”

His focus remains with the community and one of his goals is improving relations between the Hispanic community and the local police department, and he is encouraged by the police officers and friends.

Garcia’s family life is also important. He has been married for 42 years to Maria Teresa Garcia, and the couple has raised five children.

To this day, he retains the ideal that working people deserve the credit, not the leaders, but the people as a whole.

“I want to thank the people,” he said. “They are the ones who deserve the credit … when we invite them to meetings, they come to the meetings. The people who work in the hotels. The people who are low paid. The people who work in the vineyards, in the restaurants.

“They give me the honor for citizen of the year. All the honors are for the Mexican people working. Give praise to the people. Give praise to recognizing labor.”