Dolores Huerta is a legendary labor rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez. At 94 years old, she’s still raising her voice for the voiceless, and teaching communities how to wield their power. This week, she joins the show to share what she’s learned about fighting for marginalized communities, the importance of the ballot box, and how we can claim the future we want.
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On today’s episode
Our host
Errin Haines is The 19th’s editor-at-large and writer of The Amendment newsletter. An award-winning journalist with nearly two decades of experience, Errin was previously a national writer on race for the Associated Press. She’s also worked at the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post.
Follow Errin on Instagram @emarvelous and X @errinhaines.
Today’s guest
Dolores Huerta is the Founder & President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation. She is a civil rights activist and community organizer. She has worked for labor rights and social justice for over 50 years. She co-founded the United Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez.
Follow Dolores Huerta on Instagram @doloreshuerta, and support her foundation at doloreshuerta.org.
Episode transcript
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Dolores Huerta:
To quote Cesar Chavez on this, “When you’re a student and you’re in school, you read about history, you talk about history, you write about history. But when you become an activist, you make history.”
Errin:
Hey, y’all, welcome to The Amendment, a weekly conversation about gender, politics and power from the 19th News and Wonder Media Network. I’m your host, Errin Haines. And today we have the honor of sitting down with a true trailblazer, a living legend in the fight for equality and justice: Dolores Huerta. At 94 years old, Dolores has dedicated her life to the pursuit of civil rights — advocating tirelessly for farm workers, women and marginalized communities across the United States. As a co-founder of the United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta played a pivotal role in securing better working conditions and rights for agricultural laborers, inspiring generations with her unwavering commitment to social change that persists to this day. So in a time of heightened social and political unrest, we can learn a lot from women like Dolores. Young people all over the country have been taken to the streets to protest and demand change, similar to how Dolores did decades ago. So in our conversation today, we’re gonna delve into Dolores’ remarkable journey. We’ll also get into the advice she has for this generation of activists during this critical election year. Dolores, welcome to the show.
Dolores Huerta:
Thank you for having me.
Errin:
As I mentioned, you co-founded the United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez. Can you walk us through that journey of starting this movement and the challenges that you faced in those early days?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, I was very fortunate to be able to be very familiar with the plight of farm workers as I grew up in an agricultural community. But trying to find out and figure out how we could help them, that was a difficult part. But having learned how to do grassroots community organizing, I realized probably the best way to help farm workers was to be able to help them form their own organization, their own union, and that way they could do the advocacy that was needed to be able to get the benefits that they had been denied and to get the wages that they were entitled to. So I was very blessed to have that kind of training of doing grassroots organizing and then empowering the workers. Because the one thing about doing the grassroots organizing is we learned also, the women’s movement, the only people that can really solve their problems are the people that are being affected by the problems.
Errin:
Yes.
Dolores:
And so, if you convince the farm workers that they had the power that they didn’t have to depend on somebody coming in from the outside to do it for them. And then it was a lasting change.
Errin:
Yes. Standing up for people so that they could…helping them to stand up for themselves. That was absolutely the lesson in the work that you did with UFW and that you continue to do. So, the UFW was successful at advocating for the rights of farm workers in a lot of ways. What do you think were some of your most significant victories, and what do you think led to that success?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, it took a lot of work. The workers, as you know, they went on strike for five years. They had to do boycotts, uh, you know, boycotts of grapes, boycotts of lettuce, picketing the grocery stores, asking people not to buy at the stores because they were carrying grapes. So we had to do not only a national, but an international boycott.
Errin:
Yes.
Dolores:
Because the boycott of grapes and lettuce was not only in the United States, it also extended to Europe. But people out there, you know, they really supported the workers. And once they understood what the problems were and what they had to do, and it was pretty simple, just say, you know, “Okay, just don’t buy grapes. Don’t buy lettuce.” You know, picket those stores that are carrying these products to get other people not to buy them. So it was a community effort. And at the end of our organizing for the boycott, we had 17 million Americans here that did not buy grapes or lettuce.
Errin:
That’s amazing, because we know that all those people were not farm workers, but you got them to care about the plight of the farm workers. And for them to understand the connection between those farm workers and themselves. They were in community together, and they all took a stand and were able to make change. That is a really significant victory and key to the success — that coalition that you were able to build through millions of people across this country, around the world. So throughout your remarkable career, you have been a driving force behind numerous social movements. You continue to be that force. I know you’ve already mentioned women’s rights. I mean, what motivated you to dedicate your whole life to activism?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, because we know that that’s the only way that you can make change. And I love to quote Cesar Chavez on this, he said to young people, “When you’re a student and you’re in school, you read about history, you talk about history, you write about history. But when you become an activist, you make history.” And so this is what we do as organizers. We encourage people that they have to become activists because this is a way that we can make the changes that we need. We know that we have so many issues right now that need to be addressed and need to be corrected in our society, but we know that one person can’t do it alone. The only way that you can make it happen is we have a lot of people that come together and they use the political pressure on legislators, on politicians, on government employees, to make the changes that we need.
Errin:
Yeah. You’re making me think back to, you know, what young Dolores must have been like. I mean, did you see yourself as an activist when you were a young girl, when you were growing up? What was it that was in you, as a young woman, that made you decide that you wanted to get in the fight, that you wanted to push for change around these issues? I think some people think, you know, they have a certain idea of what an activist looks like. Activists are everyday people that get involved.
Dolores Huerta:
And that was kind of a transition in my life. You know, my mother was a very charitable person. She was a business woman, and she was always helping people in the community. So we grew up with that tradition.
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Dolores:
And the idea is that you were supposed to help people. This is your responsibility as a human being. If you see someone that needs help, you’re supposed to help them. And you’re not supposed to expect any kind of a reward or gratification from that. So that was such a mandate. But the transition that I had to make was about getting people to help themselves. Okay? And that was hard. That was hard because it’s really easy to go out there and, you know, help people out when they have an issue, advocate for them. But then when you say to them, “no, you’ve gotta advocate for yourself.” Okay. That makes it a little bit tougher. And a lot of us that do social justice work, we have to understand how important that is.
Errin:
Yeah. Well, I wanna talk to you a little bit about how that community organizing happens, because it does often involve mobilizing people from diverse backgrounds around a common cause. So how do you build solidarity and foster cooperation among different groups within a community?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, I think we all always have to think in terms of integration. It’s important for us to work on civil rights issues, but as we do that we have to always keep in mind that women need to be included, and that we have to promote women as leadership. We also have to be conscious to include our LGBTQ partners also in the work that we do. Because if we can do this — bringing and weaving all of our movements together — that makes us very, very strong, including our labor unions, our community organizations and in some cases some religious organizations. So sometimes we have to choose our partners, but we should never exclude anybody that can help us on any one particular issue.
Errin:
Well, I wanna ask you about young people as well, because in recent years, and especially right now, we’ve seen so many young people taking to the streets demanding change. What do you believe distinguishes effective protest movements from the struggle to create meaningful change? Like, are there key strategies or principles that contribute to success?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, many of the achievements that we have, including the 19th Amendment, were because women took to the streets and they went to jail. And the ending the Vietnam War, it was the young people that took to the streets that finally ended the Vietnam War. And we see this happening now with what’s happening in the Middle East. And the young people that are going, they’re protesting, they’re taking the streets again, they’re going to jail because they know that this is an unjust war that is happening against the people of Palestine. It’s always the young people that are out there that are gonna make the difference. The one thing, though, I do wanna point out — one place where we did not have success — and this is after George Floyd was murdered.
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Dolores:
So we had people taking the streets, not only in the United States, but all over the world.
Errin:
Yes.
Dolores Huerta:
And yet, we know that when it came to the police reform that they were seeking, it still has not happened. So this is why I like to say to young people, it’s important to protest. It’s important to march, but we’ve gotta take that march to the ballot box. We have to get a legislator to submit legislation for the things that we wanna change. And then we have to work very hard to make sure that that legislation, that policy that we want, that it passes. It means we have to do a lot of work on the ground to put the pressure on the other Congresspeople, or the other state legislators, to pass those laws. Then we have, once we get the law passed, then we have to make sure that it is enforced. And of course, that’s what we’re…We have the fight right now to make sure that our right to vote is enforced. So there’s people that wanna try to take that away from us. So a law has to be introduced, it has to be passed, it has to be implemented, it has to be enforced and people have to be held accountable.
Errin:
That’s a really good point. You mentioned, you know, legislation and pushing for change, starting with voting, but then also just continuing to put pressure on our elected officials to make change. But we have this division in our country right now that just seems to be making it very hard to pass legislation to implement change. Why do you think that is? And what can we do about it?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, I think we have a lot of ignorance in our society right now, and a lot of this MAGA people and the haters out there, they’re literally not very well educated is what it amounts to. So we have to look at our education system. How can we fund our education system the way that we fund the Department of Defense? The Department of Defense in the United States is the largest budget that we have, but our education budget does not equal that. And even in California, our high school budget is smaller, lower, than our prison budget. So the money that we are spending on prisons with our tax dollars should be going to education. So I think that that’s one way that we have to tackle the problem. The other way is to, again, go back, going back to just grassroots organizing to meet with people in small numbers. You know, something like a Tupperware party or a jewelry party.
Errin:
Yeah.
Dolores:
Get a few people at a time, you know, get them together and start breaking down the whole system to them so that they can understand where the racism comes from. You know, where all the racial injustice comes from, and so people can be educated.
Errin:
Immigration is going to be on the ballot this year. And after years of advocacy for immigrant rights. activists like you are still fighting so many of the same fights. What would you say about where our current immigration policy stands and what policies do lawmakers need to enact that respects the dignity of this group of people?
Dolores Huerta:
It’s such a big issue. And when Trump says “immigration” and he’s attacking immigrants, he’s really attacking people of color. It’s part of the racism that Trump and many of the MAGA people are perpetuating against people of color. And, you know, we have to constantly remind them that they’re the true immigrants to this country. The people at the border that are trying to seek asylum, they are the indigenous people of the continent — of the North American continent, South American continent. They were here first, okay? People that came from Europe, like my great grandmother who came from Spain, my other great-grandfather who came from England, you know, they were the two immigrants, okay? Because on my father’s side of the family, our indigenous side, we were here first, okay? To greet them when they got here.
Errin:
Uh, well, I mean, you are 94 now. How are you thinking about so many of these things that we’re talking about that you fought for in the realm of women, women’s rights or labor rights, seeing the erosion or rollback of things like, you know, the fall of Dobbs or affirmative action or voting rights being taken away? How does that make you feel? What does it make you think about the importance of the moment that we’re in now?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, I think we have to look and really do more work. Who are the people behind some of these reactive policies that we are having to fight again? But we know, at the same time, that there are some goals. And I wanna talk specifically about the Equal Rights Amendment for women, because that is in the Congress right now, and we can actually pass it because there have been enough states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment that now we just have to get the Congress to pass it as they did the 19th Amendment.
Errin:
What is that gonna take? I mean, we’ve been trying to get the ERA…they’ve been trying to get that passed your whole life. It still hasn’t happened. What is it gonna take to get that across the finish line?
Dolores Huerta:
This year? It’s actually passed the Senate. It’s in the House of Representatives, and we’re trying to get a few more Congress. We’re short a few congressmen right now to be able to sign what they call a discharge petition to be able to get it on the floor. If we can get it on the floor, then we can actually pass it. So we just heard a few congressmen, so people out there that are listening to us, please contact your congressperson in the House of Representatives. Ask them to sign the discharge petition so we can get a vote on the ERA. And we have enough Democrats right now in the House that they could actually pass it if we can just peel off a few Republicans, okay? So it’s a possibility, but we’re very, very close. And if we can get the Equal Rights Amendment passed, that’s going to really correct a lot of the issues, especially when it comes to discrimination against women on Title IX, you know, on the reproductive rights issues, on salary issues, et cetera. That’s going to be a biggie.
Errin:
Well, with the current political climate and these ongoing challenges to democratic principles, I mean, you talk about passing the ERA, what are some of the other most pressing issues that you think we need to address to keep democracy alive?
Dolores Huerta:
I mentioned education. I think that’s when we really haven’t looked at enough in terms of changing the way that education is funded so that our students can have more of the support that they need, so that our teachers can have more of support that they need — not only in terms of better curriculums, but also have more counselors, more social workers, the type of support that teachers need. Because right now, our poor teachers, they’re trying to do everything and they’re not getting the support that they need. And also, more attention on who we elect our school boards to make sure that we get people elected to the school boards that are really gonna promote good issues. Here in California, we passed the law that they have to have ethnic studies now in all of our high schools and our community colleges.
Dolores Huerta:
And it’s going to be a requirement for graduation. And we have to get ethnic studies and gender studies also. Labor studies so people can learn about the labor movement, and get this down into our elementary school level and our middle school so that kids don’t have to wait until they go to high school to learn about how labor unions really created the wealth of this country. And got so many rights, including how we got the eight hour day. It was labor unions that fought for the eight hour day. And people don’t know that those labor leaders that fought for the eight hour day, they were executed. They were hung. And so many things that we take for granted — weekends, social security, workers’ compensation, parental leave — that we have so many of the things that we have that we just take for granted. It was actually labor that went out there and fought for those.
Errin:
I mean, that leads me to my next question, which is about the role of grassroots activism. I mean, in your experience, what role does grassroots activism play in safeguarding democracy? And for people who are looking to organize at the local level, how can they do that effectively?
Dolores Huerta:
Well, we have seen some really successful wins when it comes to grassroots organizing. We have Ms. Cortez from New York, who is in Congress right now, who was elected with grassroots organizers. We see that happening here in California. We have a lot of young people running for office. And they have the machinery that is getting them elected. It’s not about money. It’s about how many people they can get on the street to get out there and register to vote and get out the vote and get these progressive people elected. So this is the answer to our being able to win so many of these victories that we need, is to get young people — not just young people, but grandparents like myself, also — get them to get involved in registering people to vote. ‘Cause a lot of people are… they don’t understand how important the vote is, and they don’t like the candidates. And so then they say, “Well, I’m not gonna vote.” But they don’t realize when you’re voting, you’re voting for yourself. It’s not just about who’s running for office. Whoever is running for office, we can pressure them to do the right thing. But we have to get people to register to vote and to vote in the first place.
Errin:
Well, how do you get them to do that? So many people feel disillusioned or disempowered by politics. What do you tell people to encourage them, to get them to stay engaged and hopeful about the future of democracy? Because I hear you; You sound very hopeful.
Dolores Huerta:
Well, I sound hopeful because I do believe in people. But again, you have to go back, then you have to, — like we do with our Dolores Huerta foundation here — we actually go out there and talk to the people door to door. We go to their houses and we talk to them and explain to them the importance of voting. It’s called Democracy 101, so that we can really understand how our democratic system works and that they are part of the democratic system. Because a lot of people don’t feel that they are part of the Democratic system. So it, again, takes a lot of patience and it just takes that organizing going out there. And because we know a lot of people really have good hearts. People have goodwill. But you have to really tap into that and make them understand that you also have to be responsible.
Dolores Huerta:
Senator Robert Kennedy, before he was assassinated, the last words that he said were, “We have obligations and responsibilities to our fellow citizens.” You know?
Errin:
Mm-Hmm.
Dolores:
And if we can think about that, we just passed the Covid pandemic. During Covid, what were we constantly being reminded? That we had to take care of our health and other people’s health. You know, it was not just about us. It was about other people that we could get infected or they could infect us. And it’s the same thing here. You know, we could actually go out there and share these democratic values and explain to them, to people, to make them understand that they are part of the system. They are the system. This is the only game in town. A young person said to me once, a couple of them have said, “Is there something else that we can do?” I said, “No. When it comes down, into the decision making, the only thing we can do is vote.”
Errin:
Well, looking back on your lifelong commitment to activism, what do you hope that your legacy will be? And what message would you like to leave for future generations?
Dolores Huerta:
I hope my legacy is that, again, we have a responsibility not only to be activists, but to recruit other people to also become activists. My legacy I wanted to be one of the power of organizing, the power of collective action, the power of nonviolent action also to be able to succeed.
Errin:
Well, I think that that is great. A great message for future generations and a message that I will take for myself now in the present as well. So thank you so much, Dolores, for joining The Amendment.
Dolores Huerta:
Okay. I’m gonna throw in one more, okay? And this is from Coretta Scott King who said, “We will never have peace in the world until women take power.” Okay? So I’m gonna throw that one in there, but I’ll change the word from women to say, feminist, we’ll never have peace in the world until feminists take power. So we’ve gotta keep working to get more feminists selected at every level of government. Si se puede. Yes, we can.
Errin:
And now for this week’s asterisk. This week we saw another unprecedented moment in American politics. A New York jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts in the first ever criminal trial of an ex-president for his role in a hush money scheme aimed at hiding from voters — particularly women – an alleged affair from 2006 with a porn actor. A couple of things to take away from this moment and what it means for voters now that we’re about five months from Election Day: First, it was a familiar moment in our political climate. So, after the verdict, Trump sought to delegitimize the results of the process, claiming it was rigged and lamenting that the jury was not made up of “his voters.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because Trump’s remarks echo his response after he lost the 2020 election. But just as the election was free and fair, the legal system also worked. On both the campaign trail and in the courtroom, the Big Lie appears to still be resonating with his voters — but it’s a theory that fell flat with a jury of his peers on Thursday. Second: Speaking of accountability, Thursday marked the fourth time a New York court has held Trump responsible for his actions. Jurors believed Stormy Daniels’ claim of a consensual sexual encounter with Trump and his efforts to cover it up not to protect his family but to preserve his presidential prospects. Their encounter was not the crime, but it was the motivation — and thus a damning piece of evidence. And in two separate civil cases, a jury believed writer E. Jean Carroll when she testified that Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room decades ago.
Still, outside the courtroom, there have been no consequences from Trump’s voters, including the White women who remain among his core supporters. So far, Trump appears to be marching towards the Republican nomination which is set to happen just days after his scheduled sentencing in the New York case on July 11. The verdict has also become just one more fundraising tool for the now felon candidate and may make him even more popular with his base. Could a criminal conviction make a difference and change their minds? Both Trump and President Joe Biden declared on Thursday the only verdict that matters will come on November 5, when voters weigh in at the ballot box.
Errin:
Before we go, I wanted to refocus us briefly on the election because there are only five months left to go until November 4. Yesterday was national register-a-friend day, and I want to make sure that all of you, my friends, are aware of your own voter registration status. If y’all aren’t sure where you stand, unclear whether or not you’re registered, or if you just have a few questions about making a plan to vote, The 19th has a partnership with I Am A Voter to help get things in order. All you have to do is text 19thnews to 26797 and you’ll get a text back to confirm whether or not you’re set in your zip code. Try it out, share with a friend and we’ll see you at the ballot box.
Errin:
The Amendment is a co-production of the 19th News and Wonder Media Network. It is executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, Terri Rupar and Faith Smith. Wonder Media Network’s Head of Development is Emily Rudder. Julia B. Chan is the 19th’s editor-in-chief. The Amendment is edited by Jenny Kaplan, Grace Lynch, and Emily Rudder, and it is produced by Adesuwa Agbonile, Grace Lynch, Brittany Martinez and Taylor Williamson, with production assistance from Luci Jones, and post-production support from Julie Bogen, Victoria Clark, Lance Dixon, and Wynton Wong. Artwork by Aria Goodman. And our theme music was composed by Jlin.
