Dolores Huerta’s Secret 

By Motecuzoma Sanchez

Today Dolores Huerta finally admitted what I and so many others knew for decades, that her and Cesar Chavez had two children they kept secret. 

The timing of the revelation comes on the same day the New York Times published a report that Chavez sexual molested young girls for years. This is a report Huerta knew was coming because she was contacted by the NYT.  The UFW knew also, which is why they did a preemptive statement denouncing Chavez a day before the bomb dropped. They knew how bad it was going to be. And so did Dolores. Which brings me to examine her statement and what I personally know. 

In the early 90’s as a young activist in Stockton, California, I met two sisters who were also involved in the Chicano movement at the time.  I am not going to reveal their identities because that is not my place. As an activist I came to know these women and be friends. Both of them are kind hearted, dedicated, and good leaders. We were involved in many organizing actions and protests, from fighting against proposition 187 to police brutality in the Mexican community. 

During this time while hanging out with them working on some project, they revealed to me that Huerta was their mother. This was a big deal because as a Chicano activist, I was taught to revere the civil rights icons.  They were deified. However, this conversation was not delivered with reverence. The daughter who made the revelation did so with disdain. While the older one regarded the truth with indifference and part of life, the younger one admitted she “hated, her mother, Dolores Huerta, because, “she abandoned us to be raised by strangers while she was out playing celebrity.” 

This was very surprising to me. But, I had no reason to doubt it or not support them as my friends. The pain in my friend’s voice was very real and the two sisters even debated with each other as to the harshness of such a position. To my recollection, I do not recall them stating Chavez was their father during that conversation. That “rumor” was learned later by separate sources, who were unaware of my conversation with the two sisters. Apparently it was already part of the oral history in Stockton’s Chicano community. 

On one occasion, it was blurted out in public by controversial former City Councilman Ralph White. It was my first time meeting him as we were both running for mayor in 2008. During a forum that was hosted by the Latina Dems, Huerta’s niece was one of the moderators. I don’t remember why, but White blurted out, “you know Dolores and Cesar Chavez have kids together right? Everyone knows that.” Everyone didn’t know that, including Huerta’s own niece who scoffed it off as Ralph being Ralph. The rest of the audience and candidates also laughed it off as crazy talk. I knew it wasn’t, especially because their grandson looks just like Cesar Chavez. 

Now on the day of the bombshell report by the NYT, Dolores admits, “Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.” Is this her telling her truth after 60 years, or is it damage control because she realized their secret was going to be revealed by the NYT? 

In my opinion it is the latter. Dolores states:

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.”

As a parent and long time activist myself, I cannot relate to ever denying my own children for any movement. And neither could her daughters.  It was the main source of at least one of their resentment towards Huerta, who now claims one of the pregnancies was consensual and the other was not. The sisters are close in age. So Dolores not only hid the first daughter, but years later did so a second time. Yet, all the while she remained right beside Chavez, while both were doing interviews using racial slurs against Mexicans, that would make Trump, Biden, Obama the Deporter in Chief, and Bush sound like good samaritans in comparison. They put loyalty to their “labor movement” even over their own ethnicity, while simultaneously using the symbolism of Mexicans to garner support for their organization. 

Now she tells the NYT, Chavez was her abuser, and her “boss.” Yet, on her own foundation website and in statements over the years, she has never given herself a position of subservience to Chavez. She instead has always placed herself on an equal footing, as the “co founder” of the UFW and creator of the slogan “Si Se Puede.”

Not only did she remain by Chavez’s side, but she’s spent the last several decades putting him on a pedestal. Part of the reason he is considered an icon is because of her personal advocacy. That’s not protecting a movement, that’s promoting an image she now says she knew not to be true. So what else did she know? As someone who was so close to Chavez, who says she experienced him raping her, did she really have no clue what he was doing to children that were marching with them? Was she a victim or was she complicit? 

She was not some lowly worker in the organization relying on Chavez for a paycheck for fear of going back to the fields, she was the vice president, co-founder, and co-star. And mother of two of his children. Despite this, she then went on to marry his younger brother, Richard who designed the famous Huelga bird symbol, and have four more children by him.  While continuing to not even scythe existence of her two daughters with Chavez. How did that “protect the farm workers movement”? 

Huerta has turned her time with Chavez into an “influencer” for the Democratic Party and the well funded Dolores Huerta Foundation. When you visit her website it’s the first thing that pops up, make a donation. On every page including her own biography claiming she’s a mother of 11 children, you can’t even read the information with the donation button being in the way. As of this morning, that bio does not include the two daughters she abandoned and hid. She is a mother of 13 children.   

Her statement today says, “Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.” 

Actually many of us did know Dolores. And I hope it’s true about them now having a deep relationship with their siblings after 60 years. For their sake. Not hers. 

I stopped celebrating Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez years ago. But I also learned a valuable lesson: Never put the world or any movement before your own children.