DOLORES HUERTA DIES IN CALIFORNIA

Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, died on Wednesday in Bakersfield, California, her family said. A family spokesperson said cancer caused her death. Huerta helped organise agricultural workers and negotiate with growers during the union’s campaigns in California’s Central Valley. “We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved mother, Dolores Huerta, has passed away today,” her family said. The family asked for privacy and said it would announce plans to recognise her life.

Huerta and Chavez founded the United Farm Workers, which organised strikes, boycotts and protests during the 1960s and 1970s. The union negotiated contracts that provided workers with healthcare, retirement plans, rest periods and access to clean drinking water, among other benefits. Huerta served as a negotiator and lobbyist as well as an organiser. She coined the union’s slogan, “Sí, se puede!”, which Barack Obama later adapted for his 2008 presidential campaign. Born in New Mexico in 1930, Huerta also worked on Democratic presidential campaigns, including those of Robert F Kennedy and Joe Biden.

Huerta continued campaigning on immigration, poverty and women’s rights into her 90s. She travelled to endorse candidates and register voters during elections. In accounts she gave in 2026, Huerta said Chavez had pressured her into sex on one occasion and raped her on another. Other women also accused Chavez, who died in 1993, of sexual assault. Huerta’s family said people around the world shared its mourning and that it would provide details of plans to commemorate her.