My Grandma Marched With MLK. Their Legacies Live On In Our Labor Activism
By Jesica Cohn
Christina Rivera was born in 1913, and left Utuado, Puerto Rico, in 1928. She was a young teenager when she arrived in New Jersey, and started to work as a seamstress getting paid pennies.
Christina is my grandmother. We all called her Lita, short for "abuelita." Growing up, she told me stories about the Great Depression, about how single women went on dates just to eat a filling meal. She never wanted to use that underhanded tactic. Instead, she helped immigrants, among them Polish, German, Puerto Ricans, and Mexicans, get Social Security Cards. My mother later on told me that what she was doing was illegal, but in my eyes, if it weren't for her, a lot of women would have died of starvation without being able to work.
My Lita told me stories of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) going on trips out of state in solidarity marches with Martin Luther King for equal rights. She went to Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York for weeklong demonstrations organized by Dr. King. Traveling and meeting people with her same passion made her stronger. She fought police, often coming back bruised and cut.
I am an apprentice with LIUNA Local 79, but I have been an activist since 1987. I share a lot of my values with my union. It's easy for me to fight the good fight because of the role my grandmother played in the Civil Rights Movement with Dr. King. She was proud of the way he united the nation. She taught me most people want the same things. All we have to do is empower one another. That solidarity was the only way.
Dr. King inspired my grandmother to stand up, to speak up, and to fight back. If she were here in 2021 I'm sure she'll be calling for Solidarity amongst the unions, and to show the true power of the people. To quote Dr. King: "Why are there forty million poor people in America?’ And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy."
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Jesica Cohn is an apprentice with LIUNA Local 79. She is a political captian with The Bronx Brigade and an active member of Building Trades for Workers Democracy
