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Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, dies at 96
Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union and popularized the rallying cry «Sí, se puede», has died at 96, her family said.
Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers union to improve conditions in the nation's fruit and vegetable fields, has died at the age of 96. Her family said she died on a Wednesday at home. In a statement shared by her foundation, they said that many people around the world were mourning with them and that plans would follow to recognize and celebrate her life and legacy.
Huerta coined the phrase «Sí, se puede», which translates to «Yes, it can be done» and became a widespread rallying cry for labor and civil rights movements. The slogan rested on the belief that people who take action can bring about change. Her work earned her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. When President Barack Obama presented the award in 2012, he praised her as a tenacious leader and noted that he had borrowed her slogan for his 2008 campaign.
Huerta kept a busy schedule well into her 90s, marching in protests and speaking across the country about race, poverty, LGBTQ+ rights and women's rights through her Bakersfield, California-based foundation. Earlier this year, she publicly revealed that she had been sexually abused in the 1960s by César Chávez, the farmworker movement's co-founder, a secret she said she had kept for 60 years. In a 2026 interview with Latino USA, she said her silence had been a personal burden she had chosen to carry, out of fear that speaking out would compromise her life's work and the progress made for workers.
Born Dolores Clara Fernández in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico, Huerta was raised in California after her parents divorced when she was 3. Her father was a miner and union activist who won a seat in the state Legislature. Her mother, who owned a restaurant and hotel, taught her about independence, compassion and activism. Huerta grew up among Mexican, Filipino, African American, Japanese and Chinese working families in a region of agricultural labor.
Huerta was a young elementary school teacher in the San Joaquin Valley when she left the classroom to organize farmworkers. She said she was troubled by children who came to class hungry and without shoes. «I thought I could do more by organizing farmworkers than by trying to teach their hungry children,» she said in a 2017 PBS Independent Lens documentary about her life. Her early work with a civil rights group in Stockton led her to meet Chávez. In 1962, the two founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the United Farm Workers of America a few years later.
As a key leader and negotiator for the union, Huerta joined Filipino grape pickers on the picket line during what became the five-year Delano Grape Strike. With Chávez, she negotiated collective bargaining agreements and contracts with major growers, securing the first health and benefit plans for farmworkers. Chávez, who died in 1993, described her as fearless, committed to the cause and tough in negotiations.
Huerta also worked in electoral politics. She met Senator Robert F. Kennedy of Massachusetts during his 1968 visit to Delano and volunteered for his presidential campaign, registering Mexican Americans to vote in California. She was on stage with Kennedy after he won the California primary, and he publicly thanked her moments before he was shot. The assassination devastated her, but she continued organizing. She was jailed 22 times over the course of her union activism.
In 1988, Huerta was seriously injured while protesting the opposition of Republican presidential candidate George H.W. Bush to the UFW grape boycott during his visit to San Francisco. Caught in a crowd, she was struck by a police officer's baton, suffered three broken ribs and a pulverized spleen, and needed more than a dozen blood transfusions. She later reached a settlement with the city. After a long recovery, she turned to campaigning for women's rights and encouraging Latinas to run for office, and she supported Democratic presidents Bill Clinton, Obama and Joe Biden.
Huerta was the mother of 13 children, including Emilio Huerta, who said his mother's courage drove her life's work. Her life, he said, was devoted to building a union for farmworkers in an agricultural industry that remains a powerhouse to this day.
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