DELANO, Calif. — Jill Biden, the primary girl, traveled to California on Wednesday to visit a pop-up vaccination site for farmworkers who’ve lobbied for precedence entry to photographs amid the pandemic. She advised them that their work — and their well being — had been important to a nation crippled by the virus.

“We depended on those who kept going to work every single day,” Dr. Biden advised a crowd of about 100 farm staff who had gathered to mark the birthday of César Chávez, the labor organizer who shaped the nation’s first profitable farmworker’s union. “Without the farmworkers who kept harvesting our food, or the factory workers who packaged it, the grocery store clerks who stocked shelves, no one would have made it through this year.”

When she arrived on the “Forty Acres” property simply west of Delano, a historic site that grew to become the headquarters of the United Farm Workers of America, the primary girl was greeted by a number of members of Mr. Chávez’s household.

Dr. Biden heard from a group of ladies farmworkers who picked grapes and blueberries in close by fields. They requested the Biden administration to present pathways to citizenship, safety from discrimination, and stronger union illustration. “We’re a union couple,” Dr. Biden replied.

At one level, the primary girl heard from a 27-year-old mom of three that some ladies had been compelled to convey their infants and younger kids to the fields as a result of they didn’t have entry to baby care. The first girl advised the lady that she hoped some cash from the $1.9 trillion stimulus bundle would attain these staff, however the lady replied that many had been undocumented.

In a signal of the labor motion’s significance to the Biden administration, a member of the Chávez household had traveled together with her from Washington: Julie C. Rodriguez, the White House’s director of intergovernmental affairs, is Mr. Chávez’s granddaughter.

During her remarks, Dr. Biden stated that President Biden supported the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a invoice that may grant short-term authorized standing to seasonal farm staff, a lot of whom are undocumented, and provide a 10-year path to citizenship.

“As president, Joe is fighting for people who often go unseen,” Dr. Biden stated. “And that’s exactly the kind of immigration policy he’s working to build — one that treats children and families with dignity and creates fair pathways to citizenship, including for essential workers.”

Thousands of Central Valley farmworkers are scheduled to obtain the coronavirus vaccine at Forty Acres over six weekends in March and April. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, and his associate, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, joined the primary girl on the site.

Earlier this yr, California kicked off a landmark effort to get vaccines to farmworkers, a lot of whom are undocumented and whose close-quarter working circumstances have left them significantly susceptible to the virus. Researchers from Purdue University estimate that about 500,000 agricultural staff have examined constructive for the virus and no less than 9,000 have died from it. The virus has killed over 550,000 people in the United States, in accordance to a New York Times depend.

Over the course of Mr. Biden’s first two months in workplace, union leaders have praised his administration as one of many most labor-friendly in trendy historical past. One of Mr. Biden’s first official acts was to transfer a bust of Mr. Chávez into the Oval Office, a determination Dr. Biden identified to applause on the occasion. Dr. Biden additionally continuously repeated the farmworker union’s motto, “Sí, se puede,” (“Yes, we can”) a number of occasions throughout the course of her speech.

“César dared to believe that our country could change — that we could change it,” Dr. Biden stated. “Now, it’s on us to live up to that promise.”