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Photo: Unsplash/ Viridiana Rivera By Sofía Aguilar March 25, 2025 – 07:00 Latinas aren’t often spotlighted for their contributions throughout history though there are plenty. Even within the Latinx community, Latina changemakers are often forgotten and overlooked by dominant patriarchal narratives. That’s why we decided to put together a round-up of Latinas who have made history but have often gone under-appreciated and under-recognized by the history books and, in many cases, by our own communities. From Afro-Argentine Maria Remedios del Valle who fought in the Argentine War of Independence to Christina Hayworth, a Puerto Rican AIDS activist, there are so many Latinas who deserve to be remembered for how they’ve changed the world. These are just a few we chose to select this year thought it’s by no means an exhaustive list. Read on to learn more about 15 Latinas throughout history who should be more recognized and celebrated during Women’s History Month and all year round. Las Adelitas Las Adelitas were a group of female soldiers, also known as soldaderas, who participated alongside male soldiers in the Mexican Revolution from 1910-1920. Some lived with men in the camps where they gathered supplies and ammunition, washed clothes, cooked, and served as nurses for the sick and injured. Many came unwillingly and were abducted and raped by male soldiers who needed to build up their military force. Others fought and even rose to the rank of generals and colonels, leading militias into battle, some of which were only made up of women. Notably, many soldaderas dressed in men’s clothing, a serious culture shift at the time, wearing military pants and shirts. In the decades since, history has tried to diminish their role as wives or daughters, and even while it was happening, women were not always fairly compensated for their labor, nor were they allowed the right to remarry or join the military after the war. However, they undoubtedly contributed to the revolution and Mexico’s history as a nation, and deserve to be remembered for all the different roles they played in securing the country’s independence. Stay connected! Subscribe now and get the latest on culture, empowerment, and more. SIGN ME UP! Este sitio está protegido por reCAPTCHA y Google Política de privacidad y Se aplican las Condiciones de servicio . Thank You! You are already subscribed to our newsletter Maria Remedios del Valle Maria Remedios del Valle was a soldier who fought in the Argentine War of Independence between the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and the Spanish Crown. Born in Buenos Aires in 1768, she was of West African decent, or parda as it was known at the time, referring to African slaves and their descendants. She initially joined the military as a civilian to help cook, nurse wounds, carry supplies, and act as a spy. She later fought in battles alongside other soldiers in the army. In one instance, right before the Battle of Tucumán, she asked if she could help out troops who had been shot and injured at the front lines. Though her general forbade her, she ignored his order and went ahead anyway to rescue them, which earned her the rank of captain. Her entire family was killed during the war and she was forced to beg in the streets after she was denied a pension, though a general later helped her be recognized and paid by the government for her contributions. Today, she appears on the 10,000 peso note in Argentina and November 8, known as the National Day of Afro-Argentines and African Culture, is dedicated to her memory. Sylvia del Villard Photo: BlackPast.org Sylvia del Villard was an Afro-Puerto Rican activist, actress, singer, ballerina, choreographer, and writer. Born in Santurce, PR in 1928, she fostered an early love for dance and entertainment, and was encouraged by her family to pursue her dreams. After graduating from college, she took dance and voice classes at the City College of New York and the Metropolitan Opera, where she rediscovered her love and passion for her African roots. She participated in theater productions and dance troops across the world, including the Afro-Boricua Ballet in Puerto Rico. Later, she founded her own theater, known as the Afro-Boricua El Coqui Theater, which has performed across the U.S. and is considered the hub of Black Puerto Rican culture today. She also served as the director of the office of the Afro-Puerto Rican affairs of the Puerto Rican Institute of Culture. Though she was highly successful, she faced anti-Blackness all throughout her life, receiving racist complaints from San Juan residents. Today, she is remembered for her invaluable contributions to Afro-Puerto Rican industry, and several theater programs and performance halls have been named after her. Mamá Tingó Born Florinda Muñoz Soriano in Villa Mella in 1921, Mamá Tingó was an activist and leader from the Dominican Republic. When she was 30, she married a farmworker and worked the land in Hato Viejo with her husband and other families for decades raising pigs and growing fruits and vegetables. All was well until the ’70s when it was reclaimed by rich landholder Pablo Díaz Hernández, claiming he’d just purchased the land. Quickly, he evicted families, surrounded over 8,000 acres of local land with barbed wire, and destroyed their crops. Angered by the injustice, Mamá Tingó emerged as a leader in the farmworkers movement, organizing protests and taking the case to court. On the day of the hearing, however, she was told that a foreman had released her pigs. When she went out to round them up, she was assassinated by the foreman. However, her memory and legacy live on. Despite being illiterate, she was able to win back land rights for more than 300 families. There is a Metro system in Santo Domingo that was named in her honor and a statue of her built in Monte Plata. Helen Chavez In 1928, Helen Chavez was a Mexican American labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA) and the wife of activist Cesar Chavez. She was the daughter of migrant laborers and was working in the fields alongside her parents by the age of seven. Later, she worked in vineyards full-time. After she married Chavez, the couple worked to secure better rights for their fellow laborers. It was Helen who convinced her husband to work with a white organizer for the Community Service Organization (CSO), which later led to him becoming the National Director of the organization. It was she who raised their eight children, completed domestic chores, and helped out in the office with secretarial duties that were integral to the organization and community’s successes. Besides writing her husband’s daily reports by hand as he dictated them to her, she also taught many migrant workers how to read so they could vote and helped them become citizens. After her husband started the National Farm Workers Association, she worked in the field picking grapes and later became a full-time administrator for the organization’s credit union, a position she served in for more than two decades. However, her efforts, including the four times she was arrested for protesting, went largely unacknowledged and unappreciated due to her husband’s fame and visibility. Today, she deserves to be remembered not only for being Cesar Chavez’s wife but also an influential labor organizer in her own right. Felicitas Mendez Felicitas Mendez was a hugely influential Puerto Rican activist in the civil rights movement. Born into a farmworker family in 1916, she was active in the fight for workers’ rights and faced huge discrimination for her skin color. After marrying her husband Gonzalo Mendez, the couple sent their children Sylvia, Gonzalo Jr., and Jerome to enroll in a white public school in their neighborhood but were turned away because of their dark skin and Mexican surnames. After trying many times to resolve the situation with the school, the school board, and the school district, she and Gonzalo decided to file a federal class action lawsuit in federal court against four different school districts in Orange County in collaboration with five other families and on behalf of their daughter Sylvia Mendez and 5,000 other students of color. Ultimately, Mendez et al. v. Westminster, et al. , became a historic case that ended school segregation in California – the first state in the nation to do so – and would later set the stage for Brown v. Board of Education. They even won the case again in 1947 after the district appealed the decision in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Today, the the U.S. Courthouse in Los Angeles, just a few blocks away from where the Mendez case took place, was renamed as the Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez U.S. Courthouse. It’s the first courthouse in U.S. history to be named after a Latina, securing her legacy in the fight for equal rights for all. Her family has been honored numerous times throughout the years including a commemorative post stamp, a walking trail, and a monument. Christina Hayworth Christina Hayworth was a Puerto Rican AIDS activist who fought for the rights of her LGBTQIA+ community. Born in Humacao in the 1940s, she became known as one of the first openly trans women in Puerto Rico and was an influential force during the Stonewall riots of 1969, later serving as a Stonewall Veterans Association ambassador to Latin America. She pioneered many more firsts, including organizing and leading the first pride parade in Puerto Rico in 1991. Until her death, she organized subsequent pride parades in the island’s capital every June during Pride Month. She also appeared in the first photographic portrait of transgender Americans alongside Sylvia Rivera. The portrait was later hung in the Smithsonian as part of their National Portrait Gallery. When she later ran for the positions of mayor in San Juan and Senator as a candidate for the New Progressive Party, she made sure to include AIDS awareness as part of her platform. Though she didn’t end up winning either title, she continues to be remembered for how she championed LGBTQIA+ rights for Puerto Ricans. Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez Photo: National Museum of the United Stats Army Second Lieutenant Emily Jazmin Tatum Perez was a military officer of Afro-Puerto Rican descent. Born in West Germany into a U.S. military family in 1983, she joined West Point in 2001, where she set new school records, graduated at the second highest rank in her class, and became the highest-ranking minority woman cadet in the history of West Point. When she served in Iraq as part of the Medical Service Corps, she was a strong force in her group, leading and driving convoys and platoons. In 2006, she was killed instantly by a makeshift bomb under her vehicle, making her the first Black female military officer to die in combat and the first female West Point graduate to die in Iraq. Today, she is buried at West Point Cemetery and continues to be remembered for her legacy in the U.S. military. Princess Orelia Benskina Photo: Panamanian Suite Princess Orelia Benskina was a Panamanian American performer of Latin jazz and author. Born Margarita Orelia Benskina in 1911, she was the child of Barbadian parents who immigrated to the Colon region of the U.S. Panama Canal Zone. When she was three years old, she and her family immigrated again, this time to New York City. There, she began dancing in nightclubs throughout Harlem and performed on Broadway as a backup dancer and ensemble cast member. By the late 1930s, she became known for her Afro-Cuban-inspired dances and performances alongside her dance partner Pedro. They toured throughout the U.S., performing at places like Carnegie Chamber Music Hall. She quickly rose to fame and continued to create art: producing albums, composing songs, and even publishing books of original poetry. Before her death in 2002, she received the American Heritage Award as a way to commemorate her invaluable contributes to American jazz, vaudeville, and entertainment. Antonia Pantoja Antonia Pantoja was a Puerto Rican social worker, educator, feminist, and civil rights leader who worked to improve the level of high school dropout rates in her community. Born in San Juan in 1922, she went to the University of Puerto Rico to become a teacher and later immigrated to the mainland in New York City, where she received a bachelor’s in sociology, a master’s from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from Union Graduate School in Ohio. In 1961, she founded ASPIRA, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Puerto Rican and Latinx youth in New York through education advocacy. Today the organization is one of the largest Latinx-led nonprofits and has supported about 50,000 Latinx students with career help, college counseling, and financial aid. However, she went further. In 1970, she founded her own college, Boricua College, which today has three campuses across the city, as well as the Puerto Rican Research and Resources Center in Washington, D.C and the Graduate School for Community Development. Throughout her life, she was an unstoppable force who never stopped trying to improve the quality of education and life for Latinxs across the U.S. For her work, she received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the first Puerto Rican woman to receive the honor. Victoria Santa Cruz Victoria Santa Cruz was an Afro-Peruvian choreographer, composer, dancer, and activist. Born in Lima in 1922, she was part of a hugely artistic Black family of artists and musicians. From an early age, her parents taught her about Afro-Peruvian dance, poetry, and music. She performed in musicals and even created her own original productions, infusing her Afro-Peruvian culture, traditions, and music into all of her work. She went on to found her own theater company Cumanana in 1958, an Afro-Peruvian performance and dance group known as Teatro y Danzas del Perú, and a magazine called Folklore to document and research the role of folklore in national culture. As she grew, so did her fame, dancing live on Peruvian TV, traveling around the world, and performing at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Under the Peruvian military, she soon earned the positions of Director of the Escuela Nacional de Folklore in 1969 and director of the Conjunto Nacional de Folklore in 1973. Later, she became a distinguished professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Today, she is still considered a groundbreaking pioneer in the revival of Afro-Peruvian dance, song, and ancestral traditions. Julia de Burgos An Institutos de Literatura and Cultura Puertorriqueña poetry prize winner, Julia de Burgos centered her work on social justice and feminism, and is considered to be the foremother of the Nuyorican movement. Born in 1914 to a German father and Afro-Puerto Rican mother, she graduated with a teaching degree from the University of Puerto Rico when she was only 19 years old. Soon after, she was able to secure a job at Reijoo Elementary School in Cedro Arriba, Naranjito and also wrote for a children’s radio program sponsored by Puerto Rico’s Department of Public Instruction. From there, de Burgos rose to prominence in the political landscape as the general secretary of Frente Unido Femenino, or the Daughters of Freedom, which was the female-led branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party. She wrote speeches and letters in support of Afro-Puerto Rican activists who’d been imprisoned, as well as collections of original poetry, one of which earned her a prestigious literary prize. One of her most famous works includes “Rio Grande de Loiza” where she addressed the pain and violence suffered by Puerto Rican natives and African slaves on the island. To this day, she is considered one of the greatest poets from the island. Maria Firmina Dos Reis Maria Firmina dos Reis was a Brazilian author and Brazil’s first Black female novelist. Born in 1822, she she was the descendant of African slaves and used her work to bring visibility to the consequences and aftermath of slavery still being felt in contemporary times. For many years, she worked as a teacher, using a shack on a plantation as her classroom that she drove to each morning in a cart. Her students were a mix of poor and wealthy students, which was a groundbreaking initiative for the time prior to the movement for educational equality. She’s known for her novel Ursula, which is now considered the first Brazilian abolitionist novel for its depiction of the brutal realities of slavery. Emma Tenayuca Photo: National Park Service Emma Beatrice Tenayuca was a Mexican American labor leader, union organizer , civil rights activist, and educator. The daughter of a family of 11, she lived in Texas where her lineage could be traced back before the Mexican Revolution and the Mexico-United States War. When the Depression hit and her family and others began to suffer, she was motivated to help low-class workers who were just trying to survive. She saw migrant Mexican laborers being deported and excluded from jobs and housing provided by the New Deal. When she was 16-years-old, she was arrested for the first time for joining a picket line at a cigar company’s property. Later, she joined the Communist Party, organized Mexican workers through strikes and protests, ran for office as a party representative for the CP, and almost won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives under the Communist Party ticket. Finally, during World War II, she organized protests and rallies against the treatment of migrants at the U.S.— Mexico border at the hands of Border Patrol. Later in life, she went on to become a teacher, earning a Master’s degree in education and teaching at the Harlandale School District for at least four decades. She is still remembered for speaking up against different injustices against Mexican migrants and laborers. Luisa Moreno Luisa Moreno was a Guatemalan social activist and labor movement participant. Born into a wealthy family in 1907, she immigrated to the U.S. but struggled due to the circumstances of the Great Depression. When she became pregnant, her family struggled and her husband eventually abandoned her after the baby’s birth. Though she was able to work in a garment factory, working conditions were unregulated and very hard on her. Her co-workers, many of whom were from Puerto Rico, motivated her to join the socialist movement and soon she began organizing with the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union and the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, which she single-handedly convinced 75 percent of California Cannery female workers to join. Besides leading strikes and writing pamphlets, she also went on to found California Congress of International Organizations (CIO) to further her labor activism and protection of immigrant communities, particularly immigrant women, who faced racism in the workplace. For many years, her contributions to the labor movement were ignored and overlooked. She is now memorialized in many works and pieces of media, including in the 2754-foot-long mural by Judith Baca known as the Great Wall of Los Angeles. In this Article Featured History latina latinas in history Politics Women’s History Month More on this topic Culture Latinas & the Emotional Labor of Being the First to Heal March 19, 2025 – 10:06 Culture 16 Latinx Children’s Books Coming in 2025 March 14, 2025 – 17:00 Culture 17 Books About Latina History You Need to Read March 11, 2025 – 11:00 Culture How Getting a Queer-Inspired Tattoo in Puerto Rico Helped Me Heal March 05, 2025 – 09:00
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