Hola you rambunctious, bodacious, charismatic, futuristic, unrepentant, tirilongo, and supersuave Latinopians! Okay, now that I got your attention, púes welcome to this week’s Latinopia Labor Lalapalooza! This is Labor Day weekend so Latinopia thought that it would be fitting to recognize some of the fierce women in our community who have made and continue to make labor history by struggling on behalf of American society’s working people.
We begin with Emma Tenyuca. This firme veterana led the 1936 Pecan Shellers Strike in San Antonio, Texas when she was only 19 years old! Ay! Fijate, she even got busted for it! Latinopia is proud to present this excerpt interview with her from the documentary Yo Soy (I Am) directed by José Luis Ruiz and by Jesús Treviño. Also on tap is a new biography of María Elena Durazo, currently the Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO–representing more than 800,000 workers through 300 plus unions. As you will see María Elena is another firme Chicana who has led the charge for rights of workers for more than forty years. And from the archives, Latinopia reprises the biography of Emma Tenyuca as well as the biography of another labor activist giant, Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, AF-CIO.
We are also reprising, so you can echarle un perusal, the Latinopia Showcase “The Brick People,” on Alejandro Morales’ novel about the workers at the Simon’s Brick Yard who made the bricks from which hundreds of buildings in Southern California have been made. Also we reprise ‘pa que no se olviden, the Latinopia Showcase “Harvest of Loneliness,” about the 1940s and 1950s Bracero Program that provided the manual labor to harvest American crops.
Check out all these postings as you enjoy your Labor Day week-end and remember that the fruits and vegetables you eat, the clothing your wear, the cars you drive, and the entertainment you enjoy is all due to the hard labor of workers who deserve to receive fair pay for their work. Or, as mi Tio Braulio so often says, “En La Union es la Fuerza,” the union makes us strong!
Enjoy, Tia Tenopia