SOMOS LATINAS

Midwestern Latina activists share their stories in a book introduced by Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the group that became the United Farmworkers.

In this collection of oral histories from two dozen female leaders of Wisconsin’s Latinx community, collected as part of a statewide research project, Arenas and Gómez show the community’s diversity while celebrating people who have pushed for progress in education, health care, and workers’ and tenants’ rights, among other causes. In her foreword, the much-honored Huerta, the co-founder with César Chavez of the forerunner of the United Farmworkers, tells how she found her llamda, or calling. The rest of the book consists mainly of edited interviews with the featured women and a brief concluding section focused on themes found throughout the project. The activists interviewed represent a range of ethnicities and origins as well as varied careers and interests. Some of the women are immigrants, while others are U.S.-born. Many are of Mexican or Puerto Rican descent, but the book also includes women of Salvadoran, Cuban, and Spanish heritage; some grew up in poverty and others in middle-class families. The women discuss their identification as activists, the causes that motivated them to get involved, and their successes and challenges. While the book does not offer a fully comprehensive view of Latinas’ contributions to Wisconsin—the project criteria required women to be 50 or older when interviewed, so younger women are absent—it does an excellent job of presenting the community’s history in an engaging format that reflects the diversity of experiences in the region. One of the book’s strengths is the wealth of detail in the women’s stories. Musician Lupita Béjar Verbeten describes the protest songs she performed on behalf of farmworkers and laid-off employees. Maria Dolores Cruz recalls her unsuccessful but satisfying campaign for the state senate. And Carmen De La Paz explains how her individual activism evolved into a family-wide involvement in the community. The women’s stories are interesting and enlightening, and readers will appreciate their perspective on a group that tends to be underrepresented in books about the Midwest.

Wide-ranging and compelling interviews with Latinas who are making a difference in Wisconsin.