Essay On Dolores Huerta

The documentary “Dolores” narrated the experiences and passionate work of civil rights
activist Dolores Huerta. Dolores dedicated most of her life to the United Farm Workers
organization. She fought for workers rights and equality in the latino community.
One of the biggest causes Dolores fought against was the mistreatment of farm workers.
In a conflict theorist perspective, agribusiness profits off minorities, which in this case was the
latino workers. Agribusiness as whole depends on the growers, which are the managers of the
company, and farm workers. In this split labor market, growers continuously exploited farm
workers. With poor working conditions and inadequate housing, they were one of the lowest paid
workers in general. In one instance,

the growers completely disregarded the lives of their
workers. Growers authorized dangerous pesticides to be sprayed on the vegetation knowing that
it's chemicals were extremely dangerous. The capitalist class has no regard for the lives of the
working class.

Conditions were so poor, farm worker got paid 90 cents per hour. Growers often
told them they were highly replaceable, if they did not like the horrible working conditions,
someone else would be ready to take their place. A high amount of workers added with low pay
resulted the great amounts of profit to the growers. Dolores saw this discrimination and unequal
distribution of power, and pushed for better working conditions for farmers.
Early on as an activist, Dolores encountered a lot of sexism. Dolores worked alongside
with Cesar Chavez. Even though Dolores did most of the work for the UFA, Cesar Chavez was
the face of the organization. In a sense Dolores, since she was a woman, was not able to break
through the glass ceiling. She was often criticized about her personal life, she divorced a couple
of times and had several kids. This tied into the role strain that she experienced. In traditional
terms women are supposed to take care of the children, be the mothers of the family, but since
Dolores dedicated most of her life as an activist, she was often judged of her place in the
organization. In contrast Cesar Chavez, a man, he did not experience that type of treatment.
This flawed social structure was what made Dolores support other causes such as

the
feminist movement around that time. When Dolores went to New York to gain support for
workers rights, she met with the main leader of the feminist movement Gloria Steinem. Steinem
goal was for men and women to be economically, politically, and socially equal. When they
interacted, Steinem explained how narrow her views in feminism was. She did not take into
account the intersectionality that women of color experience. Dolores received opposition in
society because she is minority. On top of that since she is a woman, so in resulty she
experiences the same type of treatment than women endure. This social interaction was what
enlightened Steinman to fight alongside her.