He does not know that Texas was once part of Mexico.
At ninety-six, Dolores Huerta — co-founder of the United Farm Workers and a living bridge between the labor struggles of the 1960s and the electoral battles of today — has returned to the public square with a pointed argument: that contempt rooted in historical ignorance is not only morally wrong, but politically answerable. Speaking at the Texas Democratic Convention in the summer of 2026, she urged Latino voters across California and Texas to recognize this moment as one where their numbers, their memory, and their presence at the polls could reshape the political landscape. The question she is posing is as old as democracy itself — whether those who have been spoken about dismissively will choose to speak back through the ballot.
- A decade after Trump descended an escalator and declared Mexico was not sending its best, Huerta is still naming that moment as the wound that needs answering.
- Texas Democrats have fielded two Hispanic nominees for governor and senate, and polling shows races tighter than the state's Republican dominance has allowed in years.
- The math is being spoken aloud: sixty-four percent of the Latino vote won Beto O'Rourke nearly everything in 2018, and candidates like Gina Hinojosa are building their entire strategy around reaching that threshold.
- James Talarico is framing the fight in class terms — billionaires owning the algorithms, the networks, and the politicians — arguing that racial and partisan division is the mechanism by which ordinary people are kept from noticing the extraction.
- Huerta's mobilization effort lands in a state where anti-incumbency energy is rising and where Latino voters, if they turn out in decisive margins, hold the arithmetic of victory in their hands.
Dolores Huerta is ninety-six years old, and she is not finished. The co-founder of what became the United Farm Workers — the woman credited with giving the world "sí, se puede" — sat down with CBS News to say something she has been saying in various forms for six decades: the people being talked about have the power to talk back.
She was responding, as she has before, to Trump's 2015 campaign launch, when he stood at the bottom of an escalator and declared that Mexico was not sending its best. Huerta heard in those words not just cruelty but a specific kind of ignorance. "He does not know that Texas was once part of Mexico," she said. It was a remark that carried the weight of a historian and the precision of an organizer.
Speaking at the Texas Democratic Convention, Huerta found reasons for optimism. Texas Democrats had nominated two Hispanic candidates for statewide office — James Talarico for senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor — and polling showed the races were genuinely competitive. A New York Times survey had Talarico and incumbent Ken Paxton tied at forty-seven percent each. Abbott, a three-term governor, held only a single-digit lead over Hinojosa.
Hinojosa made the electoral logic plain: in 2018, Beto O'Rourke had won sixty-four percent of the Latino vote and come within 2.6 points of defeating Ted Cruz. "When I get 64% of the Latino vote in 2026 I win," she said, describing an electorate energized by anti-incumbency feeling and a hunger for change.
Talarico offered a wider frame, arguing that division by race, party, and religion was a strategy deployed by a billionaire class to obscure the economic extraction happening beneath the noise. Huerta's message was simpler and more urgent: show up, in California, in Texas, in every state where the count would be close. Trump's ignorance of history, she suggested, was not just a moral failure — it was a vulnerability. And vulnerabilities, in her long experience, could be answered.
Dolores Huerta, ninety-six years old and still moving through the country's political spaces with the weight of six decades of labor organizing behind her, sat down with CBS News to say something direct: the president does not understand the history he is speaking about.
She was referring to Trump's 2015 campaign launch, when he descended an escalator and declared that Mexico was not sending its best people to the United States. He alleged they were bringing drugs, bringing crime, that many were rapists, though he allowed that some, he assumed, were good people. Huerta, who co-founded what became the United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez in the 1960s, heard in those words a fundamental ignorance. "He does not know that Texas was once part of Mexico," she said. The remark was not incidental. It was the opening move of a campaign, and it set a tone that would persist.
Huerta has spent her life in the spaces where labor and civil rights intersect. She is credited with popularizing "si, se puede"—yes, it can be done—a phrase that traveled far beyond its origins, eventually becoming "Yes, we can" in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. She carries the authority of someone who has watched American politics across generations, who has seen what rhetoric does and does not do, what it reveals and what it obscures.
Speaking at the Texas Democratic Convention over the weekend, Huerta was energized by what she saw as a genuine opening. Texas Democrats had nominated two Hispanic candidates for statewide office: James Talarico for senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor. They were running against Republican incumbents Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott. A New York Times poll released that week showed Talarico and Paxton tied at forty-seven percent each. Abbott, a three-term governor, held only a single-digit lead over Hinojosa. Among Texas Hispanics, Talarico had the support of sixty-one percent—a number that mattered enormously in a state where the Latino electorate had become decisive.
Huerta pointed to California as proof of concept. Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for governor there, was also Hispanic, and he was favored to win in a state that had long tilted Democratic. "If it can happen in California, it can happen in Texas," she said. Hinojosa, the gubernatorial nominee, made the math explicit in her own interview: in 2018, Beto O'Rourke had captured sixty-four percent of the Latino vote while running for Senate, coming within 2.6 points of defeating Ted Cruz. "When I get 64% of the Latino vote in 2026 I win," Hinojosa said. She framed the moment as one of accumulated frustration. "People want change," she said. "What is happening in Texas is there is this anti-incumbency energy."
Talarico, speaking at the convention, articulated a broader diagnosis. He spoke of billionaires who owned the algorithms, the cable networks, the politicians themselves—a class that profited from division. "They divide us by party, by race, by gender, by religion, so we don't notice that they're picking our pockets," he said. It was the oldest strategy, he argued: divide and conquer. But Texas, he insisted, would not be conquered.
Huerta's call was simpler and more urgent. She told Latinos in California, Texas, and other states that this was their moment. The November elections would be shaped by whether they showed up, and by what margins they voted. Trump's words about Mexico had revealed, in her view, not just cruelty but ignorance—a failure to grasp the actual history of the land he was speaking about. That ignorance, she seemed to suggest, was also a vulnerability. It was something that could be answered.
Notable Quotes
This is our moment. People want change. What is happening in Texas is there is this anti-incumbency energy.— Gina Hinojosa, Democratic nominee for Texas governor
The billionaires who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens, they are turning neighbor against neighbor.— James Talarico, Democratic nominee for Texas Senate
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Huerta keep returning to the fact that Trump doesn't know history? Isn't that almost beside the point if voters respond to his message anyway?
It's not beside the point to her because she's speaking to people who do know that history—who live it. When she says Texas was once Mexico, she's not making an abstract argument. She's saying: your roots are here, deeper than his understanding. That matters when you're trying to mobilize people who've been told they don't belong.
But the polling shows Talarico tied with Paxton. That's not a sign of momentum for Democrats in Texas.
No, but it's a sign that a race everyone assumed was unwinnable is suddenly competitive. And Hinojosa's argument is that if O'Rourke got sixty-four percent of the Latino vote and nearly won, then the math exists. The question is whether that vote shows up this time.
Talarico talks about billionaires dividing people. Is that the actual message Democrats are running on in Texas?
It seems to be one thread. But notice he's not attacking Republicans directly—he's attacking a class above politics. That's a different kind of argument. It's saying the real enemy isn't the other party; it's the people who profit from you fighting each other.
Do you think Huerta's presence at these events actually moves votes, or is it mostly symbolic?
At ninety-six, having been in this work since the sixties, she carries weight that's hard to quantify. But her real power might be what she represents: continuity. She's saying this isn't new, we've fought this before, and we won. That's not nothing when you're asking people to take a risk on a candidate.
What happens if Hinojosa doesn't get that sixty-four percent?
Then the theory breaks. And Democrats learn that the Latino vote in Texas, even if it's growing, isn't automatically theirs just because they nominated someone who shares that heritage.