Photo by Sarah Vinci | Mily Treviño-Sauceda and Elvira Carvajal speak to the audience of issues women face in the agriculture industry.
On Tuesday, Nov. 27, Mily Treviño-Sauceda and Elvira Carvajal presented a lecture titled “The Power of the Collective Transforms: Women Migrants Raise Their Voices and Take Action” where they spoke about struggles that farmworker women face while working in the field for the 2018 Honors Colloquium.
This year’s colloquium, titled, “Reimagining Gender: Voices, Power, Action” began in September and is scheduled to finish on Dec. 4 with an all-female panel discussing “Gender in Politics” and will feature Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo.
Treviño-Sauceda is the Vice President and Executive Director of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, Inc. She works with Líderes Campesinas, where she is member recruiter and orientation coordinator. She is a consultant and has been doing freelance since 2009.
Treviño-Sauceda was born into a migrant farmworker family and began working in the fields at a young age. As a young adult, she got involved in community workplace groups as well as union organizations as a member and organizer.
In 1992, she co-founded Líderes Campesinas, a grassroots organization that became a statewide movement of Campesina leaders advocating on behalf of Campesinas. She stepped down from her director position in 2009.
Later in 2011, she co-founded Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, a national farmworker women’s alliance representing 18 farmworker organizations and groups. The alliance represents many issues facing Latinas and farmworker women, including issues with health, gender, violence and labor rights.
Sexual harassment was noted as one of the more pressing issues facing farmworker women.
“Ninety percent of the farmworker women in CA said that sexual harassment was a major workplace problem,” Treviño-Sauceda said. Through their data collection and research, she concluded that nine out of 10 women have been sexually harassed during their work in the fields.
Treviño-Sauceda even referred to her own experience with sexual harassment while working in the fields, saying that she was sexually harassed, and it took her a long time to come to terms with it and talk about it.
However, she is the first to acknowledge that not all women working in the fields have the same experience she did, specifically saying that some women get raped.
“I was very lucky I was not raped, but thousands of women we have helped have been raped, not once, five years, six years, in the workplace,” Treviño-Sauceda said.
Farmworker women are often scared to come out and tell their stories since many of them are undocumented, and are threatened that immigration will get called on them, or something might happen to their families.
The women also go to extreme measures on the fields to protect themselves, including using bandanas to shield their gender to stay safe from sexual violence.
The alliance has more initiatives and projects than sexual harassment. A few of those other initiatives were introduced by Elvira Carvajal, President of Alianza Nacional de Campesinas.
“Some members of the organization are gathering locally to provide food to families of hurricanes and other issues, for example in Florida,” Carvajal said.
“We stand in solidarity with farmworker women so they will no longer suffer,” both Treviño-Sauceda and Carvajal said.
Treviño-Sauceda hopes to educate those in the public eye, not lobby or persuade people to believe the way she does. She wants them to understand the importance of the work farmworker women do, and the way they are treated.