The one labor socialist many Americans love, United Farm Workers co-founder Cesar Chavez, finally has some real estate in Washington thanks to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’ move Monday to name the department’s auditorium after the famous produce picker.
Solis, accompanied by Jill Biden, wife of the vice president, also unveiled a mosaic of Chavez to be displayed permanently at the department.
Chavez, who died in 1993, co-founded the UFW with Democratic Socialists of America honorary co-chair Dolores Huerta, to fight for fair wages for migrant workers.
With Huerta in the audience, Solis said, “Today, we celebrate one of America’s most powerful stories of courage and victory. The farm worker movement was begun by people who didn’t have money or clout. Many were new to this country and lived season to season. They were hard-working people of the land who asked only for dignity and fair treatment, and today we are proud to give them the Department of Labor’s highest honor.”
She added: “I want to honor a trailblazer who was there from the very beginning. She’s a luchadora who endured arrests, death threats and beatings — a fearless woman who had her bones broken in the struggle but never her spirit. I’m proud to call her my teacher, my role model, and mi hermana. Brothers and sisters, let’s show our appreciation for one of the living legends of the farm worker movement, Dolores Huerta. Dolores worked mano a mano with one of the most celebrated icons of the American civil rights movement: the great César Estrada Chávez, who was inducted into our Hall of Honor in 1998.”
