Dolores Huerta, the pioneering US labour leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, has died at the age of 96, her family said on Wednesday, October 28. She died at home in Bakersfield, California, according to reports.
In a statement shared by the Dolores Huerta Foundation, her family said: “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today at the age of 96.”
They asked for privacy while they mourned and said plans would follow to honour and celebrate her life. No cause of death was given.
Dolores Huerta’s labour legacy
Huerta helped establish the National Farm Workers Association with César Chávez in 1962. The organisation later became the United Farm Workers, one of the most influential labour unions in the United States.
She was a leading figure in the Delano grape strike, which began in 1965 after Filipino farmworkers walked out over low pay and poor conditions. Huerta helped organise the campaign and negotiate agreements that secured improved wages, health benefits, pensions and workplace protections.
Her activism extended far beyond agricultural labour. She campaigned for women’s rights, immigration reform, racial equality, LGBTQ+ rights and greater political representation for Latino communities.
Huerta also founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation in 2003 to support grassroots organising and civic engagement in California’s Central Valley. She continued speaking and attending protests well into her 90s.
Her rallying cry, “Sí, se puede” – translated as “Yes, we can” – became a slogan for social movements and was later adopted in English by Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.
Obama awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, describing her as a tenacious leader. The award is the highest civilian honour in the United States.
Born in Dawson, New Mexico, in 1930, Huerta was raised in Stockton, California. She began organising in her local community after working as a teacher and seeing the poverty faced by the children of farmworkers.
“She has left behind a legacy of individuals who can now carry out her work,” Andres Quintero, a political science professor at Evergreen Valley College in San Jose, said in a tribute carried by local media.
Huerta’s death follows her disclosure earlier this year that Chávez had sexually abused her and impregnated her twice. Chávez, who died in 1993, had been her fellow founder of the farmworker movement.
