Woman who won't say can't.

Byline: Tim Christie The Register-Guard

For a few hours Friday afternoon, Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were together again, at least in spirit.

Huerta visited Cesar Chavez Elementary School in Eugene, named for the man with whom she founded a groundbreaking labor union and sparked the Latino civil rights movement.

"It really brings history alive," Chavez Principal Sally Huling said.

Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Chavez in the 1960s, and was a driving force in its contract negotiations and boycotts in the 1960s and '70s.

Today, at 75, she's still involved with the union, as well as her own community organizing foundation, and she's still telling people, "Si, se puede" - It can be done.

"There's so much that needs to be done," she said. "I've learned so much and I want to share what I've learned and teach people how to organize themselves and take on issues."

She came to Eugene as part of a speaking tour, and delivered the keynote address Friday night to a regional conference of MEChA, a Latino student organization, at the University of Oregon.

But first she stopped at Cesar Chavez, one of about 67 elementary, middle, high and specialty schools in the United States named for Chavez, according to the Cesar E. Chavez Foundation in Los Angeles. Huerta said she knows of seven schools named for her.

"The fact that people named schools after us - we're an inspiration to Latino children," she said. "It gives them a sense of dignity and self-esteem, and what Cesar stood for - non-violence."

Born in New Mexico, Huerta was raised in Stockton in California's San Joaquin Valley. She was a founding member of the Stockton chapter of Community Service Organization in 1955, and in 1960, founded the Agricultural Workers Association.

Huerta met Chavez through the CSO, and for 30 years, she was his most trusted adviser. In 1962, they founded the National Farm Workers Association, precursor to the United Farm Workers. They organized farm workers, negotiated contracts, ran strikes, organized grape boycotts and campaigned against toxic pesticides.

"Dolores Huerta is the Coretta Scott King for Latino people," said Roscoe Caron, a Kelly Middle School teacher who works with Latino students.

At Chavez Elementary, Huerta visited Anne Crawford's first-grade class and read from a children's book, "Harvesting Hope," about the life of Chavez, interrupting to interject her own anecdotes about the man. She recounted how Chavez and his brother, after working all day picking string beans as boys, would go back and glean the fields at night so their family had something to eat.

Then she talked with the Chavez staff and a visiting group of Spanish students from Thurston High School, alternating between Spanish and English. She weighed in on the current furor over immigration, including legislation that would create a "guest worker program," in which foreign workers would go back to their home country after working in the United States.

"We call it the captive worker program," she said. "We are asking for a legalization program so they can become citizens."

Referring to a law in California barring illegal immigrants from having driver's licenses, Huerta said it was "part of the stupidity, xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment" around immigration issues.

Finally, she chatted briefly with another group of elementary school students, shaking their hands and leaving them with words of encouragement.

"Be good and study hard," she said. "Go to college and make the world a better place."

CAPTION(S):

Erika Jennings, 7, listens to Dolores Huerta at Cesar Chavez Elementary School. Huerta told students to " ... make the world a better place." Dolores Huerta, co-founder with Cesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers union, visits Cesar Chavez Elementary School on Friday. She shared anecdotes about Chavez while reading a book about his life. "Dolores Huerta is the Coretta Scott King for Latino people." - ROSCOE CARON, TEACHER, KELLY MIDDLE SCHOOL Paul Carter / The Register-Guard Dolores Huerta gets a hug from Rosalia Marquez at Cesar Chavez Elementary on Friday, during a visit with Spanish students from Thurston High School.