Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta was one of the main forces behind the farm worker movement; she co-founded the National United Farm Workers, organized thousands of laborers, and negotiated contracts with growers to improve conditions. Dolores Huerta is my hero because she believes that "every minute is a chance to change the world," and that is reflected in her persistent activism. 

Huerta's passion for organizing and activism began after graduating from high school in 1947. While her family had experienced the hardship and racism that all Mexican-Americans faced, her parents' economic situation improved after buying a hotel in a farming town in the San Joaquin Valley called Stockton. This environment introduced her to the cultural diversity of the agricultural community which consisted of Mexican, Filipino, African-American, Japanese and Chinese families. Huerta eventually received a degree from Stockton College and became an elementary school teacher, but soon resigned after coming to terms with the extreme poverty of her students, who came to school hungry and without shoes. 

As a leader of the Community Service Organization (CSO), Huerta worked tirelessly to establish voter registration and Spanish ballots in Stockton. Still, Huerta's infuriation towards the working conditions of farm laborers remained. Workers did not have bathrooms, water, or breaks while working in the intense heat, earning less than a dollar an hour. Their homes had dirt floors and furniture made out of crates and cardboard boxes, and their children had little food and clothing. It was in CSO that Huerta met César Chavez, and they co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) to work towards improving these conditions. 

In 1965, Huerte led 17 million Americans during the Nation California Table Grape Boycott against Coachella Valley grape growers. After five years, they signed an agreement to reduce pesticide use and include healthcare benefits in order to improve working conditions. It was during this event that Huerte coined the historic phrase “Sí se puede,” meaning “Yes we can,” which went on to be the motto of the Obama campaign in 2008.

Huerta faced obstacles as a woman in a position of leadership. Chavez was the speaker for UFW and the face of the movement, and his work overshadowed a lot of Huerta’s essential work as an organizer and negotiator. During the grape boycott, she met Gloria Steinem and came into contact with the feminist movement, inspiring her to tackle gender discrimination in the farmworkers’ movement. In 1988, Huerta took a leave from the union after a police officer assaulted her, breaking four of her ribs and rupturing her spleen, during a protest against the policies of George Bush’s candidacy. She utilized the time to the country with the Feminist Majority Foundation, encouraging Latina women to run for office and successfully increasing the number of female local, state, and federal representatives.

In 1998, Dolores Huerta stepped down from her position at UFW, but four years later founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation to introduce organization skills to low-income communities. In 2012, Dolores received the highest possible civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, from Barack Obama, and she continues her activism at 88 years old by traveling and lecturing on current civil rights issues regarding the working poor, immigration, women's rights, and Latino rights.