Throughout American history, progress has never come easily, as we’ve been reminded repeatedly over the last few years. It requires hard work, persistence, and passionate individuals banding together to support causes they believe in. Few people know that better than Dolores Huerta, the trailblazing civil rights and labor movement leader who helped farm workers find their voice and power by organizing a strike and boycott among California grape workers in the 1960s in response to horrific working and living conditions. Despite violent backlash, the workers’ steadfast determination over the next five years resulted in health benefits, higher wages, and better, safer living and working conditions.
Sixty years ago, along with Cesar Chavez, Huerta formed the National Farm Workers Association—which later became what is currently America’s most enduring agricultural union, the United Farm Workers. As a direct result of her leadership in the American Labor Movement, countless people have been able to better support themselves and their families and have earned the treatment of respect and dignity they deserve. She has remained on the front lines of nearly every progressive social movement since.
On this episode, Huerta shares with President Clinton her remarkable life story, the experiences she had as a young person that shaped her into a trailblazing activist, and how today—at 92 years old—she still has the motivation and commitment to make a positive difference on women's rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, voting rights, and civil rights through the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
In the early nineteen sixties, grape workers in California earned less than a dollar an hour, with no brakes, no access to toilets or cold drinking water, and miserable living conditions. For years, the growers had pitted Filipino and Mexican American workers against one another to prevent collective action. All that changed in September nine, when the unions representing both the Filipino and Mexican Americans joined together to organize a strike and a boycott at great personal costs and even in the face of violent reprisals. The workers held firm for five long years, but their struggle paid off. In nineteen seventy, California's grape growers signed their very first union contracts, giving workers higher wages, benefits including healthcare, and stronger protections. So why am I telling you this Because for all of our division and conflict today, we had to remember that progress has never come easily. It requires hard work, persistence, and most of all, organizing. Today I have the honor of speaking with someone who was not only one of the key organizers of the grape strike and boycott, but has been in the front lines of nearly every progressive social movement since together was as our Chavs. In nineteen sixty two, the lawyers where to form the National farm Workers Association, which later merged for the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United farm Workers, America's most enduring agricultural union. She's a trailblazer who embodies the passion and persistence required to create lasting change. As a direct result of her leadership in the American labor movement, countless people have been able to better support themselves and their families and have been treated with the respect and dignity they deserve. Today, Dolores is and not showing any sign of slowing down. She's president of the Dolores square To Foundation, a grassroots organization that engages and develops leaders working at the intersection of women's rights, immigrant rights, labor rights, voting rights, and civil rights at the local level where people's lives can be changed for the better. Dolores, You're a national treasurer. Thanks so much for being here today. Thank you for inviting me. Let's start from the beginning. For our listeners who don't know as much about you as I do. Tell us a little bit about how you grew up and what made you decide to become an organizer. Well, I actually I was very fortunate that I grew up in Stockton, California. I was born in New Mexico, and uh, my family was very always involved in politics. As you know, people in New Mexico have been there for many generations, and I remember as a young girl hearing the stories about who's running for this office, who was running for that office. My parents divorced and my mother boughts to California. My father, who was stayed in New Mexico. But he was always very He was a union organizer, a volunteer organizer for the for the United mind Workers Union, and then he ran for the State Assembly in New Mexico and one but he wasn't there very long because he was expelled because the UH punched out one of the other one of the other UH president of the Legislature, Senator Montoya, who so he was expelled because Montoya, the Montoya founding, was a big They were big cotton growers and they were very anti union. And my dad, to his dying day, was always very very strong union supporter. Everywhere my dad went, he organized the union. You know. After World War Two, when he he had been in the Navy and he came to California and he was working at an army base and he organized Actually they're they're more confederation to government epolice. So I sort of got that sense from my father, and I wish everybody could have had my childhood because it's Stockton, been, California. It's between San Francisco and Sacramento. H very a very diverse community. So many of the people there worked again in the in the fields and the farms. So we had people there from the Philippines, from Japan, from China, from Mexico, the Okys, Uh, we had black families there. My neighbors were all these people here. My next door neighbors were immigrants from Italy. Kitty corner they were from Greece, and my next door neighbors was the Smith family. They were black. And I say this because a lot of people didn't have that opportunity to grow up with people so many different ethnic groups. I like to say I got my ethnic studies from my friends, and I was just really blessed by that because I think that really prepared me for the world. And so uh, I was very very fortunate not to have grown up in a situation where racism was not an issue because you know, we were all of different backgrounds and colors and we all loved each other. Why do you think it's so hard in some places for people to feel that level of comfort with each other across racial and ethnic lins Now, well, agave because I don't. I believe that they interact with different people from different backgrounds, and so when people don't know each other, then they fear each other. And I think that's really hurt our country. And when we have a lot of segregation and and then people don't really understand each other's cultures, they're not realizing that when we do meet other people from different cultures, it really enriches us, you know, it makes our our We have a broader vision of who people are. You know, there's actually a lot of academic research that shows that diverse groups make better decisions than homogeneous groups, and better than loan geniuses. It's fine to be part of a tribe, but it has to be an inclusive tribalism to work. Anyway. I was fascinated by your saying that when I speak at schools, they often tell the students that we have one human race, that we have a lot of culture, cultures and nationalities, but we only have one human race that is Homo sapiens, and that we are all related. And when they say that this has happened to me a couple of times. At one time, all of these children, they were like like for a second and third grader, sitting on the floor, and I said to them, where all cousins were all related. They all stood up and started running towards each other and hugging each other. I want to ask you just one more question about your early years, because it strikes me that one of the problems we've got in America today is that the average human attention spanned has gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. As we've gotten access to more information, we take less time to process it and put it together. So the thing I wanted to ask you is your first great hit. I guess as an organizer was a pivotal role you played in a grape strike and boycott and that went on for five years and you were a young woman years old. How did you stick it out for five years? Was it hard? Was it easy? Did you have to think about it? Because most people think about going to a march or several marches. How did you do it well? Even though it takes that patience, but it was interesting and if you asked that question, because sometimes I felt that the farm workers and we're going to give up, but they didn't. You know, we started with the strike in de Lano, and then we couldn't win the strike because they were bringing strike breakers because we're so close in California, we're so close to Mexico that they could bring in strike breakers and they would bring them in from the Philippines and other places. And so we went out on the boycott because this attorney stru wind stru Wineberg from San Francisco, he said, why don't you try a boycott because they had done the great boy the bus boycott there in the South. And so uh, some of our young volunteers were now on the hitch hike to New York and I did the first boycott against a wine company, uh Shenley, that was also a whiskey company, and we got that first contract. So then we did this all great boycott. So I was would go to New York and start the great boycott there with Mr Fred Ross Senior, the man who taught us how to organize. So then when I would come back to de Lano, we're you know, we're the heart of the great strike. Was that, and I would feel like really guilty because we hadn't one yet. And when I would say to the workers, I tried to apologize to them and said, oh, don't worry, don't worry wortha We're gonna win. We're gonna win. We're gonna stay here on strike as long as it takes for us to win. So so then then that really bolstered me up, and it maybe gave me a lot a lot of inspiration because they were willing to be out there on the picket line, you know, from morning until until from don from down to too when the sun went down. Then that I thought I can be out there in the city asking people of boycott grapes. So you know, we knew that we were going to win eventually. And and sus that always had a great statement that I know that's part of your mantra. Also he said, the only time that you that you lose us when you quit. As long as you don't give up, we're going to win. So all of us felt we that that strength. You know, of course with Caesar's leadership and then so many people supporting us that we were go to win eventually, and of course we did. We'll be right back. I wanted to skip around a little bit. In your rich long life, you moved beyond the union organizers to try to mobilize people to vote and increase their empowerment through citizenship. And the more you did it, the more you had to rely on basically persuasion. And it occurs to me that a lot of people find that difficult. They find it difficult to talk to people, to find that difficult to say what's in their mind and heart? What do you say to people like that? They are young people all over the world today who really want to be heard and want to make a difference. What advice do you give young people who are trying to find their own voice and use it. You know, before Season and I started the Union, we came out of another organization called the Community Service Organization that again, uh, I think you knew Congressman Edroid Ball very well, who was the first Latino elected to the City Council Los Angeles and then became the first congressman. Well, he came out of that organization and when once we got a group together, the first action that we took was to go out and go register voters door to door. That's the first thing that we did. So and see us so that the Community Service Organization we dedicated ourselves to do voter registration, you know, and even though it was a nonprofit organization, we were very effective in getting out the vote to get good people elected, and we were able to pass major, major legislation, uh Like in California, we passed the law that if you were if you're a citizen, you could register somebody else to vote. You wouldn't have to find a deputy register somewhere like they do in Texas still to this day. Then you could, you know. So we we were able to register many, many thousands and thousands of people to vote. So we carried that tradition also into the United farm Workers. You know, we put putting a lot of time and registering people to vote. And then of course in the United Farmworkers we also endorsed candidates. And I like, I like, and to like say, I tell him, it's like a football game, you know, and you have one team that chose up and the other team doesn't show up. The team that chose up is gonna win. So we've got to get out there and get our team elected. And we don't look at people. We can't pass the legislation that we want. And I say that the young people, you can march and you can protest as much as you want. And that's the kind of good that we do that because it brings attention to the issues. But if it's not put into a law, then it can't be impl ment, it can't be enforced. People cannot be held accountable. Otherwise we can march and talk and nothing's going to happen. It will stay the same. So, you know, we just have to work really really hard, and we can't have a democracy people don't vote. I mean, that's a foundation of our democracy, is it for people to be able to vote and to elect the people that we need. And we also know that right now our democracy is threatened. We saw what happened on January the six, you know, and we see what's happening now in some of the southern states for their passing laws to oppressed the vote and especially to keep people like myself, people of color, from voting. So we've got to work really really hard to make sure that we keep our democracy. Often one nice week is as to students like and say to people, you know, to google the map of the United States before eighteen forty eight and what you will see is that one third of the United States was Mexico. And so when they say to us, Mexican Americans and you know, to go back where we came from, we say, oh, no, we were here before the United States was the United States of America and the North American continent, the South American continent. These are the indigenous people the continent. You know, this land was there and is there. So they they they are not the immigrants, so to speak. The two immigrants that came to the United States came from Europe, like my great grandmother on my grandpa's side and uh my great grandfather on my mother's side, who came from England. You know. So I think we have to just that's important with that we you know, really promote ethnic studies. And I know there's people are that want to take out any of the books to talk about slavery and talk about the real history of the United States of America. But this is important, and this is this is education. And if I think if every person in the United States had this education about the two history of the United States, that that way we could erase a lot of the racism that exists and take away again those those arms that they have, those weapons of hatred that they use to divide people. But it's something that that can happen because you know, uh. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that that the education was the soul of our country. And during World War World War two, when I try to take money out of the education in the libraries budgets, he said, no, we will not take one dime out of our libraries or one dime out of education, because education is the soul of our country. And I think we have to put a lot more money into education because we know and even in California, when I was a kid going to school California, and we were like, uh, I think one or two in terms of the money that was appropriated for each student, and I think now we're like number thirty six or something. And many of the states are in the kind of the same position and where we do not have enough money going into our schools for our teachers and our students. And that I think that's one of the things that we really have to prioritize and we're going to erase all of this this hatred that exists right now in our country because when people are educated, then you know, and what and when I say educated, I mean having the type of education that that I'm talking about, the importance of labor unions, the importance of voting, you know, the importance of women having gender studies and and kind of start educating our children to get rid of all of that misogyny, sexism, homophobia that exists. But I think we can do it, but we have to make it like a priority, because I think I hate hate comes from ignorance, and then we know that that hatred manifests itself and in people killing other people just because their Mexicans, or their Jews, or their Blacks or their Asians. So I think we could actually we this is we could look at this like a war against ignorance. A war against ignorance. That's a great phrase. Let me ask you a more personal question. When you had been doing this work for more than half your life, you were fifty eight years old, you were in a peaceful protest in San Francisco when an officer hit you with a nightstick and broke four of your ribs and shattered your spleen. Did you think about giving up then? Were you terrified? What did you think was gonna happen? Well, it set me back for a while, but I have to say this though, it never changed my mind in terms of my commitment to non violence. You know that we could still win, that we don't have to use violence to be able to be able to achieve our goals. And uh, that was that was And I guess when you go out there and you start doing activists work, then people are going to attack you. And I know that you your Selfnesser President has been the victim of many many verbal attacks, of political attacks and in my case, and that was a physical attack and uh at a peaceful protest, But it didn't really determine, uh in terms of knowing that we have to continue working to achieve the kind of social and economic justice that we need in our country. What did you think about Judge Kanji Brown Jackson being confirmed to the Spring Court? Now there are four women on the Spring Court. Why is that important? And how do you think it will affect young girls growing up? Well, I think it's wonderful that we have a black woman on the U Supreme Court. Oh my gosh, that is so incredible. I think it is a moment of joy for all of us. And in terms of how it affects young women, I know, it's it's just gonna be so inspiring for young women when they see that a woman can can achieve the highest position, you might say, next to the presidency, but to be on the U. S Supreme Court, I mean, that is amazing. And you know, Coretta Scott King said that we will never have peace in the world until women take power. Oh and by the way, Mr President, we have the first Latina on the California State Supreme Court. No, her name is Patti said it at all. And she comes from an immigrant family in the Imperial Valley of California, So that that is also something that we're very proud of. More after this, let me ask you something else, though. One of the things that I think is impressive to me is the work that you were doing through your own foundation to help communities build local organizations to advanced social justice. I think one of the week missus of the Democratic Party, and after you know, the initial civil rights actions, was that we spent a lot of time on national politics, but we didn't spend enough time building organizations and communities that can both build change and then change people's attitudes about who they elect from the grassroots. So tell us just a little bit about what you're doing with the foundation, and while you're doing it well, going back to that same organizing model that we used in the CSO and in the United farm Workers, just meeting with people in their homes, convincing them that they have power that that again getting them to commit to understand that nothing will change unless they get involved. And it's just amazing that once people become active and they go to school board meetings and city councils meetings and and they see the changes that network is making. That could give us some wonderful examples. We had one woman who came out of our organizing group and uh, she and her husband and the people are their friends. They went door to door to and the past petitions and they got a bond issue passed to build a brand new state of the art gymnasium for their middle school because there are pollution down here in current county. In Bakersville, Kevin mccarthey's district, by the way, it's so bad that the kids could not even go out and play a recess because the weather, the weather is so polluted. And then she decided that they got there, They got the state of the art gymnasium built. She decided to run for the school board, and the principal wanted to get rid of the breakfast program for the farmer good children. So they got rid of the principle and kept the breakfast program. And I mean, just as an example, and so many of them have done these improvements like getting neighborhood parks, swimming pools, street lights, uh, gutters and and the sidewalks and connection to sewers, you know. And but the thing is that they do all of the work themselves, which is the amazing thing. And then, uh, we had another group. We did a big project on education in our local high school here in Bakersfield. They had expelled twenty students of color in one year, and uh, well we changed that. We sued them and from tihundred expulsions it is now down to one. But in addition to that, they had to start changing their policies there to have positive behavior intervention systems, you know, they have to have hispanic heritage amount. They have to have a Black History Month to end the racism and in that area. So we our education uh program, we're active in about seventeen different school districts, coming over two hundred schools and over the recommendations that and this is the parents and the students that are doing this work, they have been accepted. So you know, we we just did a lot of work out on the census and on redistrant team and all of the maps that our demographers presented were accepted by the Independent Commission here in California for the Central Valley. So we're making a lot of progress. And now we're building a cultural piece and justice cultural center. Uh. You know that we want to start this organizing academy. So this organizing model that we have, we can export it to other areas because because once people learned that they have the power to make changes, it's exhilarating. They are so proud that they know that they were able to do this work. So it's it's it's it's it's almost miraculous. But you know, Mr President, I call it democracy an action, which is exactly what it is. And we say to people, you have the power. You may not have a high school diploma or we're gone to college. You may not speak perfect English or no English. But the thing is that your power is in your person. And once you all get together and you take collective action, and you said, as you said earlier, this is the way that we make think that make changes and make things happen. And of course now we're doing a big registration drive and getting ready for the JUNI elections. I want to remind everybody that's listening to me that Dolores were too recently celebrated her ninety's second birthday and she sounds like she's maybe about forty, just getting ready to put her toe in. How did you celebrate your birthday? Well, I had a kind of a quiet celebration with my family and my grandchildren, and one of my granddaughters is a dancer, and they brought the indigenous dancers and I got the blessings. I'm sure you've had those many times, and that was a wonderful way to just spend my birthday. We will be having a more public events because we're raising money for peace and this cultural center. We've raised about eighteen million. We've got to raise about another maybe another seven to ten million dollars. But that's gonna be a great center there because we're gonna have a child care center, youth development center, the organizing academy, a credit union and auditorium and many rooms for training people and and having a place where everybody can come and have their meetings there, you know. And we want to make it a great center there for kind of again to promote the all of the democratic activities that we're that we're doing. I would say that's to everybody who's listening to us. What do you agree with everything the Laura said or not? Wouldn't you like to be ninety two and still living in the present and for the future. And I think that that's what we should all aspire to do. I want you to have a chance to close here. What do you think the secret to your ability to relentlessly focus on the future and deal with disappointments and deal with political setbacks and never be satisfied unless you personally are trying to do something to my life better for somebody else. What's the sting? Where did that come from? And how can you spread it around? Well? I I can look back and you know I was born during the depression, and lived through World War Two, and I can look back and see how many changes have been made for the better. When I went to college, there was only a handful of US Latinos in the college system, you know, not very many women. And we can see how that has changed. And we can see all of the improvements that have been made over the years. And we know we still have uh, we still have a ways to go to create that perfect union that the founders of our government you know, wanted for us so and we know that we can we can achieve it. That it's a people power, it's a people engagement that makes it happen. And to me, I can see that they talk about the democracy as a dream and that the United States was was an experiment when our founders taught that they could make this happen. And well, by the way, we know they got this from the Iroquois, right, you know, the whole idea of our government. But if we couldn't achieve it, we just have to, you know, just get more people to understand that, more people to commit to it. And I think some times when you're an organizer, it's like you go around with like magic dust and you you know, are able to put that magic dust on people and say, look, we can do this. You can do it together. We can make this that we can achieve the dream of democracy. But we just all have to work together. And to me that it's just it's like finding the polit of goal at the end of the rainbow. It's there, but we just have to get there together to make it happen. And so that's what keeps me going because I do believe in their dream of democracy and knowing that we ordinary people that we can achieve it. We've got to say how much money people might have on the other side, we always have to remember that we the people that there are more of us, and as long as we work in a united and non violent way, that we can achieve that that dream so that people can be can have a sustainable income income you know, they can be safe and uh and healthy. We can make it happen. So that's what keeps me going, and I want to keep going as long as I possibly can to reach other people, especially those in Texas. Well. You stay self and healthy because you make me feel ten years younger every time I talk to you. Thank you so much, We love you, Thank you so much. Why am I telling you. This is a production of our Heart Radio, the Clinton Foundation and at Will Medium. Our executive producers are Craig Menascian and Will Malnati. Our production team includes Jamison Katsufa, Tom Galton, Sara Horowitz, and Jake Young, with production support from Liz Raferee and Josh Fornham. Original music by Wat White. 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