Dolores Huerta

Co-founding the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez in 1962, Dolores Huerta has long been protesting, rallying, and fighting. For seven decades, she has been on the frontline of activism.  Born in Dawson, New Mexico to a farm worker and a miner, she understood her working class family’s highs and lows. After her parents divorced, she relocated to California with her mother, Alicia. Huerta learned from her mom how to treat others with respect and dignity, while displeasurable encounters with prejudice exposed her to the harsh realities of racism against Mexican-Americans. To help her gente, Huerta set up voter registration drives and lobbied politicians to allow non-U.S. citizens access to public assistance and pensions. She also fought for Spanish language voter ballots and driving tests. After teaming up with Chavez in 1962, the pair dedicated their lives to assisting and representing farm workers demanding better working conditions and healthcare benefits. Although she continues to interrogate the system to this day, she once had a brush with death while protesting the policies of George H. W. Bush. Not even six broken ribs and a ruptured spring could silence the infallible sound of reformation.