Dolores Huerta Quotes

When I was a child in New Mexico, people were still talking about the revolution. And it had an influence on me because I learned that poor people could change the government. Coretta Scott King said that women have to get involved, take power, and create peace in the world. But it may not happen all at once. Remember the song lyrics, "No hay que llegar primero, pero hay que saber llegar." Be a revolutionary woman-you don't have to get there first, just get there.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the pesticides, because... we raised the issue many years ago and a lot of people have been concerned about [it], but it was sort of a no-no. Nobody could talk about it openly.

the grapes of wrath are being converted into the grapes of war by the world’s richest government in order to stop farmworkers from waging a successful boycott and organizing campaign against grape growers.

It is no accident that farm workers have an average life span of forty-nine years of age.

We have had tremendous difficulties in trying to organize farmworkers. I don’t think, first of all, that we have to belabor the reason why farmworkers need a union. The horrible state in which farmworkers find themselves, faced with such extreme poverty and discrimination, has taught us that the only way we can change our situation is by organization of a union. I don’t believe that it can be done any other way. Certainly, we can’t depend on Government to do it, nor can we expect them to take the responsibility.

And you will really see-when we talk about the principle of nonviolence, you will see it in action. Because you will see farm workers getting beaten and killed, and you will see that the farm workers do not fight back with violence. We are using a nonviolent action of the boycott, so we really need your help in that.

The health care of farmworkers is almost nonexistent, and the rate of tuberculosis is 200 percent above the national average.

Cesar, a priest, a minister, and nine farmworkers were arrested for going into a camp in Borrego Springs, just to get the workers’ clothes after the workers were fired for union activity. They were arrested, stripped naked, and chained by the officers.

Can we live in a world of brotherhood and peace without disease and fear and oppression? Si se puede

Now when we first tried to get this plan passed, many of the growers were very upset about it. They said you have to go through an insurance company. We are very lucky that César Chávez is a grammar-school dropout and he hasn't been educated to think that insurance is a way of life. He said he wasn't going to give any of his money to an insurance company, any of the workers' money.

Certainly, some responsibility should be placed back on the growers. It’s not fair that they should declare a labor shortage when they make it impossible for people to continue working for them.

We had violence directed at us by the growers themselves, trying to run us down by cars, pointing rifles at us, spraying the people when they were on the picket line with sulfur. And then we had violence by the Teamsters union with the goons that they hired at that time — and by the way, I have to say that the Teamsters union are OK today...They came at us with two by fours. We had a lot of violence, definitely. And then I was beaten up by the police San Francisco [in 1988], which also is shown in the film.

We are conscious today of the significance of our present quest. If this road we chart leads to the rights and reforms we demand, if it leads to just wages, humane working conditions, protection from the misuse of pesticides, and to the fundamental right of collective bargaining, if it changes the social order that relegates us to the bottom reaches of society, then in our wake will follow thousands of American farm workers. Our example will make them free. But if our road does not bring us to victory and social change, it will not be because our direction is mistaken or our resolve too weak, but only because our bodies are mortal and our journey hard. For we are in the midst of a great social movement, and we will not stop struggling 'til we die, or win!

We now have a return to pesticides-forty thousand acres of lettuce were poisoned with Monitor 4. This lettuce was shipped to the market. In California, it was sold as shredded lettuce in Safeway stores. That's nice to have Monitor 4 with your shredded salad, huh? And we have a return back to the archaic system that we had, [a] primitive system that existed before and still exists, where we don't have United Farm Workers contracts. People working out there in those fields without a toilet, people working out there in those fields without any hand-washing facilities, without any cold drinking water, without any kind of first-aid or safety precautions. All of this has come back again.

We had this picket line; across the street from our picket line was a counterpicket line, which was being conducted by the reactionary groups in Delano. They were shouting things like “Go home, Spic,” and saying a lot of four-letter words to the women on the picket line. In fact, the officers went over and shook hands with them, and were conversing with them. The counterpickets opened up a tank of ammonia, and the strikers were getting gagged from ammonia.