Josefa’S Story

By Rebecca Flores

Women like Josefa were the foundation of the farmworker movement in South Texas. This short story is about a woman who led a difficult life and had a strong work ethic and community respect. She learned that when organized in her union, she could make the changes necessary that would affect her family and her work. Josefa and many other women like her found their voice and magnified it when they joined the union. Her experiences, eloquently spoken, forged systemic changes for all farmworkers across the state of Texas. Their voices, at one time muted, were heard by the land owners and by local, state, and federal representatives. Josefas legacy of activism then became examples for others to follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781984529664

Rebecca Flores

Rebecca Flores worked in the fields as a young child; from 1975 to 2005 was an organizer for the United Farm Workers (UFW) in Hidalgo County, in South Texas. As an organizer for the UFW, Flores organized the poorest paid working people in the U.S., the farm workers. She organized farm workers: To change the way that public agencies served farm workers. to force local county governments to provide for basic services such as streets, sewage, running water in their colonias where farm workers lived; to demand better wages be paid by the growers; to pass legislation that excluded farm workers from worker protections. to educate customers at grocery stores about the dangers of pesticides being used on the food being sold, both for harvesters and for consumers.

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