Dolores Huerta: An Unprecedented Case of Believing a Woman
Trigger Warning: SA, Rape
Dolores Huerta’s heartbreaking, infuriating revelation that Cesar Chavez sexually coerced her and raped her is, unfortunately, not shocking. Nor is it shocking that she felt she had to keep this secret to herself. For SIXTY years.
Powerful men have always abused their power. And women have always sublimated their suffering for the greater good.
What is shocking, in a society where Clarence Thomas still sits on the Supreme Court, where Brett Kavanaugh was admitted to the Supreme Court, and where an adjudicated rapist is the president of the United States, is that this time, so far, people seem to believe Dolores Huerta’s allegations.
“As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. 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. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped,” Civil rights leader Dolores Huerta posted after the New York Times published their multi-year investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct against Cesar Chavez, including two underage girls, Debra Rojas and Ana Murguia, starting when they were 12- and 13-years-old.
“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 of her decades of selfless silence. “I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. I wasn’t going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way. I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.”
Historically, society reflexively disbelieves or disregards female accusations of sexual impropriety against men. But this time, these women aren’t being excoriated for tarnishing A Great Man’s legacy. And the collective response isn’t suspicion and character assassination of the accusers, it’s stunned compassion.
Can we please take a moment to appreciate how devastatingly, tragically rare it is for society to actually just believe women who accuse men of assault and rape? Especially powerful men?
And perhaps an equally unprecedented aspect of the Chavez allegations is how willing, if not eager the collective is to depose him as the reigning figurehead of the labor rights movement. People are already erasing him from the American political and cultural landscape. And swiftly.
People are painting over his murals. School boards are discussing removing Chavez as their namesake. And the United Farm Workers organization itself canceled their annual March 31 Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday in California.
“Despite Chávez being a member of the inaugural California Hall of Fame Class in 2006, the California Museum Board of Trustees is working to remove him and establish a new protocol in case it is ever necessary to remove another inductee in the future.” — KCRA3 News
“L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn said she believes it’s time to rename Cesar Chavez Day to “Farmworker Day” in the county. A number of California elected officials issued statements Wednesday in favor of renaming or otherwise altering observation of the March 31 holiday,” — Los Angeles Times reported.
“In a reversal of their decision Tuesday, Sacramento labor organizers are canceling the city’s annual Cesar Chavez march.” — the Sacramento Bee
To be certain, this seems like extraordinary sociopolitical progress. And allegations alone are never to supersede due process. We still want thorough police investigations and judicial processes. But most victims are not even believed, regardless of their age, race, class, education, or profession. Sexual impropriety accusations rarely lead to police investigations, let alone charges, or trials. They don’t get prominent journalists interviewing sources to further inform the court of public opinion.
While those accused of any crime are legally, Constitutionally presumed innocent until proven guilty, girls and women who accuse men of any degree of sexual impropriety are presumed guilty until proven innocent. But when girls and women accuse rich and powerful men, they aren’t just ignored, they’re often thrust into the public eye to have their credibility, careers, and lives completely dismantled if not destroyed.
Law professor Anita Hill was ridiculed and received death threats for accusing Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and testifying against him before the 1991 Senate Judiciary Committee. Almost 30 years later, psychology professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testified against Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh for sexual assault before the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee. She too was ridiculed and received death threats. And in the age of the internet, she was doxxed and her family had to move.
And at the height of the #MeToo movement, experts and casual observers alike pointed out that if even high-profile actresses who can afford security teams and fleets of lawyers were still being harassed, assaulted, and raped, what do you think is happening to the hotel maids, fieldworkers, housekeepers, and nannies who don’t have powerful networks and substantial resources? What do you think is happening to undocumented women everywhere?
Would we believe that Cesar Chavez locked 13-year-old Ana Murguia in his office, took her clothes off, and tried to rape her if someone as well known and respected as Dolores Huerta herself hadn’t essentially corroborated a pattern with her own bombshell? Would we believe that Chavez had groped 12-year-old Debra Rojas, eventually raping her in a Stockton motel when she was 15 if Huerta wasn’t an internationally respected leader with decades of clout?
Are we more likely to believe Chavez raped Huerta because she got pregnant both times? Do those two children, grown now, make it real?
Maybe it’s different this time because Chavez is long dead. It’s easier, more comfortable, more palatable to socially prosecute a dead man’s reputation than the man himself. Maybe it’s because he was Brown and represented Brown farmworkers and laborers, which is to say, to the abiding white supremacy that still structures so much of this country, that he didn’t matter and nor do the people he advocated for.
Maybe, unlike Thomas and Kavanaugh and Trump, we can speak ill of the dead, but we cannot interrupt a man’s ascendancy and prominence.
But if we can socially dethrone a cultural icon with folk hero reverence within three days of personal statements from victims (and years of NYT investigation), we can certainly hold Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplices to the FBI and the DOJ’s actual protocols, not the grotesquely compromised shadow organizations they’ve become.
We can release the full and un-redacted Epstein files and start investigating and charging men accordingly, no matter how rich, white, powerful, or connected they are.
And we can start believing women. All women. Those who’ve already accused Epstein and the men in his international sex trafficking ring. And those who will keep coming forward against Chavez.