Portal:Hispanic and Latino Americans/Selected Individual/37

Luisa Moreno (August 30, 1907 – November 4, 1992) was a leader in the United States labor movement and a social activist. She unionized workers, led strikes, wrote pamphlets in English and Spanish, and convened the 1939 Congreso de Pueblos de Habla Española, the "first national Latino civil rights assembly", before returning to Guatemala in 1950.

Moreno was born Blanca Rosa López Rodríguez to a wealthy family in Guatemala City, Guatemala. While still a teenager, she organized La Sociedad Gabriela Mistral, which successfully lobbied for the admission of women to Guatemalan universities. Rejecting her elite status, she went to Mexico City in her teens to pursue a career in journalism. While there, she also wrote poetry. She married Angel De León, an artist, in 1927, and together they moved to New York City the following year. (more...)