Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain Stuff, Lauren bogebam here. More than fifty years ago, a determined young woman stepped up and created the iconic slogan see see which is Spanish four yes we can that would lift up the voices of the voiceless and change the state of labor as we know it in the United States. That woman, civil rights activist, Dolores Puerta, would go on to co found the National farm Workers
Association with Caesar Chavas in the nineteen sixties. During her nearly forty years of work with that organization, Querta helped launch the first farm workers strike in the country, which kick started the fight for union rights and labor organizing in the agricultural sector in the US and changed the lives of farm workers forever. Querta was born on April tenth of nineteen thirty in the town of Dawson, New Mexico. That She was one of three children, and their parents
were activists. Her family had been in the US for five generations, and her great grandfather fought in the Civil War. Her father was a minor farm worker and union leader who later went into state politics after her parents divorce, Jortha moved with her mother to Stockton, California, where they've lived in a community of Mexican, Filipino, and Japanese Americans.
According to the book Dolores Quortha Get to Know the Voice of Migrant Workers, Porto was a talkative, inquisitive young girl, and her grandfather nicknamed her cithe linguas Spanish for seven tongues for the article this episode is based on How Stuff Work. Spoke by email with Mario Garcia, author of a Dolores Worth the Reader. He said, when her family moved from New Mexico to Stockton, California, her brothers had to work in the fields, and Jorta, as a teenager,
also wanted to join them. However, her mother forbade this because she did not want her daughter to work in the fields. Querta's mother did permit her daughter to work in industrial packing sheds, where the working conditions weren't much better. Garcia said, I think this early exposure to the harsh working conditions of farm workers provided a context for Dolores later working to organize these workers to do away with the more exploitative aspects of farm labor. After graduating. Hrtha married,
had two children and began teaching elementary school. Many of the students were the children of impoverished farm workers and came to school hungry or missing essential items like shoes. Hostas Works also spoke by email with Sarah Warren, author of the book Dolores Querta, A Hero to Migrant Workers. She said that Whetha quote was driven to do more for the children she planned to serve when she found
out how their families were being abused. At age five, Huerta became immersed in activism, joining a local group run by Fred Ross and learning how to become a labor organizer. Garcia said as a young adult, she became involved with the Community Service Organization or CSO, which was an organization mobilizing Mexican Americans in civil rights work and voter registration in the nineteen fifties. At the CSO, Quarte met Cesar Chavez, who would go on to become one of the most
widely recognized Mexican American labor leaders in US history. Quarta and Chavez began to work together for improved working conditions and wages for farm workers who earned as little as
seventy cents an hour at the time. Garcia said, Cesar recognized Dolores's talents as an organizer plus her own personal strength, and so when he began to organize in the fields by nineteen sixty two, he recruited Dolores to work with him, and together, Chaves and Puerta founded the National farm Workers Association in nineteen sixty two, which later became the United farm Workers Union. Quarta remained vice president of the United farm Workers until Chaves and Puerta had a complex relationship,
according to scholars. From one point of view, they were comrades in the fields, working for better conditions for the most marginalized workers in society. Hostuff Works also spoke by email with Monica Brown, author of Side by Side The Story of Dolores Puerta and Cesar Chavez. She said, as Dolores once told me they were comrades. They spoke to farm workers on the backs of flatbed trucks. Garcia said, Dolores saw herself as equal to Cesar, and he accepted this.
Caesar didn't always agree with Dolores, but he learned from her as she was one of the few persons in the union who was not afraid to criticize the CESAR, which he appreciated. Wuerta and Chavez became most well known for organizing the nineteen sixty five Delano Grape Strike and boycott. Striking Filipino grape farm workers sought the help of the emerging National farm Workers Association, which largely represented Latino workers
at the time. Ahuerta marched along with Chavez for workers rights, brought together the Filipino and Latino workers on the picket line, and led a nationwide boycott of non union table grapes in nineteen seventy. Their steadfast organized being paid off, resulting in union contracts as well as better wages and working conditions for the grape workers. How staff Works also spoke with Stacy Soward's author of c a Puite the rhetorical
legacy of dolors Wertha and the United farm Workers. She said dolors Porta played a big role in getting farm workers to participate in union activities, to boycott grapes and other produce, to pickut farms, and become members of the union. In President Barack Obama awarded Quarta the Presidential Medal of Freedom, recognizing her, not Chavez, as the original source of the
phrase see s poe. Obama famously appropriated the slogan for his own presidential campaign, but Querta's rallying cry had been used for years to organize farm workers and inspire advocacy for other civil rights issues. Brown said Dolores Wortha first spoke the famous words see se poe while speaking to a group of workers who kept saying, we can't organize the workers here. We can't. Dolores responded, see see yes
you can. Quarta became an iconic activist and a source of pride from Mexican Americans and others within the Latin American community. Her organizing helped bring about the Immigration Reform and Control Act, which granted amnesty to one point three million undocumented workers. Quarta is approaching her ninety second birthday this April of two, and remains active on the front lines as a civil rights advocate and labor organizer. She holds media events and hosts TED talks on how to
speak out and become empowered through activism. Soward said her legacy today is that she's become a social movement icon. She's demonstrated how one moves from individual action and concern for community to working with other people on those issues to creating an entire social movement. A Quarta also founded
the Dolores Puerta Foundation in two thousand three. The nonprofit focuses on empowering and training grassroots organizers in lower income and disenfranchised communities in California, including work on lgbt q i A issues. Although farm workers have more collective bargaining opportunities as a result of quart Does work, they still
experience widespread exploitation, harsh working conditions, and wage theft. In recent years, Quortha has been vocal in pushing for immigration reform to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, who constitute a large share of farm workers in the United States. Moreover, Quorta continues to boost the civic power of the Latin American community, specifically through efforts to turn out the vote. The community played an important role in
the election, turning out in record numbers. Soward said she's been very active and registering people to vote and getting people to the polls. Her foundation works to get people more involved beyond voting, such as organizing voters to vote, but also to participate more fully on social justice issues
in their communities. Garcias said her legacy of taking on issues of social justice not only in the fields, but in the fight for women's rights, civil rights, voting rights, and for world peace are all part of her legacy. Today's episode is based on the article Dolor's Bertha the labor activists behind the slogan sees on how stuff works dot Com, written by Terry R. Lagata A brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot Com, and it's produced by Tyler Klang.
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