Labor rights leader Dolores Huerta visited Hartford this week to accept the Living Legend Award at the 23rd annual Latinas in Leadership Symposium. Connecticut Public’s Rachel Iacovone moderated the symposium’s fireside chat with Huerta about her more than seven decades in activism.
Huerta, who is 96 years old, is best known as one of the founders of United Farm Workers of America. The labor union began as part of the mostly Chicano, or Mexican-American, civil rights movement in the ‘60s. Even those unfamiliar with the organization by name typically know its slogan, which Huerta is credited with creating: “Sí se puede,” or “yes, we can.”
‘Sí se puede’ then and now
Huerta said the iconic slogan came to her during a time when United Farm Workers was trying to rally against an anti-boycott law in Arizona, but the local labor leaders were weary.
“You know what they told me?” Huerta said. “‘Oh, in California, you can do all that but not in Arizona,’ and my response to them was ‘Sí se puede in Arizona.’”
Huerta reported this conversation back to the organizers out in the field.
“They got up, and they started clapping, saying ‘Sí se puede,’” she explained. “So it just came out of the work. It came out of the universe.”
In 2007, President Barack Obama’s first run for the nation’s highest position leaned heavily into an English version of the same slogan: “Yes, we can.”
“When I met the president, he said to me, ‘I stole your slogan,’” Huerta recalled, “and I told him, ‘Yes, you did.’”
The room filled with boisterous laughter from the crowd of nearly 800 Latinas and their allies from across the state and region. But Huerta continued to reflect on what it has been like to be the inspiration for some of the nation’s biggest moments in recent decades — from the election of the United States’ first Black president to similar farmwork rights activism in Florida that led to most fast food companies joining the Fair Food Program. Enrollees agree to regular auditing to protect workers from wage theft, physical and sexual abuse, and health and safety issues like heatstroke. Plus, they pay farmworkers more per piece of harvested produce, similar to the ask Huerta’s United Farm Workers made during the five-year Delano Grape Strike.
“When we do our work, we’re just thinking of trying to get the job done right. We're not thinking about that — we're making history — or that other people will copy what we're doing,” Huerta said. “I think that's really wonderful to know that.”
Women in activist spaces
Huerta was one of the first women — and thus first Latinas — to lead during the Civil Rights and labor movements of the 1960s. But much of the recognition for her work came later.
Just this year, Huerta was named one of TIME’s Most Influential People of 2026 alongside few other Latinas, like National Immigration Law Center President Kica Matos from Connecticut.
“It's a great honor, but I feel that when I do receive these honors, I get them on the backs of so many women out there that are doing the important work that needs to be done,” Huerta said.
Being a pioneer has given Huerta a unique perspective on what many women who would like to do similar work may be thinking when they hear someone like her speak.
“Sometimes, we hold ourselves back because we think, ‘People are going to talk about me. They're going to criticize me,’” Huerta said. “They did when I started organizing.”
Huerta said she could not even guess how many times she was told by people, “You should be at home with your kids.”
“It takes courage to speak up and not to be afraid to be criticized when we do stand up,” Huerta said.
Huerta, a longtime activist for women and reproductive rights, also recently spoke up as one of several women who came forward with claims of sexual harassment and abuse during their work in the labor movement. She made international headlines for coming forward about alleged abuse by late activist Cesar Chavez, with whom she had co-founded United Farm Workers. She did not address the abuse directly while speaking in Hartford, but she urged women to speak up, to think of themselves as leaders and to defy cultural expectations of what women in activism can do.
Back when Huerta left her teaching job to become a labor organizer in Delano, California, her own loved ones did not initially understand.
“My family thought I had gone crazy. Members of my family stopped talking to me,” Huerta recalled. “So, you're going to be criticized. People are not going to be happy with you. But then, once the strike became popular, all my family started talking to me again.”
She’s able to laugh about the period of estrangement now, but there were times she had to remind herself: “We're trying to help people. We're trying to make the world a better place.”
“So you have to have that faith in yourself,” Huerta said. “You have that faith in yourself that you're doing the right thing.”
Learn more
Huerta went on to call for universal healthcare, free childcare and college education, as the Connecticut Convention Center ballroom erupted in applause with each mentioned issue.
You can watch Huerta’s award acceptance and the entire fireside chat on Latinas in Leadership’s YouTube channel here.
