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Dolores Huerta
Huerta in 2024
Born
Dolores Clara Fernández

(1930-04-10) April 10, 1930 (age 94)
Dawson, New Mexico, U.S.
EducationSan Joaquin Delta College
Known forCo-Founder of the National Farmworkers Association
Delano grape strike
Sí, se puede
Political partyDemocratic
Other political
affiliations		Democratic Socialists of America
Spouse(s)Ralph Head (divorced)
Ventura Huerta (divorced)
PartnerRichard Chavez (deceased)
Children11
ParentJuan Fernández (father)
Quotations related to Spookyaki/sandbox at Wikiquote

Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta (born April 10, 1930) is...

Early life

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Dolores Huerta was born Dolores Fernández on April 10, 1930 in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico.[1] Her father, Juan Fernández, was a coal miner who belonged to the United Mine Workers (UMW). Labor unrest caused him to look for work as a beet farmer in Colorado, Nebraska, and Wyoming.[2] Her mother, Alicia Chávez, divorced him when Huerta was five years old. She then moved with the children to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and later to Stockton, California.[3] After moving away, she rarely saw her father, who remained in New Mexico. He was elected to the state legislature in 1938, where he was described as a "fiery union leader" by the Los Angeles Times.[4]

In Stockton, Huerta was raised by her mother and grandfather, Herculano, in what she described as an "integrated neighborhood", with "Chinese, Latinos, Native Americans, Blacks, Japanese, Italians, and others".[5] Her mother supported the family by working two jobs: as a canner and as a waitress at a local restaurant, making $5 a week. She was a member of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America (UCAPAWA), participating in a strike at the cannery in 1937.[6] In 1941, she opened a restaurant. The next year, she bought a 70-room hotel from a Japanese American family who were forced to relocate due to Executive Order 9066.[7] According to Huerta, the restaurant "catered mostly to farm workers".[8]

Huerta, inspired by her mother to be "socially active", spent ten years as a Girl Scout. She attended Stockton High School, graduating in 1947.[9] Huerta described her high school as being "segregated" by both class and race. After graduating from high school, she married her high school sweetheart Ralph Head,[a] but they divorced three years later. They had two children, Celeste and Lori. She attended the University of the Pacific's Stockton College (later San Joaquin Delta College) and graduated in 1953 with a provisional teaching credential.[11]

Huerta became a teacher in rural California in 1954. She was one of only three bilingual teachers in the area. Many of her students struggled with hunger and did not have sufficient clothing:

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.[12]

Activism

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Early activism

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Huerta quit teaching after a year.[13] Soon after, in 1955, she met Fred Ross, one of the founding members of the Community Service Organization (CSO).[14] She initially described him as being "slightly loco" (transl. 'crazy'). A registered Republican at the time, she was suspicious of Ross's purported communist leanings. After asking the FBI to perform a background check on him, which came back clean, Huerta began attending CSO meetings.[15] Her work with the CSO initially saw her in traditionally feminine roles, such as participating in women's clubs. However, Ross encouraged her to take on more active leadership assignments. By the late 1950s, she was founding new CSO chapters.[16] She also advocated for neighborhood improvement projects, taught citizenship classes, and worked on voter registration drives.[17] Dolores met her second husband, Ventura Huerta, while working with the CSO. The two had five children: Fidel, Emiliano, Vincent, Alicia, and Angela.[18] She also met fellow organizer Cesar Chavez during her time with the CSO.[19]

Advocacy for farmworkers

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Farmworkers' unions

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In 1958, Huerta helped found the Agricultural Workers' Association (AWA).[20] Then, when the AWA dissolved in 1959, Huerta became secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO-affiliated Agricultural Workers' Organizing Committee (AWOC). However, according to historian Margaret Rose, she resigned quickly after "[growing] disenchanted with the group's leadership, direction, and top-down policies". In 1962, frustrated with the CSO's unwillingness to advocate for farmworkers, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Chavez. She initially stayed on the CSO payroll, remaining in Stockton while Chavez established the organization's headquarters in Delano.[21] Meanwhile, her relationship with Ventura "deteriorated", and they divorced in 1963.[22]

Huerta eventually left her position with the CSO and moved in with Chavez and his family in Delano in 1964.[b][26] According to Chavez, Huerta's role in the early NFWA was "critical".[27] Her duties included making phone calls, collecting union dues, and visiting worker camps in Stockton and nearby towns. She struggled to earn enough money to support her family during this time, subsisting by taking on additional work as a translator, substitute teacher, and onion farmer to supplement her NFWA income.[25] In April 1965, she helped the NFWA organize a strike on behalf of rose grafters employed by the Mount Arbor and Conklin companies.[28] After three days, the companies agreed to increase the strikers' wages but did not agree to a formal contract, which was one of the strikers' demands. The workers returned to their jobs the next day.[29]

Delano Grape Strike

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Notes

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  1. ^ Alicia Chávez claims that Head and Huerta married in 1948, while Beagle claims that they were married in 1950.[10]
  2. ^ According to Doak, she resigned in late 1962.[23] Alicia Chávez, Bardacke, and Sowards also claim that she resigned.[24] However, according to Rose, she was "terminated for her overriding interest in farmworker organizing over CSO business".[25]

References

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  1. ^ Rose 2008, p. 8.
  2. ^ García 2012, p. 27.
  3. ^ Rose 2008, p. 8; Sowards 2019, p. 35.
  4. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 48; Sowards 2019, p. 35.
  5. ^ Sowards 2019, p. 35; 38.
  6. ^ García 2012, p. 28.
  7. ^ García 2012, p. 28; Beagle 2016, p. 49.
  8. ^ Sowards 2019, p. 36.
  9. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 53.
  10. ^ Chávez 2005, p. 243; Beagle 2016, pp. 53–54.
  11. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 54; Sowards 2019, pp. 37–39.
  12. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 54.
  13. ^ Doak 2008, p. 23.
  14. ^ Thompson 2016, pp. 1, 126.
  15. ^ Thompson 2016, pp. 126–127.
  16. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 56.
  17. ^ Sowards 2019, p. 40.
  18. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 57.
  19. ^ Sowards 2019, p. 41.
  20. ^ Doak 2008, p. 31.
  21. ^ Rose 2008, pp. 11–12; Bardacke 2011, p. 120; Pawel 2014, p. 80.
  22. ^ Beagle 2016, p. 58.
  23. ^ Doak 2008, p. 39.
  24. ^ Chávez 2005, p. 245; Bardacke 2011, pp. 120–121; Sowards 2019, p. 42.
  25. ^ a b Rose 2008, p. 13.
  26. ^ Pawel 2014, p. 99.
  27. ^ Sowards 2019, p. 42.
  28. ^ Pawel 2014, p. 101.
  29. ^ Bardacke 2011, p. 139.

Sources

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  • Bardacke, Frank (2011). Trampling out the Vintage: Cesar Chavez and the Two Souls of the United Farm Workers. London: Verso Books. ISBN 1-84467-718-4.
  • Beagle, Christine (2016). Siete Lenguas: The Rhetorical History of Dolores Huerta and the Rise of Chicana Rhetoric (PhD thesis). University of New Mexico. Retrieved December 4, 2024.
  • Chávez, Alicia (2005). "Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers". In Ruíz, Vicki; Sánchez Korrol, Virginia (eds.). Latina Legacies: Identity, Biography, and Community. New York: Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-515399-5.
  • Doak, Robin S. (2008). Dolores Huerta: Labor Leader and Civil Rights Activist. Minneapolis: Compass Point Books. ISBN 0-7565-3477-1.
  • García, Matthew (2012). From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-28385-5.
  • Pawel, Miriam (2014). The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: a Biography. New York: Bloomsbury Press. ISBN 1-60819-710-7. OCLC 849210456.
  • Rose, Margaret (2008). "Dolores Huerta: The United Farm Workers Union". In García, Mario T. (ed.). A Dolores Huerta Reader. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 0-8263-4513-1. OCLC 231724520.
  • Sowards, Stacey K. (2019). ¡Sí, Ella Puede!: The Rhetorical Legacy of Dolores Huerta and the United Farm Workers. Austin: University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-1-4773-1766-2.
  • Thompson, Gabriel (2016). America's Social Arsonist: Fred Ross and Grassroots Organizing in the Twentieth Century. Oakland: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-96417-4.
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