Because I was a Girl: True Stories for Girls of All Ages

DOLORES HUERTA
When I was young, my mother, a feminist, treated my brothers. and me equally: We all had to do the dishes, cook, and make the beds.

I was lucky to have been raised by my mother, Alicia St. John Chavez, a divorced single parent who had strong social values. Machismo was not present in my family. My mom was a businesswoman who set high expectations for all of us. She wasn’t overprotective, though. As long as we did our chores, we could have free recreational time. I had a great childhood. Mom was always pushing me to achieve, and I felt she favored me over my brothers. My mom said that girls needed more support.

My father was a volunteer union organizer. Everyplace that he worked, he organized a union. I am my father’sW daughter, although I was not raised by him.

I was shy, but joining the Girl Scouts helped me overcome that. I was a Girl Scout from the ages of eight to eighteen. I had a wonderful Girl Scout leader, Kathryn Kemp-she encouraged and supported me. I learned many important life lessons and skills with the Girl Scouts that I would carry with me throughout my life.

As a young woman, I was introduced to organizing at a house meeting by Mr. Fred Ross Sr. We formed a group called the Community Service Organization (CSO). He showed us how ordinary working people could organize and make improvements in their community.

That is where I learned how to organize people and communities. That’s when I realized that organizing is what I wanted to do. I later left the CSO to found the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez, a grassroots movement focused on improving the lives of workers who place food on America’s tables.

There were challenges, though. I had been raised in a middle-class household, and I was now working and organizing farm workers. It was a culture shift for me.

I was always working, and my mother-in-law wanted to know why I couldn’t stay home with the kids. My husband’s family would criticize me, ask why I was out there organizing, dragging the kids to meetings and rallies. But I was lucky. I had people to help take care of my children-my mom helped and I always had babysitters. My paycheck went directly to my babysitters. In the farm workers union, we set up a child-care center for union members who worked outside the home.

I tell young women to follow their passions, to not let anyone get in their way, to stand up for themselves always, and to reach out and stand up for others. Time is the most precious resource we have use it to make the world a better place, help the people who need help.

In 2002, I founded my own organization, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and went back to community organizing. We work on health care; education; infrastructure; getting people to run for office, water district boards, and school district boards; immigrant and human rights; and organizing people in their communities. When President Obama awarded me with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012, I was proud to be recognized as a community organizer because he was one, too.

I think we’ll come out okay from the current presidential administration. I lived through the 1960s and 1970s, when environmental issues, the women’s movement, and the Chicano movement were just starting. Now all these organizations have strong foundations and leadership, which we didn’t have when Nixon was president.

We’re going to come out on top-not just survive but come out stronger as a community, as a people, as a country. ¡Sí Se Puede!