Phoenix will honor women of the farm workers movement

A group of women who helped form the farm workers movement will be honored near the historic Santa Rita Hall in Phoenix.

Starting in the 1960s, the building near 7th Street and Buckeye Road was a hub for the Chicano movement. It’s where dozens of women organized rallies and marches, registered voters and supported Cesar Chavez.

Phoenix honors Chavez’s legacy with an annual holiday and now the women who fought for equality will be recognized with a ceremonial street sign near the hall. It’s in Councilwoman Kesha Hodge Washington’s district.

“Their efforts were instrumental in the broader struggle for labor rights, not only in Arizona, but across the nation. Their contributions helped shape history, yet too often their names and sacrifices have gone unrecognized,” Hodge Washington said.

City of Phoenix

The ceremonial sign will read Avenida de las Mujeres del Movimiento and be installed at the intersection of 10th Place and Hadley Street. It will be paid for out of Councilman Carlos Galindo Elvira’s office budget.

“To honor the women of the movement is significant because without women, there would have been no movement,” he said. “And this is an opportunity to say thank you, to memorialize the work that they have done, and to always remember that si se puede.”

Dolores Huerta, who worked with Chavez, is credited with coming up with the slogan “Si se puede," which is Spanish for "Yes, we can." Huerta co-founded what became the United Farm Workers of America union.

“As a former union organizer and someone that knocked on a lot of doors with Dolores Huerta, this means the world to me, and I know to all of the women that are out there and that have been inspired by all of these women to join the labor movement, to join the fight,” said Councilwoman Betty Guardado.

Women who helped form the farm worker movement in Arizona

This list represents a group of women who helped form the farm worker movement in Arizona during the period of 1967-1973. They demonstrated their support by way of activism participating in marches, rallies and assisted with Cesar Chavez’s fast in 1972 at Santa Rita Hall in Phoenix, voter registration, and some were farm worker women and members of the United Farm Workers. (*Farm worker women)

Source: City of Phoenix