Pink Collar Workers: Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta (1930-present) is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century and a leader of the Chicano civil rights movement. She helped found the organization now known as United Farm Workers and helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965. She is credited for coming up with the rallying cry “Sí, se puede,” which means “yes, we can” in Spanish.

For Further Reading: 

• Dolores Huerta, renowned American labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the United Farm Workers union alongside Cesar Chavez.
• Dolores Huerta: The Civil Rights Icon Who Showed Farmworkers 'Sí Se Puede' : The Salt : NPR
• Dolores Huerta’s Story: Community Organizing, the Chicano Movement and Challenging Gender Norms | Reckoning With Our Racial Past 
• UFW Chronology 

This month, we’re bringing back some of our favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed! We’ll be talking about Pink Collar Workers: women who revolutionized jobs that have traditionally been called "women's work." Through their lives, they created a more just and humane world for us today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello for Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This August, we're bringing back some of our
favorite Womanica episodes you might have missed. All month, we'll
be talking about pink collar workers. These women revolutionized jobs
that have traditionally been called women's work. Through their lives,
they created a more just and humane world for us today.

(00:22):
With that, here's one of our favorite episodes. Hello form
Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this is Womanica.
This month, we're talking about word weavers, people who coined terms,
popularized words, and even created entirely new languages. These activists, writers, artists,

(00:42):
and scholars used language to shape ideas and give voice
to experiences that once had no name. In the nineteen sixties,
farm workers in California erupted in a grassroots movement to
fight for better working conditions. With multi year boycotts and
marches over hundreds of miles long, the United farm Workers
captivated the world with their protest. You might be familiar

(01:04):
with its slogan ci sipuere, meaning yes we can. But
do you know the woman who coined it? Let's meet
Dolores Guerta. Delores was born on April tenth, nineteen thirty
in Dawson, New Mexico, a small town nestled in the
mountains in the north of the state. While today it's
considered a ghost town, Dawson was once a booming mining

(01:25):
city that thousands of people, including Dolores, called home. Her father, Juan,
was a farm worker and miner by trade, as well
as a union activist who went on to win a
seat in the New Mexico Legislature. But it's her mother, Alicia,
who Delores cites as a primary source of inspiration. When
Dolores was three years old, her parents divorced. She moved

(01:47):
with her mother and two brothers to Stockton, California, where
she'd spend the bulk of her childhood and early adult life.
In Stockton, Alicia was known as a compassionate businesswoman, active
in community affairs and civic organizations. She owned a restaurant
and hotel, welcoming in farm workers and lower wage workers
to offer them affordable lodging and meals. Dolores's community in

(02:08):
Stockton was brimming with working class families of Mexican, Filipino, African, American, Japanese,
and Chinese descent, growing up, she watched as her peers
and neighbors faced consistent racial profiling, police brutality, labor exploitation,
and discrimination. Dolores faced that bias firsthand. One time, a
school teacher accused her of cheating because her essays were

(02:29):
too well written. But Dolores never let society's perceptions dim
her potential. After graduating high school, she attended college and
earned a provisional teaching credential. She put it to use
and gave back to the communities she came up in.
Dolores taught the children of farm workers, but day in
and day out, she couldn't shake the feeling that her
students deserved more. Her students came to school hungry, sometimes

(02:52):
without shoes on their feet. The school principal referred to
farm worker families as degenerates. Delores knew farm workers. She
knew that they were incredibly hard working, and yet did
not receive the compensation or respect they deserved. Catalyzed by
her anger, Dolores left teaching to work for the Stockton
Community Service Organization, which was dedicated to improving economic conditions

(03:14):
for the Latino community. Dolores's time at the CSO marked
the start of her activist career and introduced her to
an important partner in her fight for farm workers' rights activists,
Cesar Chavez. Cessar was the CSO's executive director. He and
Dolores quickly realized that they shared a common vision. They
wanted to build a farm labor justice movement, but the

(03:35):
CSO was not aligned with their mission, so they left
the organization and launched the National farm Workers Association in
the spring of nineteen sixty two. Under this new organization,
Dolores and Cesar hit the ground running, conducting outreach with
local farm workers and educating them on the ins and
outs of civil rights, striking, and unionization. Some of these
farm workers toiled for wages as low as seventy cents

(03:57):
an hour, working all day through brutal heat, without rest
or access to toilets or cold drinking water. In nineteen
sixty five, Filipino American grape workers in Delano, California, decided
to strike for higher wages. They asked the National farm
Workers to join their strike. The strength of the strike
grew in numbers, and with twelve hundred member families on board,

(04:19):
the five year Delano Grape strike began. Worldwide, consumers began
boycott in California table grapes and their growers. At its peak,
seventeen million Americans participated in the strike. Dolores's leadership in

(04:42):
this boycott was undermined, and even some of her fellow
organizers saw her a second to Ceesar. But when Cesar
and other men in the movement decided to march three
hundred miles from Delano to the Sacramento State Capitol to
make a statement, it was Dolores and other women with
their children who maintained the picket lines. Violence and secul
were a regular reality at demonstrations, As she later recollected,

(05:04):
rowers tried to run her over with their cars, pointed
rifles at her, and sprayed the picket line with sulfur.
She was arrested more than twenty five times and beaten
by the police, resulting in life threatening injuries. In spite
of it all, Dolores kept her eyes on the prize
and maintained her commitment to nonviolent action. By nineteen seventy,
when the striking boycott ended, the Great Workers signed their

(05:25):
first union contract negotiated by Dolores, and secured better pay, benefits,
and protections. The work of the UfW in California peaked
the interest of other farm workers across the country. Some
wondered if such a powerhouse movement could be replicated, especially
in less populated states. Dolores was told there was just
no way. It simply could not be done. In Spanish,

(05:49):
that translates to no sipuere or no you can't, But
for Dolores, no was not in her vocabulary. She countered
the sentiment saying see sipuere or yes we can, and
the slogan caught on fast. C sipuida became the UFW's
trademark and continues to be widely used in the immigrant
rights movement. Even inspired the campaign slogan of former President

(06:19):
Barack Obama with three words that will ring from coast
to coast from sea, designing C yes we keV, who
awarded Dolores with the Medal of Freedom in twenty twelve.
Dolores's profound contributions to the American labor movement secured historic
winds for domestic farm workers and immigrants, leaving lasting provisions

(06:40):
that are still in effect today, like the nineteen seventy
five California Agricultural Labor Relations Act and the nineteen eighty
six Immigration Reform and Control Act. In two thousand and three,
she established the Dolores Whareta Foundation, which supports communities and
grassroots social justice organizing. At the age of ninety five,
Dolores is still active in the labor, women's rights, and

(07:01):
racial equality movements, championing the stance that we can all
become activists and that's what it will take to secure
a better future. Thanks for listening to this best of

(07:22):
episode of Wimanica. For more information, find us on Facebook
and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special thanks to Liz Kaplan,
my favorite sister and co creator, Join us tomorrow for
another one of our favorite episodes, honoring pink collar workers.
Talk to you then,