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Cúchulainn
Origin: Dawson, New Mexico
(April 10, 1930)
Heroic Values: Achievement, Caring, Courage, Faith, Humility, Integrity, Perseverance, Selflessness, Tolerance, Vision, Wisdom
Background
Dolores Clara Fernandez, later to become Dolores Huerta, was born April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico. Raised by her mother, an activist and supporter of local immigrant families, Huerta learned from a young age the value of community activism and the importance of supporting and serving others. Huerta spent her childhood and young adult years as a devoted member of the Girl Scouts, frequently participating in community service endeavors.After graduating from college, Huerta began her career as a teacher. In this profession she found herself faced with the challenge of educating the children of migrant farm workers, who were coming to school hungry and barefoot. She decided to leave teaching, in hopes that she could do more good for these children by fighting for the rights of farm workers.
In 1955 she founded the Stockton chapter of CSO, or Community Service Organization, and in 1960 she helped found the Agricultural Workers Association. Her efforts became more well known when she paired up with Cesar Chavez and co-founded the United Farm Workers Union in California in 1962. Huerta fought for immigrant and farm workers' rights, including the rights of their children to receive social services, unemployment insurance, collective bargaining rights, and eventually amnesty under the 1985 Rodino amnesty legalization program. This program granted the basic benefits of citizenship to immigrants who had been living, working, and paying taxes in the United States for many years. In 1966, after numerous boycotts, picket lines, and strikes, Huerta helped negotiate a contract between grape workers and the Schenley Wine Company via collective bargaining. This was the first time farmworkers has successfully negotiated with a major agricultural enterprise. In addition to being an activist in labor relations, Huerta also pioneered movements to pass legislation allowing immigrants to take tests and vote in their native languages.
Huerta, a Latina women in an era where neither women, nor Latinos were always taken seriously, Huerta fought diligently for the rights of others, while also raising eleven children of her own. In 1993 she was inducted in to the National Women's Hall of Fame, and in 2002 she received the Puffin Foundation/Nation Institute Award for Creative Citizenship. Huerta used the prize money to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation's Organizing Institute, whose mission is to focus on community organizing and leadership training in low-income under-represented communities.
Huerta's accomplishments were hard won, and despite tirelessly embracing peaceful methods of negotiating and protesting, she suffered twenty-two arrests, and was victim of severe police brutality (ultimately winning a judgment against the San Francisco Police).
At 75 she continues to lecture on issues of public policy affecting immigrants, women, and children, sits on the board of the Feminist Majority Foundation, serves as the President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and teaches a class on community organizing at the University of Southern California. She has also received six honorary doctorates and numerous awards and commemorations for her work.
Submitted By: Karen Langdon
Sources
Wikipedia
The online encyclopedia
Dolores Huerta Foundation
The Dolores Huerta bio
National Women's Hall of Fame
Dolores Huerta's entry