Silvia Berrones-Treviņo
Lideres Campesinas
Pomona, CA
I am part of the Organization in California of Peasant Leaders. The mission of our Organization is to make sure that the human rights of the peasant women are respected, The beginnings of our Organization were in the Valley of Coachella in the State of California and initially it was called Mexican Women, (Mujeres Mexicanas), we were involved in political campaigns at the local level, and we were able to take the City Council people that really were willing to work to better the situation of the community, Latin in its majority.
Looking at the pressing necessity for strong change for the women, but above all, the peasant women, who were twice discriminated upon, for being women and for being peasants, was when we thought about creating groups in different parts around the state of California, we worked a lot to succeed, but I proudly can say now that thanks to all those compañeras (fellow women), but above all, to our Female Leader (Lidereza) Mily Treviño-Sauceda, founder of Mujeres Mexicanas (Mexican Women) and what is now Líderes Campesinas (Female Peasants) we were able to create 12 committees of brave, intelligent and hard working women around the state, all are peasant female leaders. At the same time we created Adolescent Groups, daughters of members of Líderes Campesinas that as their mothers, sisters, or aunts have that unbreakable spirit for the struggle.
Through educational meetings, trainings, coexistence, educational and health forums, is that we have succeeded in developing the peasant women skills as the leaders they are now. They are trained in different topics, like Domestic Violence, Health Issues like Breast cancer, Cervical Cancer, HIV/AIDS, Diabetes, etc. Also in what’s related to labor issues like Working Conditions, Health and Safety in the Work Place, Salaries and Hours of Work, and Sexual Harassment among others.
For the young women, resides what I already just mentioned they receive training in Self-Worth, Violence in the Courtship, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Early Pregnancies, etc.
Our organization has been successful and has kept working because we believe that peasant women are valuable and intelligent.
The same as my fellow women, my children hve been very envolved in everything related to defending their rights and tose of others, because that’s what we have taught them since they were little and grew up between meetings of Mujeres Mexicanas (Mexican Women), meetings of the Peasant Union, because my husband, the same as myself, was parto of that great movement founded by César Chávez, I myself worked 9 years as organizer of the Peasants Union struggling to improve at every step the quality of life and the respect for the peasants and like César Chávez, my husband, my children and me believe and practice non-violence.
But, there is something I want to share with all of you, something very painful for me and my family.
First I will say that I am a very proud mother of my 4 children, the oldest one of my daughters, Carla Isabel graduated as an Anthropologist from the University of Irving (UCI), and Works in the present time for the same university, Silvia, the third one of my daughters, will graduate in one year as chef, Yardena the samellest of my daughters studies International Politics also in the University of Irving (UCI), and the university gave her a full scholarship for 2 years, right now she took a short recess because she is going to have her baby by the end of August and my grand daughter, because it’s a girl, will be named Mia Elizabeth. But I have left for the end to speak about my second son Jesús Angel González, “Hugo”, that’s how we affectionally call him because he likes it. My son is no different from my daughters, he’s as intelligent as they are, a toung man that although he’s young he has been honest, living all of him without waiting for anything in return and committing in helping his community and his “RAZA”, as he says. A young man who graduated among the twenty best students in his class in Indio High School in Indio, California.
A young man that with all the hopes of the world went to study at Riverside University and out of the suden, I don’t know how or why, I don’t know who convince him, called me one day to tell me (noto t ask me what I thought) that he had enlisted in the Marines and that he World only finish the trimester to go to Boot Camp.
At that moment I thought that the world was coming on me, I couldn’t understand what was going on or why he made that decision and up to this day I still don’t.
I cried a lot and asked him by all means to back up, I asked him not to do it and in my desperation I told him that if what he liked was the military uniform I would buy one for him, he only laughed and told me that it wasn’t because of that.
I couldn’t do anything and later on he graduated from Boot Camp, alter that he was sent to Egypt, but he returned, and told how things were over there, but shortly alter that starts a Stupid War, senseless, a war that far from trying to liberate a country hides its personal interests of rich families and families with businesses related to oil, which has nothing to do with us, much less with my family, and again my son is sent, but now as meat for the canons, his company was of the first ones to invade Iraq, the most ironic thing about it is that my family and my own son are totally against the war since the Persian Gulf War invented by Bush senior.
My son, with only 22 years of age, and infinite dreams to accomplish and couldn’t do it because my son was killed in Baghdad, Iraq, they told me that an Iraqi bullet went through his heart, but I say that my son wasn’t killed by an Iraqi, my son was killed by George Bush and his greed for oil and power.
My son left my daughter in law Ionne widow and my grand daughter Lily, who’s now 5 years old, and was rubbed from growing up and enjoy her father, my daughters were left without their only brother, and to me they took my lovely Hugo, my son from my soul.
Now I say that my three daughters, my daughter in law, and my grand daughter are my five stars.
Please, I invite you not to let other families to keep on crying the lost of their loved ones, no more widows, no more orphan, no more mothers in depression, no more wars, no more wars!
To finalize I want to read something that I wrote in a moment of a lot of depression and that I needed to give myself strength, I wrote this thinking of my son.
BECAUSE ADVERSITY HASN’T STOPPED ME, BECAUSE, BECAUSE THE PAIN HAS MADE ME STRONGER, BECAUSE THE SHINING OF FIVE STARS HAS MADE ME UNDERSTAND THAT YOU’RE ALIVE.
Until Victory for Ever! Cpl. JESUS ANGEL GONZALEZ