Dolores Huerta Essay

When asked to write about an important activist who has demonstrated protest, I immediately drifted towards a Hispanic and/or feminist activist. Various names came across my mind initially such as Cesar Chavez and Joan Baez but as a later discussion in class concluded, there are numerous others who are rarely highlighted for their activism and struggles, which lead to me researching more. In my research I came across Dolores Huerta, an American labor leader and civil rights activist, who I felt was an underdog and brushed over activist in the Hispanic community.
Dolores Clara Fernandez was born on April 10, 1930, in Stockton, California where she was raised in a single parent home. She gained her strong work ethic from her mother who worked multiple jobs to support her children and also had them partake in cultural activities. Growing up, Dolores dealt with racism, which only prompted her to work twice as hard and help those who cannot speak up for themselves. Huerta’s distraught encounters with her students ignited the fire in her to begin her career as

an activist for Hispanics. One of her biggest milestones as an activist was in 1960 when she created the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA) where she lobbied for many basic rights that were not given to Hispanics such as the first Spanish-language voting ballots and driver’s license tests.
Another major milestone that she achieved was in 1962 when she co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) with fellow labor leader Cesar Chavez. Through this powerful duo, the union was very progressive in giving back power to the exploited minority Farmers. A major accomplishment the union gained was winning against the California grape growers in the historic boycott of the 1970s. In 1999, she stepped down from her position at the UFW but continued her activism with farm workers, immigrants, and women. She has been recognized for her triumphs in activism numerous times including the Ellis Island Medal or Freedom Award in 1993 and the Eleanor Roosevelt Award in 1998. In 1993, she was also inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Her latest award was the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to her by President Barack Obama in 2012. Throughout this time, Dolores handled taking care of 11 children and went through 2 divorces and 1 romantic relationship
When many people think of the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott, they associate it with Cesar Chavez but many aren’t aware of the influential role Huerta had during this five-year strike.

The strike was the final straw of years of racial build up, poor pay, and poor conditions towards Filipino American grape workers. From 1965 to 1970, Huerta and Chavez worked together to highlight the poor conditions that 5,000 migrant farm workers were dealing with in a series of non-violent marches, speeches, and rallies. There was no significant response for the first two years, where strikers began to loose faith and turned their impatience to anger. Huerta, with the help of Chavez, took on a different tactic towards the boycott and began to spread the strike nationally. Huerta encouraged and helped farmers travel across the United States and Canada, spreading the news on what was really happening and asking for more

support.
Slowly, Huerta’s supporters began to increase. While word starting spreading on the West Coast, Huerta knew that she would be able to gather even more support on the East Coast and set out to New York where she implemented her most significant boycott. As she left Chavez in the West coast dealing with the bigger corporations, Huerta took the opposite route. She started going to small businesses that sold Delano grapes and told them how they treated their farmers, which would lead to her asking them to join her movement by refusing to sell those grapes. This tactic spread like wild fire and soon moved up from small corner stores to the big supermarkets. In a year, Huerta was able to have all of the major supermarkets on the East Coast stop selling Delano grapes, and later spread to the West Coast winning the boycott in 1970, when the company gave in and accepted their requests.
This triumph over a big grape and wine company paved the way for a safer and fair work life for immigrant farmers. This later influenced and helped pass various labor laws such as the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which allowed farm workers to create unions and fight for better working conditions and wages (NWHM, 2012).
During this protest, Huerta went through various genres of composition as it experienced times of hopelessness and progress. The main and most effective genre Huerta used throughout the five-year span of this Delano grape protest was verbal speeches. In the beginning of this boycott, Huerta would visit the affected farmers at the fields and gather them around as she spoke to them on what they deserved and how to solve this problem. This consequently led to her begin arrested various times, and eventually banned from some of the fields.
In an interview with PBS, Huerta explains how she struggled with gaining her voice due to constant sexist comments from her own peers that she worked with. She goes to say how she did live in Cesar Chavez’s shadow since that was her partner and she was a woman, which everyone did not respect as much. She dealt with men appropriating her work, and one important one that went uncorrected for a while was the saying “Si se puede”. Many thought that Chavez was the creator of it since he would use the phrase in his protests as well, but Huerta takes full credit of that saying. It has been a very influential one, such so that President Obama has been noted saying it during his candidacy, later giving Huerta credit for it during her Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony.
Huerta’s most significant speech was during the Delano grape boycott. In 1966, during a comeback time for this protest, supporters followed Huerta on a 300-mile march from Delano, where the farm fields were, to Sacramento, the capitol of California. Huerta believed that it was time to go directly to the state legislators, instead of waiting to hear back from them, and created much attention with different media outlets focuses on this strike. There is where she spoke not only to the crowd but the government about the deploring working conditions and pay of the state’s migrant agricultural workers. She then stated her call-to-action, expressing the criticalness of a change in the system by having her supporters carry on with the strike and chastise, the then, Governor Edmund Brown and state legislature for being irresponsible with their positions and avoiding the strikers’ demands.
Huerta’s speech used various components, which were crucial to its importance. The setting of the rally helped it gain acknowledgement and paralled the situation with the government. The workers are open about their demands and open about presenting them in public, she notes repeatedly, while the state is unwilling to be open about its stance on the strike (The Eloquent Woman, 2015). Since the speech was held outside, it represents the openness the workers have towards the situation. Huerta said: “To the governor and the legislature of California we say, you cannot close your eyes and ears to our needs any longer, you cannot pretend that we do not exist, you cannot plead ignorance to our problem because we are here and we embody our needs for you.”
Another component that was important to Huerta’s speech was to use of the consistent negative history migrant farmers have dealt with. This emphasizes how the farmers have reached their limits being mistreated and that this movement has not come out of spite but is rather a last resort as years of failed strikes and protest. This tactic helped in spreading and teaching the national public the real problems their fellow neighbors are dealing with, which eventually would lead in a larger supporter population which helps in actually making progress. Huerta’s specific tone she used in her speech also set this speech aside from others. She stresses the main theme of moving forward and up as she uses phrases such as “on the rise”, “step by step” and of course her main one “Si se puede”. These phrases demonstrate not only what the workers demand and look forward to but also their long struggle they have dealt with to get to this point.
Huerta’s bilingual capability also helped her captivate a broader audience and is a unique characteristic that sets her apart from the majority of activist in American history. Huerta stuck with using speeches as a main component of her protest because of its more efficient ways. It was able to captivate large crowds, grab the media’s attention, and spread information faster. Huerta’s speeches did a very positive affect on her protest because it highlighted the situation at hand and with her passion and charisma, touched people enough to support her. This genre will always be effective throughout time because of its power of persuasion that changes peoples minds or teaches them.