Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta
Did you know that Dolores Huerta is the originator of the phrase “Sí, se puede?” Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and activist whose work, along with Cesar Chavez, on behalf of migrant farmworkers lead to the establishment of the United Farm Workers of America. In her young adulthood, she attended college at the University of the Pacific’s Stockton College (now the San Joaquin Delta Community College), where she earned her A.A. and a teaching credential. She’s received numerous awards for her community service and advocacy for workers’, immigrants’, and women’s rights, including the Presidential Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1993, she was the first Latina inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. April 10 is Dolores Huerta Day in California.
Ana Teresa Fernández
Ana Teresa Fernández is a Mexican performance artist and painter, currently living and working in San Francisco. Fernández attended the San Francisco Art Institute, where she earned a bachelor’s (BFA) and master’s of fine arts (MFA) degree. Her work explores 21-century feminism, post-colonial landscapes, and psychological barriers to empathy. Some selected pieces of hers include: “Erasure,” a film about the 43 college students from Iguala, Mexico; “Foreign Bodies” which takes on women’s rights in her own culture; Borrando la Forntera (Erasing the Border), her most famous piece about immigration and undocumented families; and illustrations for Rebecca Solnit’s “Men Explain Things to Me.” Several of her pieces are displayed right downtown at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Lucho Ramirez
Lucho Ramirez is the Executive Director of Cine+Mas SF and an entrepreneur. He received his bachelor’s in International Relations and Affairs from Monmouth College and his MBA in Marketing from the Thunderbird School of Global Management. In his leadership at Cine+Mas SF, the organization has grown to contribute year-round programming and special events centered on Latinx visual, performance, and literary arts to the Bay Area’s active and diverse arts scene. Cine+Mas SF produces the San Francisco Latino Film Festival, which showcases the work of emerging and established filmmakers from over 20+ Latin American and Hispanic countries.
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende has been called “the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author.” All of her books are written in Spanish, but worldwide critical acclaim and demand has spurred translation of her works to more than 25 languages, resulting in 65 million copies sold. Born in Chile, she blazed a trail in a male-dominated Latin American literary world, weaving elements of magical realism into her own experiences. Her best-known novels include “The House of the Spirits” and “City of the Beasts.” During a book tour to California in 1988, she met her second husband and relocated to San Rafael, California. Highlights of her career also include her induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters and receiving the 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama.
Cesar Chavez
Chavez was a labor leader and civil rights activist born in Arizona in 1927 to a Mexican-American family. Having worked as a manual laborer, he was concerned with farm workers’ rights. After serving in the Navy, he became involved with the Community Service Organization (CSO) in California, an important civil rights organization for Latinx people. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), and led peaceful protests and marches to advocate for Latinx civil rights. Chavez was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and his legacy lives on today in workers’ rights movements.
There are many more unsung heroes locally, those in all fields of work and life.