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Women’s Activism NYC.
the first
woman
in the
Dominican
Republic to
receive her
medical
degree
in 1909.
Choosing
to start
her career
in Ramon
Santana,
for over
a decade Rodriguez treated poor
patients free of charge or for very little
and made available great quantities of
medicine for free. In 1921, she studied
gynecology, obstetrics, and pediatrics
at the University of Paris. She graduated
in 1925 and returned to the Dominic
Republic where she was able to work
more effectively with her patients by
delivering babies, offering medical
advice, and visiting local prostitutes to
educate and advise them on sexually
transmitted illnesses. In the late 1930s,
Rodriguez was politically active as an
outspoken opponent of the Trujillo
dictatorship and contributed articles
to several journals and newspapers,
including one titled Femina. Throughout
her whole life, she advocated for
women’s suffrage as well as for broad
social and economic reforms.
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta founded the Agricultural
Workers Association while serving
in the Stockton Community Service
Organization (CSO), where she initiated
voter registration drives and
pressured local governments for barrio
improvements. Upon meeting César
E. Chávez, a colleague that shared the
same desire to organize farmworkers,
resigned from the CSO and in 1962
established the National Farm Workers
Association. In 1963, Huerta secured
Aid For Dependent Families (AFDC) and
disability insurance for farmworkers in
California. She also played an essential
role in the enactment of the Agricultural
Labor Relations Act of 1975, a law that
was the first of its kind in the United
States to grant farmworkers in California
the right to organize to bargain for better
working conditions and wages. Huerta
continues to work tirelessly for those that
are unfamiliar with the benefits they are
entitled to or the laws that protect them,
and as the founder and president of the
Dolores Huerta Foundation, she pursues
social justice by inspiring and organizing
communities in disenfranchised regions
of California.
The Dolores Huerta Foundation.
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