By Pamela Cruz and Constanza Mazzotti
“There is no greater religion than service to others. Working for the common good is the best creed,” said the German doctor and philosopher Albert Schweitzer. And if anyone knows about service, help and fighting for others, it is Dolores Huerta, a woman whose extraordinary life in support of the rights of farm workers does not stop.
Dolores Huerta doesn't ask for permission, she just does what needs to be done.
For her, nothing is impossible. Yes, We Can! has been her rallying cry for decades, seeking to help the voices that no one wants to hear, the hands of those who don't want to look at them, and those who have seen their rights trampled on for years.
It would seem that at any moment his struggle would stop, however, at almost ninety years old, his voice continues to sound strong in the speeches of former President Barack Obama, or when Hillary Clinton pays tribute to his career alongside César Chávez (his comrade in arms) and his famous Grape Strike with which he negotiated for the first time in the United States the rights of farm workers and with which he established legal contracts and health insurance.
She doesn't like giving interviews, but her voice resonates strongly with her own story of struggle and feminist symbol.
He was born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico, but at a young age he moved with his mother to Stockton, California, a farming community in San Joaquin County, where he continues to be a legend in the fight for the rights of immigrant farmers.
After being a Girl Scout and having dedicated herself to teaching at the primary level, her life took a totally different direction when she realized the injustices that peasants experienced around her, reason enough to begin a fight for their rights, until everyone had the same job opportunities under fair and dignified conditions.
“I couldn't see the children coming into the classroom hungry and needing shoes. So I thought I could do more organizing the farmers than trying to teach their hungry children,” he said in one of the few interviews given to a television channel.
Always influenced by the strength of her two parents: Juan Fernandez, who worked as a miner, laborer and farmer in New Mexico, but above all, was a union activist leader and state assemblyman. Dolores saw little of him after he divorced her mother when she was barely three years old.
His mother, Alicia Chavez, owned a small hotel in Stockton, California, where she helped farm families and covered the entire cost for those who were immigrants.
More formally, Dolores Huerta, as she is commonly called, began her life's struggle alongside Cesario Estrada Chávez, better known as César Chávez, an American peasant leader and civil rights activist.
However, Dolores Huerta's work did not begin there, since in 1955 she was a founding member of the Community Service Organization (CSO) alongside Fred Ross (1919-1992), an activist originally from San Francisco, who organized Mexican-Americans in California.
Fred Ross, who was a teacher to Huerta and Chavez, would also be the one to transmit, through the CSO, the teachings against segregation and police brutality, the creation of voter registration, and improved public services as well as the fight to enact the new legislation to his best disciples.
Thus, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez later joined forces to found, outside the CSO, the National Farm Workers Association or “NFWA”, the predecessor of the United Field Workers Union (UNFW).UFW(see the following table).
NFWA focused its efforts on including undocumented immigrant workers in health systems, getting them to vote, and creating voting materials in Spanish, among many others.
The organization later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), led by Filipino Larry Itliong, to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) in 1962.
The main objectives of this committee were to improve the lives of agricultural workers, both in their economic and social situation, as well as to free them from the stigma they had for dedicating themselves to this work.
At the same time, the United Farm Workers carried out mobilizations, strikes and even boycotts against companies that did not provide good conditions for their workers and that posed a health risk, actions that have only gained strength until now.
“Working conditions are very, very bad as they have no protection whatsoever. Farm workers do not even have basic human needs. They have no toilets or drinking water in the fields. They cannot defend themselves when they are degraded or humiliated or subjected to inhuman working conditions,” she denounced.n a radio interview with Maria Huffman carried out on February 23, 1968, a crucial year for social movements in Latin America.
The grapes of wrath
On September 8, 1965, Filipino members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) demanded higher wages and more than 5,000 grape workers went on strike in the Delano area of Kern County, California.
The protest would last five years, during which Dolores Huerta would become the leader who achieved agreements in favor of exploited farmers.
This is how the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC) emerged in 1966, through which Dolores managed to negotiate the first contract with the Schenley Wine Company.
This was the first time the United States negotiated farm worker rights, including health care, labor hiring, contract administration and lawsuits on behalf of workers, and regulation of toxic pesticides.
Huerta also achieved amnesty for peasants who lived, worked and paid taxes in the United States in order to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, resulting in the Immigration Act of 1985.
Lifetime achievements
Among her most important awards, Huerta has received a number of awards, including the National Women's Hall of Fame (1993), the American Civil Liberties Union Award (1993), the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award (1998), and the Ohtli Recognition (1998).
In turn, the Four Freedoms Award (2003); Humanitarian of the Year (2008); induction into the Labor Hall of Honor (2012); Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012); induction into the California Hall of Fame (2012); and the Radcliffe Medal (2019).
Dolores Huerta has her own foundation, remains a member-secretary of the United Farm Workers and Vice President of the United Women's Labor Union, is a Vice President of the California AFL-CIO and is a board member for the Feminist Majority Fund which advocates for equal political rights for women.
As if that were not enough, she is the mother of eleven children and 14 grandchildren, with whom she has combined her life full of social struggle, stating that "being a woman has helped me because we have more endurance than men."
Today, every April 10th, the day of her birth, is proclaimed as Dolores Huerta Day in California.
With information from the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
You may be interested in: Politics takes significant toll on residents over 4th of July weekend
