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PROPOSED RESOLUTION
COMMEMORATING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF HELEN FABELA CH?VEZ AS A DEVOTED WIFE, MOTHER AND CIVIL RIGHTS PIONEER
WHEREAS, Helen Fabela Ch?vez was born on January 21, 1928, in Brawley, California, her mother having immigrated from Sombrete, Mexico, and her father from San Jacinto, Mexico; and;
WHEREAS, Helen helped her husband Cesar Ch?vez launch and sustain what became the first enduring farm workers union in the United States using her fierce determination to help change the lives of thousands of farm workers and millions of others who were inspired by La Causa; and
WHERAS, Helen passed on June 6, 2016 and is survived by seven children, 31 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren;
WHEREAS, Helen began working in the fields when she was 14 and her family worked as migrant laborers, first in the Imperial Valley and later in the San Joaqu?n Valley and thus exposed her to the hardships of farm labor; and
WHEREAS, Helen met her husband, Cesar Ch?vez, in Delano while they were both laboring as farm workers in the mid-1940s. Helen and Cesar corresponded while he served in the Navy and married upon his discharge in 1948; and
WHEREAS, Helen and Cesar Ch?vez moved to Delano giving up their middle-class lifestyle for a life of self-imposed poverty to begin building what became the United Farm Workers; and
WHEREAS, Helen returned to field work while Cesar Ch?vez organized up and down California's vast Central Valley and often had to raise their eight children by herself while Cesar was on the road; and
WHEREAS, when the Delano Grape Strike started in 1965, Helen took over management of the Farm Workers Credit Union, and worked full time at the union office while maintaining a home life. She continued serving the Farm Worker Movement for decades; and
WHEREAS, in 1978 she was arrested and convicted with her husband for picketing a cantaloupe field where workers were represented by the Teamsters Union; and
WHEREAS, Hele...
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