VOCES American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos

We shall not, we shall not be moved Just like a tree that's planted by the water... The rise of the United Farm Workers is the single most important event in Latinx history.

Come on out, brothers.

We are waiting for you!

Dolores Huerta is central to the rise of the farmworker movement.

Because remember, there have been generations of agricultural workers -- African, Latinos, Asian, etc., etc.

-- who had tried to organize and were defeated time and time again.

[Leguizamo:] I'm out here in Southern California to meet with labor leader and activist Dolores Huerta.

As a young girl, you were experiencing segregation, discrimination.

Can you describe what that was like?

- Well, I think it was mostly, uh, the kind of discrimination that you felt from your teachers, and from police, where they were always harassing us, even though we weren't doing anything wrong, you know?

And it was constant.

One of my girlfriends wanted to be a nurse.

And they told her, No, you can't be a nurse.

You have to study domestic work, how to clean houses.

When Dolores was in school, she was a very devoted student.

And she had this one favorite teacher who broke her heart.

Because one day she said to her, "I don't believe you wrote this essay.

"It's too well-written."

By the time I graduated from high school, most of my Black and Brown friends -- and Filipinos -- they had dropped out, not finishing high school.

- But we call it pushout... - Mm.

... yeah, because they have an unwelcome climate, the way that you're treated in a school that -- that kids don't feel welcome.

And I had this anger inside of me, but I never knew what to do with it until I learned how to organize.

[Leguizamo:] So when you became an activist, did you have role models?

How did you figure out how to become such a great organizer?

I think once I learned that you can get people together and that you could put pressure on the politicians, you know -- be it city council, or school board members -- and that you could register people to vote, get them to vote and elect good people to- to office, then that was real power.

[Leguizamo:] In 1965, Cesar Chavez left the Community Service Organization, and with Dolores Huerta formed the United Farm Workers Association.

They united with the Filipino grape pickers, who were also on strike for better pay and working conditions.

In solidarity, they not only refused to pick the grapes, but they also boycotted the purchase of the grapes in stores and markets all over the country.

[Huerta:] With the strike and with the boycott, we were trying to get farmworkers basic human rights: toilets in the field.

Cold drinking water.

Handwashing facilities.

Rest periods.

The right to have a union.

And also unemployment insurance, which farmworkers did not have.

Just basic human rights.