NewsTaco

By The Bakersfield Californian

Labor leader and human rights activist Dolores Huerta was inducted into the California Hall of Fame during a ceremony Wednesday night at The California Museum in Sacramento, according to a press release.

She is part of the seventh class of inductees to join the Hall of Fame since the program began in 2006.

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[Photo by Freedom To Marry]

PRESS RELEASE

36,000 Sign Petition on SignOn.org Calling on the New York Times to Lead a More Inclusive, Tolerant Discussion of Immigration in America

** http://signon.org/sign/it-is-never-too-late **

KEENE, CALIFORNIA - As President Obama heads to Keene, California today to announce the establishment of the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, a new petition on SignOn.org by Cesar Chavez’s widow, Helen Chavez, calls on The New York Times to cease referring to immigrants as “illegals” and instead use the term “undocumented” in order to create a more civilized and tolerant discussion about immigrants and immigration in America.

Helen F. Chavez, widow of farm labor and civil rights icon Cesar Chavez, signed the petition, which is also endorsed by her family, including her middle son, Paul Chavez, president of the Cesar Chavez Foundation. The Chavez foundation, based where they both live in Keene, is the non-profit, tax-exempt arm of the farm worker movement. It builds affordable housing, operates a four-state network of educational Spanish-language radio stations and runs the National Chavez Center where Chavez is buried.  More than 36,000 people have joined Helen’s call for the New York Times to take the lead in a more inclusive and tolerant discussion of undocumented immigration in America.

Remembering her years working in the fields, “we were called ‘wetbacks’ ‘dirty Mexicans’—and worse,” Helen Chavez wrote in the petition. “It is no longer acceptable to call people names or use stereotypes because of skin color or who people are. Why should we tolerate farm workers and other Latinos being treated this way? Some day not long from now people will look back and ask, ‘How could people call other people names like illegal?’ Is it never too late to stand on the right side of history?”

SIGN THE PETITION HERE: http://signon.org/sign/it-is-never-too-late

“My father and his movement gave hope and pride to farm workers plus millions of Latinos and people from all walks of life,” said Paul Chavez.  “As one of the leading news sources in America, the New York Times has the power to help change the way we talk about immigration in this country. That is why my mother is appealing to the Times to lead the way to a more fair and productive discussion about this important issue.”

NEW YORK TIMES PUBLIC EDITOR MARGARET SULLIVAN RESPONDS: http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/readers-wont-benefit-if-times-bans-the-term-illegal-immigrant/

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SignOn.org is the non-profit, online campaign platform from MoveOn.org that lets

[Photo by  US Department of Labor]

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

Two things prompted me to write this. One is that this past weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the National Farm Workers Association in California. That association was later to become the United Farm Workers of America, led by the iconic Cesar Chavez. You’d think that the date would have been celebrated in Latino/Chicano circles with pride, noise and hoopla. But if not for a stumble upon an article in TIME magazine, I wouldn’t have been the wiser.

The other thing was a visit by one of United Farm Workers’ founders, Dolores Huerta, to San Antonio, Texas. She was in town to raise funds for her latest project, Doloreshuerta.org, whose mission, according to the website, is “to create a network of organized communities pursuing social justice through systemic and structural transformation.”

But I wanted to talk to her about a different topic altogether.

Huerta is, by all accounts, the quintessential Latino organizer. Her history with the United Farm Workers speaks volumes on this account. And I’ve recently been asked for advice on what to tell people who aren’t committed voters to get them to register and vote. Most, if not all, NewsTaco readers are engaged, plugged-in, registered Latino voters, so a voter registration drive on our site is preaching the obvious. What our readers have been asking for are tips to get people engaged, examples of a pitch that works with disengaged Latinos.

Who better, I thought, than the veteran organizer Dolores Huerta to give us her take on what to tell Latinos about why they should vote.

Word. Now get at it!

By Raisa Camargo, Voxxi

Dolores Huerta, the famed civil rights advocate of the farm worker movement, received the nation’s highest civilian honor Tuesday when President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

A crowd of an estimated 300 persons packed the ceremony in the East Wing of the White House. Supporters from as far as Los Angeles applauded as president Obama stood up and awarded the medal to Huerta along with 12 other notable figures, including folk singer Bob Dylan and novelist Toni Morrison.

President Barack Obama awards Medal of Freedom to Dolores Huerta.

The medal is the highest civilian award in the United States. It recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”

President Obama spoke personally about the inspiration each recipient has made in his life during the ceremony.

“Without any negotiating experience, Dolores helped lead a worldwide grape boycott that forced employers to agree to some of the country’s first farm worker contracts,” said Obama. “Ever since she has fought to give more people a seat at the table. ‘Don’t wait to be invited, step in there, she says.”’

On a personal note, he jokingly added, “Dolores was very gracious when I told her I had stolen her slogan: Yes we can. Knowing her, I’m pleased she let me off easy. Dolores does not play,” he said.

Huerta, 82 and the mother of 11 children, co-founded the National Farmworkers Association in 1962 with Cesar Chavez. It later became known as the United Farm Workers of America. She was influential in securing the passage of California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975.

She has been arrested 22 times and at one time she was brutally beaten by San Francisco police during a 1988 peaceful protest. Yet, her perseverance has been an astonishing reminder to the movement as well as an inspiration to many, including Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.

“She has advocated for non-violent protest and has taught people that they have both the personal power and the responsibility to work together to improve their lives. Back then, I never dreamed that I would ever meet her, let alone have the honor of calling her my friend,” wrote Solis. “I don’t know if Dolores inspired me to become a public servant, but I do know that she inspired — and insisted — that I become the best public servant I could be.”

Addressing a gathering of Hispanic media during a roundtable discussion earlier today, Huerta emphasized her commitment to upholding civil rights in the community through voter registration and education. She also cautioned that there’s still a lack of sufficient resources to compel the masses to mobilize.

“We need to take the street marches to the neighborhoods,” said Huerta. “If we don’t take political action nothing will change.”

Huerta pointed to how influential Latinos were in Nevada during the 2010 midterm elections. Senate Majority Leaders Harry Reid (D) was in a political fight for his life against tea party favorite Sharron Angle. But high turnout among Latinos is credited, in part, with Reid being able to keep his Senate seat. She cited other examples, including the massive immigration mobilization in 2006.

“What is lacking for us? Organizing our people. There is no reason for why these laws (immigration enforcement laws) that are against us should pass. For me, what is lacking is organizing. If the pueblo isn’t organized we can’t sustain a democracy,” said Huerta. “Leaders are there, but we just need the resources to go to these towns and educate the people.”

She later founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which is dedicated to developing community organizers and national leaders. Her next step is to encourage voter registration by organizing a grassroots campaign to get out the vote.

In addition to Huerta, other honorees included: former Department of Justice civil rights lawyer John Doar; epidemiologist William Foege; novelist Toni Morrison; former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens; women’s college basketball coach Pat Summitt; folk singer Bob Dylan; former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; and astronaut John Glenn.

Obama expressed his gratitude to each recipient. Through his college years, he said Bob Dylan’s music opened up his world because Dylan captured “something about this country that was so vital.”

He remembered reading Morrison’s Song of Solomon and aside from figuring out how to write, he was figuring out “how to be.”

“Everybody on this stage has marked my life in profound ways,” said Obama.

Raisa Camargo is a staff writer at Voxxi.

This article first appeared in Voxxi.

[Photo by Freedom To Marry]

Dolores Huerta was born in 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico but was raised by her single mother in the San Joaquin Valley community of Stockton, California. She became involved with labor organizing at an early age, co-founding a local chapter of the Community Service Organization in 1955 and late go on to co-found what would become the United Farm Workers union withCésar Chávez.

Huerta spearheaded the UFW’s 1965 grape boycott, an attempt to bring the issues surrounding migrant farm laborers to consumers. As a result of boycott, the table grape industry of California signed a collective bargaining agreement with the union, the first time farm workers had been able to achieve such a feat.

Huerta has been awarded numerous honors for her lifetime of fighting for workers’ rights, including an honorary degree from Princeton University in 2006 and being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1993. At 81, she is president of the eponymous Dolores Huerta Foundation.

References:

http://dhuerta.hostcentric.com/dh_bio.htm

http://www.biography.com/articles/Dolores-Huerta-188850

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolores_Huerta

[Photo By Eric Guo]