Although Cesar Chavez remains the iconic figure in the battle for agricultural workers’ rights, Peter Bratt’s engrossing PBS-aired documentary makes clear that Dolores Huerta was of equal, and in some respects even greater, importance to the success of the struggle. Bratt argues that her contribution continues to be underestimated not only because she is a woman, but also because she led an unconventional life, having 11 children with three men and (as some of her children testify) sometimes placing her activism ahead of her family. Dolores serves up a densely-packed portrait of Huerta’s life, from a childhood in which she quickly became aware of racial prejudice, through a career as one of the most effective organizers in the early agricultural labor movement and an alliance with Chavez that ultimately resulted in the creation--and recognition--of the United Farm Workers union. (One of the saddest observations here is that the presidency of the UFW was denied Huerta when Chavez died, primarily because of her gender.) Bratt also looks at Huerta’s more recent history, detailing the controversy the outspoken Huerta caused when she bluntly declared in a speech that Republicans hate Latinos. Ample interviews--archival and new--with her children and the octogenarian Huerta herself are combined with a treasure trove of news footage from the 1950s and ‘60s to present this long overdue credit to an unsung heroine of the 20th-century labor movement. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)
Dolores
(2017) 96 min. DVD: $24.99, Blu-ray: $29.99. PBS Video. SDH captioned. ISBN: 978-1-5317-0243-3 (dvd), 978-1-5317-0338-7 (blu-ray). Volume 33, Issue 3
Dolores
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