\n<\/p>\n
The photos currently popping up in my social media stream are like a highlight reel of the life of Chicana civil rights icon Dolores Huerta.<\/p>\n
The famous black-and-white shot from the 1960s, in which she looks like a bohemian in a sweatshirt and black pants as she holds a sign proclaiming “HUELGA” in the vineyards of California’s Central Valley.<\/p>\n
In the 1980s, she had gray hair while chanting in front of picket lines.<\/p>\n
Beaming as President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 for a lifetime of good work leading up to the United Farm Workers union she co-founded.<\/p>\n
What’s especially popular is fans posting photos of themselves with them \u2014 at protests, during art gallery openings, in classes, even at dances. This is the type of public outcry that is usually seen when a celebrity dies. Sadly, people are still reluctant to share their encounters with him. <\/p>\n
No one died. But something happened. <\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Huerta told The New York Times that fellow Chicano civil rights icon Cesar Chavez raped her during the 1960s. It was part of a story that also interviewed two women who claimed that the United Farm Workers co-founder had sexually abused them when they were young teenagers in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
One of the posts I saw shortly after the story’s publication was an Instagram portrait of Marisela Cueva that she took when the two met during a conference in Burbank a few years ago.<\/p>\n
“Standing with Dolores Huerta means honoring her legacy in the farmworker movement as well as the victims who had the courage to come forward, and acknowledging the personal sacrifices behind it,” said Cueva, president of public relations firm VPE Communications.<\/p>\n
Former West Covina Mayor Brian Calderon Tabatabei took to the platform formally known as Twitter to share a photo of him shaking hands with Huerta in Berkeley at the Working Families Party’s gathering for elected leaders in 2024, where she joined a breakout session and heard from the next generation of leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at the people who posted the photos and we are all children of the movement,\u201d said Tabatabei, who is also an El Monte High ethnic studies teacher. He starts each school year by yelling at Huerta. “She lived with that pain so that we can live in these places. So we don’t have to be silent.”<\/p>\n
Together, the photographs stand as a communal family album. It’s a show of love and solidarity for Huerta \u2013 but also a challenge for us. Many of us immediately believed the longtime activist, not only because of his stature, but also because we were unfortunately all too familiar with the script playing out in real time.<\/p>\n
Abuse of a Latina by a trusted, powerful man. A terrible mystery that could not be made up Him<\/i> look bad and ruin His<\/i> life. The victim’s need to constantly praise the abuser in front of others, no matter what. A life of service as sacrifice. Eternal grace is hiding an unimaginable pain. <\/p>\n
Her story is the story of so many women I know and you know too \u2013 and maybe your story too. <\/p>\n
Determination in the face of suffering is nothing new in Huerta’s story. For decades, journalists, activists, historians, and others crafting the story of Chicano civil rights regarded her as a modern Mary Magdalene \u2013 a woman who found purpose by following a man. Ch\u00e1vez was positioned as a Christ-like figure who worked hard for us all at great personal cost and thus became the face of the farmworkers movement. Meanwhile, he and others elevated Huerta to sidekick status both in the trenches and in the public \u2013 and image makers followed their lead. <\/p>\n
He gained greater prominence after his death in 1993, but Ch\u00e1vez’s shadow loomed over him for a long time. Huerta became one of Ch\u00e1vez’s staunchest defenders even after revelations about his autocratic ways became public \u2013 but what else was he supposed to do when people identified him so closely with him?<\/p>\n
Through it all, Huerta didn’t just show up for it. la cause<\/i> But for others. In Bakersfield, where Huerta lives, people know she’s a supporter of the arts and live music \u2014 she was spotted at a Mardis Gras party just last month, dancing with family members and happily taking photos with well-wishers. I’ve met him at my wife’s restaurant in Santa Ana, at movie theaters in Los Angeles, at online fundraisers for museums. My favorite memory is a time when the two of us spoke to students at a high school summer conference. Later, the organizers told me that her speaking fee was much less than that of a famous Latina author who demanded $25,000 for an hour-long talk. <\/p>\n
That’s why Huerta’s recent revelations hit particularly deeply \u2013 unlike Sant Ch\u00e1vez for a long time, she always seemed like one of us. Huerta has navigated various stages of life in the public eye in such a way that Latinos have for decades seen her as our daughter, our sister, our aunt. Our mothers, grandmothers and now great-grandmothers in the winter of their years. <\/p>\n
We all know women in one of those roles who suffered the same violations as Huerta. The same dismissal and insult. Who never talked about their notoriety because they were afraid we wouldn’t stick with them.<\/p>\n
Huerta was once one of them.<\/p>\n
Huerta wrote in a short essay, “I believed that exposing the truth would harm the farmer movement for which I have spent my entire life fighting.” <\/p>\n
Now coming forward, she is speaking for every woman who has kept the abuse she faced private, every woman ignored in favor of a man, every relative told to hide secrets so they don’t embarrass the family, every woman attacked for ultimately speaking out. By posting all those photos of Huerta \u2014 alone, in a crowd, with others \u2014 people are publicly and unknowingly saying:<\/p>\n
We can do better for the girls and women in our lives. We Sure<\/i> do better.<\/p>\n
He concluded in his essay, “I have kept this secret for a long time.” “My silence ends here.”<\/p>\n
May we all listen to Dolores Huertas in our lives. I wish we could finally stand with them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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