1. Dolores Huerta has worked with the Feminist Majority Foundation to help Latina women become more active and visible in politics, campaigned for women's reproductive rights, and served as an honorary co-chair of the 2017 Women's March in Washington, DC.
Dolores Huerta is active in Democratic politics and has supported the campaigns of Robert F Kennedy, George McGovern, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden.
Dolores Huerta is a supporter of LGBTQ rights and immigration reform.
Dolores Huerta received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
Dolores Huerta is portrayed by Rosario Dawson in the 2014 film Cesar Chavez and is the subject of the 2017 documentary Dolores.
Dolores Huerta was born Dolores Fernandez on April 10,1930, in the mining town of Dawson, New Mexico.
Dolores Huerta's father, Juan Fernandez, was a coal miner who belonged to the United Mine Workers.
Dolores Huerta then moved with the children to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and later to Stockton, California.
Dolores Huerta was elected to the state legislature in 1938, where he was described as a "fiery union leader" by the Los Angeles Times.
In Stockton, Dolores Huerta was raised by her mother and grandfather, Herculano.
Dolores Huerta described their neighborhood as an "integrated", with "Chinese, Latinos, Native Americans, Blacks, Japanese, Italians, and others".
Dolores Huerta's mother supported the family by working two jobs: as a canner and as a waitress at a local restaurant, making $5 a week.
Dolores Huerta was a member of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, participating in a strike at the cannery in 1937.
Dolores Huerta, who was "encouraged by her mother to be socially active", spent ten years as a Girl Scout.
Dolores Huerta described her high school as being "segregated" by both class and race.
Dolores Huerta attended the University of the Pacific's Stockton College and graduated in 1953 with a provisional teaching credential.
Dolores Huerta was one of three bilingual teachers in the area.
Dolores Huerta advocated for neighborhood improvement projects, taught citizenship classes, and worked on voter registration drives.
Dolores Huerta met fellow organizer Cesar Chavez during her time with the CSO.
In 1958, Dolores Huerta helped found the Agricultural Workers' Association.
Dolores Huerta eventually left her position with the CSO and moved in with Cesar and his family in Delano in 1964.
Dolores Huerta's duties included making phone calls, collecting union dues, and visiting worker camps in Stockton and nearby towns.
Dolores Huerta struggled to earn enough money to support her family during this time, subsisting by taking on temporary work as a translator, substitute teacher, and onion farmer to supplement her NFWA income.
Dolores Huerta then directed boycott efforts in New York and New Jersey.
Dolores Huerta spoke in public regularly about the strike, becoming well known for her "firebrand rhetoric".
Dolores Huerta was one of the union's lead negotiators, and according to Rose, she was specifically "the union's first contract negotiator".
Dolores Huerta entered a romantic relationship with Richard Chavez, Cesar's brother.
Many criticized their cohabitation as "unorthodox", but according to Dolores Huerta, she was inspired by the women's liberation movement to proceed with it anyway.
Dolores Huerta supported the implementation of "the Game", but it was controversial among union members.
Dolores Huerta suffered multiple fractured ribs and a ruptured spleen, which doctors had to surgically remove.
Dolores Huerta received an $825,000 settlement from the San Francisco Police Commission as a result of the beating.
Dolores Huerta returned to union work after Cesar's death in 1993, supporting strawberry workers, speaking at colleges, attending union meetings, and testifying before Congress.
Dolores Huerta personally opposed both abortion and contraception, both "cornerstones" of the women's liberation movement, and criticized union members for their perceived promiscuity.
Dolores Huerta continued her work with the FMF after she retired from UFW organizing in 1999.
In 2014, Dolores Huerta traveled to Colorado to campaign against Colorado's Amendment 67, which would have changed state laws to define "unborn human beings" as people.
Dolores Huerta served as an honorary co-chair of the 2017 Women's March in Washington, DC alongside Steinem and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte.
Dolores Huerta is an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Dolores Huerta served as a co-chair for South Dakota Senator George McGovern's California delegation at the 1972 Democratic National Convention alongside politicians Willie Brown and John Burton.
Dolores Huerta endorsed former Vermont Governor Howard Dean during the 2004 Democratic primaries.
In 2005, Dolores Huerta campaigned alongside California Assemblyman Mark Leno to pass Assembly Bill 19, which would have legalized same-sex marriage in the state.
Dolores Huerta spoke at a pride celebration in Fresno, California in 2021, advocating for LGBTQ rights and claiming that discriminatory rhetoric against LGBTQ people "leads to violence".
The Dolores Huerta Foundation endorsed California Proposition 3 in 2024, which removed sections in the state constitution that discussed marriage as being between "a man and a woman" and affirmed marriage as a "fundamental right".
In 1994, Dolores Huerta campaigned against California Proposition 187, which would have denied healthcare and education services to undocumented immigrants.
Dolores Huerta opposed the legislation, characterizing it and the anti-immigrant rhetoric that inspired it as being rooted in "racial anxiety".
Dolores Huerta condemned Trump's 2017 rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, calling it "a step above slavery" while criticizing him for his racially inflammatory rhetoric.
Dolores Huerta received criticism in 2014 for her support of Barack Obama despite "delays" to immigration reform under his administration.
Dolores Huerta received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award in 1988.
Dolores Huerta received the Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty Award, the Eugene V Debs Foundation Outstanding American Award, and the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom Award in 1993.
Dolores Huerta was the first Latina inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame that year.
Dolores Huerta holds honorary degrees from Mills College, Princeton University, the University of the Pacific, and the University of Southern California.
Dolores Huerta is featured, alongside other Chicana activists, in the 2009 documentary A Crushing Love, directed by Sylvia Morales.
Dolores Huerta is the subject of the 2017 documentary Dolores, directed by Peter Bratt.