Emma Tenayuca: Latino Civil Rights in San Antonio's Historic Barrio Laredito

With her passionate speeches at protests during the 1930s, Emma Tenayuca initiated a shift in labor relations between pecan shelling companies and their workers. She spoke for the rights of San Antonio's Hispanic labor class just a few blocks from the historic home of José Antonio Navarro, a notable statesman who advocated for the rights of Tejanos almost a century earlier. What links the stories of these two Tejano civil rights leaders and provides the background to Tenayuca's legacy is El Barrio Laredito, a historic neighborhood on the west side of San Pedro Creek. Discover what remains of the nearly 300-year-old Barrio today in Downtown San Antonio and experience the enduring culture from which voices like Tenayuca's arose.

Pictured: Emma Tenayuca on the steps of San Antonio City Hall during a public demonstration.

Credit: The Light Collection/UTSA Libraries.

Who was Emma Tenayuca?

Born to Mexican American parents in 1916, Emma Tenayuca came of age in the West Side Barrio (neighborhood) of San Antonio during the Great Depression. At this time, Latinos were excluded from housing programs and New Deal aid, targeted for deportation, and often paid exploitative wages while working in poor conditions. Witnessing the struggles faced by her family and other working-class Mexican American locals inspired Tenayuca to become involved in local politics and activism. By the time Tenayuca was sixteen years old, she was participating in protests for fairer wages and visiting the local park in Laredito to hear soapbox speakers advocate for economic and social change.

Pictured: Emma Tenayuca and her then husband, Homer Brooks, in 1937.

Credit: San Antonio Light Photograph Collection, [L-1662-A], UTSA Special Collections.

"The future is yours; it is up to you to become acquainted with the issues and to fight."

-Emma Tenayuca

1938 Pecan Shellers Strike

Emma Tenayuca’s most notable role was as the organizer and Committee Chair of the 1938 San Antonio Pecan Shellers’ Strike. The majority of shellers were Hispanic women who worked for starvation wages in environments that posed health risks. In well-articulated and passionate speeches, Tenayuca demanded better pay and working conditions for the shellers.

During the two-month strike, in which shellers refused to work, Tenayuca and other demonstrators faced violence from police and company personnel and were frequently arrested. The strikers eventually secured fairer wages, but despite their successes, they were later replaced by shelling machines. The strike’s greater impact was increased political attention to unfair labor practices experienced by Latinos in San Antonio.

Pecan shellers at work. Union plant. San Antonio, Texas, 1939.

Credit: Library of Congress

One hundred years earlier...

Just down the street from where Emma Tenayuca developed her passion for civil rights activism is the Casa Navarro State Historic Site, once the Laredito home of José Antonio Navarro. A prominent Tejano politician and businessman, Navarro helped forge the path of Texas’s independence from Mexico and subsequent statehood. In 1836, Navarro was one of three Hispanic signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. In 1845, he voted in favor of Texas’s annexation to the United States and helped create legislation in the first Texas Constitution that supported Tejano land, citizenship, and voting rights.

El Barrio Laredito

Milam Park, where Emma Tenayuca became inspired, and the historic home of José Antonio Navarro are both located in what was once El Barrio Laredito. This historic neighborhood, situated just west of San Pedro Creek in Downtown San Antonio, was home to generations of Hispanic families from the mid-18th century to the 1960s. Although much of its physical structure has been lost to urban renewal projects and gentrification since then, a few remaining landmarks still preserve the area's culture and the stories of San Antonio's Latino civil rights leaders, including Tenayuca.