Dolores Huerta: The Vision and Voice of Her Life’s Work

A: When I went to Mexico, they always talked about gays. These were people that had to be protected, not abused. And in the early farm worker movement we had a young group of gay men who worked in the packing shed. They were really, really strong activists. So growing up it never occurred to me that you should discriminate against people who are gay and lesbian. I personally always felt that any kind of discrimination is wrong. I've always supported gay rights and went to all the gay rights marches that they had.

Q: Tell us about the Dolores C. Huerta Foundation. Does it focus primarily on needs that are not being addressed?

A: We received a gift of $100,000 from the Puffin Foundation. We put that money "something I'd wanted to do for a long time" into a foundation to start training people on how to do community organizing. So that's what we're doing.

Q: Are you focusing a lot on voting?

A: Registering people to vote and voting is part of it [the foundation's work]. Let me explain. You train organizers and they go into the community where there's need "we don't want to go where there's already a lot of organization, if someone else is doing it right. We do a series of meetings in people's homes. Then you set up an organization from all the people you've met with and explain why they need to get together and how they can solve their problems. Then you set up your separate committees: health, education, criminal justice, and, of course, voter registration. You get these people into those committees and put them to work, giving them the resources and information they need. We get them to do it because that way you create new leadership. Because there are people out there who want to do stuff but they don't have the knowledge. So what you're doing is training them how to be organizers, and depending on their skills and how receptive the community is, it should take two to three months to set up a community. Then you immediately start doing voter registration. You're not only registering people, you're explaining to them why it's important to get involved in the political process, how to get involved in the political process. So when election time comes around you have enough committees out there so you can get the vote out. Then you're looking at an 80 or 90 percent turnout. You're not looking at a 50 percent like you are now.

Q: You were once a Republican.

A: Well, I'm from New Mexico. In New Mexico, because of the Civil War and [President Abraham] Lincoln being a Republican, people there are registered Republican. In fact, you still have in Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico a lot of people who are Republicans and don't know why. It's because it goes back in history. So when I first registered when I was 21 years old "that was part of being 21 years old, you went down and registered" I registered as a Republican. But once I started getting a little savvy about politics I changed my registration to a Democrat. My grandfather, although he was a registered Republican, always voted for [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt. He made it clear to everybody that he voted for Roosevelt. My grandparents were also born in New Mexico.

Q: Are there different political views in the family?

A: No. They all have a very strong political conscience. It's wonderful. I like to tell this story: Once I was in jail, one of the times I was arrested. This group of college kids came to meet outside the jail. One of them handed me a note and it was from my 15-year-old daughter, Angela. The note said, "Mom, sorry I can't meet you when you come out of jail, but I'm knocking on doors to register people to vote." That was a big gift for me.Q: Why were you in jail?

A: Most of it was because you'd go talk to workers and they'd arrest you for trespassing. Sometimes we wouldn't even get inside the field to talk to them. They were already arresting us before we even got in there. That was one of my first arrests.

Q:I hear you and Casar would argue. Was it about style or issues?

A: I think over the years, as I thought about our big fights, it was mostly a question of tactics. It was never about philosophy, because with our philosophy we were always very much in tune, thinking the same way about direction, vision. It was always about tactics. But women think differently than men. When we had the grape boycott, Casar wanted to boycott potatoes, because this one big grower grew both grapes and potatoes. We had a long-distance fight, because I was in New York starting to do the grape boycott and Casar was back in California. He said, "We've got to boycott potatoes." But I said that when people think of potatoes they don't think of California, they think of Idaho, right? And so we had this big fight. I said, Casar, I think this is an important enough issue that I "should fly back to California so we can discuss this in person."But Casar didn't like to spend money. He didn't want to pay for the plane ticket. So he gave in. I think it's just a difference in the way you look at stuff. The whole macho thing comes in there and you want to be the tough guy or whatever. I mean, it's just the way men think. Not all men, but I always say men want to see who gets the blame and who gets the credit. Women say, "Let's get the job done. Who cares?"[Men] can't help it; they've been doing it since they were little kids playing marbles.

Q:Did you ever feel resentful of Casar being considered almost a saint?

A: Not really, because anybody who knew Casar knew that we were just very blessed to know someone like him and to be able to work with someone like him. When he did his first fast, he went five days without eating. "Oh, Casar, bless his fasting," I thought. I told him, "I feel so bad when I fight with you."He said, "Don't ever stop. Don't ever stop fighting with me. You're the one that really helps me think." You know, he was just a person, not a saint. He was a great person, but he was a human being, and he would make mistakes like other people.

Casar was always the one who was important. For Casar, that was also painful. When he first started organizing, he said one of us would have to be out there in front. He was uncomfortable with that role, you know. One time we were going into a meeting, with all the workers yelling, "Viva Chaivez!"And he had this really pained look on his face. I said, "What's the matter Casar?" He said, "I remember some of these people that wouldn't even give me a meeting when we started." He was a very practical person in terms of his own image. He wouldn't let us put his pictures on posters for a long time. When he was in jail one time we made this button and he got really mad at us because "as he was being dragged off to jail "he said, "Boycott the hell out of them!" So we put that on the button. Ooh! He was so mad. We had to change it to "Non-Violence Is Our Strength." While he was in jail, a whole month, his cousin started running him for governor. We had bumper stickers all over the state. He was very upset. He was not into the glory thing. It's kind of interesting now because there are all these streets and everything named after him. That was not Casar; he wanted people to get the work done, to work hard. He's buried right near the entrance to headquarters. I said he wanted to make sure people were coming early and leaving late. He worked very hard and set the example for everybody.

Q: If 50-plus Hispanics want to become activists, where do they start?

A: You have to start people at their level. I like to tell this little story about my daughter, Juanita. When she was three years old we were doing a training session for organizers. She was walking in and out with her dolls. When we got back to our boycott house in New York City, she was on the line with her play telephone. I said, "What are you doing?" She said, "I'm calling the people."I said, "Are you calling them to picket?" [She said,] "They're not ready to picket; they're just going to leaflet."A lot of the time activists want people to go out and get arrested right away or to go on the picket line. Maybe they're not ready to do that yet. You have to have activism at different levels, at the level people feel comfortable at, then evolve them into stronger positions.

I really realized this when I was beaten up by the police [in 1988 while peacefully protesting then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush's views on pesticide use] and I was disabled for a few months. It's not only the physical disability, but also the emotional disability. I found that I was so emotional that during our board meetings I told them, "I'm not going to be able to fight with you like I usually do." I'd just start crying right away. It took a long time to get my emotional stability back after that beating. It just did something to me. I couldn't be in crowds, I'd just panic. The physical disability healed in months, but my emotions took about a year and a half. That made me understand a lot about people, when you ask them to come and they're not ready.

Q:And then you nearly bled to death from medical complications in 2000.

A: That's right. That was even worse because I couldn't even walk. I had to learn how to walk, had to learn how to talk. I had to be fed intravenously for months because I couldn't eat.

Q: What lesson did you learn from that?

A: The lesson I learned was about dependency, because I had to be so dependent on my children. I'm very fortunate my son is a doctor and my daughter's a nurse. If not, my hospital stay would've been a lot longer.And then when your children are telling you what to do. It meant something that I don't think young people understand. I've said this to some of my friends, that when I was disabled, as a parent you're not used to your children telling you what to do. It's very hard. It's very painful for a parent and people need to understand that. You know, I think a lot of people say, "I'm not going to take this, I'll just die. It's easier for me to die than have my kids order me around."

Even last night, we wanted to go see this reggae band and my daughter, Lori, who's the second oldest, but you'd think she's the mother, says, "Mother, you've got to get to bed. You've got to get up early tomorrow. I don't think you should go out." I said, Okay," and everybody else went out dancing except me.

Q:That must have been frustrating. I hear you love music and dancing. What's your favorite music?

A:I love it all. I love classical. I love opera. I love Spanish, all kinds boleros, corridos, salsa. I love to dance salsa. But of all those, jazz is really my absolute favorite.

Q:So how do we make sure people age with dignity?

A:That's so important. All cultures revere older people except for us. I don't know what it is. I guess it's the Anglo culture. But in all the Asian cultures, and in the Latino cultures, the elders are respected. The creation of more home health care workers I think is really important because they want to stay in their own homes; they don't want to go into a nursing home. They want to take care of their gardens and see their grandchildren.

Q: What do you see as your legacy?

A: I hope my legacy will be that I was an organizer; that I have passed on the miracles that can be accomplished when people come together, the things they can change. And I look at when we passed the pension bill, the voting in Spanish, the getting driver's licenses in Spanish all these bills we've passed. The fact that you can build and you can make nonviolent change through organization; that's what I would want my legacy to be. And hopefully we'll see the day when we don't have discrimination against women, against minorities, against workers. And working for a just world. Showing people how to accomplish this, what they can do to make a difference.