Dolores Huerta

In 1955, Huerta helped Fred Ross start the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization (CSO), which fought for economic improvements for Latinos. Due to her dedication and willingness to serve, Ross often delegated huge responsibilities to her. He knew she was capable of delivering the organization’s message and promoting its agenda. “As she assumed responsibilities and stance that were traditionally held by white males, Huerta encountered criticism based on both gender and ethnic stereotypes”.

In 1960, Huerta co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association, which set up voter registration drives and pressed local governments for barrio improvements. In 1962, she co-founded, with César Chávez, the National Farm Workers Association, which would later become the United Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee. Huerta was the only woman to ever sit on the board of the UFW In 1966, she negotiated a contract between the UFWOC and Schenley Wine Company, marking the first time that farm workers were able to effectively bargain with an agricultural enterprise.

Through her work with the CSO, Huerta met Chávez, its executive director. Chavez thought Huerta was smart, articulate, and self-starting, though had no love of “illegals” whom he thought hurt the cause of legal immigrants.

But Chavez and Huerta quickly realized that they shared a common goal of helping improve the lives and wages of farm workers, so they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association. In 1962, after the CSO turned down Chávez’s request, as their president, to organize farm workers, Chávez and Huerta resigned from the CSO. She went to work for the National Farm Workers Association, which would later merge with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. “Dolores’s organizing skills were essential to the growth of this budding organization.”

At the age of only 25, Huerta was a lobbyist in Sacramento for the Stockton Community Service Organization and trained people to do grassroots organizing.

The foundation was later changed to an affiliated agricultural workers organization. In an interview Dolores explained why she wanted to help the farm workers. She explained, she was able to get an inside look on how the farm workers were living and they were by far the most poverty stricken workers. She explained the farm workers were being paid little to nothing, they had no rights, they slept on the floors, their furniture was wooden boxes, did not have clean water, access to bathrooms, would work from sunrise to sundown and were not given any breaks. Many of these workers would travel where the crops were in season, meaning their children did not have a proper education and would often work in the fields along with their parents. She explained that many women were often sexually assaulted by the landowners but were in fear to speak up because their family needed a job. Dolores explained that many of these landowners would justify themselves by saying “we are doing the farm workers and the public a favor by giving these people a job.” she explained that the landowners had received the land and water for free and also expected the labor for free. After Dolores saw the conditions these people were living in, she joined the organization. She explained, laws must be passed in order for these people to get treated fairly which is why she worked hard and put constant pressure to get laws passed. With the help of the organization, she helped champion for the rights of workers in agricultural fields to ensure they were well paid and worked in better conditions.

In 1965, Huerta directed the UFW’s national boycott during the Delano grape strike, taking the plight of the farm workers to the consumers. She led the organization of boycotts advocating for consumer rights. The boycott resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers in 1970.