• Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen

latinopia.com

Latino arts, history and culture

  • Home
    • Get the Podcasts
    • About
      • Contact Latinopia.com
      • Copyright Credits
      • Production Credits
      • Research Credits
      • Terms of Use
      • Teachers Guides
  • Art
    • LATINOPIA ART
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Film/TV
    • LATINOPIA CINEMA
    • LATINOPIA SHOWCASE
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Food
    • LATINOPIA FOOD
    • COOKING
    • RESTAURANTS
  • History
    • LATINOPIA EVENT
    • LATINOPIA HERO
    • TIMELINES
    • BIOGRAPHY
    • EVENT PROFILE
    • MOMENT IN TIME
    • DOCUMENTS
    • TEACHERS GUIDES
  • Lit
    • LATINOPIA WORD
    • LATINOPIA PLÁTICA
    • LATINOPIA BOOK REVIEW
    • PIONEER AMERICAN LATINA AUTHORS
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Music
    • LATINOPIA MUSIC
    • INTERVIEWS
    • FEATURES
  • Theater
    • LATINOPIA TEATRO
    • INTERVIEWS
  • Blogs
    • Angela’s Photo of the Week
    • Arnie & Porfi
    • Bravo Road with Don Felípe
    • Burundanga Boricua
    • Chicano Music Chronicles
    • Fierce Politics by Dr. Alvaro Huerta
    • Mirándolo Bien with Eduado Díaz
    • Political Salsa y Más
    • Mis Pensamientos
    • Latinopia Guest Blogs
    • Tales of Torres
    • Word Vision Harry Gamboa Jr.
    • Julio Medina Serendipity
    • ROMO DE TEJAS
    • Sara Ines Calderon
    • Ricky Luv Video
    • Zombie Mex Diaries
    • Tia Tenopia
  • Podcasts
    • Louie Perez’s Good Morning Aztlán
    • Mark Guerrero’s ELA Music Stories
    • Mark Guerrero’s Chicano Music Chronicles
      • Yoga Talk with Julie Carmen
You are here: Home / History / BIOGRAPHY / BIOGRAPHY – DOLORES HUERTA

BIOGRAPHY – DOLORES HUERTA

March 6, 2010 by Tia Tenopia

DOLORES HUERTA, LABOR ORGANIZER

Dolores Huerta, UFW

Dolores Clara Fernandez was born in the Northern New Mexico mining town of Dawson, on April 10, 1930. Her father, Juan Fernandez, was a miner and occasional farm worker, union organizer and in later years would become a New Mexico State Assemblyman. Dolores’ parents divorced when she was three and she moved with her mother, Alicia Chavez, and two brothers to Stockton, California where, before long, her enterprising mother had bought two hotels and a restaurant and set up a business that catered largely to the Mexican American farm workers. As a young woman, Dolores helped out at the hotel while attending Stockton high school, was active in the Girl Scouts and distinguishing herself early on by winning second place in a national Girl Scout essay contest.

Growing up in the farm working community of Stockton, Dolores became aware of the discrimination suffered by Mexicans and Mexican Americans, particularly field hands working in the hot San Joaquin Valley sun. Her brother, Marshall, was the victim of World War Two xenophobia when he was beaten and stripped of his clothes for wearing a Zoot-suit to a dance during a Victory in Japan Day celebration. Dolores graduated from Stockton High School in 1947 and then attended the University of the Pacific’s Delta Community College from which she received a teaching degree. It was during this time that she was briefly married and had the first two of what would eventually be eleven children.

In 1955, she was recruited by Fred Ross, Sr., to work in the Community Service Organization, a grass roots group that addressed issues of segregation, discrimination and police brutality and that undertook voter registration drives such as the 1949 campaign that succeeded in electing Edward Roybal to the Los Angeles city council- the first Latino in 68 years. During this time Dolores married Ventura Huerta, another farm labor activist; the two would have five children together. It was while working at the CSO that Dolores met Cesar Chavez who by 1960 had become the CSO’s national director. Dolores shared with Chavez a concern for the plight of the farm workers.

In 1962 Chavez proposed to the CSO that the organization expand and organize farm workers. But the CSO, with its urban bias, denied Chavez’s request. Chavez and Dolores decided to quit the CSO. Using the town Delano, California as a base, the two, with the help of Gilbert Padilla, formed the Farm Workers Association with Chavez as President and Dolores Huerta and Gilbert Padilla as Vice-Presidents. They worked the first year without a salary. In 1965 they changed the name to the National Farm Workers Association. In September of 1965 Coachella Valley grape growers decided to pay Filipino farm hands reduced salaries which forced Filipino members of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Larry Itliong, to call a strike. Itliong approached Chavez for support and on September 16, 1965 the 6,000 members of the NFWA voted to go out on strike. Shortly thereafter both unions merged to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC).

The Delano grape strike lasted five years and during that time Dolores Huerta served as the chief negotiator for the union, winning the first union contract with Schenley Wine Company in 1966. Among the gains of the union contract were improved working conditions, health benefits, and the cessation of the use of deadly pesticides. In order for the strike to be effective, the union had to take the struggle to the cities, particularly to the East Coast. Through Huerta’s tireless leadership the farm workers were able to pressure grape growers to the bargaining table through a successful national grape boycott.

UFW Flag

Victory came on July 29,1970, when the United Farm Workers, now affiliated with the AFL-CIO, signed a historic agreement with 26 grape growers. Dolores continued to lead the union in its struggles for the rights of farm workers, devoting herself to the lettuce boycott in the 1970s and eventually securing passage in California of the historic Agricultural Labor Relations Act (ALRA) of 1975. This act was the first to recognize the right of farm workers to have collective bargaining agreements. By the 1980s Dolores had married again, this time to Richard Chavez, Cesar Chavez’s brother with whom she had four children.

Throughout her five decade long association with Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta has served as Vice-President of the union, involved in all areas of strategy and negotiations, shifting in her roles as necessitated by the circumstances of union struggles. She has been arrested twenty-two times and nearly lost her life in 1988 when she was severely beaten by San Francisco police at a rally against the polices of President George Herbert Walker Bush; she suffered six broken ribs and her spleen had to be removed in an emergency operation that saved her life. Huerta continued to work with the union even after the sudden death of Cesar Chavez on 1993 and has been a close advisor to Arturo Rodriguez who became President of the union after Cesar’s passing. She has received numerous national recognitions, awards and honorary degrees, including the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom, the Eleanor D. Roosevelt Human Rights Award, and being inducted into the Nation’s Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2002, she received the Puffin Foundation/Nation Institute Award for Creative Citizenship; she took the $100,000 given with this award and created the Dolores Huerta Foundation’s Organizing Institute, an institution whose purpose is to bring organizing and training skills to low-income communities. She continues to lecture and speak out on a variety of social issues involved low income people, women and the rights of Latinos.

Filed Under: BIOGRAPHY, History

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT 7.02.22 – LUIS VALDERAS, A FUTURIST ARTIST

July 2, 2022 By wpengine

Luis Valderas: A Futuristic Latino Artist Luis Valderas traces his artistic development to his early years working in the family-owned flower and ceramic shop in McAllen, Texas near the U.S.-Mexico border. During his time away from school, he joined his brothers and sister in manufacturing flower arrangements and making ceramic figures to sell in the […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT – GASPAR ENRIQUEZ – KEEPING CULTURE VIBRANT

June 25, 2022 By wpengine

Latino Borderland Artists In El Paso’s Mission Valley Keep History and Culture Vibrant The borderland artists of the El Paso-Isleta-San Elizario region, known as the Mission Valley, represent nearly 350 years of history and tradition. Spanish colonizers first arrived in that region in 1598 when Juan de Oñate and 129 soldiers and families crossed the […]

RICARDO ROMO’S TEJANO REPORT XAVIER GARZA PREMIER STORYTELLER

June 18, 2022 By wpengine

Xavier Garza, Latino Artist and Author: A Premier Storyteller Xavier Garza grew up among storytellers in his hometown of Rio Grande City along the Texas-Mexico border. The best of the storytellers included his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. When his parents, who made a living as migrant farm workers, left annually to pick the crops in […]

POLITICAL SALSA Y MÁS with SAL BALDENEGRO 6.11.22

June 11, 2022 By wpengine

Whose side are you on? Recent events – the massacre of shoppers in Buffalo, the Uvalde massacre of children, the outright refusal of Republicans to address gun reform – bring the old union song “Which side are you on?” to mind. The song was written in the 1930s during a fierce struggle between coal miners […]

More Posts from this Category

New On Latinopia

LATINOPIA ART SONIA ROMERO 1

By Tia Tenopia on October 7, 2013

Sonia Romero is a graphic artist, muralist and print maker. The daughter of Chicano art pioneer Frank Romero, she has boldly set out on her own artistic trajectory. Her art includes stunning prints, canvases and public murals. Latinopia visited Sonia at her studio in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles where she spoke about […]

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

LATINOPIA ART GASPAR ENRÍQUEZ 1 “RETROSPECTIVE”

By Tia Tenopia on May 4, 2014

Gaspar Enríquez is a renowned Chicano artist whose airbrush portraits of barrio youth are haunting and memorable. Drawing from museums and collectors around the United States, in April 2014, the El Paso Museum of Art mounted a retrospective of Gaspar’s art titled Metaphors of the Barrio. Latinopia visited the exhibit and asked Gaspar what inspires […]

Category: Art, LATINOPIA ART

LATINOPIA WORD ROLANDO HINOJOSA “KLAIL CITY”

By Tia Tenopia on April 15, 2013

Dr. Rolando Hinojosa Smith is a pioneering Chicano author whose writings transcend genres. His novel “Klail City” won the prestigious Casa de las Americas literary award. Hinojosa has created the fictional world of Klail City located in fictional Belkin County, Texas. His writings draw on his experiences growing up in the Rio Grande valley of […]

Category: LATINOPIA WORD, Literature

© 2022 latinopia.com · Pin It - Genesis - WordPress · Admin