In addition to being an unapologetic bisexual Latina teen at the frontlines of the student movement for gun control reform, Emma González is also apparently stellar at handling unwelcome praise from controversial figures.
On Saturday, everyone’s fave-turned-I-Can-Only-Tolerate-Pre-2010 rapper, Kanye West, continued his series of contentious tweets.
After posting a photo of a bright red MAGA hat, which was signed by President Donald Trump, on Twitter last week, and receiving thousands of tweet flack from former fans and gaining a new base in white supremacists, West over the weekend called the Parkland shooting survivor his “hero.”
As could be expected, the rapper-producer-fashion designer’s newfound conservative following was upset that he saw a champion in the NRA’s biggest opponent. What wasn’t anticipated was González’s response to the megastar’s tweet.
“My hero, James Shaw Jr.,” the young cubana tweeted, mimicking West’s language to send her praises to the African-American man who disarmed the gunman at a shooting at a Waffle House in Nashville last week, a hero who the president has yet to acknowledge.
González may not be jumping for joy to be West’s hero of the moment, but her brilliant response, along with her everyday actions for justice, shows why she’s our heroine.
American labor leader and civil rights activist César Chávezhas become a major historical icon for the Latino community. Streets, parks, and schools have been named after him, a film about his life garnered international acclaim and every year on March 31, millions across the country celebrate César Chávez Day.
While Chávez did so much to secure right for our community, it’s important to remember hat Latina activists also had a huge hand in changing the course of our history.
Here’s a look at seven of some of history’s most powerful Latina activists who led marches and fought for your civil rights.
Sylvia Mendez
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When it comes to the desegregation of schools in the country, American history often credits the case of Brown v. Board of Education for the changes. Barbara Rose Johns is also the one who is most typically considered to be the face of that movement after she led a 450-student walkout at a high school in Virginia in 1951. But history has largely written out the work of Sylvia Mendez an American civil rights activists of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent who played a key role in the integration movement back in 1946. Mendez v. Westminster was a case sparked by Mendez’s rejection from an all-white school in California back in 1943 when she was just eight years old. Mendez’s parents sued the school district and the landmark case which was ultimately settled in 1947 successfully desegregated public schools in California making it the first U.S. state to do so.
Dolores Huerta
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As a fierce civil rights activist and labor leader, Dolores Huerta became a tireless advocate of the United Farm Workers union. The American-born Latina of Mexican descent originally started out her career as an elementary school teacher. After seeing kids in her class come to school hungry and in need of new shoes, she decided she would help organize their parents. She started to fight for economic improvements for Latino farm workers and pressed local government organizations to improve barrio conditions. In 1962, she co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (now known as the United Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee) with César Chávez. Her non-violent strikes and protests led to her 22 arrests. In 1997 she was named one of the three most important women of the year in by Ms. magazine.
Carmen Perez
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In 2017, Perez helped lead the country in its largest protest in U.S. history as a co-chair of the Women’s March on Washington. In her 20 year career as an activist, Perez has dedicated her advocacy to some of today’s most important civil rights issues including violence against women, mass incarceration, gender inequality and community policing. Before the Women’s March she helped launch a 9-day 250-mile march from New York City to Washington, DC called March2Justice which implored congressional lawmakers to turn their attention to the nation’s police justice crisis.
Berta Cáceres
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Best known for leading a campaign that opposed a dam on the Gualcarque River, Cáceres was an award-winning Indigenous environmental activist. In 2015, the Honduran environmentalist received the Goldman Environmental Prize for helming the grassroots effort that pushed the world’s largest dam builder to stop the construction of the Agua Zarca Dam at the Río Gualcarque. Because of her efforts the river that was saved and considered to be sacred by the Lenca people, was still able to provide the nearby tribe access to water, food, and medicine. On March 3, 2016, Berta Cáceres was assassinated for her activism when two assailants broke into her home and shot her. Her murder sparked international outrage and brought attention to the fact that Honduras is the most dangerous country in the world for activists who fight to protect forests and rivers.
The Mirabal Sisters
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Patria, Dedé, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal were four sisters from the Dominican Republic who ferociously opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and became known as Las Mariposas. In 1959, after witnessing a = massacre executed by the Trujillo regime the sisters were sparked into activism and rallied communities into public protests that renounced Trujillo’s rule. Three of the sisters, Minerva, María Teresa, and Patria, were murdered for their advocacy when they were beaten to death by associates of the government. Following the death of Las Mariposas, Dominicans across the island decided they had had enough. Six months later, Trujillo’s dictatorship was brought down when he was assassinated.
Sylvia Rivera
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Well before activists like Harvey Milk and figures like Caitlyn Jenner made waves, there was Sylvia Rivera. The Latina born and raised in New York City had Puerto Rican and Venezuelan roots and a tragic story when she first began to carve out a place for trans people in the American gay liberation movement. Rivera was a self-identified drag queen and transwoman who participated in the Stonewall riots of 1969 and soon after founded Street Transgender Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson. In 1970 she led trans activists in the country’s first Gay Pride march, then known as Christopher Street Liberation Day March and in the years after she delivered fervent speeches that called for the support of LGBTQ people of color and who were homeless.
You know that moment when your father, brother, boyfriend or any cis man in your life gets a cold and is incapable of walking to grab some tissue, dissolving the Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of water or rubbing some Vicks on their body? Turns out, it’s universal. As much as guys boast about being the stronger gender, life proves repeatedly that they could barely handle even the slightest amounts of pain. The latest example: An athlete tweeted that skinned knees hurt more than menstrual pain, and ladies of the Internet are expectedly, and rightfully, coming for him.
“Until women experience this, I don’t wanna hear about period pains,” wrote @_sargee on Friday.
It’s difficult to fathom how so much ignorance made its way to one grown-up’s mind.
There are the obvious questions: Has he ever encountered a woman? Does he know that we, too, have knees? Is he aware that women play sports, take adventures or just live life with their knees and have thus also experienced skinned knees? Has it ever occurred to him that some women skin their knees while they are on their period?
In his defense, maybe he hasn’t actually seen a woman’s leg in real life. In fact, his Twitter is filled with sexist tweets of him objectifying women, so chances are he hasn’t been given much play and hasn’t experienced the wonders of a female knee for himself.
Even still, it’s bizarre to compare a skinned knee, a common toddler boo-boo, to the stabbing pangs of menstruation, to endometriosis pain, to ovarian cysts, to uterine fibroids, to pelvic inflammatory disease to carrying a fetus to term, to shooting a watermelon-sized human out of your vagina. In fact, a lot of times this isn’t just painful, it requires surgery. For some, it’s life-threatening. Not something that’s going to be healed with a standard Band-Aid.
Luckily, @_sarge isn’t as misinformed today as he was last week. Since making the mindless post, Twitter has given him a few lessons on anatomy and menstruation, and Latinxs have joined in on the Interweb education.
On that, cis fellas, don’t downplay menstruation pain — like ever again. If you want to talk about a suffering cis women have never experienced, mention that time your younger sibling kicked you in the balls.
