Places of Pan-American Feminism and Labor Rights

Jovita Idár (second from right) and other employees at the print shop of El Progreso newspaper

Public domain

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, women’s rights activists in North, Central, and South America fought for women’s social, economic, and political equality. They realized that their efforts intersected with women’s struggles for equality throughout the Americas. But the goals of Latin American feminists and white, middle-class reformers from the United States differed in key ways.

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How do you respond when you are treated unfairly? How do you respond when others are treated unfairly?

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Many white women’s rights activists from the US prioritized voting rights to achieve women’s political equality. Some of them also cooperated with international organizations and conferences to network with women in other countries. But traveling to conferences was expensive. Most of the US and Latin American women who were able to attend were from the middle and upper classes.

Some working-class Latin American feminists found other ways to pursue women's equality across borders. For instance, Luisa Moreno, Jovita Idar, and Luisa Capetillo linked their activism with access to education, labor rights, and immigration reform. The intersecting forces of gender, class, ethnicity, and nationality inspired these activists to improve education and labor conditions for women and immigrants in their local communities and in other countries.

This article features some of the places related to feminists who pursued women’s and labor rights across borders.

This map shows the locations of the different places featured in this article.

Ybor Cigar Factory, Fourteenth Street, Tampa, FL

Courtesy of Library of Congress

1. Ybor City Historic District

Luisa Capetillo was a Puerto Rican anarchist feminist and labor activist. As a young woman, she worked as a lectora, reading magazines and newspapers to entertain cigar factory employees as they worked. Capetillo and the other readers also shared news of other labor movements, which contributed to the workers’ culture in her hometown Arecibo.

In 1905, Capetillo participated in her first strike, organizing agricultural workers. She became a journalist, public speaker, and organizer for the Federacion Libre de Trabajadores [Free Federation of Workers], an important labor union in Puerto Rico. She spent a decade traveling throughout the island to organize, write, and speak.

Luisa Capetillo wearing men's clothing, circa 1919

Public domain

Capetillo published her feminist manifesto, Mi opinión sobre las libertades, derechos y deberes de la mujer [My Opinion on the Liberties, Rights, and Duties of Women] in 1911. In this volume, she declared “Women are capable of everything and anything.” Capetillo’s support for women’s liberation and free love was closely linked to her labor activism. Class struggle was at the heart of both. Capetillo worried that suffrage and other political rights could be restricted to the upper classes based on education or income, so she advocated for education as the key to making society fair for everyone.

When the Puerto Rican government took action against anarchists in 1912, Capetillo moved first to New York City, and later to Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Florida. In 1913, she arrived in Tampa’s Ybor City neighborhood, where she organized Spanish, Cuban, Italian, and African American cigar factory workers.

Capetillo also gained a reputation for her “disruptive” attire. When she was in Cuba, she was arrested for wearing men’s pants in public. She was a passionate advocate for workers until her death in 1922.

Ybor City Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1974 and was designated as a National Historic Landmark on December 14, 1990.

Ruins of Rancho los Ojuelos in Webb County, TX

NPS Photo, Christopher Talbot

2. Los Ojuelos

Jovita Idár was a Mexican American educator from Laredo, TX whose experiences led her to activism and journalism. As a young woman, she worked as a teacher in Los Ojuelos, a town 35 miles east of Laredo.

Idár was outraged by the dilapidated buildings and lack of resources for students. These experiences and the lynching of Mexican American men inspired her to fight for her community.

Portrait of Jovita Idár, circa 1905

Public domain

Idár joined her father and brothers at La Crónica, Laredo’s Spanish language activist newspaper. In September 1911, the Idár family helped organize El Primer Congreso Mexicanista [the First Mexicanist Conference] in Laredo.

Hundreds of people from Mexico and Texas gathered to address the violence, labor exploitation, economic inequality, and segregation experienced by Mexicans and Mexican Americans on both sides of the US-Mexico border.

The Congress also led to the creation of La Liga Femenil Mexicanista [the League of Mexican Women] in October 1911. Most of the League’s members were from the working class.

Some were also educators and shared Idár’s goal to provide schooling for low-income Mexican and Mexican American children. The League also raised money and distributed food and clothing to people in need.

Los Ojuelos is now a ghost town. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Palm Court at the Alexandria Hotel, Los Angeles, CA

Photo by Ron's log, CC BY 3.0

3. Alexandria Hotel

In December 1938, Guatemalan labor activist Luisa Moreno founded El Congreso Nacional del Pueblo de Habla Española [the Spanish Speaking People’s Conference] at the Hotel Alexandria in Los Angeles, CA.

The Congress supported Spanish-speaking workers no matter which countries they came from. Over 1,000 delegates from over 120 organizations attended its first national convention in Los Angeles in April 1939.

Moreno and fellow organizer Josefina Fierro de Bright wanted to provide for the safety of immigrants and oppose their deportation and discrimination. The Congress also offered a platform for Mexican Americans to support housing and education reforms and laws that protected workers. Its membership swelled to over 70,000 people across the US.

Los Angeles is a Certified Local Government. The Palm Court of the Alexandria Hotel was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1971.

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For more stories of Pan-American feminists, check out the companion article, Places of Pan-American Feminism and International Organizations.

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Luisa Moreno stands on a balcony in Mexico City, 1927

Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History

Bibliography

Marino, Katherine M. “The International History of the U.S. Suffrage Movement.” The 19th Amendment and Women's Access to the Vote Across America. National Park Service. Last updated October 10, 2019. https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-internationalist-history-of-the-us-suffrage-movement.htm.

Medina, Jennifer. “Overlooked No More: Jovita Idár, Who Promoted Rights of Mexican-Americans and Women.” New York Times. Last updated August 19, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/07/obituaries/jovita-idar-overlooked.html.

Mitchell, Pablo R. “Capetillo, Luisa.” Understanding Latino History: Excavating the Past, Examining the Present. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2016. Gale eBooks. Accessed February 3, 2022.

Ruiz, Vicki L. “Class Acts: Latina Feminist Traditions, 1900-1930.” Presidential address presented at the 130th Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, Atlanta, GA, January 8, 2016. https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/presidential-addresses/vicki-l-ruiz.

Smith, Ryan P. “Guatemalan Immigrant Luisa Moreno Was Expelled from the U.S. for Her Groundbreaking Labor Activism.” Smithsonian Magazine. July 25, 2018. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/guatemalan-immigrant-luisa-moreno-expelled-U.S.-groundbreaking-labor-activism-180969750/.

Spiegel, Taru. “Luisa Capetillo: Puerto Rican Changemaker.” 4 Corners of the World (blog). Library of Congress, November 18, 2019. https://blogs.loc.gov/international-collections/2019/11/luisa-capetillo-puerto-rican-changemaker/.

The content for this article was researched and written by Jade Ryerson, an intern with the Cultural Resources Office of Interpretation and Education.