Dolores Huerta says Cesar Chavez sexually pressured her and raped her, leading to two secret children

In a statement posted on Medium, activist Dolores Huerta said that Cesar Chavez pressured her into sex and raped her, both incidents leading to children she bore and then gave away to keep the secret.

“I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” Huerta wrote. “I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.”

The Times’ investigation, released Wednesday, details decades of abuse by Chavez, co-founder of United Farm Workers, which helped bring benefits and attention to migrant farmworkers for decades. Chavez died in April 1993.

Together with Huerta, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Huerta is a New Mexico native and was born in the town of Dawson. 

Both alleged incidents happened in the 1960s when Huerta herself was a young mother. “The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to,” Huerta wrote. “The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.”

Huerta says that both of the children born from the episodes were raised by other families “that could give them stable lives.”

“Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago,” she wrote.

“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights and I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way,” she wrote. “I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.”

Huerta, who has identified herself as a feminist — or as she put it, born-again feminist — since the 1970s, said she’s now coming forward after seeing the Times story detailing his abuse of other young women and girls.

“The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years,” she wrote. “There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”

Huerta says she hopes that these revelations will not, ultimately, hurt the farm movement she’s spent her life building.

“The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever,” she wrote. “I will continue my commitments to workers, as well as my commitment to women’s rights, to make sure we have a voice and that our communities are treated with dignity and given the equity that they have so long been denied. I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”