Emma Tenayuca Quotes

Mexican American labor organizer, civil rights activist, and educator (1916-1999)

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Emma Beatrice Tenayuca (December 21, 1916 – July 23, 1999), also known as Emma Beatrice Tenayuca, was an American labor leader, union organizer and educator. She is best known for her work organizing Mexican workers in Texas during the 1930s, particularly for leading the 1938 San Antonio pecan shellers strike.

Bio from: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: La Pasionaria de Texas • Emma Beatrice Tenayuca

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Look, it was not the Black, the savages or the Indians who brought about a government such as the Hitler regime...I think after four, almost five hundred years of European domination that this next period would be one of revolt against European domination. And there are lots of lives being lost in Nicaragua and these other places.

I was beginning to miss more and more meals, so...I’ve come from a family of eleven; I was one of the oldest. I couldn’t get a job, I couldn’t help, I couldn’t do anything, so I left San Antonio. I went to San Francisco and stayed there for twenty years, and to my surprise, I return and I find myself some sort of a heroine.

I would like to see a history...not just of the Communists but of the Left Wing movement and its narrow, factional, sectarian approach.

The question was always one of land, and it wasn’t tackled in Mexico until the time of Cardenas. And it wasn’t tackled in Cuba until Castro.

Remember this – we didn’t have radios, we didn’t have this, we didn’t have that, we didn’t have a lot of things. So, this going to the plaza and just listening...(to people) speak to a crowd

The Wobblies could come into a town and establish free speech. They’d bring in...one would come by railroad then – ride the rods and so forth and so on – they they’d come into a town. They had one group that would go out. That group would be arrested. They’d get another group to get up and speak, and then another group would fill the damn jail. And you had lawyers there.

If I had to give any credit to myself, I would say that I was a darn good organizer, and if I did it was because I read the works of the...I read quite a bit about the anarchists’ organization.

I just have a feeling, a very strong feeling, that if ever this world is civilized, that it would be more the work of women.

(Ronald Reagan is) nothing but a bag of hot air.

You had this factionalism all the time.

We’ve been spending too much money on armaments. We haven’t had any peace since World War II. We had troops in Korea, Vietnam, South American, Europe. We cannot continue to do that.

It would be difficult to say that minorities have not advanced. You will find quite a few members of the state legislature, a few senators, but quite a number who are Mexican. You will find a number who are in the Senate. You will find a lot of Blacks. But, again, you have a split there; you have a split.

1938 was the hardest year because by that time the Depression had really struck every city, every place.

I would say that the times are absolutely different. Unfortunately, American history books, especially at the high school level...and I examined about three of them here in 1968, I haven’t examined any since then. But they were not analytical. They were not critical. You will find history books that will tell you we still don’t know why the Depression occurred – a world-wide Depression. England went on the bill. Certainly, World War I had a lot to do with it. Why did we have a World War II? The unbearable, actually, the unbearable load or money that Germany had to pay us, which actually stripped their economy. Germany never had what you would call a true democratic society.

I have expected my country, your country, to become the scientific Athens, but I don’t think that will be the case.