The President of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union’s Local 11 and the first Latina woman to lead a major union in Southern California portrays her work as National Director of the Immigrant Workers’ Freedom Ride. Immigrant workers want nothing less than our immigrant forebears: safe working conditions, basic human rights, and a chance at a better life.

This speech was given at the 2006 Bioneers National Conference and is part of the Re-Imagining Labor in a Green Economy Vol. 1 Collection.