Farm workers' leader brings Latino viewpoint to Trinity audience: [A Edition]

Abstract

With [Dolores Huerta] clapping her hands on each syllable, the students join in, repeating the words faster and faster, and clapping faster and faster, until they break into applause.

From the start, the union used nontraditional tactics that have become more common in these times of weakened unions. To force the growers to recognize the union, [Cesar Chavez] and Huerta mounted a nationwide grape boycott that lasted from 1965 to 1970.

In her speech, Huerta tries to give the largely white audience a Latino perspective on American life. She talks of a "colonization mentality" among white Americans that holds Columbus up as a hero and discoverer of a New World that was already inhabited by millions of Indians.