Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Clara Fernández Huertais an American labor leader and civil rights activist who was the co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. Huerta has received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers', immigrants', and women's rights, including the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, the United States Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCivil Rights Leader
Date of Birth10 April 1930
CityDawnson, NM
CountryUnited States of America
The majority of Latinos in this country are 28 years old or younger. All of those people out there attacking the Latino community, when you see a Latino going down the street with a baby carriage and a couple of children walking beside them, they should say 'Hey, there goes my social security and my Medicare.' Those are the people that are going to contribute to keep our social security system funded and our medical system funded.
When you talk about sacrifices, the ones in my family who have sacrificed are my children, because I love what I'm doing. I love the work. I love to go out there and talk about organizing the people. To me, that's something I really enjoy.
I think, if anything, my children are the ones who have sacrificed because I've had to too many times be absent from them. But, at the same time, they have lived very enriched lives and probably experienced things they wouldn't have if not for the movements. So, there are some rewards.
I quit because I can’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children.
Pride and roots is what it is. It definitely does not mean separation or nationalism in the sense that we want to go back to Mexico.
went back to our old culture, the Latino culture.
I remember as a little girl going down to the beet fields in the Dakotas and in Nebraska and Wyoming as migrant workers when I was very, very small, like, I was, like, 5 years old, I believe. And I remember going out there, you know, traveling to these states and living in these little tarpaper shacks that they had in Wyoming.
My dad was very intelligent, had a very strong personality. I was amazed with my father.
My mother was a very wonderful woman. When she and my dad divorced, she moved to California and worked two jobs in the cannery at night and as a waitress during the day. But she saved enough money to establish a restaurant.
My mother was a dominant force in our family. And I always saw her as the leader. And that was great for me as a young woman, because I never saw that women had to be dominated by men.
I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.
My mother never made me do anything for my brothers, like serve them. I think that's an important lesson, especially for the Latino culture, because the women are expected to be the ones that serve and cook and whatever. Not in our family. Everybody was equal.
Professional farmworkers who know how to do a number of different jobs, whether it be pruning or picking or crafting, they see themselves as professionals, and they take a lot of pride in that work. They don't see themselves as doing work that is demeaning.
Respecting other people’s rights is peace.