The Diego Rivera Quartet performed "A Salute to Dolores Huerta" Wednesday, Oct. 5 at the Hannah Community Center in East Lansing. A reception with Dolores Huerta was also included in the evening's program. The event benefited the Mexican American Culture Endowment in Memory of Pedro Rivera, DO in the Great Lakes Culture Program at MSU Museum.

Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers Union with Cesar Chavez in 1962 and has dedicated her life to the struggle for justice and dignity for migrant farm workers. She remains one of the most powerful advocates and voices for her community to this day and serves as president of the Dolores Huerta Foundation for Community Organizing. Huerta visited mid-Michigan Oct. 4-5 for a series of educational programs at MSU and Lansing-area schools, and the jazz premiere caps her stay in town. She presented in our Our Daily Work/Our Daily Lives Seminar Series to a packed audience.

Diego Rivera, on the faculty of MSU School of Music's Jazz Studies Program and member of the "Professors of Jazz" combo, drew from his family's own migrant worker experience in composing the jazz suite. His father Pedro worked as a migrant farm worker in Calhoun County before going on to earn a medical degree at Michigan State University, and serving as a lifelong social activist to improve the lives of Mexican Americans.