“Sí, se puede!” — Yes, we can!

Few individuals have had as profound and lasting an impact on the American labor movement as Dolores Huerta, the legendary labor organizer, civil rights activist, and champion of working families.

For more than six decades, Huerta has fought tirelessly for the dignity, safety, and economic security of farmworkers, immigrants, women, and children. As a co-founder of the United Farm Workers movement, she helped transform the lives of countless agricultural workers by organizing for fair wages, safer working conditions, collective bargaining rights, and basic human dignity.

But Huerta’s legacy extends far beyond the workplace. Her advocacy has also helped shine a light on the struggles of farmworker families and the exploitation of children in American agriculture.

Before becoming a labor organizer, Huerta was a schoolteacher. She witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of poverty on the children of farmworkers—students who arrived at school hungry and without adequate clothing or shoes. Those experiences inspired her to devote her life to organizing workers and addressing the systemic injustices that kept families trapped in poverty.

Her life’s work underscores a fundamental truth: Protecting workers’ rights and protecting children from exploitation are inseparable goals. When parents earn fair wages, work in safe conditions, and have a voice on the job, their children have a better chance to remain in school, grow up healthy, and enjoy the childhood every young person deserves.

In 1993, the National Consumers League (NCL) proudly honored Dolores Huerta with its prestigious Trumpeter Award, recognizing her extraordinary contributions to labor rights and social justice. The award reflected NCL’s longstanding commitment to protecting workers, empowering consumers, and combating exploitative child labor.

Huerta also courageously exposed the rape and sexual abuse she was subjected to by her colleague Cesar Chavez. In an exposé earlier this year, it was revealed that Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers Union,  had a history of abusing young women who worked for him.

As NCL honored the group Justic for Migrant Women at NCL’s Trumpeter Awards, the irony didn’t escape us that this migrant women’s group is focused on protecting women from sexual abuse and harassment in the fields.

Today, Huerta’s work remains as relevant as ever. Children continue to labor in America’s agricultural fields, sometimes facing dangerous machinery, extreme heat, pesticide exposure, and grueling hours that jeopardize their health, safety, and education. The struggle to ensure that every child is protected from hazardous work is far from over.

Sally Greenberg, CEO of the National Consumers League and Co-Chair of the Child Labor Coalition, offers this tribute:

“Dolores Huerta is a giant in the history of American labor and civil rights. She understood long before many others that the fight for decent wages, safe workplaces, and dignity for working people is also a fight for the well-being of their children. Her extraordinary leadership helped give a voice to farmworkers and their families, including children whose needs and vulnerabilities have too often been overlooked. When the National Consumers League honored Dolores with our Trumpeter Award in 1993, we recognized a leader whose courage, determination, and commitment to justice embodied our organization’s deepest values. Today, as we confront the continued exploitation of children in agriculture and other dangerous industries, her example reminds us that progress requires organizing, persistence, and an unwavering belief that every worker—and every child—deserves dignity and opportunity. Dolores has shown generations of advocates what it means to turn compassion into action.”

— Sally Greenberg, CEO, National Consumers League; Co-Chair, Child Labor Coalition

At NCL and through our leadership in the Child Labor Coalition, we are proud to carry forward this shared commitment to protecting vulnerable workers and ensuring that children are not forced to sacrifice their health, education, or futures to dangerous labor.

Dolores Huerta’s extraordinary legacy reminds us that meaningful change is possible when people stand together, demand justice, and refuse to accept exploitation as inevitable.

We salute Dolores Huerta for her groundbreaking contributions to the labor movement, her lifelong advocacy for working families, and her enduring inspiration to those fighting for a world free from exploitative child labor.

Sí, se puede!