Dolores Huerta Essay

765 Words4 Pages

Dolores Huerta was born in the early 30’s to her compassionate mother, Alicia, who helped low-wage workers by accommodating them at her hotel for free. Alicia, a role model to her daughter, inspired Dolores to help others as well. Despite excelling in school and extracurricular activities, Dolores faced racism in her Californian school, and was once even accused of plagiarism by a teacher who believed Dolores was incapable because she was Hispanic. As stated by the writers of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, she began a career as a teacher which was soon cut short because she could not bear seeing children in terrible economic conditions on a daily basis. Angered, she began a life of activism. ("Dolores Huerta.") By co-founding …show more content…

The Delano Grape Strike went into action. At first, it was successful, and spread to other farms. The growers realized that if they could slightly raise the wage during every strike, everything would go back to normal. According to the editors of the United Farm Workers web page, “Soon after a new strike began, they raised wages to $1.25 per hour. This time they were shocked to discover it wasn 't enough. Now there had to be a union, too. The raise merely encouraged the strikers to believe they were being effective. ... The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, ignoring the questions of social justice at the core of the farmworkers ' campaign for union recognition, offered itself to DiGiorgio, a large farm being struck against, as a conservative alternative to the NFWA/AWOC. The grower eagerly assented.” (UFW) The growers realized they couldn’t keep raising the wages again and again little by little every time there was a strike. Also, the strikers realized their power and were asking for more and more. The growers needed to do something before it was too late and they couldn’t stop the striking from getting out of control. This is why they were so eager to collude with the Teamsters. Dolores and Chavez realized the striking was not accomplishing

Open Document