Revolution in the Fields: Dolores Huerta exhibition opens at Brownsville Museum of Fine Art

“Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields,” a traveling Smithsonian exhibition about the Latina civil rights icon and her leading role in the farm workers’ movement, opens this week at the Brownsville Museum of Fine Art.

In 1962, Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Gilbert Padilla and other early organizers founded the United Farmworkers of America in Caliornia. The union endures as the nation’s largest farmworkers’ union, having won rights for farmworkers that workers in other industries take for granted.

The UFW’s influence dates from the famous Delano, Calif., table grape strike and boycott from 1965-1970, when Filipino American grape workers asked the mostly Latino National Farmworkers Association led by Chavez to join their strike against Delano-area table and wine grape growers protesting years of poor pay and conditions.

In the end the UFW won its first contract with the grape growers, who had sought to break the strike.

The Brownsville Museum of Fine Art receives Smithsonian Institution’s exhibition Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields/Revolucin en los Campos as BMFA set up the traveling exhibition on Monday, July 18, 2022. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The Smithsonian exhibition explores Huerta’s public life as an activist and co-founder of the UFW, and what led her to become a Latina civil rights icon. “In her life as a communicator, organizer, lobbyist, contract negotiator, teacher, and mother, her unparalleled leadership skills helped dramatically improve the lives of farm workers,” information provided by the Smithsonian states.

The Smithsonian encourages those who plan to visit the exhibition to first download and view the accompanying smart phone app, where Huerta and others explain the exhibit in 16 short videos.

“Visitors will broaden their understanding of the farm workers movement through a careful look at Dolores Huerta’s significant—but often under-acknowledged—contributions. The exhibition also explores how workers of different ethnic and racial backgrounds came together to empower the movement, and how the arts played an essential role. In addition, visitors will come to understand Huerta’s far-reaching impact and important legacy,” the Smithsonian says about the exhibition.

The Brownsville Museum of Fine Art receives Smithsonian Institution’s exhibition Dolores Huerta: Revolution in the Fields/Revolucin en los Campos as BMFA set up the traveling exhibition on Monday, July 18, 2022. (Miguel Roberts/The Brownsville Herald)

The app features 16 videos of Huerta discussing her lifetime of fighting for the rights of farm workers. Together with fellow UFW leader Chávez, Huerta organized marches, boycotts, strikes, and more, and played a critical role in the farm workers movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, according to the videos.

It was developed as a bilingual community engagement resource in collaboration with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, with activities to increase dialogue within local communities on contemporary issues.

To download the free app for iOS. Search “Dolores Huerta” in the App Store.