Macmillan/McGraw-Hill: California Vistas 2007

Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta was born on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico. She was three when she moved to Stockton. There, she met farm worker families. She saw that families had a hard time living on the small amount of money the workers earned.

Grapes Huerta became a teacher to help farm workers’ children, but she soon left her job. She said that she couldn’t stand seeing “kids come to class hungry and needing shoes." She thought she could do more by organizing farm workers.

Huerta started an organization to help farm workers. She urged lawmakers to pass laws that would treat farm workers more fairly. In 1962, she joined César Chávez to start the National Farm Workers Association, a labor union. The union won higher wages and better working conditions for California’s grape workers.

Find out more about California workers’ struggles before Dolores Huerta co-founded a labor union. Asian American workers have fought for better wages for many years.

Scroll down to “Conditions of Farm Workers & Their Work." Read on to learn more about the history of the farm workers’ labor union.

Click on “Dolores Huerta" to hear Huerta speak. She talks about César Chávez’s fasting, or refusing food, in 1968 as part of a strike.

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