Latino Facts Twelve percent of the agricultural force is made up of Latinos.

Born in northern New Mexico in 1930, Huerta grew up in an activist family. Her father was a union organizer and state Assemblyman and her mother worked in the community. After moving to Stockton, California, Huerta attended college and became a teacher, but subsequently left after seeing children of farmworkers come to school hungry and barefoot. She felt that she had to do more than teach.

In 1955, Huerta helped found the Community Service Organization to help improve the lives of the poor. It was here that she met C�sar Ch�vez. Together they left the CSO and formed the National Farm Workers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers Union (UFW).

Huerta negotiated the first UFW labor contract with the Schenly Wine Company in 1966, thus becoming the first laborers and Anglos businessmen. Organizing some of the largest boycotts in the history of the nation, Huerta, Ch�vez and the UFW garnered national attention.

In 1968, Huerta organized voter registration and stumped for Robert F. Kennedy's presidential election. With her help Latinos voted as never before and helped Kennedy win the California Democratic Presidential Primary.

In 1975 Huerta led a boycott of grapes, lettuce and Gallo wines which eventually led to the California legislature to grant farmworkers the right to collectively organize and bargain with the passage of the Agricultural Relations Act. Throughout her organizing efforts, protests and arrests, Huerta still found time to be a single mother to 11 children and instill in them and others around her with the desire and determination to care for her fellow human beings and work for their betterment.