Persuading the audience to shout in Spanish and clap in unison like people who attend her farm workers' meetings, Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers of America, said the only way to affect social change is to "make it happen yourself."
"If we know it and we feel it and we don't do anything about it, then it's just like we didn't know it," Huerta said.
The to-capacity audience in 105 Dartmouth Hall gave Huerta two standing ovations for her speech, which was rife with personal anecdotes and praise for Caesar Chavez, the original founder of the United Farm Workers of America.
Huerta, a mother of 11, said people need to appreciate the domestic work women do.
"If we put value on women's work our GNP would double immediately," she said. "Women would be more valued. Society takes our work for granted."
It is difficult for people who have always gone to school to understand many women have very low self-esteem, she said.
Huerta expressed alarm over the fact that only 10 percent of the House of Representatives and 5 percent of the Senate are women. At the current rate, it will take more than 300 years to reach gender and racial equality in Congress, she said.
"We have to get gender equality where the laws are being made," she said.
"When we don't have women in positions of power, the wrong decisions are made," she added.
Huerta said she thinks the U.S. is moving towards fascism.
"Sometimes we think what happened in Nazi Germany can't happen in the U.S.," she said, citing Nazi opposition to immigrants.
Many people are currently engaged in the same hateful speech in America, she said. "We are very close to fascism right now."
As evidence, Huerta said the numbers of blacks, Latinos and women in prison have jumped precipitously in recent years.
She concluded by saying, "We have got the power to make that change. This is our country, our society and we have a responsibility to make change."
"Remember, we have the power," she said.
Huerta said most social change, including women's suffrage and civil rights reform, has come from the bottom and cited the success of Chavez' efforts as an example.
Despite opposition from Republican presidents and a lack of a high school education, Chavez won several major reforms for farm workers including medical plans, pension plans and clinics, she said.
Huerta said recently the members of the United Farm Workers of America helped bring about the defeat of Newt Gingrich's welfare plan which would have eliminated public assistance for legal immigrants.
She used Chavez' performance as a model for the women's movement.
The bill, which passed in both houses of Congress, was sitting on President Clinton's desk waiting to be signed when members of the United Farm Workers of America sent 20,000 postcards to Clinton urging him not to sign the bill into law, she said.
The women's movement sent one million more postcards and Clinton did not sign the bill, Huerta said.
"We did it together -- it shows the power we have," Huerta said. "We have to learn how to use it."
"We are the majority. If we don't come together and act together, people like Dole will get elected," she added.
Huerta closed her speech the same way she closes her meetings of the United Farm Workers of America.
"Pretend you are farmer workers and shout loud," she instructed the audience.
"Viva women. Viva the human race ... Viva Caesar Chavez," she shouted. "Viva," the audience shouted back.
"Abajo [down with] racism Abajo sexism ... Abajo Newt, Dole and Wilson," she shouted.
"Abajo," the audience exclaimed in unison.
