Dolores Huertas Life History - Assignment Example

Dolores Huerta’s Life History al Affiliation) Life History Dolores Huerta was born on 10 April, the year 1030 in New Mexico. She was the female child in the family and the second born of three siblings. Her parents divorced when she was still a small child and her mother raised her and her two brothers single-handedly. She quotes her mother’s independence as being the main reason as to why she became a lifelong feminist. She did her degree in education at the Delta community College and thereafter she worked as a teacher. It is during this period in time when working as a teacher that she noticed that most of her students were going without adequate food. This was because many of them were the children of farm workers who were poorly paid and hence lived below the poverty lines; they could not afford to provide adequate food for their children. No longer able to continue watching her students coming to class without anything to eat, she decided to set up the Community Services Organization, whose main objective was to end discrimination against the farms workers and to also improve their economic situation through improved working conditions and better pay for the workers. During this period is when she met up with Cesar Chavez alike minded individual like her and for the following years they worked together to further the cause of millions of farm workers (Lloyd, 2008). In 1960, she created the Agricultural Workers Association in order to further her cause. She used this association to continue with her fight for the farm workers and especially for the rights of migrant farm workers. Later on, she collaborated with Cesar Chavez and formed the United Farm Workers that was an instrumental and powerful labor union leading the largest industrial actions of the 1970s.In the year of 1999; she stepped down from active duties in the organization but continued to be active in her own personal capacity towards the advancement of her cause. She has received and continues to receive numerous awards and accolades the world over for her efforts and activism activities towards the improvement and empowerment of the common worker (Lloyd, 2008). Accomplishment and Strengths Dolores formed a very formidable force with her long-term partner because of her reputation of being a very good organizer. This is how she was able to lead massive industrial actions in the country especially the strikes against The grape growers in California in the 1960s.She was also a proven hard negotiator who was able to fight for the workers and come up with the best results for the workers that she represented. She was also an aggressive campaigner for the rights of workers, describing herself in the following words, “I am not the quiet long suffering type.” Her achievements include the formation of numerous unions to fight for the rights of workers, such as the Farm Workers Association in 1962. Through the efforts of this association that she had formed with Cesar Chavez, she was able to bring numerous gains to the farm workers such as par raises, installment of sanitary facilities in the fields for the workers, aces to clean drinking water for the workers, health and unemployment benefits among many other improvements to the working conditions. She was among the main driving causes that led to the printing of voting papers in Spanish to help the illiterate workers who could not speak English participate in the electoral process. Challenges Dolores faced a number of challenges in the execution of her business. One of the main challenges is that she was considered too combative, at times even by her closest collaborators. This proved especially true during the grape workers strike, where even her longtime collaborator Mr. Chávez raised concerns of her methodology and the tactics that she was using. Her continued refusal to go back to the negotiation table had caused Mr. Chávez to raise eyebrows. It was not until he himself got to experience first-hand the difficulties of dealing with the lawyers and negotiators of the farm owners that he came to understand the difficulty that Dolores was facing and why she behaved in the manner that she did. Dolores also had the challenge of being able to balance between work commitments and her family life. The work that she was doing was very demanding at time with her very own children at times not approving of their mother’s decisions or methods used. This situation became even compounded further when she got remarried to Mr. Richard Chavez and the size of her family ballooned to 11 children in total. The additional responsibilities that came with the increase in size proved to be quite a challenge for her. However, her family still supported her work and respected her cause. Another challenge that she faced was in her rewriting the role of the women in society. She hailed from a very conservative Hispanic background where the role of the woman in society was infinitesimal. This emerged in almost all areas of life, especially in light of the labor movement even in the United States. Therefore, her highly vocal and visible role in the labor union movement drew some individuals to voice their disapproval of her and many doubted her abilities to deal with the farm owners to deliver tangible results. She also faced the challenge of personal injury and continually exposing herself to risk. In the execution of her work, Dolores was arrested numerous times. This had resulted into injury and at times, she had to be hospitalized. She experienced traumatic events against police officers when fighting against policies for which the presidential candidate George Bush vouched; they clubbed her and she collapsed and was rushed to hospital where it was necessary to remove her spleen in order to save her life. This was just one instance among many of where her life was in danger as she fought for the rights of workers and the general Hispanic community. Her perseverance and determination saw her through such difficult situations (Lloyd, 2008). References Lloyd, D. H. (2008). Crossing the line. North Charleston, S.C.: BookSurge. Read More