“The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized, and took direct action. It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today. The civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women’s movement, and the equality movement for our LGBT brothers and sisters are all manifestations of these rights.”
Join Hull-House and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) for a celebration of women who stood up for democracy and took action. Watch a screening of Dolores (2017), a documentary about United Farm Workers co-founder, Dolores Huerta. After the film, take part in a discussion with Jelena Radovic Fanta, a 2018 AAUW Fellow and scholar focusing on the resilience of female seasonal agricultural workers in Chile, and Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta Carrasco, Heritage Garden Educator at the Rafael Cintrón Ortiz Latino Cultural Center, UIC. The discussion will be moderated by Elena Rebeca Gutiérrez, Associate Professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies, UIC.
About Jane Addams Day: In 1931, Jane Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2007, AAUW helped advocate for the state of Illinois to recognize a holiday in memory of one of their founding members. Jane Addams Day, on December 10, is a celebration of Addams’ lifelong commitment to peace and justice.
About the discussion:
Jelena Radovic Fanta is an Assistant Professor in the Anthropology & Sociology Program and affiliate faculty in the Gender & Sexuality Studies Program at Governors State University (GSU). She received her doctorate in Anthropology at University of California, Riverside. Dr. Radovic Fanta conducts research with seasonal female grape pickers (temporeras) in the Chilean agribusiness, specifically investigating how they confront uncertainty in a seasonal labor calendar.
With the AAUW American Publication Grant, Dr. Radovic Fanta spent eight weeks of summer 2018 in Santiago de Chile at the National Archives and National Public Library. Her current work analyzes the everyday lives of temporeras in Chile's centrally located Aconcagua Valley. While the effects of seasonal labor are clear to the women--poor health, hazardous working conditions, and disrupted family relations--temporeras refuse to see themselves as victims. The manuscript proposes that while navigating a fragmented labor calendar, women workers build endurance through everyday relationships and by materially investing in their homes.
Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta Carrasco was born in Mexico D.F. and grew up in Little Village, Chicago. Ireri’s family, like many others, comes from a history of migration from rural to urban, Mexico to the US, trying to push away from agricultural and manual labor because of the exploitative conditions in this work. In 2006, Ireri got involved with community groups working with young people to establish spaces of sharing knowledge and community organizing. It was Ireri’s experience growing up undocumented that led to their current work volunteering with Organized Communities Against Deportations, participating in the Black and Latinx Farmers Immersion Program from Soul Fire Farm, co-founder and co-worker/owner of Catatumbo Cooperative Farm, and collaborator and supporter of Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights.
Elena Rebeca Gutiérrez (moderator) is an Associate Professor in Gender and Women's Studies and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Dr. Gutiérrez earned her PhD in Sociology from the University of Michigan in 1999 and is a scholar of Latina/o reproductive and sexual health politics, feminism and social activism and Chicana/o Studies. She has recently received funding from the Migration and Health Research Program (PIMSA) for a collaborative, bi-national project to research the role of social networks in the reproductive health care that Mexican immigrant women in Chicago. She is also the principal investigator of the Sterilization Policy Project, which assess the current status of female sterilization informed consent protocols across the nation.
