Emily Dowdle is a senior American Studies and American literature double major. She has been the Student Coordinator of the Lieben Center for since the Fall of 2013
There’s a
poster in my bedroom that hands above one of my bookcases, on it is an
illustration of Dolores Huerta and underneath this illustration a banner
declares “¡Si Se Puede!” For those of you who
didn’t take introductory Spanish in high school nor saw the seminal Disney
Channel Original Movie,Gotta Kick it Up!,
“Si Se Puede” means “Yes, it is possible” or “Yes, we can.”
If you’re
not familiar with Dolores Huerta, perhaps this doesn’t mean anything to you –
so I’ll provide some background. Dolores Huerta was – and continues to be – a
labor leader and a civil rights activist. Born in 1930 and raised in the
California farm worker community of Stockton, California, Huerta’s mother owned
a hotel where she welcomed low-wage workers with affordable (or free
rooms)
- her mother’s independence and
compassion was one of the primary reasons Huerta was inspired to become and
active feminist. After earning her teaching degree, Huerta began teaching at an
elementary school where she would see her students in class with empty stomachs
and bare feet. Unable to bear seeing her students in such a condition, Dolores
Huerta began what would be a lifelong crusade for economic and social
justice.
Huerta served in leadership
with the Stockton Community Service Organization (CSO) during this founded the
Agricultural Workers Association and continually pressed for political agency
for the marginalized. It was through the CSO that she would meet C
ésar Chávez
whom she would launch the National Farm Workers Association with in 1962.
Through her work in
the NFWA and later the UFW she worked empower marginalized farm workers and the
Latino and Chicano communities and strive to achieve economic justice for all.
Using her legislative, negotiating, and lobbying skills Huerta was hugely
influential in the political atmosphere of the organization and was
instrumental in the passing of the Agricultural Relations Act of 1975. Even
further, Dolores Huerta wasn’t just an inspiration and empowerment symbol to
farm workers but to women everywhere.
Lori Flores writes that Huerta:
was arrested four times and through her demonstrations of
protest as a farmworker, wife, and mother, she brought women who might have
self-identified as wives, mothers or daughters more than activists into the
farmworker movement, politicizing them in a more subtle fashion. Women became
the lifeblood of the union as it built its profile (source).
Dolores Huerta
recognized that in order for social justice work to be truly justice work, it
had to be inclusive – it was not just men marching, protesting, and boycotting
but women as well.
I bring this all up because while
it’s rare to even hear about C
ésar Chávez in our classes – it’s even rarer to
hear about Dolores Huerta. It is C
ésar Chávez, who gets a feature film
while Dolores Huerta is relegated to a supporting role. Women are principal
players in every social justice movement but seem to be the most easily forgotten.
And yet, women keep fighting. Every day I wake up and look at this poster above
my bookcase and see Dolores Huerta’s face. Every day I am reminded of her work
and her struggle as Chicana, a woman, and an activist. I firmly believe that
Dolores Huerta should be included in every history book and every classroom,
but I also know that when working for social justice it isn’t for the fame or
the future biopics to be made, but because it is what’s right. And most every morning, I’ll say it to
myself: Si Se Puede. Yes, it is
possible.