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SMNTY Classics: Dolores Huerta's Grassroots Legacy · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samantha were welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. So, Samantha,
0:19
Speaker 1: I know, I'm pretty sure we've talked about this before.
0:22
Speaker 1: I know we've talked about how we grew up a
0:24
Speaker 1: small town, but I feel like it comes up all
0:28
Speaker 1: the time. But were you ever interested in any aspect
0:34
Speaker 1: of farming? Do you ever get involved in anything like that?
0:37
Speaker 1: Because I know my school had some organizations where you
0:40
Speaker 1: could go and hang out at a farm or like
0:45
Speaker 1: go visit at orchard in your case perhaps for sectly,
0:49
Speaker 1: but anything like that. Yeah, So we did have the
0:53
Speaker 1: f f A, and it was a huge part of
0:55
Speaker 1: our school, which is the Future Farmers of America. That
1:00
Speaker 1: was almost as popular as being a football player. And
1:02
Speaker 1: if you were both, Oh my god, you know the school. God,
1:07
Speaker 1: I was a part of the four h which kind
1:10
Speaker 1: of can incorporate gardening and such. I just yeah, I
1:15
Speaker 1: am not great with plants and veggies or anything that
1:18
Speaker 1: needs to be grown from dirt apparently or seeds. I mean,
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm not the worst, but definitely not the best. I
1:26
Speaker 1: would not trust me with too much of complicated plants
1:29
Speaker 1: or veggies. So no, alright, alright, Yes, similar we had
1:40
Speaker 1: I was involved before h I will admit, and less
1:44
Speaker 1: to do with like real interest on my part and
1:46
Speaker 1: more than I had a crush on a guy in it.
1:48
Speaker 1: It's like a time to spend time together and we did.
1:52
Speaker 1: We milked that cow together. Well, okay, that's right, that's right.
1:58
Speaker 1: Sometimes I friends who worked on farms, and sometimes I
2:02
Speaker 1: would help out with their chores, and I think I
2:05
Speaker 1: liked it and sort of that this is fun for
2:08
Speaker 1: one day kind of thing. Yeah, well, I did enjoy it,
2:11
Speaker 1: and I really liked Like I had a friend who
2:14
Speaker 1: we would go pick stuff and like get milk and eggs,
2:18
Speaker 1: all that stuff from their farm and we would eat it.
2:21
Speaker 1: And it's something about that just felt so cool to
2:23
Speaker 1: me and so like lovely. I too, don't have a
2:26
Speaker 1: lot of luck growing things, but it's one of the
2:29
Speaker 1: things that I wish I did, and I always tell
2:33
Speaker 1: myself if I ever did get a plot of land,
2:35
Speaker 1: I would try to. I would love to have a
2:37
Speaker 1: garden with food that I could eat maybe one day. Yeah.
2:41
Speaker 1: I mean, my partner's all about it, and he's like,
2:44
Speaker 1: we need to learn because as a food shortage coming,
2:48
Speaker 1: you might be right, Yeah, you might eat right. I
2:53
Speaker 1: was recently. I recently thought about that, what would I
2:55
Speaker 1: do if I can there were no grocery stores. I
2:57
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, I would be good. Well, we recently
3:02
Speaker 1: did an episode in Monday Many on unions and we
3:05
Speaker 1: mentioned Dolaura's Fritta and her work in unionizing farm workers.
3:11
Speaker 1: So we want to bring back this classic all about
3:15
Speaker 1: her and all about the work that she did. So
3:17
Speaker 1: please enjoy. Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you from
3:23
Speaker 1: House top works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
3:31
Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And earlier this week we
3:34
Speaker 1: talked about women and farming and agriculture, and today we
3:39
Speaker 1: want to spotlight a woman who has been highly influential
3:42
Speaker 1: when it comes to female farm workers and also women
3:47
Speaker 1: in union organizing more generally, and that is the incredible
3:52
Speaker 1: trailblazing Dolores Querta. Yeah, Delora, her accomplishments are outstanding, they
3:59
Speaker 1: are amazing. They're enough to blow you away. But it
4:02
Speaker 1: almost feels like she is more known for how unknown
4:07
Speaker 1: she is compared to her partner in activism, says are Chavez. Yeah. So,
4:14
Speaker 1: Dolor Suerta is a labor activist and was a leading
4:17
Speaker 1: figure of the Chicano civil rights movement in the nineteen
4:21
Speaker 1: sixties and seventies, and she, along with stays Our Javes,
4:25
Speaker 1: formed the United farm Workers And some people might be
4:30
Speaker 1: familiar with the nationwide grape boycott that they spearheaded in
4:37
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties. That will talk about more. And she
4:40
Speaker 1: was influential in devising the entire strike and also being
4:45
Speaker 1: a spokesperson for these migrant farm workers, a lot of
4:50
Speaker 1: them of Mexican descent, who had no one else to
4:54
Speaker 1: speak on their behalf. Really, before and before we get
4:59
Speaker 1: into who is in her biography, I just want to
5:03
Speaker 1: offer this quote from a woman farm worker um that
5:06
Speaker 1: we found in a Dolores suerta reader who said it
5:11
Speaker 1: was Dolores who showed us not to be afraid to
5:14
Speaker 1: fight for a better life for ourselves and our children.
5:17
Speaker 1: And she did it at a time when women didn't
5:20
Speaker 1: have a voice. So who is this incredible woman. Well,
5:24
Speaker 1: this incredible woman was born Dolores Clara Fernandez on April tenth,
5:28
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico,
5:33
Speaker 1: and her parents were pretty impressive people themselves. Her dad,
5:37
Speaker 1: Wan Fernandez, was a minor and migrant farmer who eventually
5:41
Speaker 1: became not only a union activist, but who also served
5:44
Speaker 1: in the New Mexico State legislature. Her mom, Alicia, divorced
5:49
Speaker 1: one early on when Dolores was pretty young, and she
5:52
Speaker 1: ended up moving Dolores and her two brothers to Stockton, California,
5:57
Speaker 1: made famous by the book Grapes of Wrath, where there
6:00
Speaker 1: was a large multicultural agricultural community with lots of working
6:05
Speaker 1: class and even poorer families. Yeah, this community was largely
6:09
Speaker 1: made up of Mexican, Filipino, African, American, Japanese and Chinese
6:14
Speaker 1: migrant workers, and Dolores herself had a slightly more privileged upbringing.
6:20
Speaker 1: She didn't work in the fields. She was also bilingual
6:23
Speaker 1: and later attended college. Um but I mean she was
6:26
Speaker 1: still being raised by a single mom for a little
6:29
Speaker 1: while who was holding down two jobs. I believe she
6:31
Speaker 1: was working in a factory and then also was waiting tables,
6:36
Speaker 1: and then she eventually remarried a couple of times. Um
6:40
Speaker 1: but growing up, Dolores piled around a lot with her brothers,
6:44
Speaker 1: and she sites growing up with her brothers as being
6:47
Speaker 1: really influential for later working largely with men like Caesar
6:50
Speaker 1: Chavas and all of the other union activists around her. Yeah.
6:54
Speaker 1: She also cites her mom's independence, the fact that her mom, Alicia,
6:58
Speaker 1: worked her way up from jobs in a factory and
7:02
Speaker 1: also waiting tables to owning her own restaurant and running
7:07
Speaker 1: a hotel with her second husband as shaping her later
7:11
Speaker 1: feminism and her drive to succeed. Yeah, and she was
7:14
Speaker 1: also an active Girl Scout until she was eighteen. Um.
7:17
Speaker 1: She even today cites her Girl Scout troop leader as
7:21
Speaker 1: being one of her major role models. So perhaps of
7:23
Speaker 1: the Girl Scouts. Um. But when it comes to the
7:27
Speaker 1: social justice that would become her life, she talks about
7:31
Speaker 1: how simply by virtue of growing up as a person
7:34
Speaker 1: of color at the time that she did, although you
7:36
Speaker 1: could say the same thing for people of color today,
7:39
Speaker 1: she continually witnessed instances of social injustice and flat out racism. Um.
7:46
Speaker 1: She mentioned at one point a racist teacher who accused
7:50
Speaker 1: her of stealing another student's work, and also her brother
7:54
Speaker 1: being beaten up because of a zoot suit that he
7:57
Speaker 1: was wearing at one time, which was a popular World
7:59
Speaker 1: War two era Latino fashion. So it wasn't always easy
8:03
Speaker 1: growing up, but one thing that really drove her, and
8:06
Speaker 1: this was something that was hit home hard by Mario Garcia,
8:10
Speaker 1: who's the editor of that Dolores Square to reader that
8:12
Speaker 1: Christian's side of a minute ago was her religion. She
8:15
Speaker 1: grew up very Catholic, is still very devoutly Catholic, but
8:21
Speaker 1: she really saw her faith. Garcia writes through the lens
8:24
Speaker 1: of social justice, especially for the poor and powerless. She
8:29
Speaker 1: was driven by her spirituality and her faith that she
8:34
Speaker 1: and her kids and her family and people around her,
8:36
Speaker 1: you can't just sit and rest on your laurels and
8:40
Speaker 1: take care of just yourself. You have to look out
8:42
Speaker 1: for the people who are suffering around you too well.
8:45
Speaker 1: And speaking again to the influence of her mom, uh,
8:49
Speaker 1: she would also give hotel rooms for free two very
8:53
Speaker 1: poor migrant families that might be coming through. So it
8:56
Speaker 1: was something that was very much modeled for her as well.
9:00
Speaker 1: All and when she grows up she starts to head
9:03
Speaker 1: toward a more traditional wife and mother role. She gets
9:07
Speaker 1: her teaching credentials from the University of Pacific Delta College
9:12
Speaker 1: in Stockton, and so she starts teaching. She gets married,
9:16
Speaker 1: she has two kids, but then she gets divorced, which
9:20
Speaker 1: is a really big deal as a devout Catholic and
9:24
Speaker 1: particularly from you know, an Hispanic culture as well. And
9:29
Speaker 1: she really started this time to chafe against those cultural
9:33
Speaker 1: expectations of being a teacher and a wife and a mom,
9:37
Speaker 1: Not that she didn't enjoy teaching, but she felt like
9:41
Speaker 1: it wasn't she wasn't doing enough necessarily. Yeah, So this
9:44
Speaker 1: future charismatic leader notices that the children that she's teaching
9:50
Speaker 1: were coming to school hungry, they didn't have shoes, and
9:53
Speaker 1: so this is when she says, look, I love teaching,
9:56
Speaker 1: I love these children, but I can do more for
9:59
Speaker 1: these families outside of the classroom as an activist. So
10:04
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen fifties, as these early stirrings of
10:07
Speaker 1: activism or bubbling up within her, this is happening amid
10:11
Speaker 1: her second marriage and also getting involved with Stockton's Community
10:15
Speaker 1: service organization the CSO, where she learns about grassroots community
10:21
Speaker 1: organizing under Fred Ross Sr. And even in interviews today,
10:25
Speaker 1: she continually cites Fred Ross as being highly influential for
10:31
Speaker 1: the model of organizing that she would learn and would
10:34
Speaker 1: then apply to the United farm Workers. She alongside says
10:38
Speaker 1: are Chavez. But the things that she initially learned through
10:41
Speaker 1: the CSO were highly gendered. There were women oriented duties
10:47
Speaker 1: that she first took up. Yeah, and so, working within
10:51
Speaker 1: this Mexican American self help association, she worked to register voters,
10:56
Speaker 1: teach citizenship and naturalization classes. She advocated it for neighborhood improvements,
11:01
Speaker 1: things like street lights and playgrounds, and of course was
11:04
Speaker 1: tasked with, you know, setting up for meetings. And this
11:08
Speaker 1: activism and community organizing was very gender segregated at the
11:13
Speaker 1: time because it really wasn't socially acceptable for women and
11:17
Speaker 1: especially moms like Cuerta to drive around sometimes after dart
11:22
Speaker 1: going into strangers homes because fred Ross and the CSO
11:27
Speaker 1: model was all based around meeting people in their homes,
11:31
Speaker 1: consciousness raising kinds of things, talking about the day to
11:35
Speaker 1: day issues, because fred Ross really believed the way that
11:39
Speaker 1: you enact these bigger changes is by addressing the everyday
11:43
Speaker 1: needs of these often impoverished communities. Yeah, and so it's
11:48
Speaker 1: at this point, when she's driving around working with people
11:51
Speaker 1: in the community, that she starts to see how people
11:55
Speaker 1: in her community are living. And this is a huge
11:58
Speaker 1: turning point for her activism. This is the point in
12:01
Speaker 1: nine when she quits teaching and meets up with the
12:06
Speaker 1: CSO executive director, says our Chaves and as her activism
12:10
Speaker 1: picks up, though, her marriage breaks down because her second
12:13
Speaker 1: husband was not really interested in having an activist wife.
12:18
Speaker 1: She was kind of violating a lot of her wifely expectations.
12:22
Speaker 1: So the marriage dissolves. And as that's happening though, in
12:25
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty, Whereta found the Agricultural Workers Association, where she
12:30
Speaker 1: really focuses in on setting up voter registration drives and
12:34
Speaker 1: lobbying local governments again for neighborhood improvements. And then two
12:38
Speaker 1: years later, Chaves and Where To join forces after Chavez
12:43
Speaker 1: resigns from the CSO after the organization declines to take
12:47
Speaker 1: up the cause for migrant farm laborers, and he's like,
12:50
Speaker 1: you know who I need to join me? Is this
12:53
Speaker 1: Dolores Shuerta. Because by this point she had really made
12:56
Speaker 1: a name for herself for being completely devoted to this
13:01
Speaker 1: activism and really invested. I mean, she she had lost
13:05
Speaker 1: a marriage, she quit her job, I mean, she was
13:07
Speaker 1: all in. And so Chadas invite where to to join
13:11
Speaker 1: him to form the United farm Workers. Well, so you
13:16
Speaker 1: know we've talked about her community activism neighborhood association type
13:20
Speaker 1: things like let's improve the neighborhood, let's get street lights
13:23
Speaker 1: out there, let's make sure kids aren't coming to school
13:25
Speaker 1: with no shoes on. So what does all of this
13:29
Speaker 1: have to do with farm workers? Why are they forming
13:31
Speaker 1: groups like the United farm Workers because they hadn't been
13:34
Speaker 1: able to form groups and organize ever before, because migrant
13:39
Speaker 1: farmers have been at the bottom of the societal ladder
13:44
Speaker 1: since the get go. I mean, we could go back
13:47
Speaker 1: and just say, well, example one slavery then after that
13:52
Speaker 1: is outlawed. You know, you you do have migrant farm
13:55
Speaker 1: workers almost always being composed of recent immigrants and rarely
14:00
Speaker 1: being paid living wages, and they're usually taking advantage of
14:04
Speaker 1: by larger agri businesses and embedded throughout all of this
14:09
Speaker 1: is racism because I mean it is usually people of
14:13
Speaker 1: color coming in to take these jobs, and white people
14:17
Speaker 1: historically saying well, you don't really, you know, deserve much
14:20
Speaker 1: better than this, and this is all that you're really
14:22
Speaker 1: good for, this kind of menial labor. Go out in
14:24
Speaker 1: the fields, pick this, harvest this, feed us. But at
14:29
Speaker 1: the same time yelling at those people for taking jobs.
14:32
Speaker 1: Of course, when that is the only arena that we
14:34
Speaker 1: will shuttle them into. Yeah. PPS did an entire series
14:39
Speaker 1: on migrant farm workers and United farm Workers and in
14:43
Speaker 1: one of their posts wrote, whatever group was the poorest
14:45
Speaker 1: and the most recent arrival to this country would end
14:49
Speaker 1: up in the fields. So back in six the National
14:53
Speaker 1: Labor Relations Act had given many American workers the right
14:57
Speaker 1: to organize, but not far workers, because the only way
15:01
Speaker 1: that the government could get this through UH and get
15:04
Speaker 1: Southern politicians to support it was to exclude farm workers
15:08
Speaker 1: from the ability to organize. And there had been attempts
15:11
Speaker 1: to organize and strike in the fields, but really none
15:14
Speaker 1: of them had made any lasting improvements for the workers. Yeah,
15:17
Speaker 1: and these were and continue to be some of the
15:21
Speaker 1: most marginalized employment groups in the United States. And when
15:27
Speaker 1: it comes to the US Mexico relationship, and really how
15:31
Speaker 1: Cuerta and Chavez and and that entire group would get
15:35
Speaker 1: involved in California starts really in ninety two with the
15:40
Speaker 1: US Mexico Brassero program, which brings thousands of Mexican workers
15:45
Speaker 1: into US fields in order to make up for jobs
15:50
Speaker 1: that were left by soldiers going to fight in World
15:53
Speaker 1: War Two. Yeah, and the program lasted through nineteen sixty four,
15:57
Speaker 1: and the people participating in it were routinely hand illegally
16:01
Speaker 1: taken advantage of by growers who wanted to undercut wages
16:05
Speaker 1: and break strikes. They just wanted to watch their own
16:07
Speaker 1: bottom line and did not care about the conditions that
16:11
Speaker 1: these workers were experiencing. Yeah, and so when we get
16:14
Speaker 1: to the nineteen sixties and talk about the kinds of
16:17
Speaker 1: things that Huerta was seeing among the people, you know,
16:21
Speaker 1: who were working in these massive farms in California, not
16:26
Speaker 1: only did she talk a lot about just the emotional
16:29
Speaker 1: impact of seeing these families living in dirt floor homes
16:33
Speaker 1: that with wall stuffed with newspapers for installation, they are
16:37
Speaker 1: also just horrific working conditions. I mean, on the one hand,
16:41
Speaker 1: you have them being paid poorly, maybe seventy five cents
16:44
Speaker 1: an hour, but also just in terms of their day
16:47
Speaker 1: to day health, the death rate, for instance, of migrant
16:51
Speaker 1: laborers babies was one percent higher than the national average,
16:57
Speaker 1: and for adults, their life expectancy was just forty nine
17:00
Speaker 1: years old, which is about twenty years below the average
17:03
Speaker 1: of the time. Not to mention, these workers were likelier
17:06
Speaker 1: to get sick with things like the flu pneumonia, intuberculosis.
17:10
Speaker 1: Plus I mean, they're being exposed to horrifically poisonous pesticides
17:14
Speaker 1: day in and day out. And one of the tactics
17:17
Speaker 1: eventually during these strikes that would eventually happen would be
17:21
Speaker 1: for the big farm owners, the big growers, to dump
17:24
Speaker 1: pesticides on these protesters as they're protesting. And you might
17:29
Speaker 1: be thinking at this point, well, why why was no
17:32
Speaker 1: one seeing this as a problem. Why why wasn't anyone
17:36
Speaker 1: concerned about these impoverished barrios. Basically, there were lots of
17:41
Speaker 1: racist assumptions that, well, you know what, these workers could
17:45
Speaker 1: pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. But I mean
17:49
Speaker 1: they just drink away their earnings or just generally inferior,
17:52
Speaker 1: they're not smart enough, so I mean they're just kind
17:55
Speaker 1: of doing it to themselves. Well, which is the stereotype
17:59
Speaker 1: that we have put on every ethnic and social and
18:04
Speaker 1: economic minority that has been in this country forever. And
18:07
Speaker 1: we talked about that in our Spicy Latinos podcast about
18:11
Speaker 1: the evolution of the stereotype of Mexican descended workers in
18:17
Speaker 1: particular or Mexican born workers as being lazy. But it's
18:22
Speaker 1: it's amid this US Mexico Bersero program in the nineteen
18:25
Speaker 1: fifties that Fred Ross and the Community Service Organization in
18:29
Speaker 1: California really begin laying the groundwork for farm workers to
18:32
Speaker 1: be able to organize light, Kristen said, by focusing on
18:36
Speaker 1: those everyday issues like citizenship in childcare, because if you
18:39
Speaker 1: can't even handle the day to day, how are you
18:42
Speaker 1: expected to rise up and fight the system. And speaking
18:45
Speaker 1: of rising up and fighting the system, we're next going
18:48
Speaker 1: to talk about how the Lord Squerta stays are Chavas
18:51
Speaker 1: and the United farm Workers tried to do that starting
18:55
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties. When we come right back from
18:57
Speaker 1: a quick break and now back to the show, well,
19:06
Speaker 1: rising up and taking on these massively influential and wealthy
19:13
Speaker 1: agricultural growers was exactly what Dolora Suerta and Caesar Chavez
19:18
Speaker 1: wanted to do, and it was very much a David
19:20
Speaker 1: and Goliath kind of situation when they set out in
19:23
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty two to start the United farm Workers. After
19:26
Speaker 1: years of dedicated activism and community involvement, in nineteen sixty three,
19:32
Speaker 1: Dolores where To successfully managed to secure aid for Dependent Families,
19:37
Speaker 1: which is disability insurance for California farm workers. Again, it's
19:41
Speaker 1: like she's taking sort of what she knows, working from
19:44
Speaker 1: the ground, working from the small to the large with
19:47
Speaker 1: just people in her community, to sort of doing the
19:49
Speaker 1: same thing for workers. I mean, she's not kind of
19:52
Speaker 1: out of the gate saying let's tear apart the entire system.
19:55
Speaker 1: She's like, can we just get them some insurance for
19:58
Speaker 1: their families? And that was unprecedented being able to get
20:02
Speaker 1: that insurance. But two years later, in nineteen, the Delano
20:07
Speaker 1: grape strike begins, and this is what sort of everybody,
20:10
Speaker 1: this is the image in everybody's minds when you talk
20:13
Speaker 1: about where to especially pairing up with Shavas and so
20:17
Speaker 1: it's her idea though, to boycott grapes. Chavas was saying,
20:22
Speaker 1: let's let's boycott potatoes and the potato growers. But Queerta
20:25
Speaker 1: was like, we've got to market this, right. People associate
20:30
Speaker 1: grapes and wineries and wine with California, not potatoes, so
20:36
Speaker 1: let's do this instead. Yeah, she was like, well, people
20:38
Speaker 1: are going to think potatoes and Idaho. So they decided
20:43
Speaker 1: to support this grape strike. And and this also is
20:47
Speaker 1: where we get probably the most famous image of Dolra
20:50
Speaker 1: Squerta from the time where she is standing up holding
20:54
Speaker 1: a sign above her head that says huelga h u
20:57
Speaker 1: e l g a, which is Spanish for Reich. And
21:01
Speaker 1: her prominent position was really influential in effectively boycotting table
21:09
Speaker 1: grapes across the United States because as a woman, she
21:13
Speaker 1: helped female consumers a long way away from California identify
21:19
Speaker 1: with this strike as well. Yeah, and this led to
21:22
Speaker 1: at its height the boycott being fourteen million people strong.
21:27
Speaker 1: This was not just a little thing happening off somewhere
21:30
Speaker 1: on the fringes in California. This was big national news.
21:35
Speaker 1: And of course this is around the time that she
21:36
Speaker 1: coins meaning yes we can and yes Obama. President Obama
21:42
Speaker 1: did take that phrase for his campaign. Yeah, he joked
21:45
Speaker 1: when he was giving her the Presidential Medal of Honor
21:48
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven that he did steal side from
21:53
Speaker 1: her and was really relieved that she was okay with it. Um.
21:58
Speaker 1: But but a lot of times too, s point is
22:01
Speaker 1: is attributed to Chavez, but again it was Huerta's brilliant idea.
22:07
Speaker 1: And I want to also mentioned that we are very
22:10
Speaker 1: much collapsing all of the nuances and the back and
22:14
Speaker 1: forth of this strike and of this really like five
22:18
Speaker 1: to ten year time period into these few bullet points
22:22
Speaker 1: that we have because we don't have time to go
22:24
Speaker 1: into all of the back and forth, because it really
22:27
Speaker 1: was an intense struggle and negotiation, ongoing negotiations between Huerta
22:34
Speaker 1: and Chavez and these huge growers and also other groups
22:38
Speaker 1: of other other unionized groups being involved and not being
22:42
Speaker 1: involved in and also the California state government. I mean,
22:44
Speaker 1: it was it was not an easy thing to tackle.
22:47
Speaker 1: And one of the tools that these large growers used
22:51
Speaker 1: at one point against the United farm Workers was to
22:56
Speaker 1: bring in the Teamsters union to essentially try to break
23:02
Speaker 1: up the strikes. And so in nineteen sixty six, the
23:05
Speaker 1: United farm Workers merged with the a f l C
23:08
Speaker 1: i O, otherwise risking erasure by the Teamsters because I
23:12
Speaker 1: mean that group was just too powerful at the time,
23:15
Speaker 1: I mean, and and through all of these uh confrontations
23:19
Speaker 1: between Teamsters and or the growers, they were really risking
23:24
Speaker 1: life and limb and not just where San Chaves, all
23:28
Speaker 1: of these migrant farm workers who were striking standing in
23:32
Speaker 1: picket lines. Yeah, I mean, we already mentioned just the
23:35
Speaker 1: act of dropping pesticide on these protesters. But I mean,
23:39
Speaker 1: there was so much more to it. And while Chavez
23:42
Speaker 1: and Whereta did really emphasize the issue of non violence,
23:45
Speaker 1: Chaves talks about being inspired by Martin Luther King and
23:48
Speaker 1: Gandhi Queta and others were routinely targeted and threatened at
23:53
Speaker 1: gunpoint at times, and at one point she was even
23:55
Speaker 1: taken hostage. Yeah, and I mean and two of the
24:00
Speaker 1: Strikers were killed at one point as well. Um, So
24:04
Speaker 1: this was I mean, this wasn't just a you know,
24:07
Speaker 1: a casual negotiation just sitting across the table from someone
24:10
Speaker 1: writing the little you know number on a napkin and
24:13
Speaker 1: sliding it across. It was not polite and also to um.
24:18
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty nine, the Delano growers signed historic contracts
24:23
Speaker 1: with the uf W o C. But the agrib business
24:27
Speaker 1: scheming really didn't end there because then you have Selinas
24:31
Speaker 1: led US growers also in California signing on again with
24:35
Speaker 1: the Team Sturs union in these kinds of sweetheart deals
24:38
Speaker 1: to edge out the United farm Workers from getting involved.
24:42
Speaker 1: And so then what a square to do? Well, we
24:45
Speaker 1: gotta have a lettuce boycott, that's right, And the grape
24:48
Speaker 1: growers would end up pulling a similar move after their
24:52
Speaker 1: contracts expired. Uh and teamster thugs were using violence against
24:56
Speaker 1: the strikers again, and this is the point when the
24:58
Speaker 1: two farm workers strikers were killed on a picket line. So,
25:01
Speaker 1: like Kristen said, I mean, things are a little tense.
25:04
Speaker 1: It's it's not a good or safe situation. And throughout
25:08
Speaker 1: all of this, throughout all the violence and the tension
25:11
Speaker 1: and the underhandedness on the part of the growers, where
25:14
Speaker 1: to was the lead negotiator And she talks about that,
25:18
Speaker 1: She says, yeah, I think I caught him off guard.
25:21
Speaker 1: And when she's talking about the growers responding to her
25:25
Speaker 1: and having to deal with her as the negotiator, she said, yeah,
25:29
Speaker 1: you know, not only did it catch him off guard,
25:31
Speaker 1: I think it made them feel guilty. Yeah, to have
25:34
Speaker 1: to negotiate with a woman. She said that they always
25:36
Speaker 1: preferred to try to negotiate with Caesar, but she was
25:41
Speaker 1: usually the one because she was very skillful with negotiations,
25:45
Speaker 1: and um, it's interesting that her her gender as well
25:50
Speaker 1: was it was a bit of a wild card. Well,
25:53
Speaker 1: I mean, she had such perspective to bring to the
25:56
Speaker 1: negotiating table. So not only she personally um other she's
26:00
Speaker 1: been a wife, she has you know, many children, but
26:02
Speaker 1: she has this experience as a teacher, and she has
26:06
Speaker 1: her incredible faith driving her forward and her whole life
26:09
Speaker 1: experience of watching her father in New Mexico with his
26:13
Speaker 1: activist efforts and her mother, you know, being her own
26:17
Speaker 1: standing on her own two feet. And so this is
26:20
Speaker 1: a woman who's really not to be trifled with. And
26:22
Speaker 1: she was just generally good at debate period. Apparently she
26:25
Speaker 1: was really great at just throwing down facts at the
26:28
Speaker 1: perfect time to to counter what these growers might contend. So,
26:35
Speaker 1: if we fast forward to nine, this is a huge
26:38
Speaker 1: year because WHERETA and the UfW were instrumental in the
26:43
Speaker 1: passage of the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which was the
26:47
Speaker 1: first law of its kind, granting California farm workers the
26:50
Speaker 1: right to collectively organize and bargain for wages and better
26:54
Speaker 1: working conditions. But the really interesting thing is when it
26:56
Speaker 1: comes to unionizing and organizing because of fine only in
27:00
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five, they're legally granted the ability to do so.
27:04
Speaker 1: Because of the agribusiness system and the fact that a
27:08
Speaker 1: lot of these migrant workers. By virtue of being migrant workers,
27:12
Speaker 1: they were employed by many growers. They weren't just working
27:15
Speaker 1: with one one big company or even like one sort
27:19
Speaker 1: of more manageable industry. So the UfW had to kind
27:24
Speaker 1: of figure out a new way to organize beyond typical
27:28
Speaker 1: union locals, right, And so it ended up that people
27:32
Speaker 1: at each ranch would elect their own ranch committee, and
27:36
Speaker 1: then each field off has established a service center to
27:38
Speaker 1: assist members. And I mean they were getting basic things
27:42
Speaker 1: like can we have a bathroom, you know, can we
27:45
Speaker 1: have a place to sleep that's not a shock that's
27:48
Speaker 1: in danger of falling down at any moment that the
27:51
Speaker 1: wind blows. I mean they again, we're starting with just
27:53
Speaker 1: the basic needs of these workers, just to keep them
27:56
Speaker 1: safe and healthy. Yeah, and then as they develop up
28:00
Speaker 1: this ranch committee system, Huerta in the eighties was also
28:04
Speaker 1: influential in developing, for instance, radio station for them to
28:09
Speaker 1: help all of them keep better connected because back then,
28:13
Speaker 1: y'all they didn't have the internet. Well, you know, so
28:17
Speaker 1: things like a radio station we're also really important for
28:21
Speaker 1: keeping them all informed and all organized as well. And
28:25
Speaker 1: also if there any like union experts and union historians listening.
28:29
Speaker 1: We welcome your input on all of the fascinating details
28:34
Speaker 1: that I know that we are glossing over, because um,
28:37
Speaker 1: this isn't stuff I've never told you about um unions,
28:42
Speaker 1: because we haven't even gotten to the point yet in
28:45
Speaker 1: which I mean what I was waiting for the entire
28:48
Speaker 1: time reading a lot of this research and listening to
28:50
Speaker 1: interviews with Puerta was like, but what about gender? What
28:53
Speaker 1: about sexism? This is a woman who was a kind
28:57
Speaker 1: of an unlikely spokesperson to begin with, even though she
29:00
Speaker 1: took sort of second seat to Chavez, as was the plan,
29:05
Speaker 1: but she was doing work and in a position that
29:09
Speaker 1: women had never done before, hands down, period done. And
29:14
Speaker 1: the way she easily just kind of cut through the water,
29:16
Speaker 1: you would think like, oh, well she must not. There
29:19
Speaker 1: must not have been any barriers. Surely, surely it wasn't
29:21
Speaker 1: that hard of a time. No, people, it was. It
29:23
Speaker 1: was a difficult time. And she did talk to the
29:26
Speaker 1: l a times about the sexism that she faced, especially
29:31
Speaker 1: because she was in a leadership position. She says, sexism
29:34
Speaker 1: is always so painful because it comes from the people
29:37
Speaker 1: who are close to you. I think sexism is much
29:40
Speaker 1: more painful for women than racism is. Until we get
29:43
Speaker 1: majority of representation, it's always going to be hard for us.
29:47
Speaker 1: And I mean, she definitely notes that Chicana and other
29:49
Speaker 1: minority women faced the triple threat of race, class, and
29:54
Speaker 1: gender discrimination. And so, you know, even in times when
29:58
Speaker 1: she wasn't facing our right massive sexism, she was still
30:02
Speaker 1: experiencing like offhand comments from people around her. And so
30:07
Speaker 1: this was a very real thing that she had to
30:09
Speaker 1: overcome and she certainly did and did not let it
30:12
Speaker 1: stop her well. And also within her community, the kind
30:16
Speaker 1: of sexism that she faced more often than someone at
30:21
Speaker 1: a United farm Workers Board meeting not wanting to say
30:24
Speaker 1: listen to her, was more of a community shaming at
30:29
Speaker 1: being a Catholic, divorce single mom eventually of eleven, who
30:35
Speaker 1: really didn't let motherhood stop her from traveling the country.
30:38
Speaker 1: And a lot of people accused her of being a
30:41
Speaker 1: bad mother. They're like, oh, how could she do that
30:43
Speaker 1: to her kids. They don't, you know, have a stable home.
30:46
Speaker 1: They're traveling around everywhere, they're living off of donations. I mean,
30:50
Speaker 1: she's just failing as a mom because she was also
30:53
Speaker 1: when she would leave by herself, she would have to
30:57
Speaker 1: have you know, other family members watch after them. She
30:59
Speaker 1: wasn't always is by their side, and she essentially kind
31:02
Speaker 1: of took a vow of poverty so to speak. I mean,
31:05
Speaker 1: you know, she lived off of donations. Her family didn't
31:08
Speaker 1: have much money. She got paid maybe five dollars a
31:11
Speaker 1: week for her efforts uh to support farm workers, and
31:15
Speaker 1: in talking to a r P, two of her oldest
31:18
Speaker 1: kids admitted that the whole thing wasn't easy. Sure, moving
31:21
Speaker 1: around being poor, having their mother missed their birthdays wasn't easy,
31:26
Speaker 1: and they feared for her life. But the lessons that
31:30
Speaker 1: they learned from watching her go out and fight for
31:32
Speaker 1: people's lives and their health and their safety taught them
31:35
Speaker 1: about the importance of helping people building a community over
31:40
Speaker 1: having material things. And also in regard to her personal life,
31:44
Speaker 1: she caught a second wave of flak with her relationship
31:48
Speaker 1: was Sazar shav As his brother Richard, with whom she
31:51
Speaker 1: had children and never married. But she says, basically, by
31:57
Speaker 1: that point she was a feminist and she didn't care
32:00
Speaker 1: what people thought of her. I mean, she was so
32:02
Speaker 1: invested in her activism as well by that point that
32:06
Speaker 1: it sort of made no difference. And I think that
32:09
Speaker 1: she had also lived for so many years being called
32:11
Speaker 1: a bad mother, she was like, well, you know what,
32:13
Speaker 1: I'm just doing me guys um. But when it comes
32:17
Speaker 1: to feminism, she really didn't identify with it initially. She
32:22
Speaker 1: talks about how when she first heard about women's lips,
32:25
Speaker 1: she thought, of it, it's just a white middle class phenomenon,
32:28
Speaker 1: which very much goes to what we've talked about many
32:32
Speaker 1: times on the podcast about how a lot of times,
32:35
Speaker 1: mainstream in quotes feminism has been um overly focused on
32:41
Speaker 1: the voices and experiences of white middle class women who
32:44
Speaker 1: have more liberty to choose, whereas across the country in California,
32:49
Speaker 1: you have women like Cuerta living on five dollars a
32:52
Speaker 1: week with eleven children, fighting for the rights of women
32:56
Speaker 1: who don't necessarily have the liberty to choose the guy
33:00
Speaker 1: of choice that white feminists in New York might have
33:03
Speaker 1: been fighting for at the time, or even on the
33:05
Speaker 1: radar of the day to day lives of these women
33:07
Speaker 1: of color working in the fields. And her approach to
33:12
Speaker 1: feminism was really shaped by witnessing the civil rights movement itself,
33:17
Speaker 1: and she talks to PBS about how she sort of
33:20
Speaker 1: had this moment of clarity, realizing at some point that
33:23
Speaker 1: many of us in the civil rights movement, we're out
33:25
Speaker 1: there fighting for our people, but we weren't fighting for
33:28
Speaker 1: our women. And so, she says, she sort of starts
33:31
Speaker 1: to have this realization that fighting for women's rights and
33:35
Speaker 1: being a feminist is just as important as fighting for
33:38
Speaker 1: workers rights or the rights of people in various racial
33:41
Speaker 1: and ethnic communities. And she was also influenced too by
33:45
Speaker 1: her friendship with Gloria Steinham, because Steinham and others very
33:49
Speaker 1: much supported the uf W and the boycott and the
33:52
Speaker 1: efforts that they were making in order to help out
33:55
Speaker 1: those families as well. And speaking of the uf W,
34:00
Speaker 1: I mean she did recognize sexism within her own movement,
34:05
Speaker 1: within that Chicano civil rights movement going on um She
34:10
Speaker 1: recalls in an interview two makers about UfW board meeting
34:14
Speaker 1: in which someone made just a casual sexist comment and
34:19
Speaker 1: she was like, huh, I'm going to start taking a
34:22
Speaker 1: tally in this meeting and see how many casual sexist
34:26
Speaker 1: comments are made, because you know, she was I think
34:29
Speaker 1: the only woman or one of the only women in
34:32
Speaker 1: the room at the time, and she counted up fifty
34:34
Speaker 1: eight sexist comments so at the end of the meeting,
34:37
Speaker 1: when Chaves says, okay, does anybody else have anything else
34:40
Speaker 1: to add, she raises her hand and says, hey, um,
34:43
Speaker 1: I counted up fifty eight sexist comments, and I think
34:47
Speaker 1: that that's ridiculous. Essentially, I'm very much parit phraising her.
34:53
Speaker 1: But she raised awareness to it, and she said the
34:55
Speaker 1: next time she tallied up like twenty three. The next
34:58
Speaker 1: time it was a dozen. And finally she said, it
35:01
Speaker 1: got to the point to where, yes, the members were
35:04
Speaker 1: kind of on their toes and board meetings about the
35:07
Speaker 1: way that they spoke about women. And she said, and
35:10
Speaker 1: then it once once their awareness was raised, once they
35:12
Speaker 1: realized they were doing it, and then it had a
35:14
Speaker 1: negative impact they overtime they just stopped. Because the whole
35:19
Speaker 1: thing is that she's pointing out is how ridiculous it
35:22
Speaker 1: is to have these sexist attitudes and especially sex comments,
35:27
Speaker 1: because women were critical and should be critical to movements
35:33
Speaker 1: like this, and she really encouraged Javes to get more
35:36
Speaker 1: women involved in organizing, negotiating, and overseeing the ranch committees.
35:39
Speaker 1: After all, his wife, Helen was involved in the strikes
35:43
Speaker 1: and the protests, and at the same time she maintains
35:46
Speaker 1: that Chavez was always conscious of the importance of women's
35:50
Speaker 1: involvement within the movement. Yeah, I mean it was crucial
35:54
Speaker 1: to both of them to get entire families on board.
35:57
Speaker 1: You can't do this successfully if you have the husband,
36:00
Speaker 1: but you don't have the wives and the children. That's
36:02
Speaker 1: also part of the motivation for keeping everything as nonviolent
36:06
Speaker 1: as possible, so that women and children would be welcome
36:09
Speaker 1: at those picket lines. And it's also well known that
36:13
Speaker 1: sometimes Chavas and where To would have loud disagreements, But
36:20
Speaker 1: where To maintains that they had a healthy working relationship
36:24
Speaker 1: and she never felt demeaned by him by virtue of
36:27
Speaker 1: her gender. And I mean she she found his sometimes
36:31
Speaker 1: like almost unwitting sexism to to be laughable. Maybe it's
36:34
Speaker 1: more just because she's looking at retrospect, maybe it was
36:36
Speaker 1: a little more infuriating at the time. But in speaking
36:39
Speaker 1: to the l a times, she said, Caesar once said,
36:42
Speaker 1: you know, Dolores, I treat you and Cecilia, who is
36:45
Speaker 1: another UfW board member, different, And I said, yes, it's
36:49
Speaker 1: called male chauvinism, and he started laughing. But he was
36:52
Speaker 1: really good about having women in positions of power, people
36:56
Speaker 1: would ask why, and he'd say, because they do the work.
37:00
Speaker 1: And it was in doing that work in the nineteen
37:03
Speaker 1: eighties that Wuerta was actually on the receiving end of violence.
37:07
Speaker 1: During a protest, she was severely beaten in San Francisco
37:10
Speaker 1: by a police officer, and this prompted her to step
37:14
Speaker 1: back from union organizing for a while, and as a
37:18
Speaker 1: born again feminist, she says, she began to stump for
37:21
Speaker 1: the Feminist Majorities Project to get more Latina's in office.
37:25
Speaker 1: So we really see this like crystallization of all of
37:28
Speaker 1: her activism efforts. And when it comes to her legacy,
37:32
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of people routinely ask her the
37:34
Speaker 1: question of I mean, are you a little jealous essentially
37:37
Speaker 1: of Caesar Chavez getting all the glory for all of
37:40
Speaker 1: this work that you are alongside him? Uh to do?
37:44
Speaker 1: Are you bummed out that there's a Caesar Chaves day
37:47
Speaker 1: but not a Dolora Square today for instance? And she
37:51
Speaker 1: pretty much just no. I mean, from the get go,
37:54
Speaker 1: it was decided that Javes would be the spokesperson because
37:57
Speaker 1: the movement needed a face, and her face was also
38:00
Speaker 1: prominent as well, but he was the guy and when
38:04
Speaker 1: he volunteered to be the spokesperson. She said, okay, do that.
38:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I think she was so much more concerned
38:11
Speaker 1: with the day to day lives of the people that
38:14
Speaker 1: she was working on behalf of. She never wanted to
38:18
Speaker 1: make herself out to be a celebrity. And even when
38:22
Speaker 1: she was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom, she said,
38:26
Speaker 1: this medal, it is given to me on the backs
38:29
Speaker 1: of thousands and thousands of other people. I wasn't out
38:33
Speaker 1: in those fields working they were, Yeah, but she was
38:37
Speaker 1: the five ft nothing spitfire who was leading all of
38:40
Speaker 1: these people into a movement. So she retired from the UfW,
38:46
Speaker 1: and a couple of years later, in two thousand two,
38:48
Speaker 1: she found the Dolores square To Foundation to promote social
38:52
Speaker 1: justice through community organizing. But it's not like she was
38:56
Speaker 1: just sitting around like kicking up her heels saying, okay,
38:59
Speaker 1: then they're done that. I've done everything I can. That
39:02
Speaker 1: same year that she established her foundation, she led a
39:06
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty mile march to convince California's governor
39:10
Speaker 1: to support legislation to benefit farm workers and it ended
39:14
Speaker 1: up being a successful effort. Yeah, and she has received
39:17
Speaker 1: numerous honors and awards and medals, and most recently there
39:23
Speaker 1: was a statue of her in Chaves unveiled in Napa Valley.
39:27
Speaker 1: So she certainly isn't without her her prizes that that
39:32
Speaker 1: she's been given over time. Um, But really when you
39:37
Speaker 1: listen to the most recent interviews with her, what matters
39:40
Speaker 1: the most is continuing the work and helping the people,
39:43
Speaker 1: and also in terms of being a born again feminist
39:47
Speaker 1: in reminding women to own their work and their accomplishments
39:52
Speaker 1: and their achievements as well. So we have some wise
39:55
Speaker 1: words from Dolores s where to end on in which
39:58
Speaker 1: she says, we as women have to put big lights
40:02
Speaker 1: around our accomplishments right and around our ideas and not
40:05
Speaker 1: feel egotistical when we do that, because it's a way
40:08
Speaker 1: of letting the world know that, yes, we as women
40:11
Speaker 1: can accomplish great things. Yeah, those are wonderful words that
40:16
Speaker 1: that's such an inspiration. I just got a little terry
40:18
Speaker 1: just reading that. Caroline. Yeah, and she's such a fascinating
40:21
Speaker 1: figure and I hate that we did have to gloss
40:24
Speaker 1: over so much history. But I hope that this serves
40:27
Speaker 1: as an inspiration to go learn more both about Huereta
40:30
Speaker 1: and about the movements that she's spearheaded alongside Chavez Um
40:35
Speaker 1: and so I hope that we hear from listeners who
40:38
Speaker 1: know more about her. We we got a very excited response,
40:41
Speaker 1: and we told people that we were doing this episode.
40:43
Speaker 1: And so if you have more details into into where
40:47
Speaker 1: to herself or more insight into the movements that she lad,
40:51
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear them. And by the way, she's
40:53
Speaker 1: still Boycott's table grapes because agribusiness and its relationship to
40:58
Speaker 1: migrant workers is not exactly improved over the years, because
41:03
Speaker 1: those contracts always go back and forth. Yeah. Back when
41:06
Speaker 1: she led that one hundred and sixty five mile march
41:09
Speaker 1: through one hundred degree weather in California, she told a
41:12
Speaker 1: reporter somebody has to do the work, and she said,
41:15
Speaker 1: in organizing, you're not going to reach every person, but
41:18
Speaker 1: you just have to keep pushing for the next one. Yeah,
41:21
Speaker 1: and this absolutely echoes our podcast on women in farming
41:25
Speaker 1: and agriculture and how even more important it is to
41:30
Speaker 1: empower those women to feed us as well. So with that,
41:35
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you. Mom Stuff at how
41:38
Speaker 1: stuffworks dot Com is our email address. You can also
41:41
Speaker 1: tweet us at mom Stuff podcast or messages on Facebook,
41:45
Speaker 1: and we've got a couple of messages to share with
41:47
Speaker 1: you right now. Well, I've got an older letter here
41:55
Speaker 1: from Vanessa, but I wanted to share it because Vanessa,
41:59
Speaker 1: in case you're listening, you should be really happy right now,
42:02
Speaker 1: because she writes, I just finished listening to how teaching
42:06
Speaker 1: became a woman's profession, and it occurred to me, I
42:08
Speaker 1: don't think you guys have done women in the labor movement.
42:12
Speaker 1: So much great history there, the Triangle shirtwaist factory, Brett
42:16
Speaker 1: and Roses, Mother Jones, Dolores Suerta, garment workers, teachers, nurses,
42:22
Speaker 1: hospitality workers, all unions driven by women s e. I
42:27
Speaker 1: you one of the biggest unions in the country has
42:30
Speaker 1: their very first woman president right now. You could do
42:33
Speaker 1: multiple episodes if you wanted, but one would be great.
42:37
Speaker 1: So Vanessa, hopefully this look at Dolores Squerta's life is
42:41
Speaker 1: a good kickoff to focusing on more of those topics
42:45
Speaker 1: you suggested as well. And I have a letter here
42:49
Speaker 1: from Fernanda that was responding to our Latina feminism episode
42:53
Speaker 1: last year. She says, after listening to that episode, I
42:58
Speaker 1: had to write you some feedback. I agree that Latina's
43:01
Speaker 1: face different challenges than European descendant feminists, but I identify
43:05
Speaker 1: strongly with feminism, though I recognize that not every woman
43:09
Speaker 1: in my country has it as easy as I do.
43:12
Speaker 1: In my community, I have white privilege. In Mexico, it's
43:15
Speaker 1: not uncommon to discriminate against tan skinned people because of
43:18
Speaker 1: their phenotypically obvious indigenous descendants. Also, I live in the city,
43:23
Speaker 1: have access to education, currently in med school and healthcare.
43:28
Speaker 1: The discrimination is far more noticeable on the mainstream media,
43:31
Speaker 1: where most of the news presenters, journalists, and musicians are
43:34
Speaker 1: all white and cis gender lgbt Q rights are far
43:38
Speaker 1: from being recognized when only in a couple of states
43:41
Speaker 1: gay marriage is legal, and in every state people from
43:44
Speaker 1: this community suffered discrimination in terms of jobs, education, and
43:48
Speaker 1: even health care access. I strive for bringing healthcare and
43:51
Speaker 1: support to those who don't possess it while being a bisexual,
43:55
Speaker 1: cis gender Mexican woman. I hope one day women in
43:58
Speaker 1: my beloved country are able to live in freedom, and
44:01
Speaker 1: that feminism also brings relief to the men who are
44:03
Speaker 1: oppressed by MACHEESMO. Thanks for shining a light of education
44:07
Speaker 1: and humor into my everyday life. And thank you Fernanda,
44:10
Speaker 1: and thanks to everybody who's written into us mom. Stuff
44:13
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com is our email address
44:15
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