Sara Estela Ramírez

Sara Estela Ramírez (1881 – August 21, 1910) was a Mexican teacher, journalist, labor organizer, activist, feminist, essayist, and poet, who lived in the U.S. state of Texas. She founded two daily literary periodicals, La Corregidora and Aurora. She has been considered a key member in the support of the Partido Liberal Mexicano, and an early precursor to the modern Chicana feminist movement.

Quotes

"Equality and Progress" (“Igualdad y Progreso”) (April 16, 1909)

Translated from Spanish. 24th anniversary celebration, Society of Workers (Sociedad de Obreros), Laredo TX

• Twenty-four years of noble struggle against so many morbid germs that would annihilate the collective effort, that terribly and vilely devote themselves to devouring mutualism

• twenty-four years of joining souls through the principle of humanity, through the sentiment of innate altruism in the heart, and altruism that permits us to fulfill our obligation to our beloved comrade

• That is mutualism, a noble mission of truth, sublime and holy mission mission of charity that nations ignore or have forgotten; nations, whose workers are dispersed, segregated, strangers to each other, and . . . how many times, sad to say, more than strangers, subject to ruinous enmities, that workers’ element divides instead of seeking [union], becomes offended instead of giving aid and, no, rejects with hatred its own [members] , rather than embracing [all workers] with love; [workers] reject each other without seeing that their blood and their anguish kneaded together become the bitter bread that they devour together; without seeing that their arms are what sustain the industry of nations, their richness and their greatness.

• Mutualism needs the vigor of struggle and the firmness of conviction to advance in its unionizing effort; it needs to shake away the apathy of the masses, and enchain with links of abnegation the passions that rip apart its innermost being; it needs hearts that say: I am for you, as I want you to be for me; mutualism has need of us workers, the humble, the small gladiators of the idea, it needs for us to salvage from our egotisms something immense, something divine, that can make us a society ,that can make us nobly human. And the worker should not think of his humbleness, nr of his insignificance, he should not reason that he is unimportant and so remove himself discouraged from the social concert. What does it matter that he is but an atom, what does it matter? The atoms invisible for their smallness are the only elements of the universe.

• The worker is the arm, the heart of the world.

• it is to him, untiring and tenacious struggler, that the future of humanity belongs. May you, beloved workers, integral part of human progress, yet celebrate, uncounted anniversaries, and with your example may you show societies how to love each other so that they may be mutualists and to unite so that they may be strong.

Quotes about Sara Estela Ramírez

• At the turn of the century, Sara Estela Ramírez, the Villarreal sisters, Leonor Villegas de Magnón, Jovita Idar and the staff members of La Voz de la Mujer and Pluma Roja were organic intellectuals of their times who revealed different discursive positionings of women within their societies, positionings informed by the master narratives of nationalism, religion and anarchism. Until now these women's work as publishers and their written contributions have remained virtually unrecognized. Either because of political affiliations or gender discrimination, their work has not been recognized in Mexico. In the United States, these factors, as well as linguistic biases, have relegated their work to oblivion. These women's stories and their publishing efforts, nonetheless, capture the realities of a people, the significance of whose daily existence transcends the limitations imposed by political and national borders.
  • Clara Lomas in The Rebel by Leonor Villegas De Magnon (1994)

• The U.S. -Mexico borderland saw mexicanas fighting for the revolution, often with the PLM, and also to win justice for tejanos. They included Sara Estela Ramírez, who lived in Laredo and became known to thousands of tejanos as a labor organizer, human rights activist and poet. She launched a revolutionary feminist newspaper, Aurora, in 1904. She died in 1910 at the age of 29 but her unique, visionary poetry rings true today.
  • Elizabeth Martinez, 500 Years Chicana Women's History

• Tejana socialist labor leader and political activist Sara Estela Ramirez would not live to participate in El Primer Congreso Mexicanista held the following year. Ramirez's ideas, however, would resonate in the words of her compañeras. Composed of South Texas residents, this Congreso was the first civil rights assembly among Spanish-speaking people in the United States. With delegates representing community organizations and interests from both sides of the border, its platform addressed discrimination, land loss, and lynching. Women delegates, such as Jovita Idar, Soldedad Peña, and Hortensia Moncaya, spoke to the concerns of Tejanos and Mexicanos.
  • Vicki L. Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America