Cesar Chavez Foundation Presents 20th Annual Legacy Awards to famed Chicano artist Carlos Almaraz, CHIRLA Executive Director Angélica Salas, and former pioneering Latino political figure Richard Alatorre
Remarks by Mayor Karen Bass & Attorney General Rob Bonta
Los Angeles – Receiving the Cesar Chavez Foundation’s Cesar Chavez Legacy Awards honoring commitment to community and advocacy on Thursday evening are artist and activist Carlos Almaraz (posthumously), Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Executive Director Angélica Salas, and pioneering Latino political figure Richard Alatorre. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will deliver the keynote address and California Attorney General Rob Bonta will make special remarks, all at the historic Millennium Biltmore Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles.
“Each of our honorees genuinely reflect my father’s legacy, spirit, and values,” said Paul F. Chavez, president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation. “Next month marks the 30th anniversary of his passing. So it is fitting that we assemble to honor the recipients of the 2023 Cesar Chavez Legacy Awards.”
Carlos Almaraz was a respected leader of the Chicano arts movement in the 1970s and worked with Cesar Chavez to help inspire farm workers through his art during strikes and boycotts.
Angélica Salas gives voice and self-empowerment to immigrants as executive director of
CHIRLA by ensuring their national movement to achieve reform is led by the people seeking it.
Richard Alatorre played a pivotal role across the Chicano movement—from helping enact the
historic 1975 farm labor law to empowering Latinos politically through legislative
reapportionment.
Attorney General Rob Bonta lived as a child at the movement’s La Paz headquarters in Keene, Calif., where his parents labored full-time with the movement and resided near Cesar Chavez’s home. As an assembly member, Bonta’s legislation relating to farm workers—that UFW and CCF supported—created Larry Itliong Day and encouraged the teaching of Filipino Americans’ contribution to the farm worker movement in the schools.
Keynote speaker Mayor Karen Bass continues working for social change by addressing the
challenges facing Los Angeles’ underserved neighborhoods, thereby epitomizing Cesar Chavez’s
legacy.
Who: Cesar Chavez Foundation President Paul Chavez; National Chavez Center Executive
Director Andres Chavez; CHIRLA Executive Director Angélica Salas; former Assemblymember
and L.A. City Councilmember Richard Alatorre; Elsa Almaraz, widow of artist Carlos Almaraz; Los
Angeles Mayor Karen Bass; California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
What: 2023 Cesar Chavez Legacy Awards Gala.
When: March 23, 2023; press avail from 6 to 7 p.m.
Where: The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, 506 So. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90071