Dolores Huerta Becomes First Latina To Be Honored At The Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery

Last summer, civil rights activist Dolores Huerta saw the exhibit about her farmworker activism for the first time. With it she became the first Latina to be honored in the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit titled: "One Life: Dolores Huerta." NBC News reported that Huerta was most struck by a photo of her lying in a hospital bed while civil rights leader Cesar Chavez sat by her side. “I was beaten up by the police,” Huerta recalled about a 1988 incident at a rally outside a hotel. “We were protesting against [then Vice President) George H.W.] Bush who had said nothing was wrong with pesticides, the government was taking care of people.”

At 85, Huerta became the first Latina to be honored at the Smithsonian Institution's, with the exhibit titled “One Life: Dolores Huerta.” And even though it only looks at part of the civil rights leader’s life, it is definitely one of the most important ones, as it highlights the significant role of this Latina leader in the California farm workers movement of the 1960s and 70s. It features Huerta as the co-founder, with Cesar Chavez, of the United Farm Workers union (UFW), and shows her position as the union’s lobbyist and contract negotiator.

The exhibit, which also "talks about the struggle of farmworkers and what they have to go through and makes you think about the recent remarks of Donald Trump and the farmworkers who put food on his table," as Huerta told NBC News, will run through May 15, 2016.