“They want us to just survive. We’re fighting to thrive,” said ELLA founder María Fernández.
In the Yakima Valley, many of our families have had to focus on survival. The farmworkers who harvest the food that feeds this region are especially hard hit. We still face unsafe water, polluted air, and limited access to basic services. Too often, our communities feel invisible.
ELLA, or Empowering Latina Leadership and Action, is working to change that by creating spaces for healing, support and leadership.
ELLA was born out of lived experience. Fernández recalls how her sister, who was dealing with serious health challenges, went searching for help in 2006.
“She went from organization to organization and kept getting turned away because she didn’t fit their boxes of eligibility,” Fernández said in the podcast Mujeres Por Mujeres. “That really caught my attention. Women needed a place where they didn’t have to check a box just to get help.”
Out of those frustrations, Latinas Network for Justice was formed. Although short-lived, it sparked a vision that grew deeper with time.
Later, while working on a national research project with Michigan State University focused on survivors of domestic violence, María saw firsthand how women continued to fall through the cracks.
“One survivor told me, ‘I left one type of abuse at home and found another kind of abuse in the system.’ That was horrifying to hear,” she said.
In 2019, María and a group of compañeras relaunched this work with a new name and a renewed purpose: ELLA.
We are a Chicana- and Latina-led organization rooted in advocacy and leadership cultivation. Our mission is simple but ambitious: to increase Latina representation as key decision-makers across all sectors and to work toward fairness in education, the environment, the economy, and politics.
“We are building a network of Latinas and allies to better serve the needs of our hermanas,” Fernández said. “We pool together our talents and expertise so that we can lend a helping hand when needed.”
This grassroots spirit drives everything we do. “Our communities provide us guidance about what is most important to them,” Fernández said. “We are a grassroots organization that works for the people and with the people to build real community power.”
Four Kinds of Fairness
At our core, we believe every family deserves clean air, clean water and the chance to live with dignity. Our work focuses on four areas of fairness:
In our Latina Leadership Circle, we invite women to dream beyond the roles society has placed on them. María shared one powerful moment: a woman in her 60s revealed that she had always wanted to play the guitar — but had never said it out loud before.
“For the first time, she gave herself permission to dream,” Fernández said.
We see ourselves and our community partners as healers and warriors. The phrase comes from our logo, which includes an ancient symbol of duality.
“We are healers because our community carries deep wounds from injustice. We are warriors because we won’t back down from the systems that keep us silent, sick or struggling,” Fernández said.
This balance between healing and courage is woven into all of our programs. In our leadership classes, we don’t just talk about external barriers like poverty and discrimination, we also explore the internal patterns we carry, like machismo and colorism.
“We talk about the hard truths,” Fernández said. “It’s not easy to admit when we’ve been mean to another woman or when we’ve upheld harmful ideas. But healing starts with honesty.”
Our podcast, Mujeres Por Mujeres, is part of our effort to connect more deeply with our community.
“We wanted a way to inform the community about who we are and what drives us,” said Director of Operations Vicky Frausto.
On the podcast, Fernández and Frausto also described ELLA’s four pillars: social, racial, environmental and educational fairness, the priorities that guide all of our work.
You can hear more of our story in the Mujeres Por Mujeres podcast episode, “Introducing Empowering Latina Leadership and Action (ELLA).”
In it, Fernández and Frausto share openly about the struggles, the vision and the movement we are building.
Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kiEhNGCk8FvYqVVYe82V0?si=ykjCg8-XSj6yxbZAzU42kw
Posted March 20, 2026
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