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She was born in Dawson, New Mexico
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With the AWA, she fought to allow non U.S. citizen migrant workers to receive public assistance and provide Spanish language voting ballots and driver's tests.
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Through her work with the AWA, Huerta met Cesar Chavez and began lobbying with him until they decided to make their own organization. With Gilbert Padilla they co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA).
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The AWA and NFWA merged to become the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee which was later simplified to the United Farm Workers. Huerta was organizing contracts for workers of Coachella grape farmers, while Chavez was leading the strike.
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Huerta stood beside Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles as he delivered a victory speech shortly after winning the California Democratic presidential primary election. Moments after Kennedy finished his speech, Kennedy was shot inside the hotel's kitchen pantry. Huerta was a safe distance away. Kennedy died the next day.
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After 5 years of work, Dolores and colleagues got the entire California table grape industry to sign a 3 year collective bargaining agreement with the United Farm Workers.
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Huerta organized a national lettuce boycott and helped create the political climate for the passage of the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act, the first law to recognize the rights of farm workers to bargain collectively.
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She was beaten by San Francisco police at a rally protesting the policies of presidential candidate George H. W. Bush. She suffered six broken ribs and a ruptured spleen which almost cost her her life.
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President Bill Clinton awarded Huerta with the award for her work as an advocate for farm workers, immigration and women.
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President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom
