Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, was in town Saturday for a birthday celebration. For the longtime activist, her extended birthday — she turned 94 in April — is an excuse to bring attention to the importance of voting and engaging with the community.
She will do that tonight for some 300 residents and politicos, who will gather at the Mission Language and Vocational School at 2929 19th St. to honor Huerta.
As workers set up dozens of tables and chefs prepared the feast, we sat down Saturday afternoon for an informal interview. “I wonder who is older,” Huerta said when we met. “Me or the building.” (The building has her beat by seven years.)
Her fondness for San Francisco, she said, was sealed with the Bay Area’s support of the grape boycotts that began in 1965, but it goes back to her childhood when her family drove the 83 miles from Stockton, where she grew up, to visit San Francisco. She went to Playland by the Beach on Ocean Beach as a child and, early on, remembers drag shows at Finocchio’s in North Beach (She credits that early exposure to her longstanding interest and openness to the gay community).
Later, she saw the greats, such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, at the Black Hawk in the Tenderloin. “I saw Charlie Parker here in San Francisco,” she said. “I call it my claim to fame.”
Dolores Huerta: During the grape boycott, of course, you know, we had one of the big major bases of support here in San Francisco. It’s always been very, very supportive of people in the Valley. In fact, during the pandemic, Roberto Hernandez, who is now running for [District 9] supervisor … I don’t know how he did it, but he was able to send truckloads of food down to the valley. Talk about fresh food. I mean, eggs, yogurt, even chickens. We had to get it all out, like, in, in one day, you know? But it was just amazing. I think among the Latinos here, they’ve always had that connection with the Valley.”
A series of questions about what inspired her activism took us on a journey from the Girl Scouts to the Community Services Organization and Fred Ross, its founder. Her mother, who was devoted to the teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi and his work with the poor, was also an inspiration. This conversation has been lightly edited.
Dolores Huerta: Well, Number one, (what I learned in ten years of being a Girl Scout) was service to others, and then, of course, about nature. How we had to take care of nature. And to be self-reliant.
When I mentioned that I remembered its mantra to “always leave a place better than you found it,” she smiled.
Dolores Huerta: Exactly. That’s a Girl Scout. And that was also the motto of the farmworkers. You know, Cesar, when we would have these huge rallies, we’d have rallies with a thousand people. And he would always say, wherever you’re at, look around you, pick up all the litter that you have around you. And so, it was really amazing that we had these huge rallies and there was never any litter left. Everything was picked up.
Before meeting Chavez, Huerta met Fred Ross, the founder of the Community Service Organization that organized Mexican and other workers.
Dolores Huerta The Girl Scouts and Saint Francis were the whole idea of service to others. But with Fred Ross, what I learned from Fred, it’s not so much about helping people and being of service to others, but it’s about empowering people to help themselves. That’s a whole different ball of wax.
And that is what she tries to do today through the Dolores Huerta Foundation, where they help organize communities to take on projects, like getting a gym or fixing a road, and making them happen.
Huerta: To make people understand that they have the power to make the changes. And I think when we talk about saving democracy that is a message that we have to get out there. That everyone is responsible for saving our democracy, that we can’t sit back and say we’re going to have the president do it, or as you said, a quote-unquote leader, do it. Know that each and every one of us has to engage.
How does she feel about the upcoming elections?
Huerta: Like everybody else, scared. But I heard something on National Public Radio station yesterday in the valley. They brought up the whole issue of healthcare that Trump, when he was president, tried to get rid of national healthcare, and I think people kind of forget about that. … And we know that healthcare, which people are now pretty much taking it for granted, will be in danger if Trump gets elected. And so that might be something that will get people to the polls.
She’s a treasure. Thanks for your enduring strength, Señora!
Dolores Happy Birthday my old friend, Albert Calderon, Marshall ‘s nephew, we have one more big project. 231 557 6818 call me I love you more than ever
I recall being taught as a boy scout many years ago to “always leave a place better than I found it.” Like Dolores Huerta, I’ve also tried to live by that code of conduct.
One wonders why after so many decades, our world hasn’t become a much better place.
Certainly it has. For some.
The majority of us, however, still live in an undemocratic and unequal world ruled by a minuscule minority who want to amass more wealth and power for themselves.
Truly: most of us are just a tragedy or paycheck away from becoming destitute… or worse.
Meanwhile, the talking heads on the Sunday morning “news” shows tell us why a ceasefire in Gaza is elusive, or why sending more costly and deadly weapons abroad is essential.
Today, there are people within influential think tanks and our military establishment who speak and write about a “winnable” nuclear war.
Millions died of COVID-19, a disease which continues to evolve and strike.
The food on our table, costing more than ever, still largely comes to us thanks to the cheap and backbreaking labor of immigrants who didn’t first die or get turned back at our borders (while fleeing crushing poverty and war-torn countries). To skirt those costs, we now import more food than ever.
For every painful insult we endure, our establishment political leaders shed crocodile tears.
Our establishment media incessantly informs us that our presidential election choice boils down to deciding either between a rogue dictator and his fascistic friends or “Genocide Joe” whose handlers are bent on forestalling national economic ruin through imperialistic conquest.
Sacrosanct shibboleths and institutions of the past have been long pushed aside.
Inspiring slogans like “Sí, se puede!” become hollow when they are turned to the purpose of dividing people rather than uniting them.
What has become of our democracy? Of our unions? Both are distorted caricatures of what they once were. Can they be reformed? I think not.
The Boy Scouts are no longer what they were. A box of Girl Scout cookies is costing about six dollars today– a steal for one who is a billionaire, or a dutiful inconvenience for one who is within one of the higher income brackets.
In a world of about 8 billion people there are less than 3,000 billionaires. In the United States with a population of about 330 million, there are 750 billionaires. In the Golden State of California with almost 40 million, there are about 200 billionaires. In our city of San Francisco of about three quarters of a million people there are about 50 billionaires.
Let it sink in– and think about that while stepping over someone splayed on a sidewalk or while dodging someone on a scooter delivering a meal to someone who couldn’t be bothered to cook.
Bleak as things appear, WE CAN leave our world better than we found it.
¡Nosotros somos muchos, ellos son pocos! (Apologies if my Spanish is poor.)
I have long believed that voting for a “lesser evil” is still voting for evil, so I will vote for neither Trump nor Biden… or anyone who would later plead for me to vote for either.
Come November, I plan to vote for Joseph Kishore and Jerry White! To be sure, it is a symbolic vote, but the only one which holds meaning for me.
Until I got to your last sentence I was going to suggest that you read the WSWS, by far the leading and now the most read truly revolutionary socialist website in the world! ¡¡ Yes, vote SEP !!