Stockton’s Haggin Museum Opens Exhibit Highlighting Dolores Huerta And The Farmworkers’ Movement

Stockton’s Haggin Museum is celebrating civil rights activist Dolores Huerta in a new exhibit, and she will be there for the occasion this week. 

Titled “Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields,” the exhibit opening Thursday highlights the farmworkers movement in California, from protests to union organizing. 

Huerta is scheduled to be at the opening reception at 6:30 p.m. Thursday and at an event titled “A Conversation with Dolores” at noon on Saturday. 

Huerta came to Stockton as a child, worked as a teacher and later joined with Cesar Chavez to found the United Farm Workers Union. Only California and Hawaii allow farmworkers the right to organize, and farmworkers in California now have stricter safety regulations, unemployment insurance and other benefits. Huerta says all of that came out of the farmworkers’ movement.

“When you see the exhibit, you realize farmworkers did it for themselves,” she said. “This was a grassroots effort where people were able to come together and solve their own problems.”

The exhibit features photos, documents and even protest art.