15 Facts About Luisa Moreno

Luisa Moreno was a Guatemalan social activist and participant in the United States labor movement.

Luisa Moreno married Angel De Leon, an artist, in 1927 and together they moved to New York City the following year.

The Great Depression struck in 1929, and in order to support her daughter and unemployed husband, Luisa Moreno worked as a seamstress in Spanish Harlem.

Luisa Moreno organized her co-workers, most of whom were Latinas, into a garment workers union.

In 1935, Luisa Moreno was hired by the American Federation of Labor as a professional organizer.

Luisa Moreno left her husband, who had become physically abusive, and settled with her daughter in Florida, where she unionized African-American and Latina cigar-rollers with the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Luisa Moreno became a representative of the United Cannery, Agricultural, Packing, and Allied Workers of America, becoming the editor of its Spanish-language newspaper in 1940.

Luisa Moreno's leadership was of the type that empowered other workers, especially women, and she strongly encouraged women to take leadership roles in union organizations.

Luisa Moreno took a year off from UCAPAWA to travel throughout the US, visiting Latino workers on the East Coast, in the Southwest, and allying refugees of the Spanish Civil War to her cause.

Luisa Moreno organized San Diego-area cannery workers and persuaded employers not to hire scab workers.

In 1942, Luisa Moreno became involved in the Sleepy Lagoon murder trial, a cause celebre for the American left and Mexican-American civil rights activists.

Luisa Moreno invited Admiral David W Bagley, commandant of the Eleventh Naval District in San Diego, to a meeting of San Diego-area community and labor leaders.

Luisa Moreno later returned to Guatemala, where she was interviewed by several historians before she died.

The wall, a visual representation of the history of Los Angeles, pays tribute to Luisa Moreno by including an image of her face surrounded by images of strikers.

Luisa Moreno's story has been featured in the National Museum of American History's "American Enterprise" installation.