Dolores Huerta Dies at 96 After Decades of Farmworker Advocacy

Dolores Huerta, the labor leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers union and popularized the slogan "Sí, se puede," died of cancer on Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 96. Family spokesperson Erik Olvera confirmed she passed away surrounded by her family.

Huerta remained active in public life well into her 90s. She joined marches and urged activists to continue fighting for race, poverty, 2SLGBTQ+, and women's rights. In an August interview with the Associated Press, she stated that history seemed to be repeating itself and that people "have to stand up." The Spanish phrase she made famous translates to "Yes, it can be done," reflecting her belief that collective action drives change.

Teresa Romero, the current president of the United Farm Workers, issued a statement saying Huerta’s life work focused on empowering her community to overcome injustice. Romero noted that Huerta left farm workers and the wider Latino community stronger and more organized than when she started. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded Huerta the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. During that ceremony, Obama joked that she had let him off easy for using her slogan in his 2008 campaign, adding that "Dolores does not play."

Earlier this year, Huerta revealed that co-founder César Chavez sexually abused her in the 1960s, resulting in two children. She kept this information private for 60 years, stating she feared speaking out would damage her life's work. She told Latino USA it was "my cross to bear." Following her disclosure, Chavez's name was removed from various streets and buildings, and the holiday honoring him lost its standing as a point of Hispanic pride.

Born Dolores Clara Fernandez in 1930 in Dawson, N.M., Huerta was the daughter of a miner and union activist. Her parents divorced when she was three, and her mother moved the family to California. Huerta became an elementary school teacher in the San Joaquin Valley but grew frustrated by her students' conditions. She later said in a 2017 PBS documentary, "I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children."

After meeting Chavez through a civil rights group in Stockton, Huerta helped found the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. That group later became the United Farm Workers of America. She joined Filipino grape pickers on the picket line during the five-year Delano Grape Strike and negotiated contracts with large growers. These efforts won the first health and benefit plans for farm workers. Nationwide boycotts of grapes and lettuce in the early 1970s helped pave the way for California's first state law recognizing farm workers' right to collective bargaining.

Huerta was jailed 22 times for union demonstrating. In 1988, during a protest against George H.W. Bush in San Francisco, a police officer's baton left her with three broken ribs and a pulverized spleen. She later reached a settlement with the city. She had seven children from two earlier marriages and four with Richard Chavez, César's brother. Her son Emilio Huerta said it took "a lot of guts" to take on agriculture. In a 2025 documentary, Huerta said she hoped to be remembered as an organizer who fought injustice, and that the greatest inheritance for children is "love for justice."