Top Five Latinas in Orange County History!
On June 15, 1936, at the break of dawn, about 200 Mexican women gathered in Anaheim to preach the gospel of huelga--strike. Four days earlier, about 2,500 Mexican naranjeros representing more than half of Orange County's crucial citrus-picking force dropped their clippers, bags and ladders to demand higher wages, better working conditions and the right to unionize.
spread across the groves of Anaheim, the heart of citrus country,
urging workers to let the fruit hang. Twenty Anaheim police officers
confronted the women; they refused to disperse. At some point there was
an altercation, and 29-year-old Placentia resident Virginia Torres bit
the arm of Anaheim police officer Roger Sherman. Police arrested
Torres, along with 30-year-old Epifania Marquez, who tried to yank a
strikebreaker--a scab--from a truck by grabbing onto his suspenders.
4. Felicitas Mendez: If you do not know who she is (pictured with husband Gonzalo), then leave America, you commie pinko scum. Or, get a job with the Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade.
5. Josefina "Chepa" Andrade: La Reina de La Logan showed a generation of activists how to combat gentrification with moves still copied decades after the Logan barrio first came on the radar of SanTana bureaucrats. Chepa's Park is named after her.