The Blue Tsunami Has Arrived. Now Comes the Work of Democracy. by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Blue Tsunami Has Arrived. Now Comes the Work of Democracy.

Celebrating a Historic Democratic Victory—and the Responsibility to Turn Electoral Power into Lasting Change

by

Link

 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

November 5, 2026

Geez, what a difference an election makes! I must confess that I am still processing the extraordinary events of this week.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026 is a defining moment. After teaching my classes on Tuesday and finishing up at 7 PM, I made my way to East Austin to La Perla, a local, East Austin bar—packed with local politicos, eyes fixed on the television—grabbing some taco’s at Cisco’s Mexican food restaurant across the street, and watching the steady news and hearing the cheers up and down Cesar Chavez street, with folks clapping, cheering, and screaming as the news of democratic victories across the state’s counties and totals rolled in.

Indeed, the best Tweet of the night was by @conorjrogers who said,
“Austin Texas sounds like an Eastern European city that just overthrew a dictator.”

See on X.com

I find myself reflecting on what feminist political philosopher Bonnie Honig (2021) describes as a politics of refusal. Refusal, in her formulation, is more than rejecting unjust political arrangements. It is a collective practice of resisting domination while creating possibilities for democratic transformation. Texans refused to accept that their political future had already been decided for them. They refused the narrative that Texas could never change. And they refused to surrender the possibility of something better.

Indeed, for the first time in more than three decades, Democrats have broken the Republican stronghold on statewide offices. Gina Hinojosa has defeated Greg Abbott, becoming the first Latina governor in Texas history. James Talarico has won a U.S. Senate seat, and Vikki Goodwin has defeated Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (Brooks, 2026).

As a Mexican American woman, educator, researcher, mother, and lifelong advocate for educational and civil rights, Hinojosa's victory is especially moving. She grew up in Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley, a region whose history predates the current U.S.-Mexico border. For Texas Mexicans, Mexico is hardly some distant enemy but part of a shared history, culture, and identity forged across generations along a river that both divides and connects us. 

The fear and anguish generated by Trump's and Abbott's costly and inhumane border policies surely mattered in this election, as did the enduring aspirations of Mexican American families whose labor built this state, whose children were segregated and punished for speaking Spanish, and whose histories have so often been excluded from the Texas narrative.

But there is something else about Gina Hinojosa that deserves attention: her own politics of refusal, especially her refusal to be drawn into the culture-war trap.

In her October 24 interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro of The New York Times, Hinojosa explained why she identifies as an economic populist rather than emphasizing the label progressive. Her position was not a repudiation of progressive values. Rather, she recognized how political labels can become so entangled in divisive culture-war debates that they foreclose substantive conversations about the issues Texans most urgently need addressed—economic inequality, concentrated corporate power, affordability, public schools, data centers, state violence, and the well-being of working families (Garcia-Navarro, 2026).

I find this both perceptive and politically significant. For years, Texans have been drawn into seemingly endless controversies over race, gender, immigration, and curriculum while urgent questions about economic opportunity, public investment, and corporate accountability are pushed aside. Instead of debating why schools remain underfunded, we debate whether teachers can discuss racism. Instead of addressing the affordability crisis, we debate whether universities should offer degrees in Mexican American Studies or Women's and Gender Studies.

Hinojosa's refusal to take the bait is not simply clever political messaging. It represents an effort to reclaim the political agenda itself. In Honig's terms, she refuses the terms of a debate that perpetuates existing relations of power while opening possibilities for a different conversation.

Of course, refusing the culture-war framing must never mean abandoning those whose rights have been targeted by it. Civil rights, academic freedom, and economic justice are inseparable. The challenge is to defend vulnerable communities without allowing manufactured controversies to displace the broader democratic and economic agenda our state desperately needs.

This distinction matters deeply to me as an educator. Throughout my career, beginning with Subtractive Schooling: U.S.-Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring (1999), I have examined how educational institutions reproduce inequality when they devalue students' languages, cultures, histories, and knowledge. These concerns have become increasingly urgent with the passage of Senate Bills 17 and 37 and the dismantling of academic programs at UT Austin, including the elimination of majors in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, and Women's and Gender Studies (Edison, 2026).

I have argued that academic freedom is civil rights infrastructure because weakening the institutions that produce knowledge about inequality also weakens our ability to document discrimination and pursue remedies (Valenzuela, 2026). These struggles are not separate from Hinojosa's concerns about economic power. They are part of the same larger question: Who determines whose knowledge, interests, and futures matter?

This is precisely why I have called for moving beyond narrow economic measures of return on investment toward what I call our Return on Knowing. Public education is not merely a mechanism for workforce development. It is foundational to democratic participation, cultural understanding, scientific discovery, and the public good.

The election offers extraordinary possibilities for reconsidering policies that have undermined these purposes. But changing elected officials will not automatically restore eliminated programs, repair damaged institutions, or rebuild public trust.

Here, Honig's work offers perhaps its most important lesson: Refusal must become reconstruction. Saying no to injustice is only the beginning. We must build the institutions, relationships, and policies necessary to sustain a more just and participatory democracy.

For me, this means continuing our work through the Texas Center for Education Policy, LULAC, Black Brown Dialogues on Policy; and the work of the Latino Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education.

It also means holding our newly-elected leaders accountable—not simply applauding their victories. We must expect them to defend public education, protect vulnerable communities, challenge concentrated economic power, and restore democratic accountability in our public institutions.

Gina Hinojosa's victory reminds us that political inevitability is often nothing more than a story told by those who benefit from the status quo. Texans have demonstrated their willingness to reject that story and imagine something different.

So, yes, let us celebrate this extraordinary blue tsunami! Let us congratulate the Democrats, honor the organizers, volunteers, and voters who made it possible, and acknowledge the courage and political imagination of those who refused to give up on Texas.

But let us also remember that electoral victory is not the same as democratic transformation.

The election is over. The work of democracy is just beginning.

¡Adelante! La lucha sigue.

References

Brooks, B. (2026, November 4). ‘A mandate for change’: Democrats remake Texas politics in election rout. Reuters.

Edison, J. (2026, September 17). UT-Austin cutting majors centering Latino, Black, women and gender studies, email shows. The Texas Tribune.

Garcia-Navarro, L. (Host). (2026, October 24). What this Democrat's surge in Texas says about the midterms [Audio podcast episode]. In The Interview. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/magazine/gina-hinojosa-interview.html

Honig, B. (2021). A feminist theory of refusal. Harvard University Press.

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. State University of New York Press.

Valenzuela, A. (2026, Sept. 19). Academic Freedom is Civil Rights Infrastructure: What UT's Elimination of Ethnic and Gender Studies Costs Us, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas.

From Demographic Change to Democratic Change: Is a New #ChangeWave Rising in Texas and Across America? by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. Oct. 31, 2026

From Demographic Change to Democratic Change: Is a New #ChangeWave Rising in Texas and Across 

America?

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

October 31, 2026

With Election Day just around the corner, there is growing reason for hope that something extraordinary may be unfolding in Texas and across the nation. Two recent analyses—one by distinguished UT San Antonio demographer Dr. Rogelio Sáenz and another by CNN Chief Data Analyst and guru Harry Enten—suggest that we may be witnessing the beginnings of a significant political realignment. 

Add to these findings the latest Harvard Youth Poll, and an intriguing possibility emerges: Could America be approaching another Obama-style wave, this time driven by a younger, increasingly diverse electorate that is demanding change, even while expressing deep dissatisfaction with the Democratic Party itself? The evidence is compelling, even if the outcome remains uncertain.

In his illuminating October 29 San Antonio Express-News commentary, "Will Texas' Shifting Voting Demographics Influence the Election Outcome?," Sáenz (2026) documents the remarkable transformation occurring across our state. Between 2022 and 2024, Texas gained approximately 688,000 citizens of voting age, with nonwhite Texans accounting for more than four-fifths of that growth. 

The Latino voting-age population increased by 209,000, the African American population by 165,000, and the Asian population by 138,000, compared with approximately 131,000 additional white citizens of voting age. Perhaps even more consequential are the generational differences: the number of Latino, African American, and Asian citizens ages 18 to 34 grew by more than 173,000, while the comparable white population declined by approximately 33,000. These numbers tell us something important. Texas is changing, and its political possibilities are changing along with it.

Equally significant is where these transformations are taking place. Sáenz (2026) identifies the rapid diversification of suburban counties surrounding Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, including Kaufman, Ellis, and Comal counties. These suburban communities, once associated with reliably Republican voting patterns, are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse and, in some places, more politically competitive. 

Of course, demographic change does not automatically produce political change. Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans, and young people are not monolithic voting blocs. Political affiliations, economic circumstances, histories, and personal experiences all matter. Yet Sáenz' analysis reminds us that Texas is neither politically static nor destined to remain as it has been for more than three decades. The potential for change is real, provided that demographic shifts translate into meaningful democratic participation.

Now consider the national picture. In his final pre-election analysis presented on CNN, Harry Enten offers projections that would have seemed almost unimaginable just months ago. Treat yourself to a dose of Harry Enten's forecasts on CNN's Youtube channel, by the way. His enthusiasm is infectious.

Drawing on an aggregation of electoral models, Enten reports a 92% estimated probability that Democrats will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, with a projected 237 Democratic seats to 198 Republican seats. 

His Senate forecast is equally striking: Democrats' estimated probability of winning control has increased by 19 percentage points since August, reaching 71%, with a projected 52 Democratic seats to 48 Republican seats (CNN, 2026). Remarkably, Enten'sprojected Senate map even places Texas in the Democratic column. These are probabilistic projections, not election results, and Enten acknowledges the possibility of polling errors. Nevertheless, taken together, they suggest that the political winds may be shifting in ways that could substantially reshape the balance of power in Washington.

What makes these forecasts especially fascinating is the emerging role of young voters. According to the October 22 Harvard Youth Poll, Democrats lead Republicans by an astonishing 37 percentage points among likely voters ages 18 to 29—63% to 26%. 

Yet this is hardly a ringing endorsement of the Democratic establishment. Fully 66% of registered young voters disapprove of congressional Democrats' performance, while 74% disapprove of congressional Republicans. Moreover, 63% of young people who say they will definitely vote describe their congressional vote primarily as opposition to President Trump and his policies. 

Only 9% of young Americans believe the country is moving in the right direction (Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, 2026). The findings reveal a generation confronting economic insecurity, distrust of political institutions, and profound anxiety about its future. One important caution is that only 33% say they will definitely vote, below the 40% recorded before the 2018 and 2022 midterms. Whether this dissatisfaction becomes a historic electoral surge remains to be seen.

This is where the comparison to the Obama wave of 2008—remember that?—becomes especially interesting. Barack Obama's historic election was powered in significant part by a multiracial, multigenerational coalition energized by the promise of hope and change. According to Keeter et al. (2008), Obama captured 66% of the vote among Americans under age 30, compared with 31% for John McCain. Young voters were not only an important electoral constituency but also enthusiastic campaign volunteers and participants in an unprecedented political mobilization effort. 

What may be emerging in 2026 is something different but potentially no less consequential. Rather than an electorate inspired primarily by a charismatic political leader or enthusiastic loyalty to a party, we may be witnessing a growing coalition of citizens frustrated with political dysfunction and corruption, and massive income and economic inequality, and what they perceive as threats to their rights and democratic institutions. 

This may be less a wave of enthusiasm for the Democratic Party than a wave of determination to change the direction of the country. If so, it would be a mistake for Democratic leaders to interpret electoral victories as unconditional endorsements. Young voters appear to be demanding something more substantive: accountability, integrity, economic opportunity, and political leadership that takes their aspirations seriously (Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, 2026).

For those of us who have devoted our lives to public education, civil rights, and the democratic purposes of schooling, these developments carry profound significance. The struggles over public school funding, takeovers, book bans, educational opportunity, immigrant rights, academic freedom, and the teaching of our histories are not isolated policy disputes. They are connected to the larger question of whose voices, knowledge, and experiences count in our democracy. 

Here in Texas, where restrictions on diversity initiatives, growing political interference in universities, and battles over curriculum have generated deep concern, the stakes could hardly be higher. The younger generations now entering the electorate are also the generations who have experienced these institutional struggles firsthand. Their political participation offers the possibility of a more responsive public education system and a renewed commitment to universities as places of intellectual freedom, critical inquiry, and democratic possibility.

I am particularly encouraged by what these developments could mean for Texas. For decades, many Texans committed to educational equity, social justice, and representative democracy for an increasingly diverse polity have struggled against political structures that often seem impervious to change. Yet history teaches us that even deeply entrenched political arrangements can shift when communities organize, generations change, and people come to recognize their collective power. And that's what I and many others see and feel is happening at the grassroots in Texas.

Sáenz' (2026) demographic analysis helps explain the structural conditions that make change possible. Enten's forecasts suggest that these changes may be influencing electoral expectations at the national level (CNN, 2026). And the Harvard Youth Poll provides an important glimpse into the attitudes of a generation that may be ready to challenge the political status quo (Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, 2026). Together, these findings suggest that what is happening in Texas is part of a much larger national transformation.

As we approach November 3, I find myself returning to a simple but powerful distinction: Demographic change creates political possibilities, but democratic change absolutely nevertheless also requires collective agency. 

There is no guarantee that Texas will turn blue, that Democrats will control both houses of Congress, or that young voters will participate in sufficient numbers to produce an Obama-style wave. Nor would an electoral victory, by itself, resolve the institutional and economic injustices that have brought us to this moment. But there is reason for hope. Our country is changing, our state is changing, and a new generation is making its voice heard. 

Perhaps the most important question is not simply which political party will prevail on Election Day, but whether this emerging movement can help build a more inclusive, accountable, and genuinely democratic future. That is the possibility worth celebrating—and the promise that must extend well beyond any single election.

Tuesday, November 3rd is your final day to vote. Remember, your vote is your voice. Su voto es su voz! Sí se puede! Yes we can!

#ChangeWave #TexasVotes #YouthVote #Democracy #Midterms2026 

References

CNN. (2026, October 30). Midterm elections 2026: Harry Enten's final prediction [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wur9BVrXaDc

Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School. (2026, October 22). Harvard Youth Poll: Democrats lead by 37 points among likely young voters. https://iop.harvard.edu/press-releases/harvard-youth-poll-democrats-lead-37-points-among-likely-young-voters

Keeter, S., Horowitz, J., & Tyson, A. (2008, November 13). Young voters in the 2008 election. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/

Sáenz, R. (2026, October 29). Will Texas' shifting voting demographics influence the election outcome? San Antonio Express-News. https://www.expressnews.com/opinion/commentary/article/voting-demographics-change-texas-22497157.php

Will Texas' shifting voting demographics influence the election outcome?
By Rogelio Sáenz, For the Express-News | Oct 29, 2026

In 2022 and 2024, the Texas voting age population increased by 688,000,

a rise of 3.4%. Minorities accounted for much of that growth reflecting the Texas

electorate's shifting demographics. Ricardo Brazziell, Ricardo B. Br

Major shifts in the upcoming elections have occurred over the past month.

Texas is an increasingly competitive state with narrow poll margins in the top three political races, and Latinos have been dubbed as the nation’s most important swing voters. From the start of early voting, record-breaking numbers of voters have queued in long lines for their chance to vote.

How have Texas voters changed over the past two years?

I draw on the most recent data Texas citizens of voting age population, or CVAP — people 18 and older who are U.S. citizens — available from the 2022 and 2024 American Community Survey to address this query. Unfortunately, the 2025 data and 2026 data are not yet available.

Between 2022 and 2024, the Texas voting-age population increased by 688,000, a rise of 3.4%. Nonwhites account for more than four-fifths of the 688,000 people added to the state’s voting-age population. Latino (209,000), African American (165,000) and Asian (138,000) newcomers outnumber the 131,000 whites added between 2022 and 2024.

The Asian voting-age population rose the fastest, a 16% increase, followed by African Americans with a rise of 6.5%. The growth rates were slower among Latinos (3.2%) and whites (1.4%).

There are major racial/ethnic splits along the lines of age. While the number of Latino, African American and Asian people 18 to 34 years old rose by more than 173,000, the number of whites declined by approximately 33,000. Yet the nearly 140,000 potential white voters 65 and older added in the past two years is comparable to the 137,000 additional Latinos, African Americans and Asians.

Interstate migration patterns across racial/ethnic groups are also revealing. I calculate net migration of the CVAP by subtracting people who migrated to Texas in the 2023-2024 period from the number who migrated out of Texas to other states during this period.

The CVAP net migration of African Americans (40,500) and Latinos (34,500) was significantly higher than that of whites (21,000). Latinos and whites moving to Texas in the past two years most commonly came from California, while African Americans most likely originated from Louisiana.

The CVAP international movement also is instructive. I tallied the number of people who migrated to Texas from abroad (including Puerto Rico) in the 2023-2024 period. Given that the focus is on citizens of voting age, international movers include people who were born in the United States as well as naturalized citizens. The number of the CVAP who came to Texas from abroad includes 41,000 Latinos, 35,500 whites, 19,000 African Americans and 13,500 Asians.

Growth of the CVAP occurred disproportionately in counties with the largest metropolitan cities as well as suburban counties. The 10 counties with the most rapid percentage increases are all suburban counties in the Dallas, Houston and San Antonio metropolitan areas.

Kaufmann County experienced the most rapid growth at 18%, followed by Ellis County at 14% and Comal County at 11%. One thing is certain: Fast-growing suburbs are becoming less white and less Republican.

Many Texans have cast their ballots, while others will be turning out Tuesday.

Will Texas finally turn blue after more than three decades? A lot will depend on continued high voter turnout and the former supporters of President Donald Trump who plan to vote Democratic this time.

Still, halting or overturning Trump policies and actions that have led to mass discontent over the economy, rising consumer prices, mass deportation and the war with Iran will require Democrats gaining an advantage in both houses.

Rogelio Sáenz is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Demography at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not reflect those of UTSA.

Southwestern Welcomes Civil Rights Legend Dolores Huerta to Campus [Video]

Friends:

As I continue to reflect on the passing of the extraordinary Dolores Huerta, I find myself returning to a beautiful memory from eight years ago on January 18, 2018, when Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, welcomed her to campus as part of its commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and legacy.

What makes this occasion especially dear to my heart is that our daughter, Luz Zamora, opens the event singing the beloved movement song, “No nos moverán” (“We Shall Not Be Moved”). I cannot think of a more fitting way to welcome a woman who spent her life standing firm against injustice, often at enormous personal sacrifice. I'm remembering this moment and was so glad to see our daughter play a direct role in bringing Dolores Huerta to campus.

As a mother, a Mexican American woman, and an educator who has devoted much of my life to ensuring that our histories are taught and remembered, this moment touches me deeply. Our histories as Mexican Americans are so rarely given their rightful place in our schools and in the larger American narrative. Too many of our children grow up without knowing the names, struggles, and extraordinary contributions of people like Dolores Huerta. And too often, the women who helped build our civil rights movements remain in the shadows of the men alongside whom they struggled.

This is why hearing Luz sing “No nos moverán” in Dolores' presence means so much to me. It represents something deeply personal: the passing of our histories, our values, our struggles, and our hopes from one generation to the next. As parents, Emilio and I have always wanted our daughters to know where they come from, to understand the sacrifices of those who came before them, and to recognize their own responsibility to help make this world more just.

I am especially moved by this memory now, knowing more about the pain Dolores carried for so many decades, even as she gave so much of herself to others. My heart aches for her and for all that she endured. Yet I refuse to let that suffering overshadow the magnificent life she lived and the countless people whose lives she changed.

As you can see from her presentation in the video, Dolores, then around 88 years old, was as sharp as a tack, captivating an audience of undergraduate students with her wit, energy, and infectious enthusiasm. At one particularly memorable moment, she reassured students who might have lamented missing the great social movements of the late 1960s that they had not missed their chance to make history. “Don't worry,” she exclaimed to the delighted crowd, “they're back!” It was vintage Dolores—spirited, hopeful, and forever reminding young people that the struggle for justice belongs to every generation.

Dolores, thank you for being the extraordinary woman you were, for the sacrifices you made, for the doors you opened, and for showing generations of us what courage, conviction, and love for our people look like in action.

I am so grateful that our daughter had this opportunity to honor you through song, and that we have this beautiful memory to cherish.

Thanks to Dr. Brenda Sendejo for sharing this beautiful memory and video. May you finally rest in the peace, dignity, and love you so richly deserve.

¡Dolores Huerta, presente! ¡Sí se puede! ¡No nos moverán!

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Southwestern Welcomes Civil Rights Legend Dolores Huerta to Campus

Dolores Huerta is an activist and labor leader who has dedicated her life to fighting discrimination and improving social and economic conditions for farm workers, immigrants and women.

View Event Here

Dolores Huerta, Labor Leader and Force for Civil Rights, has Died, October 28, 2026

Friends:

I am heartbroken by the news that Dolores Huerta, one of the towering figures of the American labor and civil rights movements, has died at the age of 96. Her passing marks the end of an extraordinary life devoted to justice, dignity, and the empowerment of working people. 

But alongside my grief is another emotion I cannot easily put into words: a haunting fear that the revelations published earlier this year in The New York Times about César Chávez and his sexual abuse of women and girls may have exacted a terrible emotional toll on her in the final months of her life.

I cannot know this, of course. Her family has reported that she died of cancer, and I would never presume to know what contributed to her death. Still, I cannot shake the thought of what it must have meant for this extraordinary woman, nearing the end of her life, to confront publicly a truth she had carried privately for some sixty years.

Dolores, thank you for being the extraordinary person you were, for the countless sacrifices you made, and for the courage, compassion, and unwavering commitment to justice that defined your life. You gave so much of yourself to others, often at great personal cost. May you finally rest in the peace, dignity, and love you so richly deserve. ¡Dolores Huerta, presente!

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Dolores Huerta, Labor Leader and Force for Civil Rights, has Died

She founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez. In early 2026, she told The Times that she had been raped by him decades earlier. She was 96.

Dolores Huerta at a women’s march in Utah in 2017.Credit...By Getty Images

Listen · 14:27 min

Oct. 28, 2026Updated 3:31 p.m. ET by Robert D. McFadden | New York Times
Leer en español

Dolores Huerta, who with Cesar Chavez founded what became the United Farm Workers and led strikes and boycotts in the 1960s and ’70s that unionized many California table-grape growers, changing laws and the lives of thousands of migrant laborers, died on Wednesday at her home in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 96.

The cause of death was cancer, Erik Olvera, a spokesman for her family, said.

Ms. Huerta, who became a kind of Mexican American folk hero, depicted in murals and ballads, was the union’s vice president for nearly four decades and, until Mr. Chavez’s death in 1993, his second-in-command. He was the charismatic — and, it was later revealed, abusive — leader; she, the skilled organizer who coordinated walkouts and boycotts under a black Aztec eagle banner and negotiated pathbreaking contracts with agribusiness.

But there was a long-hidden dark side to her years by Mr. Chavez’s side. She was, by her account, raped by him — an assault she never spoke about publicly until early 2026, when she was interviewed by The New York Times as it was reporting on the extensive evidence that Mr. Chavez had also groomed and molested underage girls as young as 12.

“I saw him, again, as my boss, as my hero, as, you know, somebody that would do the impossible,” Ms. Huerta told The Times. “I never talked about it to anybody, and the reason I didn’t is because I just didn’t want to hurt the movement.”

Dolores Huerta, the civil rights activist who co-founded the United

Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, died on Wednesday at her home

in Bakersfield, Calif. She was 96.CreditCredit...

Cathy Murphy/Getty Images

Link here to view video.

On picket lines and in civil disobedience protests, Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez practiced the nonviolent civil rights strategies of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She was arrested 22 times, roughed up by strikebreakers and once severely beaten by a police officer, suffering broken ribs and a ruptured spleen that left her disabled for months.

The mother of 14 children, Ms. Huerta sometimes changed diapers between organizing meetings and nursed her babies during breaks in negotiations. Her children often lived with friends and supporters, ate donated food and coped with frequent moves. Most grew up to become activists and professionals, including a lawyer, a physician, performing artists, a therapist, business administrators and a chef.

Ms. Huerta also championed immigrants’ and women’s rights and was an ally of progressive Democrats like Gov. Jerry Brown of California, who signed legislation she sought; Senator Robert F. Kennedy, whose murder she witnessed; and President Barack Obama, who awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor, in 2012.

Mr. Chavez and Ms. Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962 with little but a dream of an organization to help migrant laborers who toiled long hours at backbreaking work for low wages and with no job security, and to challenge abuses, including exposure to toxic pesticides, by powerful California growers.

“People thought we were crazy,” Ms. Huerta told The Salt Lake Tribune years later. “They asked: ‘How are you going to organize farm workers? They are poor, powerless immigrants. They don’t have any money and they can’t vote.’”

But by 1965, they had 1,200 members and enough clout to join Filipino workers in a strike against table-grape growers in the Delano area of the San Joaquin Valley, and later in the Coachella Valley of Southern California. It was a bitter fight. The growers brought in strikebreakers, and the local police ignored repeated acts of harassment and violence.

When one grower began selling grapes under another’s label, Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez called for a boycott against the offender’s products. The F.B.I. placed both labor leaders under surveillance for suspected Communist ties.

But the strike won the support of some other unions, including the United Auto Workers, and of Senator Kennedy, who attended a rally in Delano on March 10, 1968. “The world must know,” he said, addressing the crowd of 4,000, “that the migrant farmworker, the Mexican American, is coming into his own right.”

The senator then handed Mr. Chavez a piece of bread. Mr. Chavez had been fasting for 25 days, taking only water, and weighed 140 pounds, having lost 35. Accepting the bread, Mr. Chavez broke his fast. It was a crucial moment for both sides in the strike.

“People thought we were crazy,” Ms. Huerta told The Salt Lake Tribune years later. “They asked: ‘How are you going to organize farm workers? They are poor, powerless immigrants. They don’t have any money and they can’t vote.’”

But by 1965, they had 1,200 members and enough clout to join Filipino workers in a strike against table-grape growers in the Delano area of the San Joaquin Valley, and later in the Coachella Valley of Southern California. It was a bitter fight. The growers brought in strikebreakers, and the local police ignored repeated acts of harassment and violence.

When one grower began selling grapes under another’s label, Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez called for a boycott against the offender’s products. The F.B.I. placed both labor leaders under surveillance for suspected Communist ties.

But the strike won the support of some other unions, including the United Auto Workers, and of Senator Kennedy, who attended a rally in Delano on March 10, 1968. “The world must know,” he said, addressing the crowd of 4,000, “that the migrant farmworker, the Mexican American, is coming into his own right.”

The senator then handed Mr. Chavez a piece of bread. Mr. Chavez had been fasting for 25 days, taking only water, and weighed 140 pounds, having lost 35. Accepting the bread, Mr. Chavez broke his fast. It was a crucial moment for both sides in the strike.

The union had recently declared a national boycott of all California table grapes, and Ms. Huerta was already in New York City organizing what became one of America’s most successful produce boycotts, a cause célèbre that, polls showed, drew the support of 17 million households and thousands of food stores.

Table-grape sales plummeted. Several growers caved and signed contracts. In 1970, the Delano growers capitulated en masse. Most of the industry soon followed, granting first-time benefits to workers.

Membership in the renamed United Farm Workers Organizing Committee swelled to a record high of 80,000; as an affiliate of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., it became the United Farm Workers in 1972. Later strikes against lettuce and table-grape growers and the Gallo Winery led to another triumph: passage by California’s Legislature in 1975 of the nation’s first major farm-labor law outside Hawaii.

Signed by Governor Brown, the Agricultural Labor Relations Act guaranteed California farm workers the right to organize unions and required employers to bargain for contracts in good faith. Migrant workers became eligible for medical insurance, employer-paid pensions and other benefits, including mechanisms to challenge abusive working conditions.

Ms. Huerta, center, led a rally along with Howard Wallace, the president of the union’s San Francisco chapter, and Maria Elena Chavez, Mr. Chavez’s daughter, in San Francisco's Mission District in 1988.Credit...Court Mast/File photo, Associated Press

In retrospect, it was the high point for the union. Its membership fell sharply in later years as growers signed with the rival Teamsters union, as strikes and boycotts lost their cachet and as the U.F.W. was hit by internal squabbles and, in an increasingly conservative nation, was no longer seen as a social cause, but as a conventional labor union struggling for political and popular support.

Ms. Huerta continued her activism. She spent four months in Washington lobbying lawmakers to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, landmark legislation that granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants.

But at a news conference scheduled to celebrate the victory, Ms. Huerta was nowhere to be seen, having not been told of the event. To her, it was a reflection of the sexism and machismo culture that permeated the union.

“I realized afterward they just wanted to get me out of the way so they could take credit for the work,” she said of her male co-workers in remembering the news conference. “Straight male-chauvinist trick.”

She did not describe the internal atmosphere publicly until she was interviewed by The Times for its 2026 investigation, when she also revealed Mr. Chavez’s abuse. Ms. Huerta said that he raped her inside a vehicle in a secluded California grape field in 1966, when she was 36 and he was 38 or 39. She decided not to report the assault to the police because of their hostility toward the movement, she told The Times, and because she feared that no one in the union would believe her.

She said that two of her children were the products of sexual encounters with Mr. Chavez, including the rape — baby girls who, by her arrangement, were raised by others. She said she had not been aware of his abuse of underage girls.

“Unfortunately, he used some of his great leadership to abuse women and children,” she said.

Reporting by The Times also showed that many other women in the union faced sexual assault and harassment from men they worked with, including senior managers. Interviews with former union associates and an examination of archived records suggested that a number of women complained at the time that Ms. Huerta often failed to support them and rebuffed their complaints of sexism.

Dolores Clara Fernández was born in Dawson, N.M., on April 10, 1930, the second of three children of Juan Fernández and the former Alicia Chávez Hernandez. Her father, a coal miner, became a union leader and a member of the New Mexico Legislature.

After her parents divorced, she and her two brothers were raised by their mother and a grandfather in Stockton, Calif. Her mother worked as a waitress, a cannery worker and a cook before buying and operating a hotel, where she sometimes housed and fed migrant workers at no charge.

“My mother was a strong woman and she didn’t favor my brothers,” Ms. Huerta told Susan Ferriss and Ricardo Sandoval-Palos for “The Fight in the Fields” (1997), a companion book to a PBS documentary of the same name. “There was no idea that men were superior. At home, we all shared equally in the household tasks.”

After graduating from Stockton High School in 1947, she earned a teaching certificate at Stockton College (now San Joaquin Delta College). She taught in an elementary school, but quit in frustration. “I couldn’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes,” she told The San Diego Union-Tribune.

In 1950, she married Ralph Head, a high school classmate. They had two daughters; the marriage ended in divorce. She had five children with her second husband, Ventura Huerta, whose surname she kept after their divorce. She later had four children with Richard Chavez, a brother of Cesar Chavez’s, in a long-term domestic partnership with him.

Her survivors include 13 of her children, 24 grandchildren, 23 great-grandchildren and seven great-great-grandchildren.

Ms. Huerta was in her 20s when she became involved in community organizing, working for the Community Service Organization, a Latino civil rights group in California founded in 1947. She met Mr. Chavez in 1955, at a fund-raising dinner in Oakland, where she was introduced to him by a C.S.O. co-founder, Fred Ross Sr., a veteran grass-roots organizer who had mentored him.

In 1960, she organized the Agricultural Workers Association, two years before she and Mr. Chavez formed the National Farm Workers Association. It was in 1960, Ms. Huerta told The Times in 2026, that Mr. Chavez first made a sexual advance toward her. She described feeling pressured to have sex with him in a hotel room during a working trip in San Juan Capistrano, Calif.

Their encounters and the confrontations she witnessed in the fields were not the only moments of violence that affected Ms. Huerta. She stood with Senator Kennedy in 1968 as he celebrated his victory in the California presidential primary from a stage at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, then joined his entourage passing through a basement pantry, where he was shot by an assassin.

In 1988, at a demonstration against Vice President George H.W. Bush, then a presidential candidate, outside a San Francisco hotel where he was speaking, Ms. Huerta was seriously injured in an unprovoked attack by a police officer wielding a baton. She won a settlement with the city for $825,000, money that she used to benefit migrant workers. The city also agreed to change crowd-control procedures.

Ms. Huerta at the New Mexico Statehouse in Santa Fe in 2019.Credit...Russell Contreras/Associated Press

After her recovery, she took a leave from the union and traveled for two years for the Feminist Majority Foundation to promote women candidates for public office. She later became a mentor to many elected officials, including Hilda L. Solis, a four-term congresswoman who was President Obama’s labor secretary from 2009 to 2013 and the first Hispanic woman to serve as a cabinet officer.

Ms. Huerta stepped down as an officer of her union in 1999 after 37 years. In 2002, she became founding president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which helps communities organize health, environmental, educational and economic projects.

Her portrait was known to hang in some U.S. embassies. She was showered with awards, including 15 honorary degrees, and at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, she formally placed Hillary Clinton’s name in nomination for president.

Ms. Huerta is widely believed to have coined the phrase “Sí se puede” (“yes we can”), still a common chant at Democratic campaign rallies and marches, and which Mr. Obama adopted as his presidential campaign slogan. (He acknowledged it was hers in his remarks about her at the Medal of Freedom ceremony.)

Her life was extolled in “Dolores,” a 2017 documentary by Peter Bratt. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California proclaimed an annual Dolores Huerta Day to commemorate her “lifelong pursuit of justice.” In a 2020 interview with The Times, she was asked why movements like hers transcended borders.

“I think it’s because of the people who are involved,” she said. “And this is the reason I, at the age of 90, continue to work. When people come together and take collective action, whether it’s in a march, whether it’s in a union election or, most important, come together to vote, this is how we make change.”

Manny Fernandez and Sarah Hurtes contributed reporting.