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Dolores Huerta attends The Albies hosted by the Clooney Foundation for Justice at the New York Public Library on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP) By Sofía Aguilar March 31, 2025 – 15:29 Many of us know the story of César Chávez , an activist who fought for farmworkers’ rights and though March 31 is dedicated to his memory, Dolores Huerta also deserves recognition for her contribution in the movement. Especially in the Latinx community, he’s still considered a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement who secured labor rights for many farmworkers across California. However, his legacy often overshadows other significant leaders and groups who were involved as he’s become the face of the historic movement. Though Dolores Huerta is often recognized for her work, she has often been credited as Chávez’s professional partner but she remains a powerful activist in her own right. During the ’60s, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) alongside Chavez, as well as its predecessor known as the United Farm Workers’ Union. She also helped organize the Delano grape strike, for which Chavez was given most of the credit, and organized other protests to secure union contracts for marginalized workers. She is largely considered to be one of the most influential activists of the 20th century, a groundbreaking force during the Chicano movement, and a symbol for other female leaders whose contributions are often erased or undermined in history books. Today, the 94-year-old continues to stay active in labor movements, conducting talks around the country, championing the rights of Latinas, and expanding to include undocumented immigrants in her work. Read on to learn more about the incredible changemaker and how she’s become one of the most powerful activists of our time. Early Life Dolores Fernández was born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico to her parents Alicia Chavez-Fernández and Juan Fernández as the second of three children. Juan was a farm worker and miner while Alicia worked hard to take care of their children. Unfortunately, the family struggles and her parents ultimately divorced when Dolores was three. While her father stayed in New Mexico – becoming a union activist and a New Mexico state legislator – Dolores, her mother, and her siblings moved to Stockton, California. While Alicia worked as a waitress and cannery worker, Dolores and her brothers were raised by their grandfather. Her experiences growing up in the area would later lay the foundation for her activism work. For example, when the family’s finances improved, Alicia was able to follow her dream of opening a restaurant and even purchased and ran her own hotel. In these pursuits, she saw her mother’s own community activism and how she treated other workers with kindness, compassion, and fairness. Despite how many jobs she worked, her mother always made sure that the children were well-rounded and experienced, enrolling Dolores in violin, piano, and dance lessons, and even a Girl Scout troop that she participated in until she was 18. She was also a passionate writer, placing second in a nationally-run essay contest. Stay connected! Subscribe now and get the latest on culture, empowerment, and more. SIGN ME UP! Este sitio está protegido por reCAPTCHA y Google Política de privacidad y Se aplican las Condiciones de servicio . Thank You! You are already subscribed to our newsletter But in school, she experienced discrimination and xenophobia by teachers and classmates alike. Once, a prejudiced teacher accused her of cheating because her papers seemed too well-written to be written by a Latina. Later in 1945, she saw the aftermath of a beating one of her brothers received from a group of white men for wearing a zoot suit, flamboyant attire that was popular at the time with pachucos, in the street.The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of violent attacks during the early 1940s in LA that targeted mostly Mexican Americans. The zoot suiters were depicted as unpatriotic and criminal, mobs of white servicemen and civilians took to the streets, assaulting anyone they found wearing a zoot suit. After graduating from high school, Dolores went on to attend and graduate from the University of the Pacific’s Delta College with a teaching degree. While a student there, she married her first husband Ralph Head and had two daughters with him. She later married Ventura Huerta, a fellow activist. She divorced him shortly after having five children with him, though she would keep his last name for the rest of her life. With her teaching degree, she was able to have her own classroom at a local school. However, she often saw many of her students coming to school hungry, especially those who were children of farmworkers. This, as well as all the other pivotal movements in her life, marked a shift in her career. She quit her teaching job after a year and followed a path of activism, advocacy, and change-making for farmers, farmworkers, and their families. Career as an Activist: The Delano Grape Strike When she was 25 years old, Huerta kicked off her career in activism by establishing several labor-focused organizations. In 1955, she co-founded the Stockton chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), where she helped lead voter registration drives and advocated for greater economic equality for Latinx workers. She also became the founder of the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA). Additionally, she served as the vice president of the United Farm Workers’ Union, a role she filled until 1999. After meeting César Chávez through a mutual friend at CSO, she decided to collaborate with him. In 1962, they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) after leaving her position as a secretary-treasurer for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which was the catalyst for a series of strikes and protests that would follow. The famous Delano grape strike began in 1965 when Filipino labor organizer Larry Itliong encouraged his fellow farmworkers at the Delano vineyard to strike. He reached out to Chávez to support the strike, and he, Huerta, and other activists from the NFWA joined the strike the following morning. Over an astonishing five years, Huerta helped recruit 5,000 grape pickers into the movement — which included 1,000 Filipino farmworkers — organized a state-wide boycott of table and wine grapes. They convinced unions in New York and New Jersey to not transport California-grown grapes across the Hudson River. She also worked with churches, other labor organizers and activists, and students to work with consumers to boycott California grapes. Eventually, even grocery stores followed suit. “The farmworkers were only earning about 70 cents an hour at that time—90 cents was the highest wage they were earning. They didn’t have toilets in the fields; they didn’t have cold drinking water. They didn’t have rest periods. People worked from sunup to sundown. It was really atrocious,” Huerta previously said. During the strike, the AWOC and NFWA organizers merged to form the United Farm Workers (UFW). Even though she faced ethnic and gender-based prejudice from corporations and even at times from her colleagues, she was appointed to serve as the lead negotiator in conversations and discussions with a staggering 26 grape growing corporations and farmers. Ultimately, when the strike ended in 1970, she was able to secure a favorable union contract for farm workers that included an increase in their wages, new safety rules to protect them against the use of pesticides, the creation of a health fund that would function as insurance, and the turning over of the hiring process from the grape companies to the UFW. During this time, she was known for her catchphrase, “sí se p uede,” which became a rallying cry for other Latinx farmworkers and which has been in constant use in subsequent Latinx-led movements since the ’70s. Continued Activism After the success of the Delano grape strike, Huerta organized consumers to boycott California-grown grapes and lettuce in 1973. After two years, their hard work led to the passing of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which would allow for the formation of unions and the ability to negotiate for better pay, wages, and working conditions. This was a huge, ground-breaking law that still holds power and generates impact today. For her work, she was appointed as the vice president of the UFW in the ’80s and co-founded the organization’s radio station. Over the following decades, she expanded to working as a lobbyist to fight for farmworkers’ representation in the legislature, better immigration policies for Latinx migrations, and better health support for farmworkers. She also championed for more Latinxs and Latinas to run and serve in political office and frequently spoke on women’s issues in a variety of issues. Though she was empowered and made famous by her activism and advocacy, she almost paid the price for it when she was the victim of police brutality in 1988. She was at a rally in San Francisco distributing paperwork about the grape strike at Union Square hotel, where Vice-President George Bush was giving a speech. She was allegedly beaten by city police, who ended up breaking six of her ribs and rupturing her spleen, which had to be surgically removed. However, even in the aftermath of a brutal assault, her experience and her sharing about it led the police department to revisit and change its policies for crowd control, protest management, and disciplinary action against officers. After recovering from the beating, she continued to fight for her causes like supporting strawberry pickers, speaking at colleges, attending union meetings, and testifying before Congress. She worked as a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which advocates for reproductive health and women’s equality, as well as the Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America. She continues to travel around the country speaking to audiences about immigration, income inequality, womens’ rights, feminism, reproductive and contraceptive rights, and Latinx rights. Legacy In recognition of her incredible advocacy efforts and work to better conditions for farmworkers, immigrants, and women, Huerta has received many awards and honors. In 1993, he became the first Latina inducted into the U.S. National Women’s Hall of Fame , the same year Chávez died. In 1998, she was the recipient of the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award and was later awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship for her leadership in 2002. For the latter, she received $100,000 to do with what she’d like so she established the Dolores Huerta Foundation in order to support low-income and marginalized communities to access job and training skills in 2003. She continues to serve as its president. She has been depicted in media several times, including the documentary A Crushing Love and the 2014 Diego Luna-directed film Cesar Chavez in which she was played by Afro-Puerto Rican actress Rosario Dawson . Following her two divorces, Huerta was in a romantic partnership with Chávez’s brother Richard, also a labor activist, with whom she had four children, until his death in 2011. She continues to be an incredible force in the history of activism and Latinx organizing, and an inspiration for modern Latina leaders. 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