Interview with an Icon:
Dolores Huerta on Cesar Chavez
Sep 2, 2010
As the President of The Dolores Huerta Foundation and Co-founder of
United Farm Workers of America along with Cesar Chavez, Dolores
Huerta is a living legend.
She is treasured by the Latino community, but she is also
internationally recognized for her role in promoting social justice.
We chatted with her about her partnership with another icon of social
justice: Cesar Chavez:
You're a hero to so many people. Who are some of your personal heroes?
I'd have to say Fred Ross Sr. [a community organizer from California
who recruited a young Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez to the
Community Service Organization in the 1950s], my spiritual godfather.
He was the one who showed me the way.
What's the quality that you most admired in Cesar Chavez?
His courage and intelligence. He was his own man.
You've endured arrests, beatings, and more. In your darkest hour,
what gave you hope?
I have to quote Cesar on this one: "You'll always win if you don't
quit." Think of the great movements like the women's movement and the
civil rights movement and the years that it took to make all of that happen.
A lot of people don't know this, but you're the one who started the
phrase "Si Se Puede," not Cesar Chavez. How it was born?
Cesar was doing a 25-day, water-only community fast in Arizona and we
were trying to organize people to come and join him. When I went to
rally people, the workers said to me, "Dolores, you guys can do what
you want in California, but here it is too difficult. Aqui, no se puede."
By the way, they had passed a law in Arizona that made it illegal for
farm workers to go on strike. If you even said the word "boycott" you
could go to prison. So my spontaneous response was, "Si, si se puede
en Arizona."
So that night when I went to give the report to the organizers and I
told them what I said, everybody jumped to their feet and started
chanting, "Si Se Puede! Si Se Puede!" It's been our motto since 1972.
And now it's everywhere-even our president used it!
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Farmer workers' champion Dolores Huerta speaks in Saginaw, launching
Hispanic Heritage Month
http://www.mlive.com/news/saginaw/index.ssf/2010/09/farmer_workers_champion_dolore.html
September 12, 2010
by Sue White
Dolores Huerta doesn't expect to see the Hispanic community reach
full equality in her lifetime.
One of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century,
Huerta still leads the fight, decades after she joined the late Cesar
Chavez in organizing the United Farm Workers of America.
On Tuesday morning, she will come to Saginaw to speak with young
people at Saginaw's Thompson Middle School and then as the keynote
speaker at Union Civica Mexicana's Adelante/Forward kick-off to
Hispanic Heritage Month.
"People are very focused today," said Huerta, now 80, calling from
her foundation in California. "Back in the 1950s and 1960s, we were a
lone voice, speaking to migrant workers who accepted their conditions
as status quo, the way things were.
"A lot of change came out of that time. It's amazing what you can
accomplish when you organize and come together."
And as new issues come to the forefront, such as the controversial
immigration law in Arizona, "we have to address them in the same way,
organizing to do what needs to be done," Huerta said. "We have people
who are ready to do a lot of work, but they don't know how to
organize anymore. They have the hope, they have the desire, but they
don't know what they can do."
That's what drew Huerta to attend Union Civica's dinner, said
organizer Larry Rodarte, publisher of Mi Gente magazine. The longtime
organization was nearly ready to shut its doors when an infusion of
young leaders brought it back.
"We are rebounding and keeping it alive," Rodarte said. "So many are
about to shut their doors because they haven't stayed up on today's
technology and ways of doing business. Here, we have the Great Lakes
Bay Hispanic Leadership Institute for young people between the ages
of 18 and 40, and already that has given us two new executive
officers in the Mid Michigan Hispanic Business Association.
"There's a group that was down to five members, and now we're at more
than 100," Rodarte said. "They've really made a difference."
Huerta's visit is especially welcome, Rodarte added, because the
history they will celebrate, along with Mexico's independence, is
grounded in the migrant programs that brought many to Michigan.
"When I talk about the migrant workers to my father and my uncle, who
are being honored at the dinner, it gets too emotional," Rodarte
said. "They lost two siblings at the time, to the conditions that
existed. Dolores was the one who put an end to those times, through a
grass-roots effort, and she believes in what we're doing today."
Mary Hernandez Silvas remembers how, when she was crowned Saginaw's
Union Civica Queen in 1966, her mother filled a wall of their home
with her pictures and introduced her to others as "my daughter, the queen."
"She was so proud," said Silvas, "and though I was like, 'Oh, Mom,' I
was proud, too."
Those were the days, she said, when family was everything to Hispanic
youths, and when organizations such as the Union Civica Mexicana
offered some recreational relief from over-protective parents.
She also remembers how, as a student at Douglas MacArthur High School
in Saginaw Township, she was never asked to join the National Honor
Society, even though she was a straight-A student.
"My parents were migrant workers, and they told us we had to always
be proud and hold our heads high, that we were worth fighting for
even as we faced discrimination," she said.
And she's proud to once again represent the Union Civica as it
reaches out to today's Hispanic youths through lessons learned in the past.
"I don't think today's young people have their priorities placed
right," Silvas said. "There isn't the respect we had for family and
our elders. They have too much freedom; they're not interested in all
of this anymore."
Cynthia Anguiano, 23, of Saginaw Township found that out when she
tried to entice classmates at Delta College to come to Tuesday's
event. Anguiano will represent the Union Civica this year and receive
a scholarship from the group.
"If we allow the organization to rebuild, if we come forward and take
part, it can be done, but it won't happen on its own," Anguiano said.
"The problem I found is that we really don't know much about all of this."
Anguiano said she didn't know the plight of the field workers her
own family's past or fully appreciate how things are changing.
She's committed to promoting education during her reign, she said,
not only in the classroom but in rediscovering her heritage.
"I studied it to see what I was going to represent and realized my
generation needs to wake up and learn our history," she said. "We
really don't know about these things; our grandparents and parents
wanted to fit into their new world, and so they left the language and
culture behind.
"We missed out along the way, but the truth is we can have both. We
can have it all; that's what America is looking for right now."
Anguiano also found a kinship with Huerta, inspiring her expand on
what she's learned.
"If she can do it, I can do it," she said. "I want to make a difference."
Latino people like to socialize and be together, Huerta said, and
that is an important function of groups such as Union Civica.
"It brings people together in friendship, to share their culture and
celebrate their heritage," she said. "They have a good time. But they
also have to realize that there is a lot of work that still must be done.
"We need to get our youth involved it's going to take a few
generations to break down those last walls and we need to make it
happen, not for ourselves but for the future. We've made major
milestones in our path, like the amnesty bill of 1986, but we still
have a long way to go."
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