There are so many heroic Latinas that lived and died dedicated to serving our communities and deserve recognition on our Dia De Los Muertos alter. We chose to honor several of these courageous and selfless Latinas today.
Jovita Idar (19985-1946)
Jovita Idar, born in Laredo, Texas, was a civil rights activist, teacher, nurse, suffragist and journalist. As the editor to her family’s publication, La Crónica, Idar exposed much of the injustices committed against Mexican Texans, including lynchings, segregation and the poor conditions faced by students in schools. She was often a target of the Texas Rangers, whom made several attempts to forcefully shut down the publication, eventually ransacking the office and destroying the printing presses.
In 1911, Idar founded La Liga Feminil Mexicaista, a feminist organization that provided education to children, helped the wounded during the Mexican Revolution, encouraged women to vote, and advocated for the rights of Mexican Americans. She valued education so much that she was known for saying, “when you educate a woman, you educate a family.”
Berta Cáceres (1971-2016)
Berta Cáceres was a Lenca rights and environmental activist. She co-founded the Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and led campaigns protesting illegal logging and US military bases on Lenca land. In 2006, Cáceres led the Lenca people to take action against a multinational corporate effort to construct hydroelectric dams on the Gualcarque River, which threatened their access to water, food, medicinal materials and their way of life.
In 2013, the Lenca people with COPINH, led a one-year protest at the construction site to prevent the corporations from accessing the land, where their lives were in constant danger. This prompted two of the corporations to withdraw from the project. Cáceres continued to fight corporate development efforts on Lenca land until her assassination in 2016.
Silvia Rivera (1951-2002)
Silvia Rivera was a Latina gay and transgender rights activist. She was a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Front and focused her efforts in advocating for people of color. Rivera actively took part in the Stonewall Riots, which protested police raids on LGBTQ gathering spots. The event became the catalyst for the gay liberation movement.
Rivera was also a co-founder for the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), which worked closely with homeless LGBTQ youth. She fought to gain recognition for drag queens and transvestites as frontline leaders for gay rights, saying “if it wasn’t for the drag queen, there would be no gay liberation movement.”
Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004)
Gloria Anzaldúa was a queer Chicana scholar, poet, writer, feminist and theorist. She used her life experiences growing up on the US Mexican border to examine and tell the story of the “mestiza consciousness”, writing extensively about mixed cultures and identity.
Anzaldúa’s book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, is a classic and used in classrooms all around the world. A favorite quote from her book, “1950 mile-long open wound. Dividing a pueblo, a culture, running down the length of my body, staking fence rods in my flesh, splits me, splits me, me raja, me raja. This is my home, this thin edge of barbwire.”
Comandante Ramona (1959-2006)
Comandante Ramona was a Tzotzil Maya revolutionary and commander with the Zapatista Army, Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. She became a voice for Indigenous Mexican women, organizing and leading protests against the Mexican government and foreign corporations whom were abusing and exploiting women.
In 1996, Comandante Ramona helped found the National Indigenous Congress and created the Revolutionary Women’s Law. The law included access to technology and education, an end to physical, emotional and mental abuse of women, small business support, reproductive health facilities, the right to work, the right to participate in social/political systems, the right to occupy positions of leadership and the right to choose their own partner and not be forced into marriage. She was a true revolutionary!
The Mirabal Sisters (1924, 1926, 1935-1960)
The Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa opposed the repressive dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. From the shadows, they helped to create a movement of dissidents to act against and overthrow his authoritarian regime. Within the movement, the sisters were called “Las Mariposas”, or “The Butterflies”.
The Mirabal sisters helped to distribute information about murders and other crimes committed by Trujullo and gathered weapons for the eventual revolt against him. Minerva and María Teresa were imprisoned for their role in the movement but were set free because of mounting international attention. The sisters continued their organizing efforts against Trujillo until they were assassinated in 1960. Their assassination became the springboard for Trujillo’s own assassination and the overthrow of his government. The Mirabals are now considered national martyrs.
November 25th is designated as the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women by the United Nations General Assembly in honor of the Mirabal sisters.
We hope that you will take some time to become far more familiar with each of the women we honor today. They have done much more than this post shares. We also hope they serve as inspiration to you to do all you can to make positive changes in your little corner of the world.
