National Museum of American History Looks at Latino Labor Rights
Style Magazine Newswire | 7/20/2018, 1:20 p.m.
source: prnewswire.com
A new display, "The Case of Luisa Moreno," in the American Enterprise exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, opens July 19 to examine the lasting legacy of Moreno, the Guatemala-born labor organizer who brought together more than 100 groups in 1938 for El Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española, the Spanish-Speaking People's Congress. It is considered the first national Hispanic civil rights assembly. The organization advocated for fair treatment of Latino laborers in the United States for both new immigrants and U.S. citizens. The display will feature objects representing Moreno's work as a civil rights activist and labor organizer with union pins from groups that she worked with around the 1930s, including the Affiliated Congress of Industrial Organizations, the International Ladies Garment Worker Union Convention Badge, the Cannery Workers, American Federation of Labor, the Cannery Workers and Farm Laborers Union, the United Labor May Day 50th Anniversary and the American Federation of Labor. Also on view will be her shawl and a pamphlet to rally national attention and halt Moreno's deportation.
