DOLORES HUERTA
G'day folks,
Welcome to another outspoken woman. Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and
civil rights activist who was an early member of the National
Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers.
Synopsis
Dolores
Huerta has worked to improve social and economic conditions for farm workers
and to fight discrimination. To further her cause, she created the Agricultural
Workers Association (AWA) in 1960 and co-founded what would become the United
Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta stepped down from the UFW in 1999, but she continues
to her work to improve the lives of workers, immigrants and women.
Activist
and labor leader Dolores Fernández, better known as Dolores Huerta, was born
April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico, the second child of Juan and Alicia
(Chavez) Fernandez. The young family struggled and by the time Dolores was
three, her parents divorced and her mother moved Dolores and her two brothers
to Stockton, California. Dolores maintained a relationship with her father, who
later became a union activist and a New Mexico state assemblyman. Juan’s own
political and labor activism later proved inspirational to Dolores.
When the
family first arrived in Stockton, a farming community in the San Joaquin
Valley, Alicia worked two jobs to provide for the family. Dolores’ grandfather,
Herculano Chavez, took care of the children, serving as the children’s adult
male figure. Dolores admired her mother who was always encouraged her children
to get involved in youth activities and become something. Alicia worked hard to
provide music lessons and extracurricular activities for Dolores and her
brothers. Dolores played violin, piano and took dance lessons. A good student,
she was also a Girl Scouts up until she turned 18 and she won second place in a
national essay contest.
Growing
up, Dolores experienced the racism many Mexican and Mexican Americans suffered
from, especially those who were farm workers. At school, she was sometimes
treated with suspicion and scorn. She was once accused by a teacher of stealing
another student’s work because was convinced Dolores was incapable, due to her
ethnic origin. Despite this, the family’s economic conditions improved. During
World War II, Alicia ran a restaurant and then purchased a hotel in Stockton
with her second husband, James Richards. The businesses served the farmworkers
and day laborers.
After
graduating from Stockton High School, in 1947, Dolores Fernandez went through a
marriage, the birth to two children, and a divorce. After a series of
unsatisfying jobs, she returned to school and eventually completed a teaching
degree at Stockton College, part of the University of the Pacific. She briefly
worked as an elementary school teacher, but resigned because she was so
distraught over the poor living conditions of her students, many of them
children of farm workers. Determined to help, in 1955, she and Frank Ross
started the Stockton chapter of the Community Services Organization (CSO), a
grass-roots group that worked to end segregation, discrimination and police
brutality and improve social and economic conditions of farm workers. During this
time, Dolores married Ventura Huerta, another labor activist. The couple would
go on to have five children.
A Life of Activism
In 1960, Dolores Huerta started the Agricultural
Workers Association (AWA). She set up voter registration drives and lobbied
politicians to allow non-U.S. citizen migrant workers to receive public
assistance and pensions and provide Spanish-language voting ballots and
driver's tests. During this time, Dolores met Cesar Chavez, a fellow CSO
official, who had become its director. In 1962, both Huerta and Chavez lobbied
to have the CSO expand its efforts to help farm workers, but the organization
was focused on urban issues and couldn’t move in that direction. Frustrated,
they both left the organization and with Gilbert Padilla, co-founded the Farm
Workers Association (FWA). The two made a great team. Chavez was the dynamic
leader and speaker and Huerta, the skilled organizer and tough negotiator.
In 1965,
the AWA and the FWA combined to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee
(later, UFW). That year, the union took on the Coachella Valley grape growers,
with Chavez organizing a strike of all farm workers and Huerta negotiating
contracts. After five hard years, the United Farm Workers (now affiliated with
the AFL-CIO) signed an historic agreement with 26 grape growers, which improved
working conditions for farm workers, including reducing the use of harmful
pesticides, and initiating unemployment and healthcare benefits. In the 1970s,
Huerta coordinated a national lettuce boycott and helped create the political
climate for the passage of the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first
law to recognize the rights of farmworkers to bargain collectively.
During
the 1980s, Dolores Huerta served as Vice-president of the UFW and cofounded the
UFW’s radio station. She continued to speak for a variety of causes, advocating
for a comprehensive immigration policy and better health conditions for farm
workers. In 1988, she nearly lost her life when she was beaten by San Francisco
police at a rally protesting the policies of then-presidential candidate George
H. W. Bush. She suffered six broken ribs and a ruptured spleen.
Later Life
Dolores
Huerta has been honored for her work as a fierce advocate for farm workers,
immigration, and women. She received the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award
and was inducted in the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. That year proved
bitter-sweet for her as she also experienced the passing of her beloved friend
Cesar Chavez. In 1998, she received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award, a year before
she stepped down from her position at the United Farm Workers. In 2002, she
received the Puffin Foundation/Nation Institute Award for Creative Citizenship.
The $100,000 award provided her the means to create the Dolores Huerta
Foundation’s Organizing Institute, whose purpose is to bring organizing and
training skills to low-income communities. Huerta continues to lecture and
speak out on a variety of social issues involving immigration, income
inequality, and the rights of women and Latinos.
Clancy's comment: Go, Dolores! Yep, things don't change unless someone gets up and barks. Love ya work!
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