"Viva La Causa"
he legacy of a military defeat is the cultural, linguistic and economic subjugation of the conquered. This has exactly been the inheritance of Mexicans in the southwest United States. Dolores C. Huerta, born just 82 years after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, has been an extraordinary heroine in our struggle to regain our self-determination. A diminutive grandmother with 11 children, 14 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren, she has been compared to a "Mother Teresa that leads like General Patton" in regards to her lifelong campaign to improve the lives of thousands of Mexican-Americans and their families in California.
Dolores Huerta was born on April 10, 1930 in the small mining town of Dawson in northern New Mexico.
She was the second child and only daughter of Juan Fernandez and Alicia Chavez Fernandez. Dolores was born during the the Great Depression and times were very difficult for young families and specially for Mexican-Americans. Juan and Alicia Fernandez had a third child, a second son, but they soon divorced. After the separation, Dolores, her mother and two brothers moved to Stockton, California.
Alicia Chavez Fernandez, now a single parent, had a difficult time supporting her young family during the country's economic downturn. Alicia Fernandez had to have two jobs to make ends meet. Dolores's grandfather took care of her and her two brothers while her mother worked at a cannery at night and as a waitress during the day. Her mother tried very hard to provide the best for her children and as Dolores grew older she benefited from violin, piano, and dance lessons and in addition she sang in the church choir and was an active Girl Scout.
As the country emerged from the depression during the 1940's, her family's financial situation improved greatly and her mother, who had since remarried, bought a restaurant and a 20 room hotel which Dolores and her two brothers helped manage. Two more sisters were born and they all prospered in Stockton to the point where they could afford to assist others less fortunate. Her mother, Alicia, was a humanitarian who often allowed economically distressed farm workers to stay free at her hotel. Dolores believes she learned to appreciate diversity while growing up and working in an ethnically diverse neighborhood of Stockton. Her neighborhood included Mexican as well as Japanese, Chinese, Jewish, and Filipino families.
Dolores Huerta never lost contact with her biological father. She had great respect for him and his accomplishments inspired her. Juan Fernandez, whose parents were originally from Mexico, started out as a coal miner and a migrant laborer but soon earned a college degree. In 1938 he won election to the New Mexico state legislature where he worked for better labor laws. Dolores Huerta has always been proud of her father's education, his union activism, and his political achievements.
Dolores Huerta understood the importance of a good education. She attended the University of the Pacific where she earned a teaching degree. She taught elementary school for a time, however, seeing Mexican children come to school without shoes and hungry motivated her to seek more effective ways to change the plight of the children and their families. Dolores Huerta's first hand experience with the struggling farm working community of California was the primary motivating cause that propelled her to launch a life long activist career on behalf of La Raza.
In 1955, an organizer named Fred Ross came to Stockton to form a chapter of the Community Service Organization, a Mexican American rights group he had started a few years earlier in the barrios of Los Angeles. The CSO battled segregation and police brutality, led voter registration drives, pushed for improved public services and fought to enact new legislation. The promise of the CSO and their track record of making positive changes in the Los Angeles Mexican-American community motivated both Dolores and her mother Alicia to join the organization and start its first chapter in Stockton. It wasn't long before Dolores Huerta was working as a full-time activist, leading voter registration drives and pressuring government agencies to provide due services to the farm workers.
Recognizing the needs of farm workers, while working for the CSO, Dolores organized and founded the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960. It was through the Community Service Organization that Dolores Huerta first met Cesar Chavez. Though the shy and unassuming Chavez didn't make much of an impression on her at first, they were both drawn to the plight of the farm workers and began to work closely together. Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez became like brother and sister and they both launched one of the greatest movements in the history of La Raza in the United States.
Since before World War II, life for migrant farm workers had been incredibly harsh. They worked in the hot sun for hours, picking crops such as grapes, tomatoes, and cotton. During the often cool nights, they slept in run-down shacks or in their cars if they could not afford a room. Farm owners paid the workers poor wages. Sometimes workers were paid fifty cents for every basket they picked. Other times they were paid only twenty cents. Some owners paid even less, subtracting from a worker's pay for any water he or she drank in the fields during the hot day. Many of the workers were Mexicans or Mexican Americans who knew little English. Farm owners often took advantage of this, swindling the workers out of the money they had rightfully earned for their day's hard labor.
Farm workers have historically been excluded from federal labor laws that guarantee the right to picket and form unions. Back then, a combination of racism and apathy had led the largely white leadership of mainstream unions to dismiss the idea of organizing farm workers--a migrant workforce mostly made up of Filipinos and Latinos, many of whom were undocumented. They both realized the need to organize farm workers. In 1962, after the CSO turned down Cesar’s request, as their president, to organize farm workers, Cesar and Dolores resigned from the CSO. Dolores, single and with seven children, joined Cesar Chavez and his family in Delano, California where they formed the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), the predecessor to the United Farm Workers (UFW).
The first few years were frustrating for Dolores Huerta because of the slow and arduous task of building a membership. Things improved in 1965, when the NFWA joined up with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, a small group of striking Filipino grape workers. Years before, Dolores Huerta had also helped start the AWOC; now the two groups came together and over 5,000 grape workers walked off their jobs in what is now known as the famous "Delano Grape Strike", an event that catapulted them into the national spotlight. The strike lasted five years. After their victory in Delano, the NFWA and AWOC merged to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, which later became the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO.
In 1966, Dolores negotiated the first UFWOC contract with the Schenley Wine Company. This was the first time in the history of the United States that a negotiating committee comprised of farm workers negotiated a collective bargaining agreement with an agricultural corporation. The grape strike continued and Dolores Huerta, as the main UFWOC negotiator, successfully negotiated more contracts for the farm workers. The contracts negotiated by Dolores Huerta established the first health and benefit plans for farm workers.
She also set up the hiring halls and farm worker ranch committees. In addition, she administered the contracts and conducted over one hundred grievance procedures on the workers behalf.
Dolores spoke out early and often against toxic pesticides that threaten farm workers, consumers, and the environment. These early UFWOC agreements required growers to stop using such dangerous pesticides as DDT and Parathyon. Dolores lobbied in Sacramento and Washington D.C., organized field strikes, directed UFW boycotts, and led farm workers campaigns for political candidates. As a legislative advocate, Dolores became one of the UFW’s most visible spokespersons. Robert F. Kennedy acknowledged her help in winning the 1968 California Democratic Presidential Primary moments before he was shot in Los Angeles.
Dolores Huerta also directed, along with Cesar Chavez, the UFW’s national grape boycott taking the plight of the farm workers to the consumers. The boycott resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers.
In 1973 the grape contracts expired and the grape growers signed sweetheart contracts with the Teamsters Union. Dolores organized picket lines and continued to lobby. In 1974 she was instrumental in securing unemployment benefits for farm workers. The UFW continued to organize not only the grape workers but the workers in the vegetable industry as well until violence erupted and farm workers were being killed. Once again the UFW turned to the consumer boycott. Dolores directed the east coast boycott of grapes, lettuce, and Gallo wines. She succeeded in bringing together feminists, community workers, religious groups, Hispanic associations, student protestors, and peace groups. All were united to fight for the rights of migrant farm workers. Victory finally came in 1975 when California Governor Jerry Brown signed the Agricultural Labor Relations Act. This was the first bill of rights for farm workers ever enacted in America. It legally allowed them to form a union that would negotiate with farm owners for better wages and working conditions. In 1975 Dolores lobbied against federal guest worker programs and spearheaded legislation granting amnesty for farm workers that had lived, worked, and paid taxes in the United States for many years but were unable to enjoy the privileges of citizenship. This resulted in the Immigration Act of 1985.
Dolores Huerta worked long hours for the union she co-founded and nurtured. She traveled to many cities across North America promoting "La Causa." For more than thirty years Dolores Huerta remained Cesar Chavez' most loyal and trusted advisor. Together they founded the Robert F. Kennedy Medical Plan, the Juan De La Cruz Farm Worker Pension Fund, the the Farm Workers Credit Union, the first medical and pension plan and credit union for farm workers. They also formed the National Farm Workers Service Center that provided community based affordable housing and the Spanish language radio communications network, KUFW--Radio Campesina, the union's radio station in California.
Many of Dolores Huerta's activities on behalf of farm workers and La Raza have placed her in great personal danger. She has been arrested more than 20 times. On September of 1988, outside the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco during a peaceful demonstration against the policies of then presidential candidate George Bush and the father of the now presidential candidate George Bush Jr., Dolores Huerta was severely beaten by baton-swinging police officers. She suffered two broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. In order to save her life, she had to undergo emergency surgery and she lost her spleen. The brutal assault was captured on video by a local television station and the evidence helped Dolores Huerta win a large judgement against the police and the city in court, money which she used to benefit farm workers.
After recovering from her life-threatening injuries, Dolores resumed her work on behalf of farm workers. She firmly believes that the accomplishments of the UFW will continue to benefit La Raza for many decades to come. This coming April 10 she will turn 80 years old and La Voz de Aztlan wishes her a very "Happy Birthday." When asked recently what she thinks was her contribution to La Raza she said, "I think we brought to the world, the United States anyway, the whole idea of boycotting as a nonviolent tactic. I think we showed the world that nonviolence can work to make social change."
Si se puede!
Video of Dolores C. Huerta
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Dolores C. Huerta Honors and Awards
In 1984 the California State Senate bestowed upon her the Outstanding Labor Leader Award.
In 1993 Dolores was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
In 1993 she received the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award; and the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, and the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award. She is also the recipient of the Consumers’ Union Trumpeter’s Award.
In 1997 the School Board of Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District named one of its
elementary school after Dolores Huerta by a vote of 7-0
In 1998 she was one of three Ms. Magazine’s, "Women of the Year", and the Ladies Home Journal’s, "100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century".
In 1999 President Bill Clinton presented Dolores Huerta with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award.
Dolores has received honorary doctorate degrees from:
New College of San Francisco, 1990
San Francisco State University, 1993
S.U.N.I. New Palz University, 1999
Dolores Huerta is currently serving as the Secretary-Treasurer of the United Farm Workers, Vice-President for the Coalition for Labor Union Women, Vice-President of the California AFL-CIO, and is a board member for the Fund For The Feminist Majority which advocates for the political and equal rights for women.
How to contact Dolores Huerta:
Dolores C. Huerta
PO Box 62
Keene, CA 93531
(661) 823-6230
E-mail: dhuerta@ufwmail.com
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"There is a time when the operation of the machine
becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart,
that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part,
and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels,
upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.
And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it,
that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"
Mario Savio
Sproul Hall Steps
University of California, Berkeley
December 3, 1964
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The image above is from the latest cover of the talented L.A. music group, "Rage Against the Machine." Please visit their web site at http://www.ratm.com
The creative group of four musicians contribute greatly in making positive changes in society by
performing at fund raising events for worthy causes. August 14 - 17 is the date of the Democratic
National Convention 2000 at the L.A. Staples Center.
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