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Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition

Emma Tenayuca

by Trudy Mercadal

Latina labor organizer, activist, and educator

Tenayuca was a union labor organizer and labor rights activist, as well as a lifelong educator and social justice warrior.

Latino heritage: Mexican

Born: December 21, 1916; San Antonio, Texas

Died: July 23, 1999; San Antonio, Texas

Also known as: “La Pasionaria of Texas”

Areas of achievement: Labor rights; education

EARLY LIFE

Emma Beatrice Tenayuca (Teh-Nah-YOO-cah) was born in San Antonio, Texas, to a large family of Comanche and Mexican ancestry, although she was raised by her grandparents. Emma lived at a time when Mexican Americans in general, and rural laborers especially, were allowed few freedoms and rights. Nevertheless, she enjoyed a close relationship with her grandfather, who would read her the newspapers and her to rallies for the rights of the poor.

Tenayuca attended Brackenridge High School in San Antonio and, as a freshman, joined the League of United Latin American Citizens. However, Tenayuca became frustrated with the organization, which presented a divide among Latinos according to skin tone; that is, the darker-skinned Latinos seemed to struggle more and be more marginalized. Moreover, in her view, the group promoted assimilation into mainstream white America rather than establishing civil rights for Mexican Americans. Tenayuca believed there had to be a better way towards achieving social justice.

At sixteen, she became involved in community organizing and was jailed numerous times, once for joining a strike against the Finck Cigar Company. In a time when neither Mexican Americans nor women were expected to speak publicly or protest their conditions, she became known as an inspiring orator and skilled organizer. At twenty-one, Emma was already considered the most effective organizer of the National Workers' Alliance.

LIFE’S WORK

Tenayuca became deeply involved in protesting against border police violence against migrants and in labor union organizing. As such, she joined the International Ladies' Garment Union, the Woman's League for Peace and Freedom, and the Worker's Alliance of America. The Workers' Alliance was founded in 1936 by unemployed workers, 90 percent of which were pecan shellers or farm laborers.

Tenayuca is best known in history for her role in the Pecan Shellers Strike. In 1938, the wages of the city's lowest paid workers were halved and 12,000 pecan shellers, most of them women, decided to strike. Emma was elected to lead the strike. While about 40 percent of the country's pecan supply was shelled in Texas, the working conditions of the pecan shellers were deplorable and they suffered high rates of tuberculosis, which they attributed to their working conditions. The strikers faced strong opposition from the authorities and agribusiness owners, and over 1,000 workers were arrested. However, by the end, the pecan shellers and the pecan company, Southern Pecan Shelling Company, went through arbitrage and the owners were forced to raise the shellers' wages. The pecan shellers strike is important, according to many scholars, because it is the first significant victory in the Mexican American struggle for political and economic equality in the United States.

In 1936, Tenayuca had joined the Communist Party. In 1939, the Party hosted a meeting in the Municipal Building of San Antonio for which the mayor, Maury Maverick, signed a permit. As Tenayuca was giving a speech, a furious anti-Communist mob attacked the auditorium. Fearing that she would be lynched, organizers led Emma away. The rioting mob broke windows, set fires, and vandalized the auditorium. Later that night they joined forces with the Ku Klux Klan to burn the city's mayor in effigy, for defending Tenayuca's right to free speech.

Tenayuca became blacklisted in San Antonio, making her life there untenable and causing her to leave Texas for many years. She moved to California, where she endured unemployment and poverty, was spied on by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and suffered threats against her personal safety. However, during those years she also put herself through college, and graduated from San Francisco State College with a degree in education. In the 1960's, Emma returned to San Antonio and taught for the Harlandale School District until her retirement in 1982. She also pursued a master's in education at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio.

During those years, although she had retired from public life, Tenayuca became a reading teacher for migrant students and dedicated herself to lifelong community service, striving to empower people and promoting the right to dignified work and a minimum wage, equal access to education, and voting rights, among other causes.

Tenayuca had married Communist Party leader Homer Bartchy in 1938, whom she divorced in 1941. She died in 1991, from complications from Alzheimer's disease. Upon her death, she was honored by many activist groups nationwide, who named her “La Pasionaria of Texas” for her tireless and passionate dedication to social justice.

SIGNIFICANCE

Emma Tenayuca challenged the injustices she encountered in San Antonio against Mexican American workers. She cared deeply about poverty, hunger, workplace injustice and access to education at when, given the Depression, many Mexican Americans were starving and forced to work under deleterious conditions and for exploitative long hours. Although her place in history has been marked by her leadership role in the pecan shellers strike, she was a brilliant union organizer who became instrumental in many strikes, big and small. Later in life, Tenayuca dedicated her efforts, as an educator and a community activist, to continue to fight for a better world for all.

Further Reading

1 

Beeman, Cynthia. “Emma Tenayuca.” WomeninTexasHistory.org, 2012. https://www.womenintexashistory.org/audio/emma-tenayuca. A biography with audio that recounts the life and achievements of Emma Tenayuca.

2 

Tafolla, Carmen. That’s Not Fair! Emma Tenayuca’s Struggle for Justice/¡No es justo! La Lucha de Emma Tenayuca por la justicia. San Antonio: Wings Press, 2008. A bilingual children's book that recounts Emma Tenayuca's life and struggles for social justice.

3 

UTSA Library. “Emma Tenayuca Oral History Interview.” 1987-1988. https://medialibrary.utsa.edu/Play/9046. An oral history video interview with Emma Tenayuca, conducted by journalist José Ángel Gutiérrez and part of his archived papers at the University of Texas Library.

4 

Weber, John. From South Texas to the Nation: The Exploitation of Mexican Labor in the Twentieth Century. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018. A scholarly history book that describes in detail the constant struggles of Mexican farm workers encourages to migrate to U.S. farms were employers eagerly hired them and proceeded to exploit them, and the conflicts that would arise when workers organized to resist. It provides at solid contextual background to Tenayuca's life and work.

5 

Women and the American Story. “Life Story: Emma Tenayuca (1916-1999).” NYHistory.org, https://wams.nyhistory.org/confidence-and-crises/great-depression/emma-tenayuca. A biography of Emma Tenayuca providing more detailed information about her union labor organizing activities.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Mercadal, Trudy. "Emma Tenayuca." Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition, edited by Trudy Mercadal, et al., Salem Press, 2021. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLLatin2e_0521.
APA 7th
Mercadal, T. (2021). Emma Tenayuca. In T. Mercadal, C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Mercadal, Trudy. "Emma Tenayuca." Edited by Trudy Mercadal, Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2021. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.