Luisa moreno biography

Guatemala City, Guatemala. Luisa Moreno was a trade union leader and a civil rights activist. Fluent in both English and Spanish, she was a major figure in the struggle for Hispanic civil rights and fair treatment for nearly three decades. During World War II — 45 , Moreno's efforts led to better pay and working conditions for women workers, particularly Hispanic workers in the war industries.

While the U. However, when the Great Depression — 41 , a period of high unemployment and decreased business activity through the s, began, the U. With the repatriation program in force after , the pace of Mexican American labor organizing accelerated in order to protect the civil rights of the Hispanic community. Moreno was the first Hispanic vice president of a major U.

As a founding member of the Spanish-Speaking Peoples' Congress, Moreno started the first national effort to bring Hispanic workers together from diverse ethnic backgrounds.

What was luisa moreno known for

She was active in the fight to end racial tension in Southern California and worked to end violent outbreaks between whites and Hispanics in In Guatemala her family was considered upper middle class. Her parents sent her to an elite parochial school , the College of the Holy Names, in Oakland, California , for her education. As a teenager, she organized a group of her peers to successfully lobby for the admission of women into Guatemalan universities.

Moreno decided against attending university herself and instead moved to Mexico, where she worked as a journalist. In she followed her Mexican artist husband to the art world of New York City, where she gave birth to her only daughter, Mytyl. The couple separated three years later and Moreno went to work as a seamstress in a Spanish Harlem sweatshop.

The miserable conditions there led her to become one of America's first Hispanic labor organizers.