Overlooked Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement: Dolores Huerta

                           Dolores Huerta coined the famous term, Si Se Puede.

   Dolores Huerta Foundation “Dolores Huerta: The Feminist Seed is Planted.” Dolores Huerta's overlapping identities — each with their realms of prejudice and inequity — played a constituent role in fueling her endeavors. In being an advocate of labor rights, (migrant Latina workers being a focal point) Huerta faced Latinx discrimination and gender-based criticism herself. Nonetheless, s he resisted stereotypes and refused to nurture the claim that female activists were ‘bad’ mothers or ‘unwomanly.’ Additionally, the activist’s keen skills in negotiating and lobbying, which was considered a ‘man's sport,’ were reflected in securing “Aid For Dependent Families (“AFDC”) and disability insurance for farmworkers in the State of California in 1963, an unparalleled feat at the time.” Dolores Huerta defies the imperialist white-supremacist hetero-patriarchy as she has brought a vast array of injustices to light. We can consider how other aspects of her identity intertwine to create ...

Huerta speaking at a United Farm Workers rally in Salinas, CA, in 1970. Bob Fitch Photography Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

Dolores Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, in the small mining town of Dawson, New Mexico, and raised in Stockton. She was a composed, dignified labor activist, feminist, mother, and graduate of the College of the Pacific. Being raised by her diligent, migrant father and her self-sufficient, entrepreneur mother, her resilience served a crucial part in the Chicano Movement and its achievements. Both of her parents were active citizens involved in civic organizations— her mother welcomed low-wage workers in her hotel while her father was a union activist, even taking political office in the New Mexico legislature in 1938. Her parents' involvement inspired and influenced her to be just as, if not more, active in reforming the community.  As social and racial oppressions are being brought to light in the 60s, Huerta was applying pressure on labor issues within the community. She became the co-founder of the first farm workers union in 1962 with César Chávez, making important contributi...