An hour-long panel discussion on hardship and resiliency featuring labor leader Dolores Huerta, El Teatro Campesino founder Luis Valdez and author Francisco Jiménez drew over 300 people, including whole families, to the Wheeler Community Center in Gilroy on Nov. 12. Assemblymember Robert Rivas was also in attendance.
Huerta, 92, is the subject of a traveling exhibit sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, “Revolution in the Fields,” currently on display next door at the Gilroy Public Library. It documents Huerta’s involvement in the Farmworker movement and her co-founding the National Farmworkers Association with Cesar Chavez, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW), along with the work she has done through the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
“I think it is amazing that here in Gilroy, they have been able to get such a concentration of people,” Valdez told BenitoLink. “They have been planning the exhibit for a full year, which alone is very impressive. And I think that the enthusiasm of the audience speaks for itself.”
NBC News reporter Damian Trujillo served as moderator for the discussion and offered insight into his own experience growing up with farmworker parents.
“Our teacher would ask us what we did on our summer vacation,” he said. “One person would say they went camping in Yosemite. Another would say they went to Great America. When they would get to me, I would lie, because I was ashamed and embarrassed to tell my class that I spent it as a farmworker, with mud on my hands and dust on my face.”
Jiménez said Huerta and Valdez inspired him while attending Santa Clara University. He joined the farmworker march in 1966.
“That was the first time I saw any of the actos (plays) that Luis performed,” he said. “And when we got to Sacramento, I heard the words of Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta talking about social justice and giving one’s self for others. I decided I would spend my life trying to help the plight of farmworkers. I had no idea how to do that, but I started by doing my doctoral dissertation on El Teatro Campesino.”
Huerta recalled Chavez saying there was nothing more important at the beginning of the day than to get out and organize and said it could be as easy as participating in elections.
“We all know people who didn’t vote,” she said. “What’s up with that? It is embarrassing. We [Latinos] are the majority in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. And we are the majority in the Central Valley and 40% of the vote in California. People need to know that we have the power and that they can use that power.”
Conveying his hope that future generations would continue the progress of social justice, Valdez said, “It is really important to get the word out that things are moving ahead. Young people need to know they are beautiful, that they are geniuses, and that there is not just one Dolores Huerta out there. There are one, two, three, four, five million Dolores Huertas out there because this Dolores Huerta has inspired you.”
The panel discussed the progress made since the 1966 march from the fields of Delano to Sacramento in support of striking farmworkers. While acknowledging that some progress has been made, they said housing for workers is still inadequate and as Huera pointed out, “farmworkers can’t afford to buy the food they are picking.” Educational opportunities are also limited for the children of workers, characterized by Huerta as students not dropping out from their studies as much as they are pushed out by circumstances. The constant theme was that, as the Latino community increases in size, it gains in the potential for political power through getting out the vote.
At the end of the discussion, Huerta was led outside to a decorated arch and a long line of admirers formed with cell phones ready, waiting for their turn to get their photograph taken with this living legend. She happily ignored her handlers, who tried to cut short the time people had to interact with her as they warned that she needed to leave by 4 p.m. to catch a train.
Instead, Huerta stayed long enough to spend a moment with almost everyone in line, about 20 minutes longer than expected. Before she left, BenitoLink asked her what changes she would hope would have happened 50 years from now, and her goals were characteristically ambitious: “I would like to see that there is more equality, better education, health care for everybody, and that we saved the planet.”
The Smithsonian Exhibit: Revolution in the Fields: Dolores Huerta runs through Jan. 23 at the Gilroy Public Library, 350 West 6th St., Gilroy. Admission is free.
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