'Si se puede' creator Dolores Huerta continues 70-year fight for civil rights

AUSTIN (KXAN) — One of the most influential voices in the Hispanic community — and the creator of the now-ubiquitous rallying cry, "Si se puede" — continues pushing for rights, something she's done for over six decades. 

Labor and Civil Rights Activist Dolores Huerta recently stopped in Austin for a rally at the Capitol, where she led a group chant, "Si se puede! You can do it!"

It's a simple phrase that has become a call to action at rallies, protests and political stages across the world. Huerta is credited for the rallying cry.

"Cesar Chavez was doing a 25-day water-only fast, and in Arizona, they had passed the law that farm workers, if they went on strike, they could go to jail," Huerta said. "When I went to some of the professionals in the area to ask them to please support us, they said… 'No, in Arizona, you cannot do this.' My response to them was, 'Yes, we can. Si se puede. Yes, you can!'"

KXAN's Jala Washington sat down with her, reflecting on how a lot of her activism work today is similar to the very things she fought for all those years ago.  

Her slogan helped lead to action, expanding the rights of farmworkers. Years later, Barack Obama tapped the slogan to fuel his presidential campaign.

"When I met the president, he said, 'I stole your slogan,'" Huerta said with a chuckle.

Huerta, 95, arguably has just as much fire now as she did 70 years ago, when she started her work as an activist.

The co-founder of the country's first farm workers' labor union—The United Farm Workers —Huerta, alongside Cesar Chavez, advocated for fair wages and better working conditions for farmers.

Huerta is widely known as an influential leader of the Chicano movement. It's a movement that protested inequality at all levels of society, including race, labor and women's rights. And some of those are the same rights many people feel are being threatened today.

In August, Huerta joined a rally at the Texas Capitol, speaking out about Texas redistricting, which she argued would be unfair to voters of color and minority communities.

"Well, it feels very much the same," Huerta said.

Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas's new congressional maps into law in late August, saying it "ensures fairer representation in the United States Congress for Texans.” Usually, maps are redrawn after a U.S. Census count, and it was last done in Texas in 2021. The timing in the middle of the decade and ahead of next year's midterms led to months of debate and a quorum break from House Democrats.

Much of what Huerta fought for, she believes, is a fight that's still happening today.

"It was a huge struggle for people, people to get the right to vote to begin with," Huerta said.

Huerta said she remembers the moment she felt called to do activist work.

"I was in a house meeting with a great organizer, Fred Ross Sr. ... then he showed us again newspaper clippings how people brought in clinics and they bought sidewalks and actually sent policemen to prison for beating up young Mexican youth," Huerta said. "And I thought, I want to belong to that organization. Anyone that can make — that have that kind of power to stop the discrimination, then that was, that was my aha moment."

That would lead Huerta to a lifetime of activism. And no matter where anyone stands on the political spectrum, Huerta hopes what people take away from her and her story is this:

"We do not have the luxury of getting tired," Huerta said. "Every single one of us has to become a patriot."