I put on my heavy winter coat, and headed outside. I could feel the snow landing on my face, one by one. But that is the least of my worries. My name is Dolores Huerta, and I am a women's rights activist. Every time I come out to protest, I put myself, and other people, at risk. So far, I'm still standing.

As me and plenty of other women and children march holding signs of all kinds, I get that feeling where my gut feels hollow. Not to the point of throwing up, but to the point of fear. I take a deep breath and close my eyes for a moment, the feeling passes. Every day I think that today is the day women earn their rights. It is 1988, and today is the day women earn their rights.

We arrive at a hotel blocked off by military men holding guns and batons. In that building is the presidential candidate, George Bush. Everyone starts to shout, people uninvolved in the protest begin to join in one by one. Our fight for more women in politics is not an easy one, people will ignore, people will judge, but most importantly, people will always spread rumors. The things people have said to me are beyond rude, some are even threatening. To my luck, all of those threats are empty.

As our fight continues, a baton wielding officer starts to move towards me, suddenly, I can't feel my gut, and not in the metaphorical sense, I literally can't feel my gut. Everything goes black. When I come back to the world, I see white walls and curtains. I´m in the hospital, I look around and I see my gut bruised and scratched. Some time after I woke up, a doctor came in and told me that I have lost four ribs, and my spleen. After they told me the bad news they told me the good news, that crowd control policies have been changed so that if protesters were injured, they would suffer a fine of ten thousand dollars. After hearing that I knew that what I am doing is having an effect, also that the risks and the chances that I take are worthwhile.

In other news, after my long and painful recovery, I knew that I could not continue my work, for now. After a few years, I came back to help younger women know that they have just as many rights and opportunities as any adult on this earth. In all that time, the ones who worked by my side in that time had made an incredible impact on the world of politics. Soon enough, any Hispanic or woman had as many rights as any man.

The more people that joined the fight, the more I realized that these people give up time and work just to help each other, when people come together they can accomplish amazing things. It is 2006, and today was the day women earned their rights to equity.

Dolores Huerta was kind, honest, prepared, and above all, brave. I may not have been alive when she was, or even the same gender. But the risks she took for not the good of herself, but for the good of others. We all want to be treated the same way as others, and to do that we need people like Dolores Huerta, to show us what we could and will be, a leader, a defender, and a motivator.