Dolores Huerta Opened my Eyes to How Food Comes to my Family
by Rockie Lyons
I recently heard an interview with Dolores Huerta, the 94-year-old farm worker activist who championed women's and farm workers' rights most of her life. In 1962, Huerta and Cesar Chavez co-founded the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, later the United Farm Workers Union. This Union fought for justice and fair treatment of migrant farm workers in California. They fought for migrant access to healthcare, voting rights, and fair compensation for work. Many workers had no rights, slept on floors with wooden boxes as furniture, and drank unclean water. Some workplaces lacked access to bathrooms. Most worked from sunrise to sundown without any break, often under a hot sun. Chavez was passionate about farmers not using pesticides because of the high incidence of congenital disabilities and deaths within the farm workers’ community. Sometimes, landowners sexually assaulted women who were afraid to speak up for fear of losing their jobs. Huerta was also a strong advocate for women’s rights.
In 1966-1970, Chavez and Huerta led the Delano, California, grape protests, a strike that took the plight of farm workers to grocery store consumers. The international grape strike led to a workers’ contract with grape growers, the first collective bargaining for farm workers, resulting in higher wages and improved working conditions.
In 1975, Jerry Brown, California's governor, signed the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) to bring physical fighting between grape growers and field workers to the courtroom. Huerta's interview brought back vivid memories of my court-reporting career when I captured what was happening in the San Joaquin Valley.
It was 1976. I was 24 years old, a working mother with a six-month-old, and a husband in college. I paid the bills by working as a court reporter. My job was to capture verbatim real-time testimony, then transcribe my court reporter's shorthand notes into transcripts that I sold to the court law judge and all litigating parties. I remember being impressed with the passion of young volunteer college students who often represented the United Farm Workers for free. Because they were not trained lawyers, the administrative law judges frequently stopped the proceedings to educate the young volunteers on the rules of law and decorum during the hearings. The administrative law judge would remind the volunteers that passion alone is not a reasonable objection.
I made a living by documenting the courtroom's interactions and then charging the parties for buying transcripts I created using my white IBM correcting Selectra typewriter. I charged participants for the words they used in the courtroom. I thought I had the most remarkable technology using my electric typewriter. A typical transcript order was one original for the court and four or five carbon copies for the parties involved. I made a living giving back to the courtroom's participants precisely what they said in the courtroom via a transcript. Computers were not yet in the marketplace, so I used carbon to create copies. My right pinkie finger was often black due to the erasures I made on each carbon copy page when I corrected a typo.
I remember driving to Delano, California, from Orange County for one of the first hearings under the new California Agricultural Labor Relations Act. At the time, I was unaware of Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers' movement or his passion for reconciling the unfair treatment of farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley. I learned later of the historic moment in 1968, when Robert Kennedy and Cesar Chavez shared a Catholic mass communion in Delano, California. The meeting between Kennedy and Chavez was one of the most powerful moments in history because it brought together race, politics, and labor.
I was very young and naive about the history we were making at the time because I focused on the immediate situation of capturing every word and then presenting the narrative verbatim in a transcript. I sometimes struggled to understand the thick Spanish or Arab accents I needed to translate into my court reporter's shorthand. When the testimony or questioning became hostile, I would stop the proceedings and ask for decorum, asking only one person to speak at a time.
Forty years later, I think about how much that court reporting experience became a part of history in ways I never imagined. What I thought was stressful, sometimes legally dull, and mundane became one of the most significant catalysts for social change for farm workers. I was young in my career and focused on the task at hand. I could not see or imagine the impact of our work.
Today, I look around and sometimes wonder how many times in my lifetime I have been a part of something larger than I imagined yet missed the moment because I was focused on details, in the weeds, and not thinking about the possibilities or the significance of change.
Dolores Huerta left an impressive legacy because she had the vision and foresight to seek justice. Throughout her career, Huerta was arrested twenty-two times for participating in nonviolent civil disobedience activities. Despite the challenges and physical danger, she imagined a place where justice prospered. She had a vision while managing all the chaos and distractions surrounding her.
Yet the farm field worker battles are not over. Many forces against farm labor continue today. The deportation threat of migrant farm workers is more significant than ever before. More than three million migrant workers support our agricultural economy. Farm Workers Fact Sheet
Last night, while making dinner and thinking about this article, I wondered how many hands touched my food before it reached my plate. I bought my food from a grocery store where I talked with the checkout clerk. However, I never met or chatted with the delivery person, the warehouse team, or the farm worker working under harsh conditions who picked or prepared the food on my table. I realize how much I take for granted. I don’t often think about all that is involved in how food comes to my family. Dolores Huerta fought against forces that seemed impossible, yet she persisted. We need more Dolores Huerta voices.
Bio:
Rockie Lyons taught writing at several universities and colleges and worked in high-tech for more than twenty-five years. You may listen to several NPR interviews and read several opinion editorials by Lyons at rockielyons.com
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This brought to mind the "Boycott Lettuce" graffiti in the university women's restrooms during my college days. I had to look it up to "jog" my memory of "The Salad Bowl" strike when 10,000 workers went on strike at the direction of Cesar Chavez. Safeway Stores were said to feel the greatest impact. These workers still remain in the background of the "food chain" until what they do is suddenly "not done". Thank you for posting.
Some years ago I attended a Pax Christi USA conference which i think was held in Seattle,WA. We had many excellent speakers at the conference, one of which was Dolores Huerta. I sat in the second row. directly behind Dolores, so I was able to meet her. She was and is a truly courageous and passionate advocate for social justice, even in her elderly years.