Dolores Huerta Dies at 96, UFW Co-Founder
Dolores Huerta, the pioneering American labour leader who co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) and gave the movement its slogan “Si se puede” — “Yes, we can” — has died at the age of 96. Her family announced on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, that she died at her home in Bakersfield, California, surrounded by close family members. A family spokesman said the cause of death was cancer.
Huerta was one of the foremost women in United States labour history. As the UFW’s chief negotiator, strike organiser and lobbyist during its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, she helped transform the lives of farmworkers in California’s Central Valley, winning job security, healthcare, retirement plans, rest periods, toilets in the fields, clean drinking water and protection from pesticides through union contracts.
From teacher to organiser
Born Dolores Clara Fernandez on April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico, Huerta moved to Stockton, California, as a child with her mother and two brothers after her parents divorced. She graduated from Stockton High School and earned a degree from Stockton College, now San Joaquin Delta College, at a time when educational opportunities for women, especially Mexican American women, were limited.
She began her career as an elementary school teacher but changed course after seeing farmworkers’ children coming to school hungry and barefoot. She joined the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights group, where she met Cesar Chavez, who shared her commitment to improving conditions for farmworkers. Together they founded the organisation that became the United Farm Workers in 1962.
Strikes, boycotts and the 1975 law
Huerta was the organising force behind the union while Chavez became its public face. She helped lead the Delano grape strike and the nationwide grape boycotts that brought the plight of California’s farmworkers to national attention. The campaigns ultimately helped pass California’s Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which established collective bargaining rights for farmworkers — a landmark in American labour law.
She also became closely identified with the words “Si se puede”, which she coined for the union. The slogan travelled far beyond the fields: Barack Obama later used its English version, “Yes, we can”, in his successful 2008 presidential campaign. Obama awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour in the United States, in 2012.
Later life and a painful revelation
Huerta remained active into her 90s, travelling the country during elections, endorsing candidates and registering voters, and speaking out against the immigration policies of President Donald Trump. The Bakersfield-based Dolores Huerta Foundation, which she founded in 2002, continued her work through grassroots organising and civic engagement, and held a sold-out celebration of her 96th birthday in Los Angeles in June 2026.
Earlier in 2026, Huerta also revealed publicly that Chavez had sexually assaulted her — she told The New York Times that he had pressured her into sex in 1960 and raped her in 1966, and that both encounters resulted in pregnancies. She said she had not reported the attacks at the time because of police attitudes toward the movement and her fear that no one in the union would believe her. “I have kept this secret long enough,” she said. “My silence ends here.”
The United Farm Workers said on Wednesday that “the greatest possible tribute to her life is for her work of organizing to continue.” Her family said memorial arrangements will be announced later and asked for privacy as they grieve.
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Source: Reuters, CNN, USA Today, Smithsonian Magazine and The Hindu, October 28-29, 2026.