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By Alexander J. Schorr
April 4, 2025 (San Diego) – “We don’t have a democracy if we don’t participate,” said Dolores Huerta, 95, a historic leader of the farmworkers’ movement along with the late Cesar Chavez. Huerta, who has since founded her own foundation for social advocacy, made the remarks in a speech at Gomez Trial Lawyers in downtown San Diego on March 24, where the law firm gave a $10,000 donation to the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
Heuerta spoke of her long history of activism and how she sees new opportunities for new leadership in the civil rights movement.
Photos: Left: the outside plaque of Gomez Trial Attorneys. Right: Dolores Huerta is awarded a check of $10,000.
Huerta was invited by Shane Harris, civil rights activist and director of communications for Gomez Trial Attorneys. The generous donation recognized her foundation and contributions to civil rights protections, which are now facing questionable social and economic futures under the Trump Administration moving forward. Huerta warned of the need to “fight the fascism” she sees under the administration’s growing move toward authoritarianism and elimination of programs protecting equal rights, civil rights, and worker’s rights.
Huerta is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century and a leader of the Chicano civil rights movement. Discrimination also helped shape Huerta; a school teacher, who in her youth experienced prejudice against Hispanics; she was accused of cheating because her papers were too well-written. At the end of World War II, her brother was brutally beaten by a group of white men for wearing a zoot-suit.
She is the recipient of many honors. Huerta received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. As of 2015, she was a board member of the Feminist Majority Foundation, the Secretary-Treasurer Emeritus and co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, and President of The Dolores Huerta Foundation.
Huerta expressed gratitude towards the donation of $10,000, stating, “We’ll put it to good use.” She expressed that it is important that people take charge of their lives, insist on decency, and in “teaching people [about] democracy.”
She gave a sobering warning about the future: “God knows that the need for lawyers is now more than ever. Every organization is going to have an attorney, because we don’t know how this is going to play out. We know that it is not going to be nice.”
Photo, left to right: Shane Harris, Lara Deitz, Jessica Lujan, two unknown participants, Dolores Huerta, and John Gomez.
Huerta referenced the organization “Climate United,” where she, as a member of the board of this very organization, received a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency that was canceled by the Trump Administration. She stressed the need to “focus on environmental projects, especially for Native Americans” displaced and disenfranchised by racism and socio-economic disaster. She said that because she and the board wanted to use the grant to help with climate change, “members of the board were afraid to answer their doors because guess who was there? The FBI.” Huerta stated this is symptomatic of what the future will hold for humanitarian and climate change efforts, as the need for attorneys has become a necessity for survival in the face of the current federal government.
There were several members and representatives of Gomez Trial Attorneys present including John Gomez, Shane Harris, Jessica Lujan, and Laura Dietz. John Gomez, the law firm’s CEO, introduced Dolores Huerta, illustrating the importance of legal work that needs to be done to those being afflicted by racism and deportations under the Trump Administration.
Gomez, a national civil rights attorney, is one of the most prolific and successful trial lawyers in the country. He has tried personal injury, class action, fraud, mass torture, and criminal cases. He won verdicts of more than one million dollars in more than 15 separate cases in which the defense offered zero dollars to settle. Those trials resulted in Gomez being named San Diego’s Trial Lawyer of the Year twice, as well as his receipt of 11 separate Outstanding Trial Lawyer Awards, which is more than any trial lawyer in San Diego history.
He introduced Dolores Huerta and her achievements. He emphasized that “these are dangerous times for many… and we are so honored to have you (Huerta) with us.”
Huerta stated that as part of civil rights objectives, it is important that in “2026, we need to make sure that people go out and vote,” highlighting that “we don’t have a democracy if we don’t participate.” She emphasized a point made by Shane Harris that it is important to reach out to other communities, especially those who do not know what rights they have. She referenced the current controversy of President Trump sending Venezuelans to the El Salvador Prison Containment, and illustrated that the unjust treatments of “shaved heads,” and “slave-like conditions” are inhuman aspects of the work that her foundation intends to combat.
Photo, right: Prisoners at the El Salvador prison criticized for human rights violations and inhumane conditions, where some deportees have been sent by the Trump administration. CC BY-SA via Bing
“They don’t know that they have the power to change things,” Huerta concluded of many Americans, adding that’s important to “make them understand that they have power over their own lives.” A room full of around thirty people expressed their gratitude and admiration for Huerta and her award of $10,000.
Huerta concluded by energizing the group present with the chant, “Sí, se puede!” The phrase was coined by Huerta in 1972 during César Chávez's 25-day fast in Phoenix, Arizona.
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