Essay: Victoria Marquez

Throughout history, you may have heard of women such as Dolores Huerta and Helen Chavez. However, there are many other women who have contributed to the many different changes and successes of various labor movements across the nation. Just like any other movement, it takes more than one person to create change which cannot be done alone. Victoria Marquez is one of those women whose life story has been uncovered, but not to its fullest extent, in regards to her impact upon the labor movement. She was involved in unions such as SEIU-USWW which is home to more than 40,000 service workers across California.1 By analysing the effects that power, gender, and family may have on a women throughout the labor movement it takes us one step closer to piecing together parts of history that have not been fully documented.
Victoria Marquez was born on March 31st, 1960 in a small town named, San Miguel located in eastern El Salvador.2 She came from a family of hardworking farmworkers who taught her the value of family and education at a very young age. Living in El Salvador exposed her to activism around the age of 12 when she was working at a tortilla stand with her mother, a group of other young girls came to purchase some and began to speak about the student march that was about to occur. The student movement, also known as “El Movimiento Estudiantil”, was a dangerous environment especially for a young girl like Marquez at the time due to its violent atmosphere. However, she was not one to let go of her curiosity very easily as she even thought, “what was going through my mind, did I not think I was going to die one day?”3 while taking part in marches for the movement. For Marquez, “to see that screen, to feel that the people were being massacred, that gave me the push to go there”, it inspired her to want to create change and to become involved within a movement that involved the future of her nation for a good cause. This very passion is what many other influential women like Marquez have used to propel the labor movement forward. Where she comes from and the life experiences which she has had to endure both in El Salvador and here in the United States of America are what have allowed for her activism to continue and thrive.
Women throughout history have time and time again been suppressed by men, the government or even their own family. Victoria Marquez embodies what it means to go against the norms within the Latinx culture as she chose to become an activist even when her own family did not approve. In doing so, this went against her family wishes, which at the time, was not traditional for many Salvadoran families. It was looked down upon due to the fact that women were always expected to follow what the “man of the house” wanted, nothing less and nothing more. Years later, she got married and her own “husband used to say, “Don’t go, don’t go.”4. However, she refused to listen to him like she refused to listen to her family and would “leave the kid with my mom, I would look for someone to take care of it. And then, I would go to the marches.”5 In taking the initiative to want to be a part of something that was looked down upon for a woman to do, brings to light the real gender inequalities which women have had to endure. It is necessary to begin to uncover the real stories of what women had to go through as, “women are included in the union renewal literature but gender inequality is not considered at a conceptual level. Instead, women are generally regarded as a category of workers to be organized and the degree to which new strategies to organize women challenge or support gender inequalities is insufficiently examined”6. Being able to deepen our understanding of the effects of gender inequality within the labor movement would allow us to give a voice to many women who did not have one before.
Marquez, lived during the time of FMLN in El Salvador which was known for its violent acts made against innocent civilians and especially made against those who spoke up against the government. For Marquez, fear of going up against power was not an issue while being here in America as before, she would fear for her life. Now, she would be going up against the possibility of being arrested instead of death. Upon her arrival to the United States, Victoria was not expecting to replicate the same lifestyle of activism as she had in El Salvador, however, once she began working as a janitor that changed 7. The very same year she arrived, she became involved with the USWW, “that’s where I started the struggle in the union, growing and watching. After they showed me where the offices were, I went every time they told me: there’s going to be a march, there’s going to be training for a policy committee, an organizing committee, a leadership committee. I went to everything”8. As a women of color who came to America in hopes of giving her family a better life in El Salvador, Marquez shows the amount of hardwork and obdurate dedication which many immigrant women do not get acknowledged for. Especially within male-dominated spaces such as the Unions and the workplace.
2019-2-10-1549765557