Dolores Huerta is a labor leader and community organizer. She has worked civil rights and social justice for over 50 years. In 1962 she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union. She served as vice-president and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. In 2002, she received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community; and create strong leadership development. She has received numerous awards: among them The Eleanor Roosevelt Humans Rights Award from President Clinton in l998. In 2012 President Obama bestowed Dolores with The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, 2021 US Today “Women of the Century” and Glamour’s “Women of the Year” Awards.
The Dolores Huerta Community Service Award is a way to acknowledge our students’ involvement with the Latinx communities at UCLA and the greater Los Angeles area through the Community-engaged Learning Program.The inaugural award will be presented by Dolores Huerta, at The UCLA Department of Spanish & Portuguese End of the Year Online Celebration Ceremony on Saturday, June 12th, 2021.