Dolores Huerta's 50 years of activism
Summary
Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez and has spent decades organizing for workers’ rights and social change. In an interview at age 84, she spoke about immigration reform, the setbacks she saw in civil rights, and her continuing efforts to teach people to organize.Key Facts
- Huerta grew up in Stockton, California, and said teaching farm workers’ children helped her see the effects of poverty and malnutrition.
- She met Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and worked with him to organize farm workers through nonviolent action.
- Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers with Chavez.
- Her rallying phrase, “Si se puede,” means “Yes, we can” in Spanish; Barack Obama later used the phrase as a campaign slogan.
- Obama awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
- Huerta campaigned for Robert Kennedy, who won California’s 1968 Democratic presidential primary and was assassinated two months after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death.
- During the interview, Huerta led protesters to the office of then-Representative Kevin McCarthy to advocate for immigration reform.
- Huerta said she wanted to keep teaching people to organize as long as she had the health and energy to do so.
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