Delores Huerta in front of a painting of Cesar Chavez at United Farm Workers (UFW) headquarters in Keene, California. Annie Wells/Getty Images
More than 50 years ago, a determined young woman stepped up and created the iconic slogan
¡Sí, se puede! ( Yes, we can! ) that would lift up the voices of the voiceless and change the state of labor in the United States forever. That woman, civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, would go on to co-found the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with Cesar Chavez.
The NFWA later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) and, as vice president of that organization until 1999, Huerta helped launch the first farmworkers strike in the country, which kickstarted the fight for union rights and labor organizing in the agricultural sector in the U.S. and changed the lives of farmworkers forever.