Dolores Huerta, an icon of the American farmworker union, says she has broken her long silence after keeping a dark secret for decades: she conceived two children with César Chávez after he raped her in the 1960s.
The bombshell allegation, first reported in a lengthy investigation report by The New York Times, comes on the heels of the United Farm Workers – a group both union leaders founded – cancelling the celebration of civil rights leader day, scheduled on March 31.
The influential labour activist explains that her silence was tied to the good of the farmworker movement. But now she says she will not remain mum any longer.
"I am nearly 96 years old and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for," the statement read.
Devotion to the revered leader, Huerto describes the reason that pressured her to have a sexual encounter with her.
"The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to," she pens in a statement.
The second encounter, in contrast, was neither manipulation nor pressure but sheer force by Chavez, claims Huerto.
"I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped," she says, referring to the year 1966 when she was 36 and the labour icon drove her to a grape field in Delano, California, where streets were named after him.
Huerta has 11 children, but she did not specifically mention which two kids were born from Chavez's alleged non-consensual sex.
According to The Dolores Huerta Foundation, she shares 2 daughters with Ralph Head. Ventura Huerta has 5 children, and in the end, Richard Chavez and the labour activist have 4 children.
Their names are Celeste, Lori, Fidel, Emilio, Vincent, Alicia, Angela, Juana, Maria Elena, Ricardo, and Camila.
Chávez died in 1993. He was 66.