Este Profundo Momento Histórico - Scroll down to read our statement addressing the emerging accounts shared by Dolores Huerta and other women regarding Cesar Chavez.

Document. Preserve. Inspire.

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Document. Preserve. Inspire. *

Who we are

The Center for the Critical Study of the Health of Latinx Communities (Critical Study HLC), under the auspices of UC Berkeley’s Latinx Research Center, is a project that documents the rich history of contributions by Latinx-based social movements to justice in health.

Our Mission

Document the struggles of Latinx communities, to push for improved health conditions

Our Goals

This project was established with the important aim of documenting the unrepresented histories of the struggle of the Latinx and Chicanx communities for justice in health and quality of life–meaning housing, access to healthcare services, labor conditions, education, etc. Preserving this history is part of how we hope to reframe and challenge the systemic roots of health inequities in the Latinx community.

Our Research Sites

Why now?

The COVID-19 pandemic, epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, H1N1 and other chronic diseases have impacted Latinx populations disproportionately–unveiling the sometimes inhuman condition in which they live, work and die. Yet when responses to Latinx health disparities have received mainstream attention, they are often turned into projections of individual incompetence and cultural difference–responses that minimize the structural roots of these conditions. For this reason, our work highlights the legacies, past and present, of Latinx organizing to confront such inequalities–from challenging housing conditions, labor exploitation, environmental injustice, access to education, inadequate infrastructure. In our work, challenging standardized meanings of health towards a more critical definition is a necessary and urgent imperative–that will impact the next generations of Latinx youth and children.

Este Profundo Momento Histórico

The Center for the Critical Study of the Health of Latinx Communities stands in unwavering solidarity with Dolores Huerta, Ana Murguía, Debora Rojas, and all survivors of the sexual abuse associated with César Chávez. We are deeply heartbroken by the suffering these women endured, both in those painful moments and throughout the decades of silence that followed.

We hold these women, as well as those who have not yet come forward, in our thoughts with profound respect. We honor their courage in speaking their truth and recognize the extraordinary strength it takes to do so. Their bravery is both powerful and transformative.

We remain hopeful that their voices will help catalyze meaningful change, bringing greater accountability, fostering healing, and contributing to the dismantling of the harmful systems that allowed such abuse to persist. At the same time, we unconditionally support the proposal of the Ethnic Studies Department, the Chicanx Latinx Studio Program, and the Latinx Research Center (LRC) to demand the immediate change of the Chávez name across all UC centers and organizations.

We also ask our Governor to immediately change César Chávez Day, the names of colleges, streets, and avenues of our State, and to immediately substitute the name of Dolores Huerta in their place, and publicly acknowledge her as an emblematic figure of our Latinx communities' heroes and a valiant fighter for the rights of farmworkers. She truly represents our values and our fight for vindication.

We invite all community members to join us in supporting these changes. You can make your voice heard by contacting local and state officials to express your support, participating in public forums and meetings where these issues are discussed, or joining advocacy groups that are working toward accountability and healing in our institutions. Together, through collective action, we can honor the courage of survivors and help build a more just and inclusive future.