Dolores Huerta is profoundly gifted with the skills of listening, speaking, inspiring, and negotiating. These, along with courage, persistence, dedication to non-violence—and fed by her love of people—make her one of the most successful community organizers ever. I didn’t think organizing could be such an amazing thing until I started researching Dolores Huerta. I can only sketch in some details about this amazing woman here. I urge everyone to watch a recent documentary about her called “Dolores” (2018). I have started with some quotes of Huerta’s, then sketched out some of her history. I have pasted some links to my sources below.

To begin, you should understand that the migrant farm workers in the US around 1960 were subject to deplorable and shocking living and working conditions.
Dolores Huerta on organizing:
“It is rarely practiced today because it is tedious and time consuming. However, the results are long lasting and while people are in the process of building organization, they are learning lessons they will never forget and the transformative roots are planted. The fruit is the leadership that is developed and the permanent changes in the community. In other words, this is how grass roots democracy works.”

“…giving them the confidence they needed through inspiration and hard work. Educating them for months to realize that no one was going to win their battle for them. That their conditions could be changed by only one group of people, themselves.”

Huerta’s first occupation was as a teacher in California: “I couldn’t tolerate 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.”

From the documentary film: “I used to think it was wrong to take credit for the work that I did. But I don’t feel that way any more.”

Dolores Huerta on learning about the history and dignity of your own people (this is in the context of Arizona eliminating ethnic studies in the schools and erasing Dolores Huerta from their history curriculum): “All that a person has is their story. If you deny their story you take away their power.” (Of course this resonates with me and my work!)

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930, in New Mexico) is a Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, was the co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California. In 1966, Huerta and her fellow organizers led a 300-mile march from Delano to the state capitol in Sacramento to focus media attention on the strike. In 1966, she negotiated a contract between the UFWOC and Schenley Wine Company, marking the first time that farm workers were able to effectively bargain with an agricultural enterprise. But what made the largest impact was the nationwide grape boycott, which Huerta went to New York to organize there. While in New York, Huerta worked with feminists like Gloria Steinem, and they influenced each other greatly. Huerta embraced feminism, and Steinem realized that the women’s movement should try harder to include people of color. The grape boycott was successful. The entire California table grape industry signed a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers in 1970. Furthermore, in 1975 the California Labor Relations Act was signed, the first law in the country that recognized the right of farm worker unions to negotiate contracts with the agricultural industry.  Huerta originated the rallying cry, “Sí, se puede” which she and Cesar Chavez used during a 25-day fast in Phoenix, Arizona, trying to organize farm workers to demand fair wages and better working conditions. It means, “Yes, it can be done.” Huerta created the phrase because people kept telling her, no, you can’t do that, it is not done: “No se puede.” But two negatives make a positive, and saying “no” to a no, means saying “Yes,” yes, it can be done. And she did it. Over the years, “Sí se puede” has also been adopted by other civil and labor rights groups involving Latinos around the country. It was adopted also by Senator Obama during his presidential campaign. In 2012, President Obama awarded Huerta with the highest civilian award in the United States, The Presidential Medal of Freedom. Upon receiving this award Huerta said, “The freedom of association means that people can come together in organization to fight for solutions to the problems they confront in their communities. The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized, and took direct action. It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today. The civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women’s movement, and the equality movement for our LGBT brothers and sisters are all manifestations of these rights. I thank President Obama for raising the importance of organizing to the highest level of merit and honor.”The Female Power Project supports causes that resonate with the stories of the females featured. Using her unrestricted gift of $100,000 from the Puffin Foundation, Huerta started a foundation to train people to do community organizing. I urge everyone to support The Dolores C. Huerta Foundation (as I have).  http://doloreshuerta.org/

SOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Huerta
http://doloreshuerta.org/dolores-huerta/
http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com/2015/09/famous-speech-friday-dolores-huerta-at.html
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2017/03/09/nfwa-march-and-rally-april-10-1966/
https://libraries.ucsd.edu/farmworkermovement/media/oral_history/ParadigmArchive/arc%2029.pdf
https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2004/interview_dolores_hurerta.html
https://www.amazon.com/Dolores-Huerta/dp/B07F5FXP71/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1535663112&sr=8-2&keywords=dolores+huerta
https://insider.si.edu/2018/04/dolores-huerta-a-latina-civil-rights-icon/