I knew that there was a family secret about my aunt Emma.
The way that I found out was to read it in the newspaper. And I saw
this picture of a 21-year-old standing on the steps of City Hall
with her fist in the air. And it described her as Emma
Tenayuca-Brooks, the charismatic leader of a movement.
So, I was looking at a 2007 U.S. history textbook and scanning to
see all of the times that it talked about the labor movement,
and it seems there's very little mention of anybody who's not a
white or a white immigrant in these big labor history moments.
And so, a lot of times Latina and Latino activists are left
out of this. The one mention there was of Latino activism was
with the United Farmworkers. And Cesar Chavez is the only person
mentioned in there.
When history books mentioned the legacy of Cesar Chavez and the
United Farmworkers, they often leave out the Latinas who also
made great strides in the movement, and a nation that
regularly fails to recognize the contributions of minority
groups. It's not a big surprise that women like Dolores Huerta
and Helen Chavez are left out of the story. But even before the
still powerful UFW came onto the scene, Latinas were shaping the
labor landscape across the US.
I think one of the most incredible and important figures
in Latino civil rights and labor activism is a Guatemalan woman
by the name of Luisa Moreno. She is born in Guatemala, in like,
1907. She comes from a very privileged family. She's
educated. She is a writer and a thinker. She's very
intellectual, and then she decides to kind of forego her
wealth and move to the United States. She moves to New York,
and settles in Harlem. Begets work as a seamstress, and she
then starts organizing local Puerto Rican women who are
working in the garment industry.
Moreno's work in labor activism only grew from there.
In 1935, the American Federation of Labor recruited Marino as a
professional organizer.
She's probably one of the first women and like one of the first
Latinas to cross the boundaries into the American Federation of Labor.
I think one of the things that's most exciting about Moreno,
Luisa Moreno, is that she was this excellent coalition builder.
And she travels all around the country doing this
kind of organizing. Traveling to organize cane workers in New Orleans,
tuna packing workers in San Diego, and women in cigar
factories of Florida. We think of the Latino labor movement as
really starting to catalyze with the United Farmworkers. But
she's out there doing this work 20 years earlier, which helped
pave the way for these movements that came later.
In 1950, Moreno faced deportation proceedings for her connection
to the Communist Party. But before she left voluntarily, sh
said this at our hearing, "They talk about deporting me,
but they can never deport the people that I've worked with and with,
and with whom things were accomplished for the benefit of thousands
of workers. Things that can never be destroyed."
At the end of the day. You can't deport the ideas and the support that
she provided within the labor movement and Latino history.
Luisa Moreno's work spanned several states, but a young
Mexican-American woman named Emma Tenayuca made history right
in her hometown.
I wanted to tell you a story, because you're with TIME.
One of the things we came across was this little article in TIME.
The interviewer asked her some questions like she was kind of a
newlywed, and they said, you know, "How is it working in your
household?" You know, "You're going out doing all these
organizing," while her husband, Homer Brooks was, he was an
organizer too. And so she answers pertly,
"I love my husband and I'm a good cook."
Emma Tenayuca was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.
During her high school years, she is aware of the inequality
that Mexican Americans face in San Antonio. She looks at the
neighborhood conditions that her and her family and her community
are living in, right. They're segregated, they're very working
class. You know, they're living in substandard housing
conditions. She also you know, goes around her
neighborhood and her community to ask people, what are the
issues that affect you and your family?
I think, you know, people think of her in terms of being very
strong and very courageous. But, I think people don't
realize that she was so sensitive, she was so tender
hearted, compassionate that she just could not stand to see
human suffering.
In 1938, Emma Tenayuca kind of gets her big moment. 12,000
pecan shellers, who were mostly Mexican American women in San
Antonio, marched out of factories in San Antonio and
went on strike. Something like 20% of the nation's pecans were
shelled in San Antonio in the 1930s. And the conditions in the
factories were awful. They were poorly ventilated. So, a lot of
women were getting tuberculosis or other health issues. They
were crowded, they didn't have a lot of bathrooms or other
facilities that people needed. And they were paid really low
wages. Something like, less than $2 a week.
So, they went on strike and they elected Emma Tenayuca unanimously as the
leader of the strike. She was incredibly fierce. She was known
as "La Capitana" or the captain of the strike. So, this labor
dispute goes on for about six weeks, she organized
demonstrations, lots of people were jailed during the strike.
The strike ends and pecan shellers earn a wage increase.
But then the companies begin buying more machines that
eliminate the laborers. But, I think this movement kind of grew
from there as they started thinking bigger about civil
rights and minimum wages and things bigger than just the
pecan shelling strike.
I think that learning about Emma Tenayuca, not only, again,
pushes our understandings of Latino history and labor history
to an earlier period, but she can serve as a model for
inspiration for our young kids.
There was really no space for the Latinx activists within the
context of these movements, they had to create space for
themselves. And that's something that I really aspire to do as well.
Faith Florez was only 15 when she started making an app called Calor
to help prevent heatstroke among farmworkers.
The app sends alerts to workers during dangerous heat conditions
and connects them to emergency services when needed. I have
roots in the Central Valley. I was raised there for the first
10 years of my life, and a lot of my family members were
farmworkers. So, I felt a strong sense of kind of responsibility
and obligation to go back home and to, you know, serve my
community in the best way that I could. I definitely think Latinx
people are underrepresented in our education system. I mean,
our history classes really only cover like our founding fathers
Declaration of Independence, just a lot of white history.
Oftentimes, Black and other students of color never see
themselves reflected in history books. Learning the history of
Emma Tenayuca provides a window to see like this is what the
power of the youth can do.