AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The name Cesar Chavez took on new meaning this week when a New York Times investigation found that the widely lionized civil rights leader had sexually abused girls and women. This is a man so often credited with not only building, but symbolizing the farmworkers rights movement. But Chavez did not build that movement alone. Alongside him were countless others, and most consistently, Dolores Huerta. Huerta cofounded the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez. And she told The New York Times that while on a work trip in 1960, she felt pressured to have sex with Chavez. Then six years later, Huerta told the Times that Chavez raped her. Both of these encounters resulted in pregnancies that Huerta felt forced to conceal. She gave the children to other people to raise. Shortly after that Times story came out, Huerta spoke to journalist Maria Hinojosa, host of "Latino USA." Maria joins us now. Hi, Maria.
MARIA HINOJOSA: Hey. How are you doing?
CHANG: Good. I want to talk about this incredibly difficult interview you had with Huerta this week. I know that you have interviewed her before. How did she sound to you this week? Was it just so fundamentally different in this new set of facts?
HINOJOSA: It was profoundly different. I've interviewed Dolores on multiple occasions in all different kinds of settings. She and I don't like to use this word because I don't want to be disrespectful, but she felt broken. What people need to remember is that Dolores Huerta did not get an advanced copy of the New York Times article. That means that she's reading it in real time, like everybody else. And if we were shocked, you can only imagine Dolores Huerta reading the extent to which Cesar Chavez was a manipulator, a groomer and somebody who assaulted and raped.
CHANG: An abuser of girls - it sounded like Dolores did not know that.
HINOJOSA: Right, an abuser of girls - I mean, this is pretty horrible. So Dolores, if you know Dolores, she is the most positive, energetic 90-something-year-old...
CHANG: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: ...That I have ever met. I mean, she never tires. She's always optimistic. So it was really painful to hear her in this shock and emotional turmoil.
CHANG: There was one moment that especially burned into me when I listened. You asked about why she chose for decades not to come forward with her story of Chavez's abuse and her, you know, choice to support him in spite of it. And I want to play that part of her answer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOLORES HUERTA: I do believe that, yeah, that would have been the end of the movement, pretty much at the very, very beginning. And I can see all of the accomplishments, you know, the leadership that came out of the movement, you know, the millions of farmworkers that have been helped throughout the United States of America. And it was my personal pain. It was my personal problem. And, you know, I think it was worth it, you know, because it was my cross to bear.
CHANG: I mean, I found that heartbreaking. She said her silence was worth it. It was her cross to bear. A cross that she bore alone.
HINOJOSA: That was pretty gut-wrenching. What we have to understand is the conditions of the Latinos and Latinas and others that Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez helped to organize, right? The conditions were so bad that she's like, I'll just take this one because I know that what's more important is these tens of thousands of people who are being mistreated by people in power. So to me, that's the sad part, right? It's like, God, our situation is so bad that a woman is prepared to keep this silent.
CHANG: That the rape is the lesser evil to reckon with.
HINOJOSA: Exactly, that the rape is the lesser evil. I think, unfortunately, what we're seeing now is essentially what Dolores Huerta was worried about. Yes, there is sympathy right now for Dolores, but I have also heard and seen people who are like, why didn't you say anything? You must have known, this and that. In fact, I asked her, you know, you are a brilliant woman. How is it possible that you didn't know? And I think...
CHANG: A brilliant woman who always spoke up, was known for that.
HINOJOSA: Who always spoke up. I think the thing about being with somebody who is a master manipulator, as we are realizing that Cesar Chavez was - he was a master strategist, also a master strategist manipulator - is that she has - she's having a very difficult time putting those two things together, right? This is somebody who she trusted. And I think the way I kind of look at it, is that Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez worked together for decades, right? But it's like Cesar Chavez really wanted the spotlight, whereas Dolores Huerta has always been and continues to be - it's not about me. It's about the struggle. It's about other people. It's about the other victims of Cesar Chavez. And so I think what we're watching in real time is a woman who is 95 having to come to terms with at this point in her life having to publicly say, I am a survivor of rape. And for anybody who's been through it, like myself, that is the first step of a very long and painful journey.
CHANG: Not only did Dolores Huerta not tell the public about what had happened to her, she never confronted Cesar Chavez. And you asked her about that, and this is how she thinks about that decision now.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HINOJOSA: Did you ever confront Cesar Chavez about his attacks on you?
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.
CHANG: I mean, it sounds like she's wrestling now with some guilt, some regret there.
HINOJOSA: Yeah, but I think we have to put ourselves into the moment. 1960, 1966, a very outspoken Latina political activist organizer coming forward and saying - we didn't even use - you know, the term rape was not for being sexually assaulted by somebody who you knew, who was your boss, who was your friend. We understood rape to be, oh, you're in a dark alley with a knife on your chin. Well, we know that the majority of rapes happen between people who know each other. So thinking that Dolores Huerta could come forward and say this, she would have been taken down. She would have been erased. They would have said she was crazy. Eres una loca. How dare you do this? And she absolutely would have, I believe, disappeared from the movement, and Cesar Chavez would have remained in his position of power...
CHANG: Yeah.
HINOJOSA: ...And appreciating the idolatry and - who knows? - abusing how many other women and girls.
CHANG: Journalist Maria Hinojosa, host of "Latino USA," thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and this interview with all of us.
HINOJOSA: Appreciate the time. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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