Details: Dolores Valadez is believed to have been born on September 17, 1947. She was raised in San Bernardino, California by her stepmother Maria Valadez. Maria was a midwife and medicine woman, and she was considered something of a pillar of San Bernardino's Mexican-American community. Maria always told Dolores that she had been left on her doorstep in a suitcase one night, something Dolores could never accept. Although Maria adopted two other children named Vickie and Mingo and told them who their biological parents were, she refused to answer any questions Dolores had regarding her birth family. Maria died when Dolores was in fourth grade and Dolores was sent to various foster homes until she aged out of the system in 1965. The birth of Dolores' own daughter Erika in 1970 renewed her i