Happy Birthday Dolores

 

Happy Birthday Dolores

Dolores Huerta turns 94 today, April 10th! Throughout her remarkable life, she led boycotts alongside Cesar Chavez that changed the landscape of labor rights and inspired generations to fight for a more equitable world.

But Dolores' work doesn't stop here. The Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF) carries her torch, building upon her legacy by empowering marginalized communities through grassroots organizing, education, and civic engagement.

Today, as we celebrate Dolores' birthday, we invite you to join us in securing the future of her impact.

Ed note.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/happy-birthday-dolores

 

 

Dolores was a member of DSA from 1982 until at least 2016.  I do not know if she remains a DSA member.  She was an Honorary Chair of DSA from at least 1990 until the 2017 Convention. She spoke at numerous DSA functions and conventions.

The honorary chairs were abolished in that year.

Celebrate the Life of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta

Celebrating Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta 

 

1972- Sacramento 

March 31  is Cesar Chavez’s birthday and Cesar Chavez Day – a state holiday in California,  one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.   Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez.

 

The year 2012 was the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the United Farm Workers (UFW) by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz and others.  Celebrations held that year focused on the historic struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California.

April 11, 2023 will be the 5^th Annual Dolores Huerta Day in California. It will be her 93^rd. birthday.  Dolores Huerta was formerly an Honorary Co-Chair of Democratic Socialists of America.

Dolores Huerta. 2023

 

For an update on the UFW 2023 see. 

https://antiracismdsa.blogspot.com/2023/03/farmworkers-union-seeks-california.html

 

 

The UFW was the  first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history.  There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers’ union.   Each of the prior attempts was destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez and Huerta chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing and allied itself  with churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S. The UFW showed unions that immigrants can and must be organized.    

 

Both Chavez and Dolores Huerta ( formerly a DSA Honorary Co Chair )  have received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and have been recognized by the U.S. Department of Labor and in the California Hall of Fame for their work. 

 

Dolores Huerta remains active as a staunch advocate for women’s rights and reproductive freedom.  She is an honorary DSA chair, a founding board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation and a member of the board of Ms. Magazine.  She is active in Democratic Party conventions and campaigns and frequently speaks at universities and organizational forums and union halls  on issues of social justice and public policy. Huerta  continues to develop community leaders and to advocate for the working poor, immigrants, women and youth as president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation.

 

Today, school children study Chavez’s life - but the study of Dolores Huerta’s life is prohibited in Arizona and severely limited in Texas as socialist,  “revolutionary,” or anti-American.

 

César Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial union. Mexican, Mexican-American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW.  This cross-racial organizing  was necessary in order to combat the  prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines, as well as immigration status,  always left the corporations the winners.

 

In the 60's, Chávez and Huerta became the pre-eminent civil rights leaders for Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation.  They worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to their skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture, including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party, then led by  Ronald Reagan.   Workers were fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non-union  farm workers today  continue to live on  sub-poverty wages while producing abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state, in the richest nation in the world.  

 

In response to corporate power, Chavez developed new strategies such as the boycott, based upon  his personal  commitment to  non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and  Martin Luther King Jr.  César Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona. 

 

Today Mexican, Mexican-American and Latino  union leadership is common  in our major cities and in several  industries and Latino union leaders increasingly play an important role in local, state, and national elections.  For example, the mobilization of Latino families and voters was critical to the re-election of Barack Obama.  The UFW was a school for organizing.  Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience.    Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits for the unionized workers, training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.

 

The UFW is also known for helping to create the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975, under then-Governor Jerry Brown, which gives farm workers collective bargaining rights.  The law was made necessary by a 1972 Teamsters Union raid on UFW contracts.  Sadly, the victory was only partial. While farm workers are often able to win elections under the ALRB, they seldom can win a contract.  Growers stall and delay until the workers leave the area. 

 

Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, only about 25,000  farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. Wages and benefits in non union  farm labor have again been reduced to the pre-union levels.  

 

Chavez taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. Many curriculum packages for schools stress his emphasis on service to others.  The service side of Cesar’s work was certainly inspiring. In the last decade, several books have been written criticizing the Chavez legacy. The union experienced both external and internal conflicts. But building popular organizations, while messy, builds people's power and democracy. In creating the UFW, Chavez and Huerta organized thousands into a union and inspired millions. 

 

The organizing side of the UFW legacy changed the Southwest and organized labor.      The movement led by Chavez and Huerta reduced the oppression of farm workers. Many people, descendents of earlier generations of farm workers, learned to take a stand for justice.  They learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay, or unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable.  Rather, these are social creations which can be changed through organizing for economic and political power.    

 

Today, thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops, often indigenous Zapotec and Mixtec people from the south of Mexico, and only a small percent are in unions.  The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’s name nor the UFW’s contributions. Yet, in other regions immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors and Unite/Here by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.

 

The generation that created the UFW is passing. A new generation of political activists, mostly within the Democratic Party, has emerged since the Chavez generation.  Organizing the May Day 2006 massive immigrant rights demonstrations was significantly assisted by persons trained within the UFW.  A new, significant Latino union and political base has been created in the nation. 

 

Chavez's and Huerta’s legacy is significant for popular struggles, Chicano/Mexicano self-determination and immigrant workers’ unions.  The UFW taught us how to organize for power and for justice.  Chavez is present in all of our work.  You can find out more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org; http://www.chavezfoundation.org/;

http://www.farmworkermovement.org/ : and MexicanAmericanDigitalHistory.org

 

Duane Campbell is professor emeritus of bilingual/multicultural education at California State University-Sacramento; author of Choosing Democracy: A Practical Guide to Multicultural Education, 4th Edition, (Allyn and Bacon,2010); and chair of Sacramento DSA.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Reality Check: HONORING DOLORES HUERTA'S LEGACY

The Reality Check: HONORING DOLORES HUERTA'S LEGACY: HONORING DOLORES HUERTA'S LEGACY Photoessay by David Bacon The Nation, April 2, 2022 https://www.thenation.com/article/society/dolores-h...

Last fall I walked from Poplar to Delano, Calif., in honor of Larry Itliong, who started the 1965 grape strike and boycott there, with Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the United Farm Workers (UFW). She was 91 then, and I had a hard time keeping up. She sent me a note afterward that ended, "Sí Se Puede con El Rojo Tocino." It was a beautiful joke.

"Sí Se Puede" are three words we all use now, but she invented this confident way of saying "Yes We Can!" "Tocino" was the nickname the union gave me in the years I worked as an organizer-it means "bacon," my last name. And calling me "El Rojo," or "The Red," in this way honored my politics.

When I came back from a solidarity work brigade in Cuba in the 1970s, I landed in New York City with no place to sleep. I called Dolores's daughter, Lori, a friend from California. Not only did I get space on the floor of the NYC boycott's headquarters, but Dolores and her partner, Richard, César Chávez's brother, took us out to eat. Over pizza I enthused about the island. I had stars in my eyes, for both Cuba and Dolores, and still do. I went to work for the UFW as an organizer a few months later.

There was often tension in the union about radical politics, and being called a red was sometimes the route out the door. But for Dolores and Eliseo Medina, being a good organizer was the bottom line-doing what the workers needed.

Over the years, long after I had left the UFW and worked for other unions and then as a photojournalist, I would see Dolores again and again. Going to Watsonville to cover the organizing drives of strawberry workers or to Salinas for the strikes in the vegetable fields, I knew she'd be there. It was a profound experience to watch her in union contract negotiations-this diminutive woman facing off against the beefy growers across the table-and see the sense of power it gave workers.

Returning from Iraq, where I photographed workers after the 2003 US invasion, I took her picture in the front line of marchers against the war. When we were in Sacramento trying to stop the anti-immigrant, anti-affirmative-action, anti-bilingual initiatives, she was the first to speak out.

So when she called me El Rojo Tocino, I thought, "What a compliment!" I hope I live up to it.

Cesar Chavez Day _ Organize

The author and Cesar Chavez, 1972, 

 Cesar Chavez Day 

         

  Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California – one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.   Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez on March 31.

On March 26, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis honored Cesar Chavez and the UFW founders by dedicating the auditorium at the Department of Labor in Chavez’s name. 

The Cesar Chavez celebrations focus on  the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California.  Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers  (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history.  There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.

            Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing  and allied itself  with the churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.

            Today, under the leadership of UFW president Teresa Romero only about 8,000  farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. Wages and benefit in farm labor have again been reduced to the pre union levels.  Unionized workers   are incorporated into California's educational, health and civic communities.  The UFW has shown unions that immigrants can  and must be organized. Today the UFW is working to pass a new immigration law that would assist farm workers.    

             Chavez and the UFW are best known helping to create instrumental role in passing the  California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975 under then Governor Gerry Brown  which gives workers collective bargaining rights.  The law was made necessary by the assault on the UFW of the Teamsters Union.  While workers are often able to win elections under the ALRB, they seldom can win a contract.  Growers stall and delay until the workers leave the area. 

        César Chavez, Dolores Huerta,  Philip Vera Cruz, and others deliberately created a multiracial organization, Mexican,  Mexican American, Filipino, African-American, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Arab workers, among others, have been part of the UFW.  This cross racial organizing  was necessary in order to combat the  prior divisions and exploitations of workers based upon race and language. Dividing the workers on racial and language lines always left the corporations the winners.

            In the 60's Chávez became the pre-eminent civil rights leader for the Mexican and Chicano workers, helping with local union struggles throughout the nation.  He worked tirelessly to make people aware of the struggles of farm workers for better pay and safer working conditions. It is a testament to Cesar Chavez's skills and courage that the UFW even survived. They  were opposed by major interests in corporate agriculture including the Bruce Church and Gallo Corporations as well as the leadership of the Republican Party then led by  Ronald Reagan.   Workers were  fired, beaten, threatened and even killed in pursuit of union benefits . Non union  farm workers today  continue to live on  sub-poverty wages while producing the abundant crops in the richest valley, in the richest state in the richest nation in the world.  

 In response to corporate power, Cesar developed new strategies, such as the boycott, based upon  his personal  commitment to  non-violence in the tradition of Ghandi and  Martin Luther King Jr.  César  Chavez died in his sleep on April 23, 1993 near Yuma, Arizona.

             Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common  in our major cities and in several  industries and Latino union leaders increasingly play an important role in local, state, and national elections.  For myself  and others, the UFW was a school for organizing.  Hundreds of activists in labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience.    Along with improved working conditions, salaries, and benefits for the unionized workers,  training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW.

            César taught us that all organizations have problems, that all organizations are imperfect. In the last decade several books have been written criticizing the Chavez legacy.

            In the midst of  several life and death struggles over power against corporate agriculture and the political power of the state, the UFW executive committee did not develop democratic union structures .  Marshall Ganz’s book, Why David Sometimes Wins: leadership, organization and strategy in the California Farmworker Movement (2009) describes these issues well. 

 

    Frank Bardake, in Trampling Out the Vintage (2011)    spends a great deal of time on the purges of UFW activists, organizers, and volunteers  in 1977 -1981 period.  (See the review here on Talking Union). While the purges are  at times   presented as anticommunist decisions  by Chavez,  many of the dismissals were for lack of loyalty to Chavez and his decisions as the final arbiter of all issues in the union.  Some of the “purges”  were based upon left politics, and some of the dismissals were based upon other differences, including differing views of the best direction for the union.  There were dismissals and  staff leavings for a variety of  reasons.   Some of the most significant dismissals were not about left nor right, but were about issues of both policy differences and personal loyalties. 

 Building popular organizations while messy  builds people's power and democracy. In creating the UFW Chavez organized thousands into a union  and inspired millions.    Today  children in schools  study his life- although such study is prohibited in Arizona and severely limited in Texas as “revolutionary”, or anti American.    Many curriculum packages for schools  stress his emphasis on service to others.  The service side of Cesar’s work was certainly inspiring.

            The organizing side of the UFW legacy  changed the Southwest and  organized labor.   In a 1988 campaign and fast  Cesar focused attention on the many dangerous problems of pesticides used in the fields.  Artists have captured his image in hundreds of ways.  Schools, parks, and highways have been named for him.  Establishing Cesar Chavez holiday in California and other states has increased knowledge of his contributions.

            The movement led by Cesar  created a union and reduced the oppression of farm workers.  Many people, descendents of earlier generations of farm workers, learned to take a stand for justice.  We learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay,  unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable.  Rather, these are social creations which can be changed through organizing for economic and political power.  Dolores Huerta continues her important education and organizing work throughout the nation.

            Now, thousands of new immigrants harvest the crops and only a small percent are in unions.  The new generations of immigrants and migrant labor hardly know Chavez’ name nor his contributions.  Yet, in other regions  immigrants are being organized into unions such as Justice for Janitors, by activists who learned their organizing skills working with the UFW. And, Latino political leaders often made their first commitments on a UFW picket line.

            The generation that created the UFW is passing. A new generation of political activists, mostly within the Democratic Party, have emerged since the Chavez generations.  In the 2006 massive immigrant rights movements,  several new organizing practices emerged.   The organizing of these demonstrations was significantly assisted by persons trained within the UFW.  A new, significant Latino  union and political base has been created.

Chavez' legacy to popular struggles, to  Chicano/Mexicano self determination and to unions for the immigrant workers is significant.  The union taught us how to organize for power and for justice.  He is present in all of our work.  I plan to march on  March 31,2012    in memory of Cesar Chavez' contributions to building a more democratic society for working people. You can find our more about this remarkable leader at www.ufw.org  And, http://www.chavezfoundation.org/

And, http://www.farmworkermovement.org/  

 

Chávez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing.  They allied the union   with churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the growth  of Latino politics in the U.S.

 

The Current Situation – Strategic Racism 

 The movement led by Cesar Chavez , Dolores Huerta  and others  created a union and reduced the oppression of farm workers for a time.   Workers learned to not accept poor jobs, poor pay,  unsafe working conditions as natural or inevitable.  Then the corporations and the Right Wing forces adapted their strategies of oppression. 

            

The assault on the UFW and the current reconquest of power in the fields are examples of strategic racism, that is a system of racial oppression created and enforced because it benefits the over class- in this case corporate agriculture and farm owners.  The current renewed oppression is a product  of strategic racism including  a complex structure of institutions and individuals from police and sheriffs, to immigration authorities and anti immigrant activists, and elected officials and their support networks.  These groups foster and promote inter racial conflict, job competition, and anti union organizing,  as strategies  to keep wages and benefits low and to promote their continuing white supremacy in rural areas.

 

 

Duane Campbell is an Emeritus  Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education.  4th. edition. (Allyn and Bacon,2010) 

He is a co chair of the Immigrants Rights Working Group of DSA. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cesar Chavez Dolores Huerta, the UFW, and Strategic Racism.

Cesar Chavez  & Duane Campbell, 1972

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.  You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read.  You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.  Cesar Chávez.  November 9, 1984.

by Duane Campbell

On March 31, 2018,  Eleven  states  and numerous cities will hold holidays celebrating  labor and Latino Leader Cesar Chavez. Conferences, marches and celebrations will occur in numerous cities this weekend and particularly in rural farm areas  of the nation.  A recent film Cesar Chavez: An American Hero, starring Michael Peña  as Cesar Chavez and Rosario Dawson  as Dolores Huerta presents important parts of this story.

Meanwhile,  in March of 2015  hundreds of farmworkers have walked off their jobs in Baja California, Mexico, from the agricultural fields just a few miles from the U.S. border , fields developed to provide a harvest to the U.S. markets.  Farm labor strikes and violence against strikers remains a volatile issue.  Farm workers deserve dignity, respect, and fair wages.  Achieving these goals will require a union.

The  current UFW leadership, as well as former UFW leaders  and former DSA Honorary Chairs  Eliseo Medina and Dolores Huerta  are recognized leaders in the ongoing efforts to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the nation.

 On immigration, UFW President Arturo Rodriquez says, “We urge Republicans to abandon their political games that hurt millions of hard-working, taxpaying immigrants and their families, and help us finish the job by passing legislation such as the comprehensive reform bill that was approved by the Senate on a bipartisan vote in June 2013,” Rodriguez said.  Similar compromise proposals, negotiated by the UFW and the nation's major agricultural employer associations, have passed the U.S. Senate multiple times over the last decade. The same proposal has won majority support in the House of Representatives, even though House GOP leaders have refused to permit a vote on the measure. “The UFW will not rest until the President's deferred relief is enacted and a permanent immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, is signed into law.”  www.UFW.org

What Chavez, Huerta  did  accomplish along with Philip Vera Cruz ,  Marshall Ganz, LeRoy Chatfield, Gil Padilla, Eliseo Medina and  hundreds of others was to   organize in California the first successful farm worker union against overwhelming odds.

Dolores Huerta - A Film Review

Dolores – A Film Review

by Duane Campbell

There is an important new film out – Dolores, the story of former DSA Honorary Chair Dolores Huerta and her fight for justice. (All DSA honorary chairs were eliminated by the 2017 DSA convention.) She is the woman holding the Huelga sign on the DSA landing page. If you want to be inspired by her struggle for social justice, go see the film.

Although at times ignored by the Anglo media, and at other times castigated as a red and an “outside agitator,” Huerta tirelessly led the fight for racial and labor justice alongside Cesar Chavez, becoming one of the most important feminists of the twentieth century. If you don’t know her story, you should ask yourself why.  She continues the fight on many fronts to this day, at age 87. With unprecedented access to Dolores, the film reveals important parts of the struggle for dignity and justice for farmworkers, as well as the raw, personal stakes involved in committing one’s  life to social change. 

Dolores, produced by PBS and Independent Lens, serves labor history well by accurately describing the often overlooked role of Filipinos who initiated a strike in Delano in 1965, which the nascent NFWA (National Farm Workers Association) joined to create the great Grape Strike that changed labor history in the Southwest.

Video clips in the documentary illustrate the hard work required to build a union -- particularly a union of Mexican, Filipino, and other migrant workers.   Former DSA Honorary Chairs Eliseo Medina and  Gloria Steinem, along with activist Angela Davis, provide historical records, commentary, insights, testimonies, and evaluations of Huerta’s important life work.

After negotiating the first union contract in grapes, Huerta moved to New York in 1968 to build the Grape Boycott, developing great union support for the effort to build a union for farmworkers. There she encountered Gloria Steinem and the New York feminist movement of that era.  Over the years, Dolores became a well-known Latina/Chicana feminist as well as a union leader. Her participation contributed to a broadening of the mostly white feminist movement of that time to include the struggles of working-class women of color.

DOLORES - A Film Worth Seeing

A great film. A tribute to a great organizer !

SACRAMENTO SCREENING

DOLORES  |  1 hour 38 minutes

FRIDAY, SEP 22- THURSDAY, SEP 28

The Tower Theatre

Dolores Huerta at Net Roots Nation. today

Teaching the Legacy of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta

When we are really  honest with ourselves, we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us.  So it is how we use our lives that determines what kind of people we are. ..I am convinced that the truest act of courage..is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice.

Cesar Chavez (1927-1993)

by Duane Campbell

On March 31, 2017, Eleven states and numerous cities will hold holidays celebrating labor and Latino leader Cesar Chavez. 

Conferences, marches and celebrations will occur in numerous cities and particularly in rural areas of the nation. A recent film Cesar Chavez: An American Hero, starring Michael Peña as Cesar Chavez and Rosario Dawson as Dolores Huerta presents important parts of this union story.  With the work of the Chicano/Mexican American Digital History Project their story of union organizing will begin to be covered in all public school history texts in California this year, 

The current UFW leadership, as well as former UFW leaders and current DSA Honorary Chairs Eliseo Medina and Dolores Huerta are recognized leaders in the ongoing efforts to achieve comprehensive immigration reform in the nation.

UFW President Arturo Rodriquez says, “We urge Republicans to abandon their political games that hurt millions of hard-working, taxpaying immigrants and their families, and help us finish the job by passing legislation such as the comprehensive reform bill that was approved by the Senate on a bipartisan vote in June 2013,” Rodriguez said. “The UFW will not rest until the President's deferred relief is enacted and a permanent immigration reform, including a path to citizenship for all 11 million undocumented immigrants, is signed into law.” www.UFW.org

Dolores Huerta refutes claims by anti teacher union group

Samuel et al,
I am extremely disheartened and disappointed in the way you misrepresented the facts in order to get me to align with your organization and in particular the Vergara v. State of California lawsuit. I am now very much aware of your agenda and it is in direct conflict with my beliefs that every child deserves a quality teacher who understands our students’ issues while maintaining their job protections.
Having carefully reviewed the facts, I do NOT support the Vergara v. State of California lawsuit. That is why, effective immediately, I demand that you cease the use of my name and image on your website, studentsmatter.org, and all collateral digital platforms and materials.
Additionally, I will not sign on to the opinion editorial that you wrote and asked me to sign as author.
All my life I have worked to fight discrimination, uphold the rights of workers and improve social and economic conditions for our students and their families. I am not going to stop now by aligning myself with an organization that blatantly misrepresents the facts and pushes an agenda to strip workers of their rights for the financial gain of its backers.
Respectfully, Dolores Huerta 
See link below. 

Bernie Sanders : Seizing the Moment to Build

 By Kurt Stand

  “I did not say anything.  I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain.  We had heard them … and had read them … now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. … Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (1929, Shocken edition 1969 p. 185)

Considerations

As Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign continues to gather support, he comes under ever sharper scrutiny – not only by Republican and Democratic Party opponents, but by others who are themselves working to address the social inequities that abound in our society.  Some such criticism is itself destructive; the tendency to view every insufficient step forward as a form of betrayal is a charge that every alternative candidate from Eugene Debs to Jesse Jackson has faced.  Yet criticism and debate is a healthy and necessary part of the process of building a social justice movement that is rooted in the diverse and unequal experiences of our society.  The idea that unity can be created solely by seeking to overcome economic inequality — as a goal shared by all working people — while putting all other concerns on the backburner is false; all such attempts have come to grief on the realities of how people understand the world they inhabit.  As the history of organized labor has repeatedly shown, division is not caused by those who have challenged racism or sexism, those who have challenged discrimination in any form – rather division is caused by the reality of such discrimination and perpetuated by those who wish to close their eyes to truths others know to be true through experience.

The importance of incorporating that experience in the Sanders campaign was expressed in an article by Bill Fletcher Jr. “The suggestion that race can be resolved through an appeal to class and economic justice alone suggests that economic justice will equally resolve the racial differential,” Fletcher wrote.

 “It is not simply a matter of ‘a rising tide raises all boats’. The reality is that all boats may rise, but who finds one’s self in which portion of each boat? Or, to use the metaphor of the Titanic, who is in steerage and who is closer to the main deck?

“When movements like #BlackLivesMatter and many in the immigrant rights movement point to this matter of racial injustice, they are not suggesting attention for a ‘special interest.’ Rather, they are pointing out that there can actually be no economic justice in the absence of racial justice. There can be no unity without a commitment to the fight for equality and justice. These struggles are interlinked.  The sort of ‘political revolution’ that the Sanders Campaign proclaims has been a long time coming. Yet it will never arrive if there is not a full recognition that the class struggle overlaps that of racial justice. The ruling elites, for several centuries, have appreciated that race is the trip wire of U.S. politics and social movements. When will progressives arrive at the same conclusion?”

Teaching About Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta and the UFW

By Duane E. Campbell

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.  You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read.  You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.  Cesar Chávez.  November 9, 1984.

On March 31, 2015,  Eleven  states  and numerous cities will hold holidays celebrating  labor and Latino Leader Cesar Chavez. Conferences, marches and celebrations will occur in numerous cities this weekend.  See the  post below  on the Cesar Chavez Youth Leadership Conference at UCD on March 28.   A recent film Cesar Chavez: An American Hero, starring Michael Peña  as Cesar Chavez and Rosario Dawson  as Dolores Huerta presents important parts of this story and shows how Chavez was lied about and attacked by Ronald Reagan, the Nixon Administration, the Republican Party and numerous right wing forces.  This film works well in high school classrooms. Lesson plans for teaching about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta are here. https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/Home/lessons-cesar-chavez-and-dolores-huerta.Chavez lessons

The story of Cesar Chavez, and to a lesser degree Dolores Huerta is mentioned in history books for California students, however much of the additional Mexican American history is missing.  A group of scholars, teachers, allies, activists have joined  in our campaign to improve the history textbooks in California by including the histories of  Mexican American/ Chicano people.  More than 52% of California students are descendants of Latino and Mexican people. Unfortunately they  can't they be found in the textbooks.

You are invited to participate in this effort. We need each of  you and your friends to write a letter.  Here is a guide. Here is how to write a letter :https://sites.google.com/site/democracyandeducationorg/Home/latino-students-and-civic-engagement/project-plan---mexican-american-history

We can each do our part.

Meanwhile,  in March of 2015  hundreds of farmworkers have walked off their jobs in Baja California, Mexico, from the agricultural fields just a few miles from the U.S. border , fields developed to provide a harvest to the U.S. markets.  Farm labor strikes and violence against strikers remains a volatile issue.  Farm workers deserve dignity, respect, and fair wages.  Achieving these goals will require a union.

Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta recognized for leadership

Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta recognized for their life long contributions to organized labor and social justice.         

  Cesar Chavez Day is a state holiday in California – one of eight states to recognize the  date, and one of the few holidays  in the nation  dedicated  to a labor leader.   Sacramento and dozens of cities, counties and labor federations will celebrate the life of Cesar Chavez on March 31, 2013.

The  year  2012 was the 50^th. anniversary of the founding of the U.F.W.  by Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz and others.  The   celebrations focused  on  the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California. 

 The United Farm Workers  (UFW) was the  first successful union of farm workers in  U.S. history.  There had been more than ten prior attempts to build a farm workers union.   Each of the prior attempts  were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Chávez and Huerta  chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing  and allied itself  with the churches, students,  and organized labor.  The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the birth of Latino politics in the U.S.

            Today, under the leadership of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez, only about 25,000  farm workers enjoy benefits on the job. Wages and benefit in farm labor have again been reduced to the pre union levels.  The UFW has shown unions that immigrants can and must be organized.   

          

Dolores Huerta recognized for leadership

Dolores Huerta. California Hall of Fame – 2013.

Induction will be March 20, 2013

DSA  Honorary Chair  Dolores Huerta  will be inducted into the   California Hall of Fame (2013) for her labor and community leadership.  She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.

 Huerta has contributed to movements for union rights and  social justice  since the founding along with Cesar Chaves, Philip Vera Cruz   and others  of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union and continues  through her current work in supporting union democracy,   civic engagement and empowerment of women and youth in disadvantaged communities. The creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing in the Southwest and contributed significantly to the growth of Latino politics in the U.S.  In her frequent public engagements at college, universities and high schools  she presents  a Latina feminist perspective to civil rights and immigration issues.  Dolores continues active as  a supporter on union picket lines and union struggles throughout the state.

President Obama creates monument to Cesar Chavez

Dolores Huerta receives Presidential Medal of Freedom

Watch Dolores Huerta Calls Herself 'a Born-Again Feminist' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Dolores Huerta is an Honorary Chair of DSA. 

Dolores Huerta to receive Medal of Freedom

Farm worker movement hails Dolores Huerta’s 
‘Lifetime of self-sacrifice and deep dedication’

 
United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez and Cesar Chavez Foundation President Paul F. Chavez issued the following joint statement from the farm worker movement’s Keene, Calif. headquarters on the announcement that President Obama will present Dolores Huerta with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
 
Cesar Chavez once described Dolores Huerta as “completely fearless, both mentally and physically.”
 
Over six decades, Dolores Huerta put the nonviolent fight for civil and labor rights ahead of her personal interests, and sometimes before her personal safety. Like all the farm worker strikers and boycotters, she accepted a life of voluntary poverty for many decades. Her dynamic and inspiring leadership through the most difficult and turbulent times in the farm worker movement’s history established her not only as a leader of farm workers but as a role model for women and men across this nation and beyond.
 
We congratulate Dolores on receiving the nation’s highest civilian honor. No one is more deserving after a lifetime of self-sacrifice and deep dedication to defending the poorest and most abused people in our country.
Dolores Huerta is an Honorary Chair of DSA. 

Why California students ( and most teachers) do not know Chicano History

Workshop: Teaching Chicano/ Latino History in Grades 8-12.  Curriculum ideas for teaching about César Chávez, Dolores Huerta, Civil Rights Movement, and economic justice.  With Duane Campbell, Director of the Education and Democracy Institute., Sacramento.   Dolores Delgado Campbell.  Professor. American River College. 

Presented  as a part of the  annual conference of The Bilingual Multicultural Education Department (BMED)  Sat . Nov. 5, 2011.  10;35  Am. In the University Union, at  Sacramento State.

 California has the largest population of any state, with more than 6,252,000 students  in school in 2008.   California students make up more than 11 percent of the United States total. California, along with some 16 other states, adopts textbooks for the entire state instead of district by district purchasing.  This makes the California adoption the largest single textbook sale in the nation.

California has failed to revise its k-12 history curriculum since 1987.  Since 2008, the failure was caused by the way the legislature and the governor responded to  the state’s budget crisis.

Dolores Huerta to celebrate birthday with activism

 By  Duane E. Campbell

Dolores Huerta will  celebrate her 80^th. birthday with activism.

         Dolores, along with Cesar Chavez, Philip Vera Cruz and others created the United Farm Workers union, the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history.

            Each of the prior attempts to organize farm worker unions were destroyed by racism and corporate power. Huerta and Chavez chose to build a union that incorporated the strategies of social movements and community organizing  and allied itself  with the churches, students,  and organized labor. 

Dolores was long the Vice President of the UFW and the chief negotiator of contracts as well as the primary advocate for farm worker rights in the legislature. The successful creation of the UFW changed the nature of labor organizing  in the Southwest  and contributed significantly to the growth  of Latino politics in the U.S. Dolores was recruited into DSOC ( predecessor of DSA) by Michael Harrington.

             Today Mexican, Mexican American and Puerto Rican union leadership is common  in our major cities and in several  industries. Hundreds of activists in labor, community organizing and politics  owe their skills to UFW training and experience.    Training this cadre of organizers remains a major legacy of the UFW. 

      Dolores Huerta continues her important education and organizing work  today.   She is the President of the Dolores Huerta foundation a 501(c)(3) “non-profit organization whose mission is to build active communities working for fair and equal access to health care, housing, education, jobs, civic participation and economic resources for disadvantaged communities with an emphasis on women and youth.” The foundation was started  with funds received after she was assaulted and severely injured  by police during an anti war demonstration in San Francisco.

Dolores has long been known for her political activism.  She serves on the board of People for the American Way and the Feminist Majority Foundation as well as active within the Democratic Party.   She speaks frequently at colleges, universities, and high schools  providing inspirational speaker from a Latina  activist, feminist perspective to all, particularly to young women in school and community groups.  She is a recognized leader in civil rights and immigration issues.  Shown here during a speaking engagement at Cal. State U. Sacramento.  Dolores openly acknowledges her socialism in her speeches. 

Being a socialist has some down sides.  In March of this year  the Texas Board of Education held hearings and adopted over protest new History /Social Studies guidelines moving   the textbook selection process of Texas  significantly to the right.  According to testimony by board members,  Dolores Huerta was a target of exclusion  in the Texas version of history because she is a known socialist- a member of Democratic Socialists of America.

Duane Campbell is a Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education at Calif. State University-Sacramento (emeritus)  and the author of Choosing Democracy; a practical guide to multicultural education.  4^th. edition. (Allyn and Bacon, 2010.)