In a presentation at The Pyramid yesterday, Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farm Workers, stressed the importance of creating unions for immigrant farm workers and freeing them from discrimination.
"It is the pressure of the public that keeps the movement alive, and students are the public," Huerta said, regarding her visit to Cal State Long Beach.
This was Huerta's third time speaking here. While students help by participating in the movement, Huerta inspires them to do so.
"She is pretty much someone I worship," said Karla Saldana, co-chairwoman of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Students United. "She never gives up hope in dealing with the Chicano movement, the female movement and the gay and lesbian movement."
Huerta has been fighting to better the lives of farm workers nationwide for more than 30 years.
In 1962, she met Cesar Chavez whose request had recently been turned down by the Community Service Organization to unionize farm workers.
The duo soon organized the National Farm Workers Association, predecessor to the current United Farm Workers.
After a five-year strike known as the "Delano Grape Strike," and a one-year boycott, Huerta was responsible for the first committee comprised of Mexican-American farm workers to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement in 1966.
At 67, Huerta still works long hours for the union she co-founded and nurtured, according to her biography.
Huerta's focus is now on the 20,000 strawberry workers in Watsonville, Cailf.
"The workers' wages have dropped 20 percent while strawberry prices have doubled," Huerta said.
A priority of the UFW is to unionize the Watsonville agricultural workers.
With union membership, the workers would be provided with medical insurance, affordable housing and standards regarding working conditions and facilities, Huerta said .
"Growers have organizations in Washington fighting for them. What's wrong with the workers having organizations?" Huerta said.
Huerta and Chavez shared the vision of a nationwide union for farm workers. However, in a conversation between the two, she said Chavez expressed doubt about experiencing it in his lifetime.
"Growers are too rich, too powerful and too racist," was Chavez's remark, Huerta recounted.
Huerta has also been an outspoken activist on civil rights. According to Huerta, women's studies courses and education on the effects of racism should be mandatory beginning in first grade.
Currently, Huerta is involved in a speaking tour that promotes "La Causa," the farm workers' cause.