Emma Tenayuca

Emma Tenayuca was born on December 21st, 1916 in San Antonio, Texas. She grew up in a family of eleven and began living with her grandparents at an early age in order to ease the burden on the rest of her large family. Emma and her family were hit hard by The Depression and all around her Emma Tenayuca began opening her eyes to see the suffering of low class workers. From there she became interested in activism, and was a labor activist even before graduating from Brackenridge High School. Tenayuca’s first arrest came at the age of 16 when she joined a picket line of workers in strike against the Finck Cigar Company in 1933.

After high school Emma Tenayuca obtained a position as an elevator operator, but she made a career out of her passion for labor rights. She founded two international ladies garment workers unions, and was highly involved in both the Worker’s Alliance of America and Woman’s League for Peace and Freedom. She organized a protest of the beating of Mexican migrants by United States border patrol agents. In her early adulthood she was arrested for a second and third time. Once on a bogus charge of “disturbing the peace” during a nonviolent protest and then again for her leadership role in a labor strike in 1938.

Organizing large scale strikes against the injustices in the labor sphere was also one of Tenayuca’s hobbies. Tennayuca was instrumental in one of the most famous conflicts of Texas labor history–the 1938 strike at the Southern Pecan Shelling Company. During the strike, thousands of workers at over 130 plants protested a wage reduction of one cent per pound of shelled pecans. Mexicana and Chicana workers who picketed were gassed, arrested, and jailed. The strike ended after thirty-seven days when the city's pecan operators agreed to arbitration. In October that year, the National Labor Relations Act raised wages to twenty-five cents an hour. Thousands lost their jobs the following year as operators decided to mechanize plants in the face of rising labor costs.

Another on of Tenayuca's first knowledge of the struggles of working people came from visits as a young child to the Plaza del Zacate, a place where socialists and anarchists would come to speak and work with families with grievances. Because they advocated her passion for minority rights, Emma Tenayuca held an allegiance to the Communist Party. Emma Tenayuca extended her ties to the party when she married Communist Party organizer Homer Brooks in 1938. Then, less than a year later, she was scheduled to be one of the speakers at a communist event in front of around 5000 spectators. No matter how many arrests or death threats Emma received for her controversial beliefs, she stuck to her guns and continued fighting for the causes she believed in. Unfortunately after this incident Emma was blacklisted and forced to move out of San Antonio.

Eventually, Tenayuca went on to pursue a college degree. She divorced her husband Homer and left her hometown in order to attend San Francisco State College where she majored in Education. She later received a master’s in education from Our Lady Lake University back in San Antonio. From there Emma went on to teach in Harlandale School District until her retirement in 1982.

Sadly, short after retirement she developed Alzheimer’s disease and died on July 23, 1999. Emma Tenayuca continued to inspire activists after her own heart until and beyond her death. The admiration felt for this remarkable woman can be seen in That’s Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle for Justice, a bilingual children’s book that tells the story of her contributions to the pecan sheller strike as well as in the play-dramas that have come about to honor her dedication and contributions. The South Texas Civil Rights Project has even dedicated an annual award (The Emma Tenayuca Award) in her name. It is given to individuals working to protect civil rights.  

External links

• ACLU Texas article on Tennayuca.
• Emma Tenayuca gets her due National Catholic Reporter article about Tenayuca and about new Tenayuca biographies for children and adults.

www.houstonculture.org/hispanic/tenayuca.html http://www.salsa.net/peace/faces/emma.html http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-01312.html http://www.saculturaltours.com/spot.php?t=1&s=155 http://news.southtexascollege.edu/?tag=south-texas-civil-rights-project http://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/pgs/portraits/Emma_Tenayuca.php http://publicart.mdlonline.com/Wearenotaconqueredpeople.htm http://ncronline.org/node/1621 http://www.aztlan.net/default6.htm