Dolores Huerta told to speak 'English only' by Bernie Sanders supporters at Nevada caucus

(Image credit: Clemens Bilan/Getty Images)

published 21 February 2016

Civil rights activist and labor leader Dolores Huerta says backers of Bernie Sanders told her to speak "English only" at a caucus in Nevada on Saturday.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Huerta said many of the caucus participants at the Harrah's hotel and casino in Las Vegas only spoke Spanish, and she said she would translate important caucus information for them. Sanders supporters then yelled "No, no, no" and "English only," she said, and in the end no one translated the information into Spanish. "To deprive these voters at this crucial time of having a translation of what was going on — this is something they need to know what's taking place," she said. "The caucus is kind of a complicated procedure. So the Bernie supporters would rather them not have any sort of translation rather than have someone like myself, who just happened to be a Hillary [Clinton] supporter, do the translation."

Huerta said had she translated something wrong, there were Spanish-speaking backers of Sanders in the room, and they could have corrected her. Actress America Ferrera first tweeted the news Saturday afternoon, and later Huerta went on her Twitter page to confirm it, adding: "We fought too long and hard to be silenced." In a tweet directly to Sanders, Huerta wrote: "Shame on your supporters for depriving Spanish speaking caucus goers of info they need for full participation." Sanders has yet to comment on the incident.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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