Tucson Mayor Regina Romero remembers getting the phone call from the woman she’s looked up to since she was a little girl. She listens with her husband Ruben Reyes. Their friend and mentor, Dolores Huerta, needs to tell them what is coming, needs to say something that will change everything.
“It was such a gut punch,” Romero says, quietly. “We couldn’t say much. We could just say, ‘Dolores, we’re with you.’”
Huerta is a Mexican American feminist and Chicana labor and civil rights icon.
At nearly 96, she’s still fighting for the rights of farmworkers, migrants, Latinas, American voters, and for people who are treated as less than human. For decades, she organized in agricultural and political fields with her co-leader of the farmworkers movement: César Chávez.
In the early years, Chávez helped organize with thousands of farmworkers and their families — mostly Mexicans and Filipinos — who picked crops in deadly working conditions and sacrificed to protest. They risked their jobs and their lives.
Chávez fasted, denying food for weeks, to further their movement. His words inspired Mexican workers, world leaders and many others, including generations of children who never met him — many wanting to believe in the future of a United States without racism, without discrimination, without hate.
Chávez’s teachings held meaning for farmworkers who worked in poverty and without basic human rights: “Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”
He promoted Huerta and many other women as leaders of the movement. She stood by his side and with farmworkers in California and Arizona. She birthed in Phoenix the mantra — “Sí, se puede” — that would fuel an international labor and human rights movement far beyond the fields, beyond anything she imagined.
Huerta made Chávez’s voice matter. Until it didn’t.
In March, the United Farmer Workers, founded by Chávez and Huerta, announced it would cancel all celebrations tied to Chávez. Then the New York Times published an article about Chávez allegedly sexually assaulting at least two girls and an adult woman, including rape allegations of a 15-year-old.
The news organization interviewed more than 60 people with ties to Chávez and invited the public to share their experiences.
Huerta is the adult woman.
She revealed to the Times that Chávez raped her in the 1960s when she was in her 30s. She says she never knew about the others he assaulted. She kept her secret for so long because she wanted to protect farmworkers whose human rights were tied to the movement. Today, she understands that she is a “survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”
Listening to Huerta speak during their phone call, Romero remembers holding in her emotions.
“She didn’t want the movement to be hurt when it all happened,” Romero told Arizona Luminaria, holding back tears. “I have not cried … until I talked about it publicly at the Mayor and Council meeting. Because we’re so connected to it — the kids whose parents went through it. We do not want the movement to be erased.”
“We had for such a long time a leader — Dolores and Cesar were the leaders that opened up so many possibilities for so many of us and gained so many rights that farmworkers did not have,” she says.
At the March 17 Tucson City Council meeting, Romero spoke about the allegations, calling on the community to “believe survivors and help all heal.”
“My parents and other farm working families in Somerton, Arizona,” she said, stopping, taking a deep breath and continuing through tears, “and across California and Arizona, participated in the United Farm Workers fight for better wages, for better working conditions.
“The changes that Chávez and the United Farm Workers brought to farm working families … were significant. Our family was a beneficiary of those changes.”
She recalled leading the charge to create a city holiday named after Chávez to honor the history and future of the farmworkers movement. Later they added Huerta’s name to the official recognition.
With the community’s input, she said, the city will formally change the name, permanently removing Chávez from the tribute.
“La lucha sigue (the fight continues),” she said.
“It’s like being in mourning”
Countless Mexicans and Chicanas across the country are struggling to reconcile the brutality of an icon known for justice, dignity and nonviolent protest. One Arizona Latina, still grieving her own mother’s recent death, is relieved her Mexican mom doesn’t have to face the news about Chávez.
Francisca Montoya was 15 when she paid one dollar for a photograph with farmworker rights leader Chávez. She still keeps the image, with its inscription. At the time, she was too young to fully grasp his role in the labor and Latino/Chicano civil rights movement — or how it would shape her own life.
“The movement inspired me,” Montoya says with a quiet firmness.
For her, the farmworker cause has deep personal and family meaning, making it harder to reconcile an ideal with reality. “It was a shock to my heart, a shock to my soul and spirit,” she says, her voice catching with emotion.
Montoya remembers that as she read the New York Times report revealing allegations of past abuse, tears began to run down her face without her even realizing.
At 68, processing the news has been difficult, especially given her closeness to the cause. Montoya led the Arizona Farm Workers Union and the César Chávez Foundation in the state, among other roles supporting the movement throughout her long career as an activist.
“Every day I wake up thinking about it. I go to bed thinking about it,” she says. During the day, the feeling returns without warning.
“It’s like being in mourning,” she says.
A life shaped by the farmworker cause
At sunrise, María García Montoya and her daughter Francisca would walk the rows of fields in Arizona. With their hands, they pulled half-buried onions from the soil, cut the stems, cleaned them, and filled a sack that paid 25 cents.
Francisca began working in the onion harvest at age 12. In the mornings, before school, she worked two hours. Then she went home to bathe and attend classes. In the afternoon, after school, she returned to the fields for another two hours.
María joined the United Farm Workers of America, UFW, grape boycott in the 1960s in Arizona, alongside fellow farmworkers in California. She protested outside Safeway stores during the international boycott, attended organizing meetings and helped prepare food at Phoenix’s Santa Rita Hall for volunteers supporting Chávez during his fast.
He began his 24-day fast on May 11, 1972 — the same day the Arizona Legislature passed a bill limiting the rights of unionized farmworkers.
Each night, volunteers and farmworkers — including María and Francisca — gathered at Santa Rita, in the predominately Mexican neighborhood known as “El Campito,” to organize against the passage of House Bill 2134, which banned boycotts and strikes during harvest season.
Huerta was at the hall, leading the non-violent protest.
“There were people who said we couldn’t change Arizona. I told them, ‘Yes, we can!’” Huerta said in 2022 at Santa Rita during the 50th anniversary of the hunger strike.
Huerta has shared the story of the iconic “Sí, Se Puede” farmworkers mantra she coined, later adopted by presidents, by political, immigration and labor organizers, and generations of Latinos across the nation.
“Cesar was fasting. We had a Mass every night and a rally every night,” she said in a 2014 Arizona Republic story. “I was meeting with Arizona’s political and professional Latinos, asking them to come join us.”
Huerta pleaded for their help fighting the law.
“They kept saying, ‘In Arizona, no. No se puede. No se puede,’ ” she recalled. “My spontaneous response was, ‘Sí, se puede. Sí, se puede.’”
Huerta has said she did not realize the power of those words until she stood by Chávez’s side with community organizers at Santa Rita. “I was telling my report from our organizing,” she said.
She repeated the three words. The room erupted in cheers: “Sí, se puede! Sí, se puede!” “It became the heart of our campaign,” she said.
Chávez and Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association, which later joined forces with Filipino workers from the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers union. Over time, farmworkers achieved better wages and working conditions. Chávez died in 1993 in San Luis, a small border town near Yuma where he was born. He was 66.
Francisca’s mind is eased knowing her mother, María, did not live to see the human rights leader they respected for so many years, now surrounded by sexual abuse and rape allegations.
“It’s very sad, because I think of my mother,” she says, her voice breaking. “If it was hard for me. It would have been even harder for her,” she adds softly.
Francisca was born in Burley, Idaho in the 1950s at a time when women had few rights and little respect. She thinks of the women and girls who waited years to share their stories about what Chávez did to them.
“At this moment, we must recognize and believe the women who had the courage to speak about the sexual abuse they suffered, and show them compassion,” she says, adding the need to acknowledge the sacrifices Huerta made throughout the movement. “It’s a very heavy burden.”
“I think what comes next is a dialogue about what women keep silent for the benefit of the community,” she says.
The timing — during an election year amid the Trump administration’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations targeting immigrants and Latino communities across the nation — intensifies the moment. “The debate is already open and is dividing critics, supporters and former detractors.”
No matter what, she wants to make one thing clear: “The movement does not belong to one man, but to thousands of workers who fought for the cause.”
She recalls a four-day march in 1966 that brought together thousands — an extraordinary number at the time. “My mother marched all four days.”
The march began on a Thursday from Avondale to Tolleson, continued Friday to El Mirage, and on Saturday — when Francisca was finally able to join — moved from El Mirage to Glendale. It ended Sunday at the state capital.
“There were 15,000 of us,” she says. “This movement has always belonged to everyone.”
The movement
Francisca is now the director of strategic partnerships for Raza Development Fund. She’s watching as cities and states across the nation are debating the future of spaces and commemorations that bear Chávez’s name in honor of farmworkers and the Latino/Chicano civil rights movements.
“He was recognized for a specific reason — not necessarily the person, but what that person represented: that movement,” she says.
“This has to move forward,” she says. “In some cases, maybe the name César Chávez should be changed to Dolores Huerta.”
Another option, she adds, “is to change it from César Chávez to Farmworker Day.”
Would changing everything be a big task?
“Oh my God!” she exclaims. “These things don’t happen easily — you have to fight and advocate consistently.”
So many schools, so many streets, so many parks.
“All of it. But with the same passion people fought to name them, they have to defend it,” she says.
Lately, she’s spent her days trying to find meaning for herself and other Mexican organizers. “I hold on to the memory of inspiration, because I believe that to build a movement, you have to inspire people.”
People “absolutely” have the right to feel betrayed by Chávez, she says. When Francisca was young in the movement, there was a phrase that sustained her: “Ánimo, raza” — Keep your spirits up, my people.
Today, remembering the mantra, she sends a familiar message: “Nosotros podemos.”
Dolores Huerta Day
On Tuesday, March 24, Romero renamed the city’s César Chávez Day to Dolores Huerta Day.
Adam Sarvana, director of communications and community engagement for the mayor’s office, told Arizona Luminaria the change is “a measure for now until there are longer-term conversations with the community and the coalition.”
The move came as schools, cities and states rushed to expunge Chávez from its holidays, marquees, monuments and more. Tucson officials also plan to discuss existing local homages and will include a public outreach effort to gather feedback. The city removed a bronze statue of Chávez after it was vandalized with red paint on the body’s head, face and neck. Pima County is considering policies and next steps for identifying and removing Chávez’s name from government commemorations.
California was the first state to create Chavez Day more than two decades ago. On Thursday, March 26, California lawmakers unanimously passed a bill to rename the holiday to Farmworkers Day. The cities of Phoenix and San Luis renamed the recognition Farmworkers Day. Tempe renamed it Women Farmworkers Day.
On March 30, a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs a bill to repeal the holiday altogether.
Democrats who signed onto the bill said Republicans who control the state Legislature refused to rename the holiday in honor of farmworkers who risked their jobs and lives in non-violent protests to secure better working conditions and rights for people laboring in U.S. fields picking crops that feed the nation.
On April 1, Hobbs signed the bill without any new formal recognition of the farmworkers movement. “I am incredibly grateful for our hardworking farmworkers. Their resilience is evident in the lettuce fields of Yuma and the orange-picking farms of Mesa,” she added in her statement.
Huerta said she was sharing her story now because the New York Times reporters made her aware of more victims. “The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement,” she said in March 18 statement.
“The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.”
Some women who worked or volunteered with Chávez told the New York Times he never pursued any sexual relationship with them. One called him a mentor who gave her encouragement and lessons about nonviolence.
Romero is focusing on how to move forward without forgetting the past.
“Still, to this day, 60 years later, I’m sure that she doesn’t want that movement to be erased,” she says to Arizona Luminaria of Huerta.
Romero wants to hold a meeting of the coalition for the annual march and rally to hear from organizers. “I won’t make a rash, irrational and unchecked decision in terms of what’s the long-term name,” she says.
Romero remembers the early days, more than two decades ago, when her community had to fight for formal recognition in Tucson of the farmworkers movement.
“I was there when the coalition first started,” she says. Romero begins weeping. She falls silent. When she can speak again, she focuses on those bearing the brunt of the abuse.
“I feel so bad for Dolores and for the victims. It’s such a Chicano thing, a Latina thing, to hold it in for such a long time,” she says through tears. “The responsibility to the family, to the unity. For Dolores, it was the movement. You hold that responsibility in as a victim.”
Sucking in her breath, Romero continues, “It brings so many emotions, so many mixed emotions to all of this. Because of the victims, the sexual abuse and violence that happened.”
“What’s going to happen? Que va pasar?”
Romero’s husband Ruben had to call his parents to tell them what was coming. Like Romero’s parents, both his mom and dad were involved in the farmworkers movement, picketing and organizing meetings.
“My suegra (mother-in-law), she just couldn’t believe it. She was like, ‘No, this can’t be true,’” Romero says. “My suegro (father-in-law) was just asking questions: ‘Is this going to erase everything?'”
Her mother-in-law also sought answers: “What’s going to happen. Qué va pasar?”
Romero says her husband spared them empty promises. “Mom, todos estamos sufriendo (we’re all suffering). Regina esta bien mal (is very sick). Vamos a ver qué pasa (We’re going to see what happens).”
Romero doesn’t have answers, but she wants people to remember that victim-shaming any woman who has lived through sexual assault only adds to the violence.
“Many of us, there’s so many women that have gone through forced sex and rape and those feelings of: ‘We know,’” she says of survivors reliving the trauma.
To those asking why Huerta would wait decades to share her own abuse, Romero offers empathy.
“If you haven’t gone through the experience, nobody knows why. There’s so many reasons why victims decide not to speak,” she says.
She offers the final words Huerta said to her over the phone: “She said, ‘We’re going to have to heal.’”
Giving up is not an option, she says, not when there are too many people suffering across Latino and immigrant communities. “We’ve got to continue, we cannot dismiss the work. We continue to push on the rights of workers, the rights of immigrants — there’s much work that we need to do.”
Romero’s path forward centers the next generation. She thinks of her own teenage children.
“This moment is about teaching our kids,” she says. “I’ve got to take advantage of this opportunity to tell her and him this is not right, we need to talk about this. And yet at the same time, we cannot forget that this (the movement) is the history of your grandparents, that this is the history of your parents and that it’s part of you. This is a part of who you are. And nothing is going to take that from our kids and our community.”
Many with ties to or pride in the farmworkers movement feel broken.
“You know when the earth moves you, we get moved from the axis. That’s how it felt. It moved us from the axis. But we come back and follow the path,” she says.
It’s OK to cry, she says. “I’ve broken down every time I’ve talked about it.”
“What I want the community to know is that this does not erase the history of the Chicano movement, the history of the farmworker movement. This will not erase who we are and the struggle that we have, in one way shape or form, gone through together. Thousands and thousands and thousands of families throughout the country, and Arizona, California.”
The movement changed Romero’s life. She’s not alone.
“A kid that’s just like me, that their parents migrated from México, and they themselves worked the fields, and they were the first one to go to college, and they were the first ones to graduate, and vote. All my experience is not unique, there’s many thousands of us. And those maybe even that didn’t have farm working parents but felt so much pride.”
She wants people to hold on.
“This was not in vain. The history is there and the difference that the movement made for families is still there. We were the recipients, and many of our neighbors in Somerton and in California, were the recipients of change – for the better,” she says.
“Maybe a name, maybe an icon will be removed from our walls. Will be removed from murals. Will be removed from holidays. But the movement is not going to be erased. That is something that me and our children, and our children’s children, need to continue carrying forth.”
“Remember him for the man that he was not”
Despite a record high of 102-degrees, on Saturday, March 21, families at Rudy Garcia Park on Tucson’s south side are here to celebrate together at the Comunidad y Labor Unity Fair — formerly the Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta March and Rally.
Eva Carrillo Dong, a co-organizer of the fair, remembers scrambling to decide whether to still hold the rally after news of sexual assault allegations against Chávez. After a long conversation with fellow co-chair Martha Reyes and coalition members, they canceled the annual march and kept the renamed rally.
“This part has always been about our community. A platform for our community. A mic for our community, so they could come and talk about what’s going on in their lives,” Carrillo Dong says.
It’s important for vendors at the rally to continue to educate each other and work together, she says. It’s important for young people to have a safe space to raise their voice, she adds.
Around the perimeter of a basketball court are about a dozen tables for organizers, each with their own tent. Members of the Tucson branch of The Party for Socialism and Liberation, Living United for Change in Arizona, the Southside Workers Center and several labor unions share information with one another and with community members who trickle into the rally.
Throughout the morning, local politicians, labor organizers and other community leaders share some of what they are working on. In between speakers, community members watch folklorico and mariachi performances while snacking on raspados, Tostilocos and other eats from one of the food trucks or from the paletero walking through the rally dinging a bell hanging from his cart.
A Todo Folklor: Mujeres en Crecimiento, a women’s folklorico dance group, kicks off the cultural festivities. People find shade and seating under a spectators tent as students from Sierra K-8 School perform mariachi and dance folklorico. Eight young girls wave their colorful skirts in circles. They spin in unison. Tapping their feet to the mariachi music, the makeup on their face glowing as they dance under the burning sunlight.
Tucked in the back corner farthest from the stage, Jessica Ramirez, a Pueblo High School senior and president of MEChA, or Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, folds a stack of mini-zines she made with information and updates about the student organization and about people’s rights.
She places the zines next to navy blue Pueblo MEChA T-shirts, like the one she’s wearing, with words cut out of a light-blue papel picado design.
Her mother stands next to her, also wearing a Pueblo MEChA shirt, talking to those who visit their table. She hands them bracelets with the rapid response number threaded into the string surrounded by other colorful beads. Spread across the table are whistles, red “know your rights” cards, orange cards with the Rapid Response Tucson number and other information on how people can protect themselves and their neighbors in the case of an ICE raid.
Ramirez pushes her black and purple hair out of her face and holds her hands behind her back. She reflects on moving forward as a young leader after learning about the allegations against Chávez.
“I think it’s very important for us to remember that this movement was more than just César Chávez,” the teenager says. “I mean, right here, we’re honoring the farmworkers that fought alongside him and even the people that we don’t remember by name. There were thousands of people that were involved. We can’t let this man be a representation.”
She hopes seeing Huerta speak up inspires other women to speak out if they experience or witness injustices or abuse.
“I think we should also be building movements that don’t put women in this situation and that advocate for the liberation of women,” Ramirez says. “Because if we want liberation for all of us, for the Mexican American community, we need to respect women.”
Isis Morales is the vice president of the Pima Community College EGST Club, which focuses on promoting cultural diversity and courses, such as the Tohono O’odham History and Culture, History and Culture of the Yaqui People, Mexican American Culture, La Chicana, and Gender and Women’s Studies courses.
Morales says the news of Chávez being accused of sexually abusing women and minors is “heartbreaking,” especially as many young Mexican American leaders looked up to him.
“At the end of the day, I feel like we should remember him for the man that he was not. Because these victim stories are real. I’m glad now that they’re getting the chance to come out,” she says.
Morales is the youngest of seven siblings. She was raised by her older brother and sister. She wears a necklace with a photo of her sister Jessica who died about two years ago. “She goes with me everywhere,” she says.
Growing up with so many siblings gave Morales a strong sense of family and community. It’s one reason she has taken on a local leadership role, spending time meeting people and organizing.
“This has always been bigger than César Chávez. This is about the farmworkers that lost their lives,” she says.
“That’s who we’re honoring today, the farmworkers that spent countless hours outside fighting for the cause, fighting for Mexican American rights, fighting for their rights as workers, and really putting themselves out there on those lines.”
A 12-year-old activista: “This movement, todavía puede”
Martha Reyes has been taking her 12-year-old daughter Dacia Reyes to community events, marches and rallies since she was a toddler.
Reyes is co-chair of the coalition that organized the annual rally and an organizer with Jobs for Justice. She says her initial thought was to cancel all events tied to Arizona’s César Chávez holiday. But after she heard several people, her own coalition members and others on social media, saying the movement is bigger than Chávez, she agreed that it was important to keep coming together to celebrate the movement.
“We are the movement. Nosotros somos los que luchamos. Por ese movimiento, tenemos sindicatos que están apoyando a las personas del campo.” (We are the ones who fight. Thanks to that movement, we have labor unions that are supporting people in the fields.)
Reyes says people must believe the victims. She says she has personally been through a similar situation within her own family, and has seen others dismiss accusations because they don’t align with how they know the person being accused.
“La gente, los que ponemos de líderes, no son dioses. Son seres humanos y cometen errores, unos peores que los otros, unos más feos que los otros, pero igual errores. No debemos de poner a una sola persona en un pedestal.” (The people, the ones we place in leadership, are not gods. They are human beings and they make mistakes, some worse than others, some uglier than others, but mistakes all the same. We shouldn’t put any one person on a pedestal.)
Reyes says she tries to teach her preteen daughter to always speak up if someone makes her feel uncomfortable.
“Tu voz es lo más importante que tienes (Your voice is the most important thing you have),” she says. Reyes faces her daughter as she talks, reminding her of the lesson she has taught her repeatedly over the years.
“Raise your voice, always, always, always. It doesn’t matter who it is, whether we know them or not. It’s so important for us, especially as women, to learn to say things how they are. To say, ‘OK this person is bothering me. I don’t feel comfortable. I’m going to talk to an adult or with someone older than me.’”
Dacia Reyes says it was surprising and sad to learn that Huerta held onto her pain for so long. Like her mother, she advises people to find those they can confide in if they go through a similar traumatic experience.
The 12-year-old is still pushing for change.
“I feel like this movement, todavía puede. It can still happen. It can still continue going on. It’s just one less person out of all of the people that have been on board and like supporting us,” she says.
Romero stands on stage facing the crowd. She assures those at the rally that the allegations against Chávez won’t break Tucson’s support of the farmworkers and labor movements.
“Let’s make sure we move forward in solidarity,” she shouts, raising her voice to the sky.
Romero’s wearing a straw hat to shade her face from the desert sun and a bright red shirt with an image of Dolores Huerta. Above the image of her longtime friend and mentor is one Spanish word in all-caps: “RESISTIR!”
Arizona Luminaria reporters Carolina Cuellar and Shannon Conner contributed to this article.
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