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Streetshots
Editorial and commercial photography
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It is 6:30 on a searing hot summer evening in the Coachella Valley, an artificial agricultural oasis in the desert 150 miles south of Los Angeles. Teresa Velez has just returned from ten hours of picking grapes in the 100-degree heat. She has been up since before dawn. She is tired. But after preparing dinner for her family and washing dishes, Velez tells her husband she must go out. Sensing his disapproval, she doesn’t say where she is going. She drives to City Park in the center of Coachella valley where a protest against the Persian Gulf War is underway. Holding up a picket sign and shouting, “Queremos paz, Guerra no!” (“We want peace, not war.”) Velez joins a group of outspoken, angry women who belong to Mujeres Mexicanas, the first grassroots organization of campesinas (women farm workers) in California. Formed in 1988, after a group of campesinas helped graduate student Maria Elena Lopez-Trevino gather information for a survey of farm worker women, the survey uncovered a brutal labor system in which campesinas picked grapes under the burning desert sun from May through August, then went unemployed into the fall, and finally picked citrus and prunes vines in the freezing winter cold for between $4,00 and $6,000 a year. As a member of Mujeres Mexicanas, Velez and other Mexican women are learning how to participate in politics, make changes in their communities, and address the concerns of campesinas. In just four years, the Mujeres has grown to more than 100 members by building strong community support for numerous causes. Mujeres Mexicanas has launched dozens of health and education projects and support groups for women. They have organized political campaigns that have empowered campesinas and have shaken up the politics of the Coachella valley. “We’re taking control of our lives,” states Velez. “We’re tired of being taken for granted.We have the statistics. We know that the worst problem is domestic violence, followed by poor education, very bad working conditions, and sexual harassment”