Leading a group of striking farm laborers and supporters, Chavezs plan was to build momentum and support for the workers cause in a march that would conclude on the steps of the California State Capitol on Easter Sunday morning.

The date here is crucial. A foundational, but mostly forgotten, feature of the nearly 300-mile pilgrimage during Lent was that it was a deeply religious endeavor.

As a scholar of religion and the farmworkers movement, I believe Chavezs endeavor was not simply a march or protest although workers rights were, of course, central to the event. Rather, it was a pilgrimage, and to overlook the religious dimensions is to fundamentally misunderstand what Chavez was trying to achieve.

Revolution with penance

Chavez, whose birthday is celebrated as a commemorative holiday in the U.S. every March 31, remains the preeminent icon of civil and labor rights in the U.S.

But contrasting with the view of labor rights as a purely secular endeavor, Chavez fused his understanding of Catholic social doctrine with principles of community organizing.

Accordingly, when it came to raising attention to the plight of striking grape harvesters denied the right to unionize in their fight for higher wages and better conditions Chavez leaned on his religious beliefs.

From the outset, Chavez made clear the pious nature of the march, calling it a peregrinación Spanish for pilgrimage in the registration form he penned. Leaving no room for ambiguity, Chavez detailed: This is a religious march and added the headline banner of Pilgrimage, Penance, Revolution framing designed to appeal to both the majority-Catholic farmworker faithful and more revolutionary members of the labor movement alike.

At first blush, penance seems a bit out of place in a world of protest. Even more ironically, Chavez held that penance during the 1966 Lenten season march was required for all the failings of Farm Workers rather than for the exploitative growers that kept farmworkers uprooted and impoverished. But to Chavez, revolution could not happen without penance that is, an undertaking to offer oneself blameless. As a collective public ritual, however, it also hoped to call the entire nation to penance.

The pilgrimage was an extension of a strike launched on Mexican Independence Day in 1965 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Delano. There, the Chavez-led National Farm Workers Association joined forces with the Filipino Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee.

Catholicism offered a ready-made bridge between Mexican and Filipino farmworkers. Seemingly secular labor issues could easily be framed through religious and moral language. Chavezs commitment to foregrounding religion in his commitment to nonviolence took a page from Martin Luther King Jr.s playbook.

A lady of labor

The pilgrimage to Sacramento began on March 17, 1966, under a banner of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Guadalupe a representation of the Virgin Mary, which, according to Catholic tradition, originated in 1531 has long stood as Mexicos most ubiquitous symbol of national and religious protest.

Along with the banner Our Lady of Guadalupe, a star of David and a cross were featured as prominent religious symbols in the pilgrimage. The larger meaning of the cross, when carried near the worn and wearied Chavez hobbling along with the help of a cane, was not at all lost on farmworkers. Later ballads captured this striking allusion to the Passion of Jesus by describing Chavez as a suffering prophet and messianic figure who would sacrifice everything to bring about justice for farmworkers.

Despite the prominence of Catholic iconography, the pilgrimage remained an interfaith endeavor. Rabbis, Catholic priests and Protestant clergy stood as some of the farmworkers staunchest supporters.

Music to lift souls and ease soles

Support to lift the spirit of the marchers came in a multitude of ways. For example, after a day of marching, El Teatro Campesino, a theater group established by playwright Luis Valdez, and enthusiastic supporters put on rallies filled with food and music. One historian recorded that these raucous celebrations resembled religious revivals, much like the ones Chavez had noted in Pentecostal church services.

In his 1975 autobiography, Chavez described attending one such service in Madera, in the heart of Californias Central Valley, in 1954. The young labor organizer recalled:

In that little Madera church, I observed everything going on about me that could be useful in organizing. Although there were no more than twelve men and women, there was more spirit there than when I went to mass where there were two hundred.

Pentecostal music, unlike typical church music of the time, redeemed the fiesta of secular Mexican music by sanctifying musical genres then thought to not be fit for religious services. Chavez would have immediately noticed a striking contrast between demonstrative Pentecostal worship and the staid music of Catholicism in the pre-Vatican II years.

The base must be faith

Almost a decade after the pilgrimage, Chavez mused:

Today I dont think I could base my will to struggle on cold economics or on some political doctrine. I dont think there would be enough to sustain me. For me, the base must be faith.

Faith sustained Chavez on his pilgrimage 57 years ago. On Easter Sunday 1966, Chavez ascended the steps of the California State Capitol upon the completion of the pilgrimage. By then, the aim of securing the farmworkers with their first-ever union contract with a grower had been completed.

Lloyd Daniel Barba is Assistant Professor of Religion, Amherst College.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

For years scientists have been striving to better understand the link between tiredness and headaches or more specifically, a persons body clockalso called the circadian rhythmand their symptoms.

Now a series of studies have revealed two types of headaches that are closely linked to a patients body clock and more specifically, the time of year and the time of day a person is more likely to come down with one.

Its a breakthrough which could potentially save the economy millionsif pharmaceutical brands can use the information to produce more efficient drugs.

Few studies have been completed to establish the cost to businesses of employees suffering with migraines, but one analysis completed in 1999 suggested that the U.S. economy was hemorrhaging $13 billion every year, while peers in Europe were losing 27 billion annually. The Harvard Business Review estimates that these costs are only likely to have gone up since the analysis was completed.

A study led by Dr Mark J. Burish, associate professor in the Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery with McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, has now analyzed 72 previous headache studies  to see if a timing could be pinpointed as to when headaches hit.

The two types of headaches they focussed on are cluster headaches and migraines. Cluster headaches are the lesser-known of the two, and cause sufferers intense pain in or around one eye on one side of their head. The rare headache illness has already been linked to the body clock as they have been reported to frequently occur in the middle of the night, though more information about seasonality was previously unknown.

When am I most likely to get a cluster headache?

Dr Burishs resultscompiled with the help of 10 other scientistswere published by Neurology, and established that cluster headaches peaked not just at night, but specifically between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. Not only the group uncover peak hours, it also discovered that cluster headaches have circannual peaks that get worse in the spring and autumn.

Dr. Burishs analysis also revealed that not only are cluster headaches dependent on the time of day but are also written into a subjects very genes.

At a cellular level, five of the nine cluster headache susceptibility genes were clock-controlled genes (CCGs) which are related to the regulation of the bodys rhythm.

When am I most likely to get a migraine?

Less was previously known about the link between migraines and the body clock, Dr Burish added. However results analysis of the previous studies found that people struggled with migraines during daylight hours up until around 11 p.m. at night.

Cluster headache is known to be circadian, but it was surprising how circadian migraine is, Dr. Burish told NBC News.

There was some respite for patients between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., and appeared to return more from the months of April to October. Like cluster headaches, susceptibility to migraines is also written into a person on a cellular level with the study finding that 110 of the 168 migraine-inducing genes were CCGs.

The study also confirmed some key differences between migraines and cluster headaches. If migraines are left untreated they can last for several days but tend to happen only once in that time period. Conversely, cluster headaches can disappear and come back up to eight times a day, happening in 15 to 180-minute bursts.

Likewise, cluster headaches tend to come back in the same place around the temple or eye, with patients reporting they felt restless and tried to relieve the pain by walking around a room. Migraines can differ in where they are located, but tend to force someone suffering with them to rest in a darkened quiet room.

Medications that target the circadian cycle might be a new type of treatment we can offer these patients, Dr Burish said. We werent sure if looking at circadian targets of therapy for migraine would actually do anything but after putting all of this together, we are more confident that it could be.

Another scientist on the project, Dr Seung-Hee Yoo, associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with the UTHealth Houston medical school, added: A better understanding of headache timing might eventually lead to medications that prevent the headaches at those times or manage painful episodes better.  

In Britain, people are facing the biggest drop in spending power in 70 years as the cost of living spirals. Meanwhile, in the United States, where interest rates are already at their highest in 15 years, economists are predicting the Fed will hike rates once more. 

As a result, workers around the world are feeling the strain on their pockets and resorting to alternative revenue streams to supplement their main income.

Indeed, research has shown that a third of workers are holding down three or more jobs. 

Instead of grueling multiple commutes, these polyworkers are taking advantage of working from home and logging into their third or fourth shift of the day online.

In fact, around 24,000 people a month in the U.K. alone are going onto Google to research how to make money online, according to domain and hosting provider Fasthosts, which used the Ahrefs keyword tool to gather the data.

On that note, the Fasthosts have outlined the side hustles that are generating the most buzz online.

The 5 most-searched-for side hustles

1. Paid surveys

The most popular way workers are looking to make money at home is through paid surveys, where workers can fill out questionnaires to their hearts desireeven while the TV is blaring in the background. According to Fasthosts, the term is searched for 5,200 times a month on average in the U.K.which it says is almost a 50% jump since December 2021.

2. Sell clothes online

As shopping for second-hand goods on the likes of eBay experiences a resurgence spearheaded by Gen Z, its no surprise that people are taking to Google to find out how to make spare cash from their unwanted clothes. Since December 2021, the term has seen a 72% increase in searches to roughly 3,300 per month. 

3. How to make money on TikTok

With one billion active users and counting, making money on TikTok is looking increasingly viable so long as the platform doesnt get banned.  That may explain why how to make money on TikTok has experienced a 24% increase in searches since December 2021, to 2,600 per month.

There are a number of ways to cash in with TikTok, with Fasthosts recommending wanna-be side hustlers join the social media platforms Creator Fund, sell merchandise to followers, go live and collect gifts, or partner with brands for collaborations. Of course, youll need a significant following to do the majority of these, the hosting provider adds.

4. How to sell feet pics

Around 2,100 people a month are researching how to make money from their showing off their feet.

As adult content apps like OnlyFans are increasingly making the headlines for turning everyday people into successful models from the comfort of their own homes, its no surprise that more and more people want in. Theres been a 96% rise in people searching for how to sell feet pics online since December 2021.

5. How to become a virtual assistant

According to Fasthosts, virtual assistants carry out administrative duties, like appointment scheduling and diary management for clients and executives. Its the side hustle that has seen the highest increase in searches in the past year with a whopping 170% rise in workers wanting to find how to become the remote equivalent of a PAto 1,200 monthly searches.