separate entrances from whites. Newscasts showed police beating and letting loose attack dogs on these citizens for nothing more than their marching to attain equal rights. I knew this wasn’t fair.
I had no idea at the time that other groups were experiencing much the same treatment, just because they were Latinos, immigrants, or other minorities. I wondered what I could do to change these injustices. I guess the oppressed families experiencing those injustices wondered, too. Many joined sit-ins, boycotts, and marches to protest unfair treatment; to have their voices heard; and to enact change at all levels of society. Now that I look back, these wonderings led to my becoming an author. I wanted to give voice to the voiceless and unrecognized.
During the 1960s another group, farmworkers, protested against unfair treatment. I never really considered how my food got to the dinner table. I knew that fruits and vegetables were planted, picked, packaged, then sent to markets in big cities, like the one in which I lived. But I never thought about the lives of the farmworkers who made all this happen. I had no idea that the workers who picked my food received extremely low wages. I had no idea that the farm owners abused these workers with terrible living conditions and long workdays. I had no idea that entire families, including children who should have been in school, picked my fruits and vegetables in order to earn enough to buy their own food—the same food that they were picking.
I knew little about the structure of this food chain—until I saw the signs. People were marching everywhere—in front of stores, in nearby streets. Many held signs describing those unfair work conditions. Marchers urged shoppers to stop buying table grapes. On different occasions, they pleaded with shoppers to avoid buying lettuce. Just out of college and full of a desire to right society’s wrongs, I wanted to support the workers who were producing my food. But there were so many products I was told not to purchase. Which ones should or shouldn’t I buy to help the workers? I was confused.
One voice rose above the noise to clarify the issues. That voice belonged to Dolores Huerta, and she appeared on media often to talk about the grape strike. I saw her on news shows. I heard her in radio interviews. This petite, dark-haired Chicana carried the torch for farmworkers and anyone else treated unjustly.
What impressed me about her rapid-fire explanations was her hopeful attitude. No matter how badly the fieldworkers were treated, how harsh their lives were, she always saw possibilities rather than problems. Failure was not an option. Through her organizing skills and her ability to clearly explain what took place in the fields, she gave voice to the voiceless. She taught average people like me to speak up, to band together, to join the fight to make a difference.
I wanted to know more about this strong-willed woman. As I read about her, I wondered why she gave up so much of her life to help people she didn’t know. I wanted to know how she came to the causes she championed. Over the years, Dolores also campaigned on behalf of women and other minorities. What gave her the courage to stand strong and demand justice from rich growers, large corporations, politicians, and police?
DOLORES HUERTA STANDS STRONG
ONE
HARVESTING THE FRUITS OF LABOR
Symbol of Justice
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA is one person on a long list of admirers who agree with Dolores Huerta’s calls for justice. On May 29, 2012, Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta looked on as the president introduced rows of award winners at a special ceremony. Her eyes sparkled. What would the president say about her? She sat up straight. She looked regal dressed in a formal turquoise suit, unlike the work jeans and T-shirts that she usually wore. Today, she dressed like the honored White House guest she was.
Dolores smiled sweetly. The eighty-two-year-old woman appeared calm. But inside, her heart must have leaped with excitement and pride. She’d received plenty of honors over the past few years. But this one came from a president who believed—as she did—in the power of community organizing.
Dolores was one of thirteen honorees: former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, Associate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, musician Bob Dylan, author Toni Morrison, physician and scientist William Foege, astronaut John Glenn, former Israeli president Shimon Peres, women’s basketball coach Pat Summitt, attorney and civil rights activist John Doar, Girls Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, World War II Polish resistance leader Jan Karski, and sociologist and human rights activist Gordon Hirabayashi. Here she sat, among the other surviving awardees. What a journey she had made to get to this place of honor.
Dolores had spent a lifetime fighting for the rights of anyone treated unfairly—people who looked, acted, thought, or felt differently from how others believed they should. Dolores had never done it for the recognition. She fought so that other people could live better lives because of the work that she helped to accomplish. And here she was, about to receive the 2012 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that the United States bestows.
When her turn came, President Obama introduced Dolores and listed some of her achievements. He recalled how in 1955 she had left her career as a schoolteacher without thought of how little she was about to earn. Back then, she was a single mother of seven. But she felt called upon to quit teaching in order to improve her students’ lives. She figured she could help her students more by organizing their poor farmworker families to fight for better living and working conditions than by trying to force those young, hungry, and exhausted students to learn.
Dolores wanted community members to stand up for themselves. She decided that she would lead them, be their voice. She pushed the fruit and vegetable growers who hired farmworkers to pay those workers a fair wage, to treat them with respect, and to stop spraying the fields with pesticides while they worked.
Dolores was a tiny woman, about five feet tall, but she was mighty. Many called her fearless. She was driven by the idea that change could happen if individuals banded together. She, like the president, believed that a group that speaks with one voice can achieve more than individuals. President Obama recounted how, with no experience in labor negotiations, Dolores “helped lead a worldwide grape boycott that forced growers to agree to some of the country’s first farm worker contracts. And ever since, she has fought to give more people a seat at the table.”1
President Barack Obama awarding Dolores Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom Photo: Rena Schild/Shutterstock
The Medal Presidential of Freedom displays the red, white, and blue presidential The thirteen seal. gold stars represent the thirteen colonies original and are surrounded by gold eagles.
Then Obama thanked Dolores for letting him use her slogan, “Sí Se Puede”—“Yes, We Can”—when he ran for president. He joked about how he never wanted to cross her by using the slogan, the words that advertised her causes, without permission. She was that tough. Dolores smiled.
After Obama fastened the Presidential Medal of Freedom around Dolores’s neck, he bent over and hugged her. Everyone in the room clapped. Dolores beamed.
Dolores had been through a lot over the years—beatings, jail. She had endured time away from her children, miles of marches, and end-less travel. Her family members and neighbors had been treated without respect. She had spent long hours making speeches and protesting in front of companies and government buildings. But over the years, the hard work of battling
