University honors labor activist
By Daily Bruin Staff
April 14, 2002 9:00 p.m.
 TYSON EVANS Dolores Huerta shows off her
UCLA César Chavez Spirit Award. More than 300 people honored
the co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America.
By Kristina Wong
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Dolores Huerta received the 2002 UCLA César E. Chavez
Spirit Award at the faculty center Friday, over 300 rose to their
feet with thundering cries and applause for the woman many consider
one of the greatest labor leaders for farm workers and civil
activists.
Huerta, 72, co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with
Chavez, and served as its first vice president.
“It’s very, very humbling,” Huerta said before
the ceremony. “There are many farm workers that died for this
cause, and many that went to jail, many that were bloodied and
beaten. So I get the award, but I know there are many, many people
involved.”
Master of ceremonies and UCLA alumna Miriam Hernández, now
an ABC Eyewitness News team reporter, said the event was
“near and dear to her heart.”
“Dolores Huerta’s effort to provide protection,
health and welfare benefits for farm workers is really important to
me, since my own father worked in the fields as a young man, and
died of liver cancer at the age of fifty,” Hernández
said.
“He was in the fields directing crop dusters where to dump
their pesticides. We suspect strongly that it was because of the
pesticides that he got liver cancer, and no worker should ever have
to sacrifice his life for a job or a crop,” Hernández
added.
Max BenavÃdez, MC and chair of the UCLA César E.
Chavez Legacy of Leadership Committee, described Huerta as a
“trailblazer.”
“She was a woman on the front lines, organizing workers,
lobbying, standing on picket lines, protesting … she was the
architect for what we know today as farm worker rights in
legislation,” he said.
Although Huerta worked side-by-side with Chavez, she is a leader
in her own right, said Reynaldo F. MacÃas, professor and chair
of the César E. Chavez Center for Interdisciplinary
Instruction in Chicana/o Studies.
“Dolores Huerta is in many ways, the co-equal of
César Chavez. She was the first vice president of the union,
national director of the boycott when it started in 1967, and when
it restarted in the mid-1970s. If there’s any distinction
here, it’s that César died first and she still lives,
continuing to work,” said MacÃas.
After dinner, guests watched two documentaries ““ first on
Chavez, then on Huerta.
Chancellor Albert Carnesale appeared in the second film,
commending Huerta for her work. Remarks followed from Latino/a
politicians including Congresswoman Hilda Solis, D-Rosemead, and
Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh, D-Cudahy.
“For me, Dolores represents hope, strength, and
femininity,” Solis said.
Since Huerta turned 72 on Wednesday, the ceremony culminated
with guests singing “Las Mañanitas,” the
“Happy Birthday song,” accompanied by two members of
the Latin R&B rhythm band, Tierra.
Huerta is currently the secretary-treasurer of the UFW, vice
president for the Coalition for Labor Union Women, vice president
of the California American Federation of Labor-Congress of
Industrial Organizations and board member for the Fund for the
Feminist Majority, which advocates political and equal rights for
women.
Huerta’s activism began in 1955, founding the Stockton
chapter of the Community Service Organization.
She later founded the Agricultural Workers Association in 1960.
In 1961, she succeeded in removing citizenship requirements from
pension and public assistance programs.
In 1962, Huerta lobbied on Capitol Hill to end the
“captive labor” Bracero Program and met Chavez that
year.
Together they founded the National Farm Workers Association,
recruiting farm workers from the San Joaquin Valley. In 1963, she
helped secure aid for the unemployed with families and disability
insurance.
When Filipino members of Agricultural Workers Organizing
Committee went on strike in 1965 to demand higher wages from Delano
growers, the NFWA joined in, and over 5,000 workers participated in
the five-year strike.
Huerta’s negotiations led to the first collective
bargaining agreement between farm workers and an agricultural
corporation in U.S. history.
Huerta directed the national grape boycott resulting in the
Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law granting farm
workers the right to organize and bargain for better wages and
working conditions. In 1975 Huerta lobbied for amnesty for workers
who paid taxes but were not U.S. citizens, resulting in the
Immigration Act of 1985.
Huerta led campaigns endorsing political candidates, and
demonstrated against 1988 presidential candidate George
Bush’s position on pesticides. During the demonstration, she
suffered three broken ribs and a ruptured spleen after being
clubbed by police. She sued the police department to change its
crowd-control procedures during protests.
Huerta is described as still the most visible Chicana labor
leader in the country, having contact with the labor movement
throughout the world.
But others feel she has not been given due recognition.
“She’s never really been given equal recognition to
César Chavez,” said Baylee DeCastro, a first-year
women’s studies and sociology student, at the ceremony.
“Although they both played equally integral roles in the
organization of migrant farm workers, for whatever reason, society
couldn’t handle that a woman was perhaps pioneering something
truly revolutionary,” she added.
In 1998, Huerta was named one of three “Women of the
Year” by Ms. magazine. Huerta has been awarded the
Outstanding Labor Leader Award by the California State Senate, and
inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.
Huerta is also the mother of 11 children, and grandmother to
four.
