Dolores Huerta dies at 96, leaving a legacy defined by 14 children and a fight for farmworkers

14 children. That was the number Dolores Huerta raised while building one of the most influential labor unions in American history. The civil rights leader and co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America died Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, California. She was 96.

Family members shared the news via her Instagram account, confirming her death without specifying a cause in the initial post. A spokesperson for Huerta later told The New York Times that cancer was the cause. The family said they would share plans to honor her life and legacy in the coming days.

Huerta was a central figure in the struggle for agricultural labor rights. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez left the Community Service Organization to found the National Farm Workers Association. The group later became the UFW. They organized strikes, hunger strikes, and a nationwide grape boycott that forced growers to sign some of the first contracts for farmworkers in the country. The boycott lasted from 1965 to 1970 and targeted grocery chains until labor standards improved.

Her personal life mirrored the hardships she fought against. While organizing in Delano, California, Huerta moved seven of her children to join the strike, leaving two behind in Stockton. She described living on food banks and facing violence at night, with windows broken and guns aimed at her home. Women in the movement, including Chavez’s family, organized childcare to allow workers to stay on picket lines.

Huerta also coined the phrase 'Sí se puede,' which translates to 'Yes we can.' Barack Obama later adopted the slogan for his 2008 presidential campaign. During the 2012 ceremony where he awarded Huerta the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Obama joked that he had stolen her slogan. He noted that she did not play and that she stepped in to lead without waiting to be invited.

In March 2026, Huerta broke decades of silence to accuse Chavez of sexually abusing her. She stated that he pressured her into sex and raped her on separate occasions during the 1960s, resulting in two pregnancies. Both children were raised by other families, and Huerta said she later developed close relationships with them. She said she had kept the abuse private for years to protect the farmworker movement. Her disclosure aligned with a New York Times investigation into other allegations against Chavez.

Huerta’s early life in Dawson, New Mexico, and Stockton, California, shaped her view of justice. Her father, a miner and state legislator, and her mother, who ran a hotel for low-wage workers, influenced her perspective. A provisional teaching credential from the University of the Pacific led her to teach elementary school, where she saw many students living in homes with dirt floors. That observation, she said, hooked her for life.

Her mentor, Fred Ross Sr., taught her to make demands of public officials and to vote. Huerta met Chavez in 1955 while both worked with the Community Service Organization. Ross, whom she called her spiritual father, died in 1992. Huerta credited the women of the movement with sustaining the union’s work. She argued that women were historically acculturated to support men without seeking recognition, but she believed times were changing.

A spokesperson for Huerta’s family noted that she was deeply private regarding her large family. She had 24 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren, and seven great-great-grandchildren. Her death marks the end of a career that spanned labor, civil rights, and gender equality, leaving a tangible impact on agricultural workers and a linguistic mark on American politics.

Her legacy remains in the contracts signed by growers, the rights secured under California’s 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, and the millions who heard the phrase she created. She died at 96, having spent a lifetime insisting that people could make a difference.