From the Archive: Cesar Chavez

Dolores airs as part of Independent Lens on Tuesday, March 27 at 9:00 pm.

Many people have heard of Cesar Chavez, the labor leader who helped organize farm workers beginning in the 1960s. Fewer people know about Dolores Huerta, his equally important partner in his work, who came up with the slogan "Sí, se puede" and co-founded what eventually became the United Farm Workers union with Chavez. The documentary Dolores aims to correct this historical disparity, bringing the acclaim to Huerta that she deserves but has been denied because she is a woman. (Her long career of activism has also focused on women's and immigrant rights.) 

Before watching Dolores, take a look back at Chavez in this interview with John Callaway on Chicago Tonighti from 1985, when he was in Chicago to organize boycotts against Jewel stores for selling lettuce from a producer that was hostile to farm worker unions. "No other set of workers are treated like the migrant workers in the United States," he says.