DOLORES HUERTA

Dolores Huerta is a labor and women’s rights activist.

Born in 1930 in New Mexico, Dolores was the daughter of a coal mining father and jill-of-all-trades mother. She witnessed the life of a worker firsthand through her family, and after becoming a teacher in rural California, realized that she “could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children.” In addition to her instrumental contributions to the formation of the National Farm Workers Association alongside Cesar Chavez and Gilbert Padilla in 1966, Huerta worked to involve Latina women in politics by working with the Feminist Majority Foundation. Her labor for workers’ and women’s rights led her to create the Dolores Huerta Foundation in 2002.

Today, at 94, Huerta continues her tireless efforts to fight for LGBTQ+ rights and immigration reform.

Illustration by Elliot Burr