Dolores Huerta obituary
Summary
Dolores Huerta, who died aged 96, was a prominent U.S. labor organizer and co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers. She helped organize farmworkers and grape boycotts, and her phrase “Sí, se puede!” later inspired Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan, “Yes, we can.”Key Facts
- Huerta was a vice-president of the United Farm Workers; Cesar Chavez served as its president.
- In 1962, Huerta, Chavez and Gilbert Padilla started the National Farm Workers Association.
- In 1965, the association joined Filipino workers in the Delano grape strike, and it later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to form the United Farm Workers.
- Huerta helped organize boycotts of grape growers and supermarket chains that sold their grapes.
- Huerta coined the phrase “Sí, se puede!” during tensions with police in Arizona in the 1970s; it was later adapted as “Yes, we can.”
- Huerta said Chavez raped her in 1966 and that she had earlier felt pressured to have sex with him; she said she kept this private because farmworkers’ rights were her life’s work.
- Huerta left teaching in 1955 to join the Community Service Organization, a grassroots civil rights group.
- She received a teaching qualification from Stockton College in 1953.
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