Dolores Huerta is a civil rights activist and labor leader. She co-founded the National Farmworkers Association, which would later become United Farm Workers. She has spent much of her life fighting for better working conditions for farm workers, and for the rights of those that often lack representation. Huerta moved with her mother to Stockton, California after she divorced her husband. He himself went on to become a union activist and New Mexico assemblyman, and was an inspiration for Dolores who stayed in contact with him. While still young, she experienced racism many Mexicans and Mexican Americans went through. Despite this, Huerta went on to get her teaching degree from Stockton College and became a teacher. However, she soon quit after witnessing the poor living conditions of her students, many of whom had parents who were farm workers.
In 1955, Huerta helped form the Stockton Chapter of the Community Service Organization, which fought for economic improvement for Latinos.
In 1960, she co-founded the Agricultural Workers Association which
set up voter registration drives and pressed local governments for
barrio improvements. She began working with Cesar Chavez when both realized they could bring about change together. Their collaboration led to the Delano grape strike, which led to better working conditions for
for farm workers, including reducing the use of harmful pesticides and initiating unemployment and healthcare benefits.
Her work coordinating the lettuce boycott helped create
the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law to recognize the rights of farm workers to bargain collectively.
Later in her career Huerta also focused on women’s rights.
In addition to many awards and honors, Huerta was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
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