Inside the play that centered Dolores Huerta — before the César Chávez news broke

When “Sí Se Puede” director Sara Guerrero woke up on March 18 to breaking news of sexual abuse allegations against civil rights leader César Chávez, she was shocked. The entire production team was meeting that same day for the play’s final rehearsal at East LA College on Cesar Chavez Avenue. 

“It was so ironic,” said Guerrero, founding artistic director of Santa Ana-based Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble, Orange County’s only Latina theater company. “The timing was insane, but it reinforced why we did this.”

Commissioned last year by Center Theatre Group, “Sí Se Puede” is a call to action with Dolores Huerta at the forefront. Taking place in the 1960s and ‘70s, the play follows Huerta as she fights to improve conditions for farmworkers, organizing boycotts and marches, negotiating contracts and co-founding the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1966. It also sheds light on the often-overlooked Filipino-American UFW co-founder Larry Itliong, who in 1965 demanded fair wages for farmworkers and started the Delano grape strike. 

“You can’t not talk about César Chávez when you talk about the UFW,” said Guerrero, who made small adjustments to the production after the news broke. “We couldn’t completely erase him, but there were other people besides this icon we elevated. It was about pivoting and reinforcing Dolores’ role. A Chicana lobbyist in the ‘60s was like a unicorn. What a beautiful example of how people become active. We need that more today.” 

“Sí Se Puede” is a vibrant 40-minute rallying cry by playwright Eliana Pipes with music composed by Moises Vazquez, who weaves corridos de campesinos with popular farmworker anthems like “De Colores.” Inspired by Luis Valdez’s El Teatro Campesino, which performed actos or short skits on flatbed trucks and inside union halls to recruit Central Valley farmworkers to join the strikes, the mobile play brings theater to schools, libraries and community centers across LA. Most performances are open to the public. 

“Our purpose has always been to make theater part of people’s daily lives,” said Jesus Reyes, director of learning and community partnerships at Center Theatre Group, which returned to its touring roots after a 20-year hiatus. For a decade, the Boyle Heights native brought puppet-making, acting, writing and sewing workshops to parent centers, libraries and community centers throughout Boyle Heights. “The play is for all ages. It’s for the community. It’s not glossy. It’s Teatro style.”

A cast of six actors and understudies, including Myrna Velasco, who plays Huerta, and Brandon Santos English, who plays Itliong, worked with Valdez’s son Lakin Valdez to learn about short comedic sketches that define Teatro Campesino, which uses exaggerated archetypes like the greedy pig-masked grower (Sol Joun) and oversized devil-masked politician. Choreographer Marissa Herrera taught a workshop on Chicano social dances, and props like grapevines, hand-painted farmlands and bags of money set the makeshift traveling stage. The play opens with an introduction and ends with a Q&A. An online study guide allows guests and teachers to take a deeper dive into historical facts and references.

Aimed at highlighting an unsung hero, the play touches on Huerta’s childhood and the domestic labor she did while organizing, then jumps to the present moment. There is no mention of Huerta’s recent accusation that Chávez sexually abused her in the 1970s. 

“The play has always been about Dolores,” Reyes said. “It wasn’t about capitalizing on current events. This is a woman that helped propel a movement. She may not be from Los Angeles, but she has deep roots here, and we see her in LA all the time. We need to continue to uplift her.”

Playwright Pipes, who grew up watching free student matinees with her Culver City elementary school at Center Theatre Group’s Kirk Douglas Theatre, has a personal connection to Huerta. Her grandmother worked with the UFW for three decades as a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Monica, a meeting space for labor leaders. 

“I grew up hearing stories from my grandmother about Dolores and feeling close to the movement,” said Pipes, who also inherited a copy of Valdez’s Teatro Campesino book with programs of plays her grandma saw in the ‘60s and ‘70s. “I remember her talking about the logistics, the unglamorous stuff like calling the senator and organizing marches. The UFW stayed at her house during one of their marches up the coast.”

Like Plaza de la Raza’s “Dolores” art show, which opened three days after the disturbing sexual abuse allegations, the play de-centers Chávez and uplifts women’s voices in the movement, including the sexism they faced and how Huerta was often referred to as the “girlfriend.” 

“The purpose of the play has always been to move Dolores to the center of the narrative of the United Farm Workers movement where she always belonged,” said Pipes, who made small edits like taking out some of Chávez’s lines after the news broke. “It was never about César Chávez.”

The play, which premiered at Palms-Rancho Park Library on March 21, will stop at Boyle Heights City Hall on April 2 and Wabash Recreation Center on April 10, Huerta’s 96th birthday. 

“There’s a very explicit invitation to the audience to ask themselves, what cause is calling to them,” said Reyes, who hopes Huerta attends a show so they can sing her “Happy Birthday.” “I hope people feel a sense of hope and walk away feeling like it’s possible to change the world, feeling galvanized for whatever cause is most important to them.”