Dolores Huerta: An organizing legacy http://www.extranews.net/news.php?nid=4740
03-25-2009 On March 19, the Chicago Foundation for Women honored Dolores Huerta at the 2009 Impact Awards. Huerta, who received the Ruth Bader Ginsburg Award, is a known advocate for human rights who worked alongside the late César Chávez for more than 30 years. Born in Dawson, N.M., Huerta is currently the president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation for Community Organizing in Bakersfield, Calif. and co-founder of the United Farm Workers. "I met Mr. Fred Ross, Sr. and that's when we started organizing the Community Service Organization and to me, that was real organizing because you were able to take on the local power establishments and change some of the things they were doing against our Latino community," Huerta said. Huerta helped Latino residents gain access to welfare and public assistance. She also fought to give voters the opportunity to register on weekends, negotiated contracts for farm workers and had a successful outcome with the Delano grape boycott of 1965. In 1988, Huerta suffered a life-threatening attack from a San Francisco police officer. An officer beat her with a baton and damaged her spleen and fractured her ribs, but later, Huerta was able to have the police department change their crowd control policy and won a lawsuit against the police department. Huerta recalls working along with Ruben Salazar and Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles throughout the years. Huerta supported Sen. Robert F. Kennedy's primary presidential campaign and was present moments before he was killed. Juana Chávez, Huerta's eighth child, now a 3rd grade teacher in Los Ángeles, recalls some of her memories while growing up and how her mom made an impact on her. "The United Farm Workers chose to have their headquarters in La Paz; it's in a really conservative county. When we went to school, we were known as the 'hippy-beaners from César Chávez' communist hippy ranch.' It was not an easy time. That never made me say, 'Mom, why do you do that? Just stop because your causing me problems.' It always made me think, how those people needed to change," Chávez said. Huerta gives this advice to the youth today. "If you're Latino, keep your Spanish. Hang on to it because it's important. It's definitely the language of the future. Get involved, there are things that we can do in our community right now. We have this big immigration issue, write to your senator, congressman and President Obama and say we need legalization. It just takes a few minutes to send an e-mail or send a postcard," Huerta said. -- To learn more about the Dolores Huerta Foundation for Organizing, visit doloreshuerta.org . --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
