Keynote Speaker

Julie Chavez Rodríguez is the Programs Director for the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation, where she has worked since November 2000. She is currently spearheading the National Youth Leadership Initiative to address academic and civic disengagement among today's youth. Rodríguez has also worked jointly with the State of California on the development and administration of the Cesar Chavez Day of Service and Learning as well as the development of a web based K-12 curriculum on the life and work of Cesar E. Chavez. Prior to working at the Foundation, Rodríguez worked with the United Farm Workers (UFW) on voter registration and community empowerment programs throughout California.

Having been exposed to the farm worker movement at an early age, Rodríguez has taken an active role throughout her life in advocating for social justice and fighting for the rights of working people. At the age of five, she began volunteering after school, on weekends, and during summers with the UFW. She participated in a wide-range of activities and campaigns to advance La Causa, the farm workers’ struggle for justice, dignity, and equality.

On May 1, 1988, at the age of ten, Rodriguez was arrested alongside her father and sister for petitioning in front of a local A&P supermarket in Passaic, New Jersey. In July 1990, while leafleting in front of a Tianguis supermarket in Los Angeles, she was arrested for a second time with Cesar and her sister for violating a court injunction, which prohibited them from exercising their first amendment rights.

Rodriguez continued to be socially active, and reached her present position through hard work and dedication to a cause. She holds a Bachelor of the Arts degree in Latin American Studies with an emphasis in U.S.-Mexican Relations from the University of California at Berkeley. Like her grandfather, Rodriguez believes that “the end of all education should surely be service to others.”