the convention began back in 1970. enjoy. we want to thank you for watching al jazeera america. i'm del walters. "talk to al jazeera" is next. ♪ when i met the president, he did say, i borrowed your slogan. >> activist and presidential medal of freedom winner coined the phrase, "yes, we can." the mantra became barack intaps's call to vote. she co-founded the united farm worker's union. >> when you think of this humiliate people and oppress them and not providing the basic human needs they have is just a way to make people feel like they are not worthy. >> she is a woman with a colorful past.

she stood next to robert kennedy on the day she was shot. she has been arrested more than 20 times and has been brutally beaten by the police. at 84, she remains a steadfast immigrants. >> i think we have to remind people that unless you are a native american that your people came from somewhere and remind people this country was built by immigrants. >> fighting gender inequality >> a crisis right now, which way we are going to go. if we don't have a strong middle class which means higher wages for people, then we are not going to have a democracy. >> i spoke to her as she was passing through washltdz. >> let's take a closer look at immigration reform. it seems even in a zone that's more than stuck because there are political interests at stake, economic interests at stake, some old allies who are now looking daggers at each other because they can't see eye to eye on this.

what's the case that you make to america that we have to change the way people are allowed to stay and allowed to come? >> i think we have to remind people that unless you are a native american that your people came from somewhere, and remind people this country was built bile i am grant. they are doing the heavy lifting working construction and restaurants, taking care of children and taking care of elders in nursing homes. they are working in our restaurants and picking our food every single day that we eat. so we have to remind people of that and, also, kind of educate them on why it is that so many people come from mexico and to the united states and it's because of our free trade agreements. agreements that allow american companies that allow americans to go into central america and put their businesses there, taking the profits out of the country, instead of letting the profits stay there. we have so many corn farmers that have been displaced because

of the subsidused corn that we in the united states send to mexico. all of these small farmers can't compete with the agri business here. we talk about 11 million documented. many are rural farmers that, you know, they are not able to compete with the u.s. and they have to leave. and nobody wants to leave their homes. we have to do like we did with japan and germany after world war ii. we had the marshal plan and gave them jillions of american tax dollars and we said you don't have to pay us back. so everything is the marshal plan mentality to help other countries instead of col onizing or economically col onizing all of these other countries. i think we would be -- we would have better partners, people would like us more and we could really help because people are never going to stop coming to the united states until we can, you know, erase some of these inequitties that we have. >> people who sometimes say emotional things about this

issue under estimate how difficult it is to leave your home and everything you know and come here. what you talk about, i think, makes a lot of sense, that a healthier mexico would be a place where more people would be able to stay. but what we do about the 11 million that are already here is a tough domestic debate and a tough policy riddle. how do you solve this in a way that's fair to everybody? >> well, i think nguyen we do what we have always done. it has always been the policy of the united states of america from day one that all immigrants that come here have been able to acquire their residency and their citizenship. it wasn't as difficult. cesar chavez's mother came across the mexican border and had to paragraph 2 penneys because they needed the workers. we can see that the 11 million that are here are contributing. it's not like, you know, they are living off of the dole of the united states. they contribute trillions of dollars to the economy with the consumption, by spending and

they contribute because of their labor. another trillion dollars to the economy. they deserve to be able to have that you are place in the sun. they deserve to be able to granted residency and eventually citizenship in the united states. they have worked for it. they have earned it. >> sometimes in the same day, we may have different emotions about who these people are, what they are doing here we don't want to buy a $1 strawberry or an $8 head of lettuce. but we also don't want people coming in from another country without obeying the existing laws using public services, sending their kids to the local schools. there is a lot of emotional reaction on the spending side when it comes to what local governments spend on people who are not supposed to be in the country and it's almost invisible, the connelltributions that these very same people make to making places more profitable, to keeping restaurant meals cheap, to keeping the food we buy very affordable. how do you square those two

things? the immigrant as moocher on one hand and a maternity ward in los angeles versus the immigrant as contributor on the other hand, drywalling, landscaping, busing a table? >> well, you know, i work with a lot of immigrants in the foundation, my organization, where we do community organizing. i can assure you what they contribute is so much more than what they take out of the economy. when we think about it, you know, before we had the affordable care act, if you didn't have a healthcare plan, you probably didn't get great quality medical care. but we know right now even with the affordable care act that has been passed that people who are undocumented are excluded from the affordable care act. when we think of what they contribute and what they take out of the economy, i mean you talk about the equation, what they contribute is so much more than anything they take out. >> you are watching "talk to al jazeera" my guest this time on the program, delores huerta.

she is one of the coach founders of the united farm workers and came to activist from workers' rights from being a schoolteacher after concluding she could help those children more by getting their parents a decent wage than she could buy teaching them school. stay with us. when we come back, we will talk more about the founding of a union and where things stand today. >> now available, the new al jazeea america mobile news app. get our exclusive in depth, reporting when you want it. a global perspective wherever you are. the major headlines in context. mashable says... you'll never miss the latest news >> they will continue looking for survivors... >> the potential for energy production is huge...

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al jazeera america, take a new look at news. . >> you are watching talk to al jazeera. i am ray suarez. with me this time on the program, delores huerda. when you were negotiating at a time first ever farm worker

contracts with some of the biggest agricultural operations in california, did they take you seriously? these were not men who used to -- who are utilities to dealing across the table seriously with women. >> i think it caught them unaware you see and it was difficult often for them. and it was interesting because i found out that the best way to get a good contract is to point out the i hope justices that were happening in the field. sometimes, they were kind of unaware of it because they didn't know what their foremen were doing. when you think of this mentality that you want to hugh military ate people and you want to oppress them and not providing the basic human needs that they have is just a way to make people feel like they are not worthy action like they don't have value. isn't it sad to think it took almost 20 years to get that simple law passed. you know, by pointing this out to the employers and making them realize that the workers are human beings, that's how we were able to make some of the changes.

i was able to get very good contacts for the workers that sometimes they, i think, they felt kind of embarrassed by it so they would call me names like the dragon lady. you know, i was always very civil because when you are in negotiations, you have to be civil. you can't get anything done if you are going to get into a shouting match or start insulting each other. >> during these years of intense struggle, travel, work on the picket lines, work in the negotiating tables, you had 11 children. how did you do that? i mean i don't understand. you must have been -- there must have been a time in your life where you were either pregnant or just getting over being pregnant while all of these other things were going on. >> well, actually when we started the union, i already had my first seven children. and, you know, my older children helped me with the younger ones but really helped me with a lot of people that came forward to help me. i drugged them around the

country with me and at one point in the united farm workers world, in 1965 and '66, when we had the big one, i set up the first day care for farm worker children in california and we had people come and showed us how to set that up. and that's a big problem for women today because we have a lot of women. day care is extremely expensei for women. you know, they have to pay half of their salary or more sometimes just to get somebody to have adequate, safe care for their children. and we are talking about day care, we want like what we did in the union, we actually set up a school for the kids. president obama has actually stated we need to have early childhood education for all of our children and it's been proven if children can get learning at a very early stage, that it really helps them in terms of their abilities then to learn and even to go to college. so, i think this is a mandate, you know, we are the only developed country in the world that does not have this kind of care for our kids and this kind of education. >> at the time you won the first

contract for the united farm worker's union in the late '60s, the children of farm workers followed the seasons, followed the crops, were never in school for very long, had a fragmented episodic education and then, as soon as they were able to do worthwhile work, themselves, sometimes barely out of toddlerhood, they were in the fields, too. if you are the children of -- if you are the child of a my grant worker today, is your life better than it was 45 years ago? >> again, i have to say that in california, where we have strict enforcement of the law, that, you know, we do have a better life for farm worker children and we have the migrant education programs, also. and this is national so that when children travel from texas to california with their families that are working, they areability, you know, carry their curriculum and whatever level they are at so that they don't lose their education.

>> let's keep it out because you keep remilding us that california has a lot of legal guarantees. if you are picking cherries inwic or appear eldz in michigan or peaches in south carolina, what about those kids? are they protected in any way? >> no. i don't believe that they are. and in fact, lucille roybal, since the last congress, to try to, you know, equate at the national level what we have in california in terms of the wamingz and the ages of the children to work in the fields and again, her bill hasn't been able to pass. so, you know, a lot has to do with who you like to get through the legislation to protect workers. we can't do it if we have people in the congress that don't really care about working people, whether they are farm workers or any other kind of workers. we have to understand that if we do not vote, if we do not engage, if we do not learn and study who is running for office, we are not going to get good government.

some of these, you know, laws that could protect us, they are not passed because of people we elect to office are against them. you know, we have 60% of the people in the congress who are millionaires and many of these millionaires are not going to care about what happens to working people. i mean they are not all like the kennedys, you know, or the clintons, you know. so we have to really -- i think we are at a crisis right now, which way we are going to go. if we don't have a strong middle class, which means higher wages for people, then we are not going to have a democracy. and this fight against labor unions is going to destroy our democracy because labor unions are the ones that areability people. >> it was groups of voters who had been less active in previous elections who helped make barack obama president, youth, latinos, asians, you are helping to register them. you are helping to engage them.

they helped make barack obama president. are you disappointed that this president hasn't done more for represent? >> i think the president has done a good job. when we think about the affordable care act, i mean that was huge. and we have to remember that only passed congress, the house of representatives by five or six votes. in our area, we fought very hard and got two votes of those five or six votes that passed. he has had a really hard time in working with the congress and a lot of people, they criticize the president but they forget that he can't make the laws. he can only sign the laws that they pass in the u.s. congress some of the when we talk about he had the jobs act that they needed more money to put people to work and now we hear the republicans saying jobs, jobs, jobs. why wouldn't they vote on the jobs program that the president tried to pass? right? extending unemployment insurance to people, cutting food stamps. this is what the house of representatives has done. and people want to turn that

around and blame the president. >> during the president's time as a national candidate, he began to pick up the slogan from the fields. this? >> well, when i met the president, he did say, i borrowed your slogan. i said yes, you did. a lot of people don't know that i coined it. a lot of people think it was cesar. it was me. >> del or us huerta great to see you

welcome to the al jazeera news hour. here's what's coming up in the next 60 minutes. a u.n. schoolhousing palestinians is attacked in gaza. at least 15 people killed there. the iraq parliament picks the country's next president. in lon w