Feminist to Know: Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta is a feminist, labor activist, and civil rights leader. She is most known for organizing alongside César Chávez (credited with the “Chicano movement”) to create what is now known as the United Farm Workers of America union in 1962. Huerta’s activism looked at the intersection of class, immigration status, and gender.

Huerta was essential in strategizing the 1965 grape workers strike, organizing the workers themselves and launching a hugely successful public campaign to encourage American consumers to boycott grapes while the workers remained on strike. Yet, even at the height of her leadership in the unionization movement, Huerta’s impressive organizing accomplishments were shadowed by misogyny she faced from all sides of the fight -- including her own movement.

The second-wave feminist movement (which had white supremacist biases) and the Chicano movement (which centered Chicano men) both sidelined Huerta, failing to properly credit her leadership.