Dolores Huerta believed that every worker deserves dignity, every family deserves fairness, and every voice deserves to be heard. In 1962 she co-founded what became the United Farm Workers. She spent decades organizing in the fields, negotiating contracts, and fighting for the rights of farmworkers, women, and immigrants, all while raising eleven children, who often joined her on the picket lines and at the negotiating table. Dolores’s legacy lives in the people she inspired to organize, to vote, to speak up, and to never give up.

Just one year later, in 1963, Dionicio Morales founded MAOF in East Los Angeles, with the same conviction that our communities deserved a fair chance at economic, educational, and social advancement. For more than six decades, Dolores in the fields and MAOF in our neighborhoods have walked parallel paths toward that shared goal. Among her many honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, MAOF was proud to present her with its Lifetime Achievement Award, celebrating a life spent opening doors of opportunity for our community.

Thank you, Dolores, for your love, your faith, and your courage. Because of you, we have learned that justice is a journey. Gracias, Dolores, por tu amor, tu fe y tu valentía. Gracias a ti, hemos aprendido que la justicia es un camino.

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