Dolores Huerta

"what we're doing is we're not only just giving good health care-fantastic health care-but we are training our own people to be able to do the health work and to administer the program."

"you can't help poor people and be comfortable. You know, the two things are just not compatible. If you want to really give good health care to poor people you've got to be prepared to be a little uncomfortable and to put a little bit of sacrifice behind it"

"I'm going to talk a little bit about the pesticides, because... we raised the issue many years ago and a lot of people have been concerned about [it], but it was sort of a no-no. Nobody could talk about it openly."

"Do you know that we were amazed to find out you can get all kinds of information about what's harmful to a pet, but you can't get any information about what's harmful to a farm worker?"

"when we were negotiating contracts-I was in charge of the contract negotiations for the union-we called up a friend of ours who worked with the Los Angeles County Health (Department), and he gave us some information on one of the organic phosphates that we wanted to know. Well, one of the growers who was in on the negotiations tried to get him fired for giving us that information. And this man worked for the Los Angeles County Health Department. But this shows you and I'm going to talk about that a little bit more about the kind of repression that I know a lot of you are faced [with] when you do try to make real changes or when you try to get into those controversial areas where you have conflicts of power."

"In our contracts, we banned DDT, Aldrin, Endrin, 2,4-D, 2,4-T, Tep and many of the other-Monitor 4-many of these other pesticides. We banned these pesticides in our contracts starting from 1970. It is interesting that just recently, the government has come out against Aldrin and Endrin. And the Farm Workers Union banned these pesticides many years ago. We find that the only way that you can be sure that the so-called laws are administered, that the so-called laws are carried out, is when you have somebody right there on the ranch, a steward, a ranch committee, somebody that can't get fired from the job, somebody that has the protection of a union contract to make sure that these things are carried out."

"It is sad for us to report this, but the clock has been turned back and California agriculture, with the exception of a handful of contracts that we still hold, we now have the labor contractor, the crew leader system back again, we now have child labor back again."

"We now have a return to pesticides-forty thousand acres of lettuce were poisoned with Monitor 4. This lettuce was shipped to the market. In California, it was sold as shredded lettuce in Safeway stores. That's nice to have Monitor 4 with your shredded salad, huh? And we have a return back to the archaic system that we had, [a] primitive system that existed before and still exists, where we don't have United Farm Workers contracts. People working out there in those fields without a toilet, people working out there in those fields without any hand-washing facilities, without any cold drinking water, without any kind of first-aid or safety precautions. All of this has come back again."

"The California Rural Legal Assistance just did a spot survey of about twenty ranches in the Salinas and the Delano area just a couple of months ago. And [in] every single instance they found either no toilet or a dirty toilet, and you can imagine. And this is something consumers don't understand that that lettuce, those grapes are being picked right there in that field. If there's a dirty toilet, it's right next to the produce, and that produce is picked and packed in that field and shipped directly to your store."

"The Teamsters have brought back illegal aliens. And now when I say this, I want to tell what's happening to these people. Today, President Ford is meeting with Echeverría in Mexico. And they're going to talk about a bracero program, which is a slave program for workers, for Mexican workers."

"They want to bring in one million Mexicans from Mexico. We've already got close to a million people here illegally. And how are they being treated? They are paying three hundred dollars each to come over the border. They are being put in housing where you have thirty or forty people in a room without any kind of a sanitary facility."

"I think that the one thing that we've learned in our union is that you don't wait. You just get out and you start doing things."

"We don't have to talk about a charitable outlook. You know, people come in with a lot of money and they give people charity. We've got to talk about ways to make people self-sufficient in terms of their medical health. Because when they go in there with charity and then they pull out, then they leave the people worse off than they ever were before. We've got to use government money to help people. And I don't think that this is so radical. Lord knows that the growers are getting billions of dollars not to grow cotton, all kinds of supports and subsidies. Well, if any money is given for medical health, it should stay in that community."

"We've got to take the side of the people that are being oppressed. And if we can't do that, then we're not doing our job, because the people in that minority community or in that community are not going to have any faith in the medical program that is in there if you can't take their side."

"Health, like food, has got to be to cure people, to make people well. It can't be for profit. Food should be sacred to feed people, not for profit. Health has got to be a right for every person and not a privilege. You would be sad to know that many farm workers-before we had our clinics-had never been to a doctor."

"Within the next year they are spending millions of dollars to destroy the United Farm Workers. They are spending millions of dollars to tell what a bad administrator César Chávez is. Have you seen these articles in the New York Times and Time magazine? They say César Chávez is a bad administrator. What they really mean is he is the wrong color. And if he were a good administrator.... Can you imagine five clinics, a medical plan, a credit union, a retirement center for farm workers, fantastic increases in wages, the removal of the labor contract system-all of this César did in a few short years. What would he do if he was a good administrator?"

"And you will really see-when we talk about the principle of nonviolence, you will see it in action. Because you will see farm workers getting beaten and killed, and you will see that the farm workers do not fight back with violence. We are using a nonviolent action of the boycott, so we really need your help in that."

"We're going to say first "Viva la Causa," which is the cause of labor, peace, and health, "Viva la justicia," which is justice, and then we will say "Viva Chávez," for César, may God give him long life. And then we'll say "down with fear," abajo, and "down with let-tuce and grapes," abajo, and "down with Gallo wine." Because Gallo is on the boycott too"

"We did that at the impeachment rally in Washington, D.C., and we said, "Down with Nixon! Abajo!" and it worked."

"Can we live in a world of brotherhood and peace without disease and fear and oppression? Si se puede"

"Who is a revolutionary woman? A revolutionary woman wants change, not mere cosmetic change but change to the status quo, and she is willing to sacrifice to make this happen. We have some extraordinary examples: Sojourner Truth, Las Adelitas, Frida Kahlo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Dorothy Day, Malala Yousafzai, Coretta Scott King, and others."

"Historically, stories of revolutionary women have been minimized or even left untold."

"I drew strength from Rebecca Flores, who led farmworkers in organizing for better pay and working conditions in Texas in the 1960s. Women like Rebecca are rocks. She and others were so strong, and willing to go to jail, and take their children with them to the picket line-and still do everything that was expected of them at home. They are all remarkable women."

"Organizing is about trying to get people to lose their fear so they know that they have power, and letting them know they don't have to go it alone-they can form a group and then a movement. And then they can bring about change. When I speak to young women I try to remind them that we will never have peace in the world until women take power."

"Women have to become strong internally and psychologically; learning how to organize is like exercising. If your muscles get sore, you are exercising and getting stronger. If you feel butterflies in your stomach, those feelings shouldn't tell you to stop, because it's okay to be nervous. You keep on going, because the more we engage, the more we can offer and the stronger we become."

"Once you get involved with helping others, you start to work on issues that are larger than you are. All of your personal issues diminish because you don't have the time or energy to focus on them, and many of those personal problems will solve themselves. When you are working with others on conflicts that are bigger than you, you can see that you, along with other people, do have the power to make changes. When you are part of the change, you open yourself to a whole different world. Women don't always want to take credit for the work they do because they don't want to seem conceited. I tell young women, "Channel your inner Oprah Winfrey." I tell them to stand up and say, "This was my idea, my project, my creation." And be proud of it."

"When I was a child in New Mexico, people were still talking about the revolution. And it had an influence on me because I learned that poor people could change the government. Coretta Scott King said that women have to get involved, take power, and create peace in the world. But it may not happen all at once. Remember the song lyrics, "No hay que llegar primero, pero hay que saber llegar." Be a revolutionary woman-you don't have to get there first, just get there."

"Some of the women who led the movement in its early days were Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee, Alicia Escalante with the Welfare Rights Organization, and Gracia Molina de Pick and Anna Nieto-Gómez with feminist activities. Women politicians like Virginia Muzquiz of Crystal City, Texas, Mariana Hernández, and Grace Davies put Chicanas in the political forum. Like these women, there have been hundreds of others who, in the late 1960s and 1970s, have proved that Chicanas have come of age politically in this country."

""The social and economic revolution of the farmworkers is well underway and it will not be stopped until we receive equality," key NFWA organizer Dolores Huerta told a crowd in 1966. "The farmworkers are moving. Nothing is going to stop them!" She was right. The Delano strike ended in 1970 with significant wins for the farmworkers: a substantial pay increase, higher safety standards, and union rights. It also ushered in a new era of farm-worker organizing when the AWOC merged with the National Farm Workers Association to create a new organization, the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee (UFWOC), which would ultimately become today's United Farm Workers."

"Our demands were met, but it was hard bargaining. At one point, one of the Christian Brothers' lawyers said, "Well, sister, it sounds to me like you're asking for the moon for these people." Dolores Huerta came back, "Brother, I'm not asking for the moon for the farmworkers. All we want is just a little ray of sunshine for them!" Oh, that sounded beautiful!"

"The life of Dolores Huerta reveals a woman who is not only a fearless and committed organizer for farmworker rights but also takes a stand for justice wherever needed."

"I have yet to encounter any formal acknowledgment from the Obama campaign that Dolores Huerta first conceived the phrase in Spanish as a rallying cry for the United Farm Workers."

"A legendary activist, Dolores Huerta has a long history of fighting for social change, workers' rights, and civil justice. Unlike many other awardees, she was rightfully awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, among many other recognitions."

"Dolores Huerta is a fearless fighter for social justice. In 1962, she taught school in Stockton, California while being a political activist with the CSO and a mother of six with a seventh on the way. "When I left my teaching job to go start organizing farm workers, a lot of people thought I had just gone completely bananas"...A tough, savvy negotiator, Huerta skillfully manipulated her positionality as a mother at the bargaining table."

"Activists like Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta were also fighting in the 1960s and '70s for Latinx families to have safer environments. Their activism shouldn't have been considered separate from the Earth Day movement, but it was. Not only did their work contribute to the overall movement, but their efforts helped lead to the ban on the use of harmful pesticides that impacted farmworker safety and increased awareness of environmental justice within the Latinx community. However, because of racism, xenophobia (fear of immigrants), and classism, these activists were excluded."