Google Under Fire For Easter Doodle Celebrating Cesar Chavez

Shelley Mendoza

April 1, 2013

Google sparked a backlash for dedicating one of its doodles on Easter Sunday to celebrate Cesar Chavez’s 86th birthday. While Google hasn’t dedicated a doodle on Easter in 13 years many voiced their complaints via Twitter about the portrait of the Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist. Many even threatened to switch to Microsoft’s Bing, Google’s competitor. Google usually does not recognize religious holidays so some don’t know what all the fuss is about.

“We enjoy celebrating holidays at Google but, as you may imagine, it’s difficult for us to choose which events to highlight on our site,” a Google spokesperson told the Washington Post on Sunday. “Sometimes for a given date, we feature an historical event or influential figure that we haven’t in the past.”

President Obama proclaimed each March 31 to be designated Cesar Chavez Day in 2011 in honor of the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union. Many criticize Chavez for viewing undocumented workers as a threat to unions. He died in 1993 at the age of 66. The National Park Service writes, Chavez is “widely recognized as the most important Latino leader in the United States during the twentieth century,” as he “led farm workers and supporters in the establishment of the country’s first permanent agricultural union.”

What is your opinion on Google’s Doodle?