Dolores Huerta, Latina Civil Rights leader, co-founder of
the United Farmworkers Union, and feminist leader spoke to over 800 students at
CSU-Sacramento on Sept 18, on the topic of civic engagement, particularly of
young people.
Her talk was lengthy, but she carefully and explicitly
connected the assigned themes of the
Constitution and civic engagement to a long list of issues important to young people. She
explained the role of a two party government,
the paralysis of the current Congress, the obstruction of the U.S.
Supreme Court, efforts on voter suppression and more.
She began by explaining that the effort at comprehensive
immigration reform was blocked by Republicans in the House and predicted that
if the Republicans were able to gain control of the Senate in November, the
extreme anti immigrant legislation of Republicans would be advanced to an
audience that was over 80% young and Latino.
Dolores used current issues to explain constitutional
debates including Citizens United, voter suppression, restrictions on
women’s choice on reproduction, equal
pay, and the importance of labor unions.
