Dolores Huerta’s true colors are shinning through despite the best framing from the National Portrait Gallery 

Dolores Huerta has been on the receiving end of some bad press lately. Huerta, the "Dragon Lady" of the grape-grower’s strike of 1965-1970 and co-founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW), was caught on film bullying a female farmworker. 

The video was taken at an Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) party in Sacramento at Leland-Stanford Mansion on June 24. It features Huerta repeatedly shoving Latina leader of the Gerawan farmworkers out of the path of Governor Jerry Brown. Silvia Lopez, the farmworker in question, had been invited by a representative from the Governor’s staff. 

Lopez at the time was leading a peaceful protest of two hundred farmworkers outside of the grounds of the estate. The Fresno-based farmworkers were protesting the ALRB’s continued willful mishandling of their decertification election and infringing upon their First Amendment rights. 

The workers voted to decertify the UFW back in late 2013, but the ALRB has refused to count their votes. Perhaps even more egregiously the labor board tried to foist a collective bargain agreement on the disenfranchised farmworkers through "mandatory mediation." (Though thankfully, a panel of judges recently struck down that injustice as unconstitutional.) Lopez has been the leader of the anti-union movement started by and for the workers. 

Once inside the party, Lopez made her way over to Governor Brown. This is where Dolores Huerta intercepted the single, working mother and attempted to block her path to the Governor. As she repeatedly shoved Lopez out of the way, Huerta announced, looking directly into the camera,  “she knows why,” in response to Lopez’s lawyer asking why she would physically deter his client. 

That’s pretty petty behavior for someone who has been honored by two sitting U.S. presidents; she was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights by President Clinton in 1988, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012 by President Obama.

It’s ironic that she was honored for advancing human rights and freedom, considering she co-founded and ran the union that is actively suppressing these workers’ human rights and constitutional freedoms. 

Lopez, on the other hand is the champion of the thousands of farmworkers who voted to kick out Huerta’s life work, the UFW. Maybe Huerta is jealous that Lopez will be remembered in history for really being the champion of the workers that Huerta claims to be. 

It is similarly funny that less than two weeks after Huerta admitted to bullying Lopez, she is being honored by the National Portrait Gallery in their “One Life” series. The exhibit opened on July 3 and will be open for public viewing until May 15, 2016. It features the life story of Huerta and shows many photographs of her younger days when she co-founded the UFW with Cesar Chavez. According to a National Portrait Gallery press release the exhibit features forty pieces ranging from “documentary photos to original speeches presented by her to Congress, UFW ephemera, and Chicano works.”

The director of the National Portrait Gallery said in regards to the exhibit, “I am proud that the National Portrait Gallery will recognize the invaluable contributions to the history of this nation made by Dolores Huerta. The exhibition will be a visual study of Huerta’s commitment to the multicultural, nonviolent farm workers’ movement, her motivations and her organizing methods.”

The exhibit and promotion of Huerta is funded largely by taxpayers. The taxpayers whose money went towards this project were not consulted beforehand to see if they wanted to honor someone who pushes around workers.  

Center for Worker Freedom inquiries to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery about the video of Huerta went unanswered. 

Pictured: Gerawan farmworkers confronting Huerta on June 24, 2015.