The girl, who grew up in a family of migrant farmworkers, led the union’s state chapters that fought for higher wages and better working conditions for farmworkers.

Now retired at age 79, her name is carved into the concrete of downtown San Antonio, surrounded by stories of other local labor leaders in the city’s new Labor Plaza.

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The plaza is located in the River Walk Public Art Garden on Market Street across from the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. It was originally the site of a sculpture of labor leader Samuel Gompers, the first president of the United States Trade Union Confederation. Now he is the AFL-CIO of the largest trade union federation in the country.

According to the AFL-CIO, Gompers died in San Antonio in December 1924 after falling ill in Mexico City.

In fact, the AFL-CIO, in conjunction with the city’s Department of Arts and Culture, was involved in the new Labor Plaza. When the Gompers Act was removed after seeing structural damage, San Antonio’s public spaces sought new ways to recognize organized labor and civil rights. This effort took about four years.

The new plaza is intended to show general audiences how San Antonio’s leaders contributed to the country’s labor movement.

The poems surrounding the plaza, written by San Antonio’s former Poet Laureate Octavio Quintanilla, invite you to peek behind the doors of the city’s working history, making it both accessible and universal.

“We wanted a container that everyone could relate to, even if they had no previous labor experience,” said Quintanilla.

The poem “May Our Crossroads Be Unhindered” begins with a second-person “you” perspective and transitions to a first-person “we” perspective, with the goal of bringing people together across diverse experiences. I’m doing it.

Colorful ceramic tiles designed by Quintanilla also line the plaza, drawing inspiration from the Mexican mural art movement.

Quintanilla grew up in a family of union members who worked in the plumbing and construction industries. He joined the union while working as a high school teacher.

He viewed the city’s decision to partner with organized workers in tribute in public spaces as symbolic.

“It speaks to our sense of where we came from as a city in which we work,” Quintanilla said.

Texas native Linda Chavez-Thompson was also honored at Labor Plaza. She was the Vice President of her AFL-CIO and the first Hispanic woman to join the Executive Committee. She has lived in San Antonio since retiring in 2007.

“Personally, I am grateful that today’s workers can join forces with influential labor leaders who have had a tremendous impact on the labor movement for better wages, working conditions and workers’ rights. I feel honored.”

In addition to Flores and Chavez Thompson, the center of the plaza pays homage to other prominent workers leaders of San Antonio, including Emma Tenayuca, HS “Hank” Brown, Joao Suarez, Robert Thompson, Mario Salas, and Sherry Potter. represents.

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Tena Yuka is known for organizing Mexican workers in San Antonio and leading the 1938 pecan shelling strike. They demanded higher wages and better working conditions for his 12,000 pecan shellers in San Antonio.

Other winners have more contemporary involvement in the labor movement. Sherry Potter stepped down in 2020 after he served more than 35 years as the San Antonio Independent School District’s teachers’ union representative. She has been known to fight for air conditioning throughout the district.

At the Plaza, sculptures by Washington-based artist Reese Niemi reference workers important to San Antonio’s history. A cowherd, a beer bottler, a laborer, a stonemason, a bricklayer, and so on.

Flores of United Farm Workers said the plaza shows the city’s support for the workers who helped build San Antonio.

“The fact that this is here says something,” said Flores.