“A Street Called Dolores Huerta” by Nikki Darling

This poem by Nikki Darling was written ca. 2019 to honor Dolores Huerta.
It’s prescient. Points to abuse of women by men, most often hidden.  The shame of Cesar Chavez is now bravely brought to light  by Dolores Huerta.  The pain.
Her immense courage!

“A Street Called Dolores Huerta”
by Nikki Darling

I grew up driving down streets
that had the names of great men.

Men I admired.
Men who inspired me
to look inward and find
my courage, voice and value.

I grew up driving down streets
named after men.
Great men.

Men I should seek to find.
Men I should hold other men accountable to.

There are great men.

Your violent words and actions
do not and will not find a place in my life.

The names of these men
showed me what men could be.
What men were capable of.

I grew up driving down streets
named after men.

These men however, despite their greatness,
I was driving down streets
I could never grow into.

I could never be, you see, a great man.

What then would it be
to drive down a street named Dolores Huerta?
What would it feel like
and where would it go?

Would it cross seventeen
when I hated who I saw in the mirror?

Or the corner I turned
when at 31 I finally had the courage
to dump an emotionally abusive man?

Who would drive it?

The mothers who get up at 5 a.m.
to take their children to relatives
willing to watch them
while they went to work
to put food on a table
from an employer
who did not offer childcare?

Would it be tended
by the hands of women
bloody from years of bending over
to pick strawberries?

Would it cross the place
my car broke down at 19
and I had to hike home
covered by a blanket
afraid that men might see me?

Would it cross the place
other women came together
to weave a wider road?

My guess is it would not be tended regularly
and perhaps the journey would be rough
from potholes and city neglect,
but it would be travelled.

It would take me somewhere.

What would it be like
to drive down a street named Dolores Huerta?

It would be like taking a journey
down a road I knew was meant for me.

A road I knew had been travelled
before my arrival.

A street that although at times difficult
would lead me someplace finer
and that perhaps my traffic
would demand new and better roads.

I have driven down streets
named after great men.

A street named Dolores Huerta
would be a street worth seeing.

It would be valuable.
It is necessary and urgent.

Let us come together and build it.
We need desperately someplace to go.

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