Iconic Activist Dolores Huerta Featured in Multistate “End-of-Life Options for All” Campaign

The legendary labor leader is working with Compassion & Choices to encourage Latino support for medical aid in dying nationwide.

Mar 15, 2019

Civil rights icon Dolores Huerta has joined Compassion & Choices to launch a bilingual education campaign featuring online videos promoting legislation to expand end-of-life care options in New Mexico, Nevada, New Jersey and New York.

“I watched my mother, Alicia St. John Chavez, die in agony from breast cancer,” says Dolores, who holds Presidential Medal of Freedom award, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

As part of the campaign, Compassion & Choices recreated the iconic photo, known as “Huelga,” shot in September 1965. The image, once exhibited at the Smithsonian, shows a young Dolores holding a sign with the word “Huelga,” or “Strike,” during the grape strike and boycott, which led to field workers’ first contract with California grape growers.

Hispanics nationwide overwhelmingly support state laws authorizing the option of medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults. Thanks to the support of Latinos like Dolores Huerta; Hollywood actor Mauricio Ochmann; Miguel Carrasquillo, a 35-year-old former New York chef who advocated for this option before his death in his native Puerto Rico; and Dan Diaz, the husband of the late medical aid-in-dying advocate Brittany Maynard, today 69 percent of Latinos nationwide support medical aid in dying.

Growing support from national Latino organizations includes the National Hispanic Council on Aging, the Latino Commission on AIDS, Hispanic Health Network, Latinos for Healthcare Equity and Nuestra Salud in New Mexico. Hispanic support played a key role in passing the End of Life Option Act in California in 2015. In fact, Dolores showed her support by advocating for the bill when legislators were still uncertain whether they would support it.