UFW Co-Founder Dolores Huerta
Calls for Unity

by
Miroslava Flores
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California - September 17, 2001 (ACN) Dolores Huerta, the senior Chicana warrior and ailing leader of the downtrodden Mexican-American agricultural workers, has issued a call for unity to La Raza. On September 18, 2001 she will lead a prayer, vigil and procession in the heart of Old Los Angeles, Alta California. A large group of Mexican immigrants and laborers are expected to participate at 5:00 P.M. at La Placita on Olvera Street. La Placita area is where Mexicans first founded La Ciudad de Los Angeles.

After the prayer and vigil, a procession will take place to the U.S. Federal Building a few blocks away. The participants will all be carrying lit candles and a large number of mothers with military age sons will be marching along with Dolores. Young Mexican and Chicano soldiers have taken the brunt of casualties in prior wars with little or no recognition. In Vietnam, for example, Chicanos were called "grunts" and were usually assigned as point men. During World War II, U.S. Navy sailors came to the area where the procession is going to take place to beat up on young Chicano men and teenagers just for entertainment. A large number of Chicanas were raped by the sailors with total impunity from the Los Angeles Police Department. These brutal attacks on the Mexican community by the U.S. Navy are called "The Zuit Suit Riots". During the Vietnam War, Chicanos held marches not far from where the Dolores Huerta procession is going to take place to protest the high and disproportionate number of young Chicanos dying in the jungles of Vietnam. In one of the Chicano Moratorium Marches, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's assassinated a very popular Los Angeles Times journalist by the name of Ruben Salazar. Ruben Salazar was very articulate and was pointing out the many injustices that existed and still exist in the the United States against Mexicans and Chicanos and specially against the young Chicano soldiers that were dying in high numbers in Vietnam. It is believed that the Sheriff's blew Ruben's head to pieces on purpose to silence him.

Dolores Huerta was herself a victim of police terrorists in San Francisco, California during her struggle to better the lives of laborers who work for wealthy agricultural capitalists in slave conditions. On September of 1988, outside the Sir Francis Drake Hotel on Union Square in San Francisco during a peaceful demonstration against then presidential candidate George Bush Sr., Dolores Huerta was severely beaten by baton-swinging cops. 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 laborers.

La Voz de Aztlan hopes that this valiant woman addresses the true causes of the current crisis. One primary cause is our foreign policy towards the Palestinian people. The injustices that have occurred towards our community, Ruben Salazar and herself are no different than those occurring against the Palestinians and that are being committed by racist Zionists. The video of Dolores Huerta being beaten by the terrorist police in the streets of San Francisco reminds one of the beating that an elderly Palestinian woman received in Hebron recently. We hope that her call for unity also includes unity with the many Arab Americans and Muslims that are presently being beaten up here in the United States by hatemongers bent on revenge against innocent people.