Dolores Huerta, Leader and Activist

Dolores Huerta, who was born in New Mexico in 1930, was always concerned about civil rights. Everyone should be treated with respect, she believed. Her mother and family moved to Stockton, California, when she was young. She was fortunate to go to college, and then became a teacher. But she had another concern: “I couldn’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.”

So Huerta became a leader and got involved in a local Community Service Organization. She helped poor people register to vote, become citizens, and get better services. She became a fearless lobbyist (a person who works to get laws of their interest passed). Then she met Cesar E. Chavez, and both of them knew that farm workers needed to be organized in order to improve their lives. Together, they started the National Farm Workers Association in Delano, California, in 1962.  

Chavez was president and Huerta was second-in-command of the new union. Together, they talked to migrant workers and their families about how to get a better life. They brought lots of people together and helped them stand up for their rights. They organized boycotts (asking people not to buy a product if workers were not treated well), and led strikes if workers were not treated fairly. Being an activist (someone who takes action) was a dangerous job; she got hurt, and she was put in jail. But she really believed in what she was doing and brought her children to the UFW activities so that others could see that the problems were not just about workers, they were about families!

Today Dolores Huerta is remembered as one of the “100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century.”