American labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta said that she was sexually abused by United Farm Workers co-founder César Chávez in the 1960s.
In a statement released on Wednesday, Huerta said she felt compelled to speak after a multi-year investigation by The New York Times into Chávez’s sexual misconduct allegations.
“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 said, in part. “As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar.”
Huerta described the first encounter as manipulative and coercive and said she felt unable to refuse because Chávez was a leader she admired.
She said the second encounter was forced and occurred in an environment where she felt trapped.
“Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies,” Huerta said. “I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.”
Huerta said she later developed relationships with the children and that they are now close to her other children, but she stated that the full truth of how they were conceived remained private until weeks ago.
Huerta also stated that she long prioritized building the farmworker movement, which she called bigger than any one individual.
“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work,” she said. “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.”
Huerta’s statement comes after the United Farm Workers revealed that it had learned of the allegations against Chávez.
“I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here,” Huerta said. “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control."
Huerta’s statement also acknowledged that other women have come forward with allegations that Chávez sexually abused teens.
“The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years,” she said. “Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.”
On March 6, the César Chávez Legacy and Educational Foundation (CECLEF) notified the City of San Antonio that it canceled the annual César Chávez March for Justice.
Marches scheduled in other cities across the United States have also been canceled.