Labor leader Dolores Huerta says she was assaulted by Cesar Chavez as allegations of abuse emerge

Labor leader Dolores Huerta appeared to corroborate allegations of abuse against young women or minors by the late Cesar Chavez on Wednesday, writing in a statement that she had two non-consensual "sexual encounters" with him that ended in pregnancy. In:

Labor leader Dolores Huerta appeared to corroborate allegations of abuse against young women or minors by the late Cesar Chavez on Wednesday, writing in a statement that she had two non-consensual "sexual encounters" with him that ended in pregnancy.

The allegations of abuse by Chavez, himself a union and civil rights leader, were first reported by the New York Times on Wednesday morning. Chavez and Huerta were co-founders of the National Farm Workers Association in the 1960s. The group later became the United Farm Workers union, which still represents nearly 5,000 farm workers. Chavez died in 1993. Huerta remains active in politics. 

Huerta, 95, wrote that she kept the assaults secret because she "believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for." The investigation and the allegations shared within it inspired her to share her experiences, she said. 

"I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life's work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to achieve and secure those rights and I wasn't going to let Cesar or anyone else get in the way," Huerta wrote. "I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights." 

Huerta said that she was "manipulated and pressured into having sex" with Chavez, and felt she could not 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."