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.

Any effort of the Mexican workers to organize was met with brutal force, from the very beginning.

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.

It wasn’t until the ‘30s that Spanish began to be taught in the schools – in the high schools. And there was a woman by the name of Esther Caravajal who wrote one of the first text books for the teaching of Spanish in the schools here.