Dolores Huerta ‘stayed in the fight’ for 7 decades, inspiring generations of Californians

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At nearly every step of the farmworker movement, from its earliest days organizing in the 1965 Delano grape strike to the 1986 law granting amnesty to nearly 3 million undocumented migrants, Dolores Huerta was there. 

Huerta, 96, died Wednesday at home in Bakersfield. Just two months before, she was at a rally on the steps of the state Capitol. 

California’s political and labor leadership remembered her as a tireless advocate for farmworker rights — one who coined the United Farmer Worker motto and rallying cry, “Si, Se Puede,” or “Yes, We Can.” Every year on April 10, California honors her contributions by declaring the day as Dolores Huerta Day. 

“Dolores’ leadership in fighting for a union for California’s farmworkers, UFW, is only part of her historic story,” said Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation. “Dolores stayed in the fight for working people for decades.

She “showed generations of women they had a place in this labor movement.”

Her influence is still evident in the way California remembers its own history: As César Chávez’s name is removed from university buildings and city streets across California after allegations surfaced earlier this year that Chávez assaulted and raped several women, including Huerta, activists in Los Angeles called for Huerta’s name to replace his. 

“I can’t imagine what she’s gone through in those last few months,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom to a group of reporters Wednesday. “The revelations around César, and how hard that must have been for her in these last four months. … We just have to absorb her contributions, her energy, her passions and her contribution to this world.”

Even in her final months, Huerta pressed on. 

“Just this August, she stood with (the California Immigrant Policy Center) and our partners on the steps of the state Capitol to fight federal cuts that are taking food away from immigrant families, children and foster youth,” said Masih Fouladi, executive director of the California Immigrant Policy Center. “She spoke up for the farmworkers who would be hit hardest, the very people who feed this state.”

Huerta was instrumental in ending the Bracero program in the 1960s which granted Mexican farmworkers temporary status in the U.S. while deducting food and lodging from their meager pay while also exposing them to deadly chemicals. 

“Her life’s work was to empower her community to face and overcome injustices, and she has left farm workers and the entire Latino community stronger and more organized than she found it,” said UFW President Teresa Romero. “Dolores’ work remains as important now as ever, and it continues with her example and her inspiration before us. The greatest possible tribute to her life is for her work of organizing to continue.”

Huerta’s family said they will be “following up on plans to recognize and celebrate her incredibly life and legacy.”