Photo: Rodin Eckenroth / Getty Images
This March 8th we commemorate International Women’s Day, and we cannot fail to mention Dolores Huerta, one of the Hispanic activists most recognized in the United States.
Dolores Huerta She is a great fighter for the civil rights of Hispanic peasants in the United States and founder of the Agricultural Workers Association (AWA), since the decade of the 60. She and her member of other associations such as the National Farmers Association, now known as the United Farm Workers. She is also the president of the foundation under her name.
Recognized for her struggle alongside the Mexican agricultural communities that worked in California, to whom he claimed their most basic rights as peasants. Together with leader César Chávez, she had a tireless fight for the conditions of agricultural workers.
Huerta, was aware that it was a sector doubly discriminated against for being peasants and for being Latino. For this reason, he fought until he achieved the proclamation of the “California Agricultural Labor Relations Act”, in 1975.
Recognized for her work at the end of the 60, when he led the first national boycott of table grapes, in Delano, California. Thanks to that boycott, many negotiations were pressed in the political sphere, in favor of the farmers, and Huerta achieved that successful union contract.
The national boycott of Delano grapes was coordinated from New York by Huerta herself, who at the same time came into contact with important women of the feminist movement such as Gloria Steinem and Angela Davis. After these first meetings, Dolores Huerta echoed gender discrimination in the workplace and her fight grew.
Within this awakening, and highlighting gender discrimination, the fight was in favor of those women who because they were “were the target of another type of discrimination”. she So she focused on those working women who received little or no pay because of their status as women; also highlighted, in search of equality, the salary difference between men and women in the US labor market.
“At some point I felt very frustrated, sad. Machismo hurts a lot because it is almost always exercised by a person we know, a family member, a friend or the people we work with; machismo is blind when it comes to respect for women”.
Dolores Huerta
At the end of 90, the activist and trade unionist Huerta She was chosen as one of the most important women of the 20th century. She coined the phrase “yes you can”, which was later used by Barack Obama himself in his electoral campaign in 2008.
To this proud Chicana, in the Golden State, in California, (where she grew up and began her crusade) commemorate his day on 10 in April of each year and celebrate her as a national benchmark in the fight for the rights of immigrant workers, the rights of women and many other causes that she has led in United States.
Winner of the Presidency medal that of Liberty, in 2012; inducted into the California Hall of Fame in 2012; earlier became the first Latina inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame, at 1993. He has also earned awards as a labor leader and has received nine honorary doctorates from universities across the United States.
The American trade unionist, is about to fulfill 92 years, and his work continues to be tireless through the programs of his foundation DHF that continues to advocate for the rights of workers, immigrants, women and the LGBTQ community.
Huerta’s goal is to continue organizing leaders who defend their communities, civil rights and the policies that protect them.
Recently the Foundation The Women’s March has proposed changing the names of the streets throughout the country, by names of emblematic women. Dolores Huerta is one of the names proposed to rename Mason Street in Los Angeles, California.