El diez de abril/April 10th

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¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Dolores Huerta! (1930-        )

¡Sí se puede!  -Dolores Huerta

Photo from the L.A. Times, January 2017. Click HERE.
A civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farmworkers Association with César Chávez (which later became the United Farmworkers, or UFW), Dolores Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 and stood beside Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968 as he made a victory speech after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election, moments before he was shot and killed. She has continued to fight for the rights of immigrants, workers, and women ever since. She has won numerous awards for her community service and civil rights work, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1993. Born in New Mexico to Mexican immigrant parents, Huerta was raised mostly by her mother after her parents' divorce when she was three. Her father was a coal miner and later a beet harvester who was involved with the union. Her mother, Alicia Chavez, moved the family to Stockton, California, an agricultural harvesting town, and Huerta grew up in a community of Mexican, Filipino, African-American, Japanese and Chinese working families. Her mother eventually bought and ran a 70-room hotel, where she welcomed low-wage workers and was known for her compassion and generosity (read more HERE). Huerta has often credited her mother for her life-long dedication to social justice work. Huerta had two daughters with her first husband, Ralph Head, who she married in college. That marriage ended in divorce and she married Ventura Huerta, with whom she had five children. That marriage also ended in divorce. Huerta then had a long-standing relationship with Richard Chavez, the brother of Cesar Chavez, and the two had four children together. Richard Chavez died in 2011. PBS aired a documentary about Dolores Huerta, Dolores, in 2017. See the official trailer HERE. See a brief (2 minute) video (in Spanish) about Huerta's life, including an interview with Huerta in which she talks about who she admires and why she continues to do what she does, HERE.

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.

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