Dolores Huerta Dies at 96; Gregory Nava Vows to Continue Her Story

By Elena Vasquez

Filmmaker Gregory Nava said Dolores Huerta, the United Farm Workers co-founder who gave the country “Sí, se puede,” died Wednesday morning at 96. A family spokesperson said cancer caused her death. She died at home, surrounded by family.

Nava and Barbara Martinez Jitner drove to Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday night to say goodbye. Their joint statement read: “We were blessed to be by Dolores’ side last night in Bakersfield, to say goodbye and stand with her family in love.”

They called her “a great light and a fearless warrior for justice” who “set the world ablaze with her passion for equality” and “inspired generations to discover their own power.”

Huerta had introduced Nava to Martinez Jitner and served as a witness at their wedding. In the last years of her life, she sat with them for more than 70 hours—nearly three days—and told them things she had never told anyone else.

What did Huerta trust the filmmakers with?

Nava and Martinez Jitner have spent the better part of three years preparing the first dramatic feature about Huerta’s life. Variety first reported the project in April 2024. Nava writes and directs; Martinez Jitner co-writes and produces with him.

Huerta had received approaches from a long line of filmmakers seeking the rights to her life story, but she chose the two people she had known for decades.

The filmmakers said: “In these last few years, Dolores and her beautiful family welcomed us even closer, entrusting us with the telling of her life — its extraordinary courage, its struggles and joys, its deepest pain.”

They called the assignment “one of the greatest privileges of our professional lives, and a deeply personal trust.” They added: “We will honor it with tenderness and care, carrying her voice and her story to generations yet to come.”

Huerta chose the filmmakers and supplied the life story, leaving the first dramatic feature in their hands.

Which films connect the biopic to Nava’s career?

Nava directed “El Norte,” his 1983 drama about two Guatemalan siblings crossing into the United States. It earned an Oscar nomination for original screenplay and helped put a face on the immigration debate of the Reagan years.

He followed with “Mi Familia” and the 1997 biopic “Selena,” which made Jennifer Lopez a movie star. All three films sit in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.

Martinez Jitner has collaborated with Nava since “Selena.” In 2002, she became the first Latina to executive produce a primetime network drama with PBS’ “American Family,” which Nava created.

When Variety broke the biopic news, Nava described Huerta “like an earthquake that shook this country.” Huerta said she had spent a year sharing “intimate, never before disclosed details” of her journey. She said Nava “has made classic movies that are the most authentic and impactful of our American Latino experience.”

Their film and television record gives the project a direct bridge between Huerta’s activism and a mass audience.

What did Huerta reveal in March?

In March, Huerta told The New York Times that Cesar Chavez, her partner in building the farmworkers movement, raped her in 1966 in a secluded grape field. She had kept the assault secret for 60 years, fearing it would unravel everything the union had won. “My silence ends here,” she said at the time.

Huerta was born April 10, 1930, in Dawson, New Mexico. Her father was a coal miner; her mother ran a hotel in Stockton, Calif., that catered to farmworkers.

Huerta taught elementary school for one year. She quit after watching hungry children arrive barefoot, then organized their parents.

In 1962, she and Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association, which became the UFW. She helped lead the 1965 Delano grape strike alongside Filipino labor leader Larry Itliong and negotiated the first contracts in the fields.

In 1988, a police officer beat Huerta with a baton while she protested outside a George H.W. Bush fundraiser in San Francisco. The beating broke four ribs and ruptured her spleen. After recovering, she spent the next decade recruiting Latinas to run for office.

President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012. California designated April 10 “Dolores Huerta Day” in 2018. Huerta was a mother to 11 children.

Her public record joined labor leadership, political recruitment, private loyalty and her disclosure of rape.

What happened at Huerta’s 2025 award event?

At the Critics Choice Association’s Celebration of Latino Cinema and Television in Beverly Hills on Oct. 24, 2025, Huerta received the Icon Award from Nava. The account’s writer, who co-programmed and hosted the evening, had last seen Nava and Huerta together in a room there. At 95, she was the sharpest and most energizing person in the ballroom.

Nava spoke about her as a force of history. Huerta addressed the young people in the room, saying they needed to get off the sidewalk and into the street to fight.

The ceremony joined recognition of six decades of activism with a warning about who would continue the work.

Who carries the movement forward?

In their closing statement, Nava and Martinez Jitner wrote: “Today, we mourn.” They continued: “We send all our love and gratitude to her family. The baton is now in our hands. We will carry it forward, Dolores.”

They closed with the three words Huerta spent six decades proving true: “Sí, se puede.”

The biopic’s next test is to honor Huerta’s charge to tell her life “with tenderness and care” while turning more than 70 hours of entrusted testimony into a finished dramatic feature.