Latinx Women's History

When I think about liberation and the trails that women have sown into society, I think of Argelia Laya and Julia de Burgos.

Argelia Laya was an Afro-Venezuelan educator and activist. She championed work around women’s right to vote and organized against the stigma of a woman’s right to have children outside of marriage or to obtain an abortion. In fact, she was an advocate for the decriminalization of abortion and pregnancy labor protections for both teachers and students. In the 1960s, she was also a guerrilla fighter for the communist party of Venezuela, later breaking away to found the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party in which she actively advocated for anti-discrimination laws for deeply rooted folx, workers, and women.

Separately, Julia de Burgos is Puerto Rico’s most famous literary figure and poet. She’s known for her service as the secretary-general of the Daughters of Freedom-branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, her feminist civil rights advocacy for women and Afro-Caribbean writers, and being part of the Puerto Rican independence literary movement. She published 3 books that contained collections of her poems that cover works of liberation, empowerment, self-determination, and feminism, to name a few themes.

Both women were deeply involved in community aid and organizing under their respective feminist groups and lens. Their example is one many Latinx women aim to follow and honor, thankful for these trailblazing activists that called out white supremacy for its neglect against Afro-descendant women in the Caribbean, South Americas, and offered internationalist solidarity to deeply rooted folx across the globe.