Dolores Huerta is the co-founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW). She was born in South Gate, California on December 4, 1927. Her parents were farm workers and she contracted tuberculosis at the age of seven. After she recovered, her family moved to San Jose where she attended Lincoln High School
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She graduated from San Jose State College (now San Jose State University) in 1949 with a degree in child development. Dolores moved back to her hometown of Delano, California where she worked as a field secretary for the UFW. Over the next decade she helped to organize farm workers for union representation.
In 1968, she became national director of UFW’s Delano office and then went on to become president of its Salinas chapter. She held that post until 1975 when she was elected vice president of UFW's parent organization, Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC). While serving as vice president, Dolores helped establish the first farm labor union unionized grape vineyards in Delano and Salinas Counties.
She retired from AWOC in 1983 but stayed active with the UFW until 1999 when it merged with Cesar Chavez's United Farm Workers Association.