Women’s Work is Never Done

In Women’s Work is Never Done, Yolanda López celebrates the toughness and resilience of Latina working class women. López often reworks images of Latina and Chicana women to challenge cultural stereotypes. In this print, she combines two images. The first is a 1995 photograph depicting a group of women laborers from a California broccoli farm. The second is a 1965 photograph depicting Dolores Huerta, the co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the agricultural labor union United Farm Workers. Since the 1960s, the UFW has been renowned for organizing agricultural laborers, many of them Latinx, and working to improve their working conditions. Huerta holds a sign that reads “HUELGA,” the Spanish word for “strike,” a reference to the historic Delano grape strike. She appears in the background of this print, setting an example and encouraging the women who follow in her footsteps. The women themselves appear confident and confrontational. By depicting a politically marginalized group of women as leaders in the fights for both labor and women’s rights, López places them in a position of power.