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AMY GOODMAN: Fallout is continuing to grow after a New York Times exposé revealed the late civil rights icon and farmworker organizer Cesar Chavez abused and raped multiple women and girls over the course of decades.
Chavez has long been one of the most celebrated Chicano figures in American history. He co-founded the United Farm Workers and led historic strikes, including the Delano grape strike and boycott. President Clinton awarded Chavez the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, one year after his death. Countless schools and streets have been named after him. Cesar Chavez Day is celebrated annually on March 31st, his birthday.
But his legacy is now being reconsidered, following the damning New York Times exposé. The Times piece focuses in part on Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas. Murguia said Chavez first assaulted her when she was 13 and he was 45. Rojas said Chavez raped her when she was 15. He had first groped her when she was just 12. Both Murguia and Rojas were the daughters of longtime organizers in the movement.
Dolores Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers with Chavez, also revealed to The New York Times that she, too, had been raped by Chavez. She told the Times he coerced her into sex on one occasion in 1960 and raped her in 1966. Both encounters resulted in pregnancies, which Huerta concealed by wearing baggy clothes, before arranging for other families to raise the girls.
After The New York Times published its exposé, Dolores Huerta, who is now 95 years old, spoke to Maria Hinojosa, the Pulitzer Prize-winning host of Latino USA. In a moment, Maria will join us. But first, let’s turn to a short excerpt of their conversation.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Are you concerned that people will say, “How is it possible that the brilliant Dolores Huerta no se dio cuenta, that she didn’t realize?” Are you concerned that you’re going to have to answer that question?
DOLORES HUERTA: Well, I think that’s pretty common. I think that women, when they do come forward with their stories, instead of getting the kind of support that they need, they get attacked, or they’re not believed. And we’ve seen this happen throughout history. We’ll just have to deal with that if it does happen. Hopefully it won’t. But if it does, we’ll just have to deal with it.
And the workers know that they are no longer alone.
AMY GOODMAN: Dolores Huerta also spoke to Maria Hinojosa about her reaction to learning that Cesar Chavez had assaulted and raped young girls.
DOLORES HUERTA: I mean, this is just so devastating to think that somebody that we, everybody admired and respected and thought so highly of, that he would, you know, do anything like that. That was just really, really hard to take, and it’s still very hard to process, I think, not only for myself, but for everybody that knew and respected Cesar, the volunteers, so many people who sacrificed, you know, to know that he had that dark side of him. And I think that just speaks to the fact that, you know, we have a — that there is a lack of respect for women and girls in our society, and that this is so prevalent, you know, that — and the men get away with this all the time. And we know that’s something that needs to — needs to really be addressed in our society.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Dolores Huerta speaking to Latino USA host Maria Hinojosa, who’s joining us now in studio. Maria is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder of Futuro Media.
Thanks so much for being with us, Maria. This is so utterly painful at every single level. You had the first interview with Dolores, who is now in hiding?
MARIA HINOJOSA: Well, we were asked not to reveal her location. She’s not at home, because as soon as the news broke, there were journalists there. So, I don’t even know where she is.
AMY GOODMAN: So, The New York Times worked on this story for five years.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Mm-hmm.
AMY GOODMAN: And they didn’t approach Dolores with the knowledge of what happened to Dolores — is that right? — but to respond to what happened to the other girls and women.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Right. Apparently, that’s the way they approached her, was to talk about other situations. And then that’s when she revealed that at least twice she had been assaulted by Cesar Chavez.
AMY GOODMAN: Both resulting in children.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Yes, two girls. Dolores was very quick, when I asked her — I said something like, “You gave them away?” She was like, “I did not give them away. They are my daughters.” So she was very quick to make it clear. I mean, Dolores has 11 children. She loves her kids. This is her — always she’s talking about her kids. So she wanted to make it clear, like, “These are my kids.”
AMY GOODMAN: Four of them with Cesar Chavez’s brother, her longtime domestic partner.
MARIA HINOJOSA: And actually, Amy, this is hard. We went — I’ve interviewed Dolores on multiple occasions, right? And Dolores is a person who has — I mean, you know her. She’s got energy. She’s always out until 4 in the — 4 a.m. She loves to go dancing. She loves jazz. And so, to hear her in this kind of state of being broken was very, very difficult. She’s not that kind of person. She’s not weak. And she was like, “I don’t want to go on camera.” Her people basically said she’s been crying all day. This is when The New York Times dropped the piece. She was reading it for the first time, like the rest of us.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go back to your exclusive interview with the civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, who talks about her rape by Cesar Chavez.
DOLORES HUERTA: Well, in both cases, I felt like I was kind of trapped, you might say, and I was not expecting those incidents to happen. I felt I was alone. I didn’t really have anybody close by that I could have called for help or reached out to. And the way he set that up, it was to make sure that we were isolated, pretty much, you know? So, I mean, that’s pretty much what happened. It never would have happened in the first place if I had not had this great admiration for him. And he was my employer. He was my boss, you know?
MARIA HINOJOSA: Did you ever confront Cesar Chavez about his attacks on you?
DOLORES HUERTA: You know what? I never did. And I guess that’s the one thing that I’m sorry about, because, God knows, had I done that, maybe in some way it would have prevented other women and girls.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Dolores Huerta. You’re talking to her. Talk about this. And I am so moved as you talk to Dolores Huerta, you reveal that you, yourself, was raped, Maria, when you were 16.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Yeah, no, I’ve talked about my own rape, because I’m a public persona. I’ve done the therapy. I have an amazing husband. And so, I’m like, I need to talk about this. But in that moment, Amy, when — because, again, I’ve known Dolores for a long time. So, when I had to say to her, “Look, Dolores, you and I are now in the same boat, we are both survivors of rape.”
I mean, Dolores, I can only imagine, is having such a difficult time. It took me a long time to understand that I had been raped when I was 16. So, not only is Dolores realizing all of this, but, you know, she’s seen how quickly people are moving — as opposed to the Epstein files. She’s seen how people are moving to paint over the murals, cover the statues, change the names of streets, etc. And Dolores believes in the movement. So, not only is she coming to terms with her own assaults, she’s coming to terms with the fact that the movement and the person who she admired as part of the movement is essentially being covered up, disappeared.
AMY GOODMAN: This is another clip of your exclusive interview with Dolores Huerta — we’re going to turn to it — when you asked her why she continued to stand by Cesar Chavez after he had raped her.
DOLORES HUERTA: Well, I think the only way that I can explain is when we have to look at the sea of all of the things that we accomplished for farmworkers, you know, the fact that they have the basic human needs when they’re working, you know, the things that they were deprived of, you know, the bathrooms, the drinking water, the rest periods, you know, to be treated as decent human beings out there in the fields. And we’re talking about millions of farmworkers. And I think my staying quiet and not revealing this, I don’t know if that contributed or didn’t contribute, but in my mind, when people say, “Why didn’t you — why didn’t you leave? Why didn’t you tell people?” well, this is why, because I felt that my coming out and saying what occurred would hurt the movement.
AMY GOODMAN: Maria Hinojosa, continue with that train of thought. Who would she turn to? The police who victimized them? The union, which was fighting for so many people, even though he was the head of it and he was preying upon these girls and women? The daughters of the other union leaders, he would groom them from 8 or 9 years old and then rape them when they were 13, 14, 15.
MARIA HINOJOSA: So, what we do know — right? — is that Cesar Chavez was a very strategic thinker. That’s why he was able to build a movement, along with Dolores Huerta. He was very strategic. The horror, Amy, is to realize that this man was also very strategic in how he was setting out to abuse girls, teens and women. As Dolores says, he put her in the situation — right? — where she admires him, she idolizes him, and therefore, she finds herself alone with him, because she trusted him. And that, I think, is really, really painful to realize, is that he was being very strategic on how he went about this.
Now, Dolores saying, you know, “I didn’t see this. I can’t believe that this was happening,” when you are a survivor of rape, you know, you believe you’re the only one, like in terms of the man who raped me, right? I’m like, “Well, I must have been the only one.” That’s how your mind works, right? You’re like, “Oh, this person can’t be out there doing this to everybody else.” In fact, that’s what’s being revealed now. And whether or not other women will come forward, I think that’s what we’re waiting to see.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dolores Huerta had a message for other survivors.
DOLORES HUERTA: I just want to say that I think the fact that the women survivors who had this happen to them as they were girls, that they have had the courage to come out. And God knows, I really applaud them so much, because I think their courage is giving — has given me the courage also to be able to come out, because, in many instances, they will want to blame the girls. Some people will try to blame me.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, I think the Dolores Huerta Foundation and, interestingly, the Cesar Chavez Foundation, which says they support the survivors and they believe them, have set up back channels for women to come forward. I mean, he died decades ago. We don’t know how many people were victimized.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Look, Dolores said one of the reasons why she didn’t come forward, why women don’t come forward, is because they know that they’ll be questioned, they’ll be attacked. You know, “What did you do to make this happen?” Efectivamente that’s what’s happening right now with Dolores. There are people who are saying, “Do not name the streets after Dolores Huerta. Do not make statues after Dolores Huerta. She should have spoken up. She carries the burden of the weight of this. She’s” — you know, I’ve even heard other Latinas say she’s responsible. And what I posted on my social media was that if you’re not a rape survivor, you do not know how difficult it is to come forward. This is exactly why. So, you know, that’s — it’s sexual assault. It’s not something that you kind of want to wave around and say, “Oh my god, I’m a survivor.” It’s not something that you’re proud of, as it were.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s talk about Ana Murguia and Debra Rojas, who — it is so painful — now in their sixties, reveal what happened to them. In fact, isn’t it Ana Murguia who is part of that famous protest poster of Cesar Chavez, who is walking? Was this the Delano strike?
MARIA HINOJOSA: Right, exactly. And —
AMY GOODMAN: She was 13 there.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Right. And I believe that she’s also the one who wrote the letter, a little letter to Cesar Chavez.
AMY GOODMAN: Beautiful little girl writing, flowery stationery.
MARIA HINOJOSA: You know, I mean, I used to write on that kind of stationery in the 1960s and ’70s. And she writes this letter. And so, people, again, will say, “Well, so she liked him, so” — and you don’t understand. When you have somebody in power like this, that’s what they do. They manipulate.
AMY GOODMAN: And when you’re 13 years old.
MARIA HINOJOSA: And when you’re 13 years old. And it’s Cesar Chavez. You know, people were already looking up to him. I mean, he was a very important leader. But you can’t expect little girls to come forward in this moment.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s talk about what this means for the movement. I mean, marches, celebrations, all over Texas and Arizona, California, have been canceled around his birthday, March 31st. What this means going forward and renaming Cesar Chavez Day? I think Governor Hobbs in Arizona did this, Farmworker Day.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Right, also in California. You know, Amy, you have to think about how bad the situation was for the farmworkers for Dolores to say, “I’m going to keep this secret. Like, things are so bad for my community that I’m going to sacrifice myself and my silence.”
But then you look at what we’re living through in 2026, not just in terms of Latino farmworkers, but in terms of Latinos and Latinas in the entire United States coming under attack by this administration. So, it’s not a surprise that people choose silence. I mean, Latinos and Latinas are the fastest-growing demographic group. We are the fastest-growing group of voters. We are, in fact, holding the future of democracy in our hands.
So, you cannot dismiss an entire movement. Yes, it was led by Caesar Chavez, but he did not march from Delano to Sacramento on his own. There were 10,000 people who ended up marching. And Dolores — hard for people to hear, right? Because Dolores is all about the movement. And she says, you know, was — I asked her, “Was it worth it to keep your silence?” And she said, “Yes, because look at what we achieved. We did so much.” This is what Dolores is going to hold on to.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Dolores Huerta speaking to you about the legacy of the United Farm Workers, the union she co-founded with Chavez.
DOLORES HUERTA: I think we just have to look at the accomplishments that were made, the things that farmworkers have today that they never had, the thing that inspired so many people to get involved, you know, people that volunteered, people who contributed, the 19 or so many millions of people that didn’t buy grapes to make it happen, that it was all of these people coming together to stand up for farmworkers. And so, we can’t say, “Well, Cesar did it all,” because many people that volunteered are the ones that made it happen, you know? So I think that’s what we have to look to. He had — now we know that he had this dark side, but at the same time, we do know that there were many, many people who were helped.
AMY GOODMAN: As we continue to talk about Cesar Chavez, talk about the allegations that he coopted the movement from Filipino farmworkers and advocated for the deportation of undocumented workers whom he called “wetbacks.”
MARIA HINOJOSA: Cesar Chavez is a very complicated person, right? He did create this movement, along with Dolores Huerta, which changed American labor history, for sure. But if you watch the entirety of his arc of life as an activist, he was controversial. Even though Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta changed my life as a little Mexican kid growing up in Chicago — right? — in the late ’80s and ’90s, I became a big critic of Cesar Chavez because of the way that he was dealing with journalists. In fact, Marcos Bretón from the — I think it’s The Sacramento Bee, is also writing about the fact that Cesar Chavez, in the ’80s and ’90s, became really belligerent with journalists. He was not cooperative. He was part of this strange, almost cult called [Synanon], I think, that was doing drug treatment. So, there are many of us who distanced ourselves. I mean, I wasn’t close to him at all. But just this notion of, like, he is a very imperfect human being. He loves power. And anytime that you see a human being who is self-obsessed with their own power, you have to — you have to question that. Unfortunately, in our country, we’re kind of living with that right now.
AMY GOODMAN: And this coming out now at the time of the massive immigrant crackdown, deportations.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Yeah, but the thing is, is that Latinos and Latinas, I hope, because of this, kind of model what you do when something like this happens, right? You become active. You don’t stay silent. So I think it’s very interesting that people are saying, “Wow! Look how quickly Latinos and Latinas are taking this on.” And, I mean, it’s hard to say the word “erase,” right? But they are. They’re erasing Cesar Chavez. They’re painting over murals. So, many people are saying, “Wow! They’re doing this. What about what’s happening with the Epstein files? What about the fact that no one’s been arrested? What about the fact that we have a felon who is the 47th president and is charged on sexual abuses?”
So, we could see — and Dolores always says — and you know this. She always says every crisis is an opportunity to organize. So I asked her, “What’s the opportunity?” She said, “This is a sickness, and we have to take it down.” Will this, in fact, take down men who are pedophiles and sexual abusers and rapists? I don’t know. But it is definitely an opening.
But I insist, Amy, Latinos and Latinas are the voters of this country. They helped elect Donald Trump. So, because of this, how is it going to change? I mean, I’m fascinated. I don’t think that we can put this in a box and close it. I think that this is a movement that is going to change. And Dolores, I’m worried about her. I mean, she’s 95 years old. This is such an incredible emotional toll on her, so I am worried about her. But I think once she gets her bearings, she’ll probably become a very important leader on the question of sexual assault and rape.
AMY GOODMAN: And we’ll post our interviews with her over the years at democracynow.org. Maria Hinojosa, thank you so much for being with us, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, founder of Futuro Media, host of Latino USA. We’ll link to the show’s new episode titled “’It Was Time’: Dolores Huerta’s First Interview After ‘Devastating’ Cesar Chavez Expose.”
Coming up, we go to Lebanon, where Israeli attacks have killed over a thousand people and displaced more than a million. Back in 20 seconds.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Nunca Más (Never Again)” by La Santa Cecilia in our Democracy Now! studio.
