Gabriella Cazares-Kelly, LD 9 Precinct Committeewoman and educator, was honored for her advocacy on behalf of women at the sixth annual Dolores Huerta Celebracion de la Mujer on March 24.
The Arizona César E. Chávez Holiday Coalition hosts the celebration, which is named after Dolores Huerta, a co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, and one of the most prominent Latina leaders of our lifetime. She worked to organize the most vulnerable laborers winning basic rights for farm workers.
Cazares-Kelly, who received the Mujer En La Lucha Award, “has dedicated her life to advocating and fighting for her community. From working with youth in and outside of high school and higher education to organizing voter registration efforts across the Tohono O’odham Nation to founding Indivisible Tohono, she has helped forge a new path for the O’odham people, and especially women,’’ the nominating committee’s citation reads.
As her husband, Ryan Kelly, wrote in the program for the event, held at Tucson Mission Garden:
“Having spent more than 10 years in secondary and higher education with indigenous youth and adults, she continues to inspire her students to chase their dreams. As a community organizer, she has led massive voter registration efforts across the Tohono O’odham Nation, which includes voting rights history and education unique to indigenous people.
“In founding Indivisible Tohono with a group of O’odham women, she has helped bring attention to the needs of her people to have true representation in government at all levels. Over the course of the 2018 cycle Indivisible Tohono brought more than 25 candidates ranging from school board, to state, to federal office, face to face with the people in the Tohono O’odham community. In addition, they have fought tirelessly to create opportunities for all indigenous people in political spaces. Indivisible Tohono continues to activate the O’odham community. They’ve fiercely advocated against border militarization, voter suppression and attacks on education. They’ve bravely brought attention to the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women and the unique role of the Violence Against Women Act in indigenous communities.
“Gabriella has remained a leader in the Baboquivari Unified School District in the lead up to the RedForEd Movement and all that has followed, as a proud union member.
“She helped organize a historic and unprecedented indigenous delegation in the two Women’s Marches that have taken place in Tucson, most recently facilitating the presence of more than 28 tribal nations, including O’odham Toka-playing women, bringing their traditional game into the March, in a location that hadn’t seen that since before these O’odham lands were colonized by Europeans (the streets of downtown Tucson).
“She was named to a writing fellowship in the nationally recognized Op-Ed Project and has since published advocacy pieces in Colorlines and the Huffington Post, which have highlighted the specific needs of indigenous people and communities of color.
“She was elected as the President of the Progressive Democrats of Southern Arizona and has risen to become a leader in the Arizona Democratic Party’s Native American Caucus.
“She has helped lead countless direct-action protests on a range of topics, from the fast-tracking of border patrol agents, to the border wall, to the National Guard being sent to the US Mexico border, to opposing racist anti-native NFL mascots.
“She presents to groups regularly with Borderlinks and has traveled the state to present and advocate for her community.
“She remains tireless in her efforts to expand the reach, voice, and empowerment of her people.’’
LD 9 congratulates Gabriella Cazares-Kelly!