Dolores Huerta Biography

Her Second Wind

At age 78, Dolores Huerta continues to work tirelessly developing leaders, advocating for working poor, women and children. Dolores Huerta is currently the President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She travels daily speaking to students at Universities and organizational forums, impacting others on issues of social justice and public policy.

There are thousands of working poor immigrants in the agriculture rich San Joaquin Valley of California. They are unfamiliar with laws or agencies that can protect them or benefits that they are entitled to. They are often preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals who take advantage of them. They feel hopeless to remedy their living situations.

Dolores teaches that the only long lasting solution these problems is to make individuals understand that they have personal power. That personal power needs to be coupled with responsibility and working together to create the changes needed to improve their lives.

The basic approach of the Dolores Huerta Foundation is to organize intimate meetings in people's homes. The "host" invites six to eight people to their home where a trained organizer explains how poor working people have accomplished major changes through organization and direct action. At that meeting, those in attendance are asked to host other meetings. A chain of "house meetings" is conducted until 200 people have attended the meetings. They are then brought together to form an organization. They vote to form a committee and become a part of the "Vecinos Unidos" (United Neighbors). There are monthly meetings conducted where information is given on topics that they decide which range from immigration, safety, health issues, etc.

The innovation is that the group is further broken down to a neighborhood level to have a personal influence in taking on and solving the issues in the neighborhood. Each neighborhood elects a leadership committee. They form a Leadership Council. This Leadership group receives training and education on issues that they will pass on to their neighbors. Neighborhood groups also meet once month. They assess and evaluate their particular neighborhood and prioritize which problems need to be addressed.

The great outcome of this type of organizing is that the neighborhood committees can work to resolve multiple issues at once as well as form a large base to address issues that affect all of their community be they state, federal or local issues.

While this type of organizing is not particularly new, it was the method that Fred Ross, Sr. used to organize the Community Service Organization which produced leaders like Ed Roybal, the first Latino congressman from California, Cruz Reynoso, the first Latino on the California State Supreme Court, and the founders of the United Farm Workers Dolores Huerta and Cesar E. Chavez.

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.

The Feminist Seed Is Planted 

Dolores was born, Dolores Clara Fernandez, on April 10, 1930 in the mining town of Dawson a small mining town in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Her father Juan Fernández, a farm worker and miner by trade, was a union activist who ran for political office winning a seat in the New Mexico legislature in 1938. Dolores spent most of her childhood and early adult life in Stockton, California where she and her two brothers moved with their mother, following her parents’ divorce.      

Dolores' feminist seed was planted by her mother’s independence and entrepreneurial spirit. Alicia, known for her kindness and compassion towards others, offered affordable rates at her 70-room hotel, acquired after years of hard work. She made it hospitable to low-wage workers, and often, waived the fee altogether. She was an active participant in community affairs, involved in numerous civic organizations and the church. Alicia encouraged the cultural diversity that was a natural part of Dolores’ upbringing in Stockton. The agricultural community was made up of Mexican, Filipino, African-American, Japanese and Chinese working families.

Alicia’s community activism was reflected in Dolores’ total involvement as a student at Stockton High School. She was active in numerous school clubs, was a majorette, and a dedicated member of the Girl Scouts until the age of 18. Upon graduating Dolores continued her education at the University of Pacific’s Delta College in Stockton earning a provisional teaching credential. During this time she married Ralph Head and had two daughters, Celeste and Lori. While teaching she could no longer bare to see her students come to school with empty stomachs and bare feet, and thus began her lifelong journey of working to correct economic injustice.

An Organizer is Born

Dolores found her calling as an organizer while serving in the leadership of the Stockton Community Service Organization (CSO). During this time she founded the Agricultural Workers Association, set up voter registration drives and pressed local governments for barrio improvements. It was in 1955 through CSO founder Fred Ross, Sr. that she would meet a likeminded colleague, CSO Executive Director César E. Chávez. The two soon discovered that they shared a common vision of organizing farm workers, an idea that was clearly not in line with the CSO’s mission.

As a result, in the spring of 1962 César and Dolores resigned, and launched the National Farm Workers Association. Dolores’ organizing skills were essential to the growth of this budding organization. The challenges she faced as a woman did not go unnoted and in one of her letters to Cesar she joked…”Being a now (ahem) experienced lobbyist, I am able to speak on a man-to-man basis with other lobbyists.”

The first testament to her lobbying and negotiating talents were demonstrated in securing Aid For Dependent Families ("AFDC") and disability insurance for farm workers in the State of California in 1963, an unparalleled feat of the times. She was also instrumental in the enactment of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975. This was the first law of its kind in the United States, granting farm workers in California the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions

While the farm workers lacked financial capitol they were able to wield significant power at the ballot box. As the principal legislative advocate, Dolores became one of the UFW’s most visible spokespersons. Robert F. Kennedy acknowledged her help in winning the 1968 California Democratic Presidential Primary moments before he was shot in Los Angeles. Throughout the years she has worked to elect numerous candidates including President Clinton, Congressman Ron Dellums, Governor Jerry Brown, Congresswoman Hilda Solis and most recently Hillary Clinton.

 Women’s Liberation

 As much as she was Cesar's right hand she could also be the greatest thorn in his side. The two were infamous for their blow out arguments an element that was a natural part of their working relationship. Dolores viewed this as a healthy and necessary part of the growth process of any worthwhile collaboration. While Dolores was busy breaking down one gender barrier after another, she was seemingly unaware of the tremendous impact she was having on, not only farm worker woman but also young women everywhere.

Dolores initially dismissed the 1960’s women’s liberation movement as a “middle-class phenomenon”. However while directing the first National Boycott of California Table Grapes out of New York she came into contact with Gloria Steinem and the burgeoning feminist movement who rallied behind the cause. Quickly she realized they shared more in common than previously imagined. Having found a supportive voice with other feminist, Dolores consciously began to challenge gender discrimination within the farm workers movement.

 Non-Violence Is Our Strength

Early on, Dolores advocated for the entire families’ participation in the movement for after all it was men, women and children together out in the fields picking, thinning and hoeing. Thus the practice of non-violence was not only a philosophy but a very necessary approach in providing for the safety of all. Her life and the safety of those around her were in jeopardy on countless occasions. The greatest sacrifice to the movement was made by five martyrs all of whom she knew personally.

At age 58 Dolores suffered her most life-threatening assault while protesting against the policies of then presidential candidate George Bush in San Francisco. A baton-wielding officer broke four ribs and shattered her spleen. Public outrage resulted in the San Francisco Police Department changing its policies regarding crowd control and police discipline and Dolores was awarded an out of court settlement.

Following a lengthy recovery she took a leave of absence from the union to focus on women’s rights. She traversed the country for two years on behalf of the Feminist Majority’s Feminization of Power: 50/50 by the year 2000 Campaign encouraging Latina’s to run for office. The campaign resulted in a significant increase in the number of women representatives at the local, state and federal levels. She also served as National Chair of the 21st Century Party founded in 1992 on the principles that women make up 52% of the party’s candidates and that officers must reflect the ethnic diversity of the nation.

Recognitions And Awards

There are four elementary schools in California, one in Fort Worth, Texas, and a high school in Pueblo, Colorado named after Dolores Huerta.

She has received numerous awards among them the Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award from President Clinton in l998, Ms. Magazine’s one of the three most important women of l997, Ladies Home Journal’s 100 most important woman of the 20t Century, Puffin Foundation award for Creative Citizenship Labor Leader Award 1984, Kern County’s Woman of The Year by California State legislature,the Ohtli award from the Mexican Government, Smithsonian Institution - James Smithson Award, and Nine Honorary Doctorates from Universities throughout the United States.