| Dolores Huerta |
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co-founder of the United Farm Workers, labor leader and organizer, social activist
Dolores Huerta was born in 1930 in New Mexico. Her parents divorced when she was very young, and she was raised by her mother in Stockton, California, with the active help of her grandfather, Herculano Chavez.
Her mother ran a restaurant and then a hotel, where Dolores Huerta helped out as she grew older. She also kept in touch with her father and his struggles to make a living as a migrant laborer and coal miner. His union activity helped inspire her own work with a Hispanic self-help association. She married in college, divorcing her first husband after having two daughters with him. Later she married Ventura Huerta, with whom she had five children. But they disagreed over many issues including her community involvements, and first separated and then divorced.
Dolores Huerta became involved in a community group supporting farm workers which merged with the AFL-CIO's Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). Dolores Huerta served as secretary-treasurer of the AWOC. It was during this time that she met Cesar Chavez, and then formed with him the Farm Workers Association, which eventually became the United Farm Workers (UFW).
Dolores Huerta served a key role in the early years of farm worker organizing, though has only recently been given full credit for this. Among other contributions was her work as the coordinator for East Coast efforts in the table grape boycott, 1968-69, which helped to win recognition for the farm workers' union. It was during this time that she also became connected with the growing feminist movement.
In the 1970s Huerta headed up the farm workers' union's political arm and helped lobby for legislative protections.
In 1988, while demonstrating peacefully against the policies of candidate George Bush, she was severely injured when police clubbed the demonstrators. She eventually won a considerable financial settlement from the police, as well as changes in police policy on handling demonstrations.
After her recovery from this life-threatening attack, Dolores Huerta returned to working for the farm workers' union.
Dolores Huerta had a total of eleven children, including four with Richard Chavez, brother of Cesar Chavez.
A personal note: I always think of Dolores Huerta with another image in addition to her crucial role in labor history. In 1976, I attended a dinner where she was to be honored for her contributions to social change. My older son was only a few months old at the time, and during one part of the evening, I left the main room to nurse him. I found myself next to Huerta, also nursing one of her children, and we exchanged typical new-mother oohs and aaahs over each other's children and spoke briefly of issues of working motherhood. Much of the world knows Huerta -- correctly -- as a tough negotiator, a strong leader. My image of her also includes Huerta the loving and devoted mother. And I don't think the two images conflict in the least.
-- Jone Johnson Lewis
| Dolores Huerta on the Web |
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Dolores Huerta
A good biography of Huerta, including her early life as foundation for her later activism, and her role as strategist and contract negotiator. - Dolores Huerta
Official biography on the United Farm Workers web site. This page also lists organizations with which Huerta's been affiliated and awards she's been given for her activism. -
Dolores Huerta
Brief bio in connection with the PBS series Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. -
Dolores Huerta
Brief bio from a newspaper, honoring Hispanic Heritage Month, September 1997. -
Delores Huerta
From the National Women's Hall of Fame, a page honoring Huerta for her contributions. - UFW History
This official UFW history of the union barely mentions Huerta, even though on the same site her biography makes clear her important involvement after the initial founding of the union.
| Huerta's connections with other people and movements: |
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Women Heroes of
Environmental Action
Includes the role of environmental activism, especially after Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, in creating a climate in which Huerta and Chavez could successfully found the UFW.
| Related topics on this site: |
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Latinas/Chicanas
Latinas and Chicanas who have made history. From your About.com Guide to Women's History. -
Women and Labor Unions
Issues of women in the labor movement, from your About Guide to Women's History.
| Bibliography |
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The Fight in the Fields : Cesar Chavez and the Farmworkers Movement by Susan Ferriss, Ricardo Sandoval, Diana Hembree (Editor). Paperback, April 1998.
Text copyright 1999-2006 © Jone Johnson Lewis.
