Strong Women: Angelina Sanchez and Rosaura Revueltas

Angelina Sanchez
Photo credit: Sanchez family; all rights reserved.

Since today is International Women's Day, it seemed appropriate to incorporate a bit of an international theme. Okay, so it's only two countries, both in North America: the United States and Mexico. But both play a role in this story of two strong women brought together by an important event in New Mexico's history, an event that would wind up testing both in vastly different yet undeniably related ways.

Even if you live in New Mexico, unless you live in a very specific area of the state and have knowledge of a specific incident from more than an half-century ago, you've probably never heard of Angelina G. Sanchez. She was not a native New Mexican, but she moved to the state as a young woman, intent on dedicating herself to protecting the rights of Mexican-American and women workers. She joined the Ladies' Auxiliary of the United Mineworkers of America, and she played a significant role in the UMA's strike against the Empire Zinc Mine in Bayard, New Mexico, in 1951.


From 1912 to 1915, New Jersey Zinc, an East Coast mining corporation, bought up mines in Colorado and New Mexico, consolidating some of them under the name "Eagle Mines" and running the New Mexico operation under the subsidiary Empire Zinc Company. The Eagle Mine site in California is now an EPA Superfund site. The Empire Zinc Mine in Grant County, New Mexico, was not only the site of the protracted 1951 UMA strike, but the subject of a 1954 film, Salt of the Earth. It holds the dubious distinction of being the only entire film to be blacklisted as another casualty of Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare.

The film is a fictionalized account, and the characters' names differ from the actual people on whom they were modeled. Nonetheless, the film is based on a true story, one with a very different set of perspectives from most of those released in the early 1950s: perspectives of laborers, mine workers; of Mexican Americans, or, in the specific vernacular of New Mexico, Hispanos; and of women, particularly Hispanic women. And particularly one Hispanic woman: Angelina G. Chavez, embodied in the film in the character of Esperanza Quintero, and played by Mexican actor Rosaura Revueltas.

Rosaura Revueltas
Photo credit:  Unknown.

Rosaura Reveultas Sánchez [no apparent relation to Angelina G. Sanchez] paid a steep price for playing the role. Originally from Mexico but living and working [legally] in the United States, she was already on Hollywood's blacklist when she took the role. As with too many other actors, directors, writers, musicians, and other creative types in that era, she was caught up in its feral and frenzied anti-Communist political panic. Many of them were indeed members of the Communist Party [CPUSA]; many more were not, but were targets of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy's relentlessly rabid search-and-destroy missions all the same. 

During filming, immigration officials showed up and arrested Ms. Revueltas on an alleged "passport violation." They deported her to Mexico, labeled her a Communist, and refused her re-entry to the U.S. The scenes not yet filmed were completed using a double for her character. It was her last U.S. film; she was never again permitted to work in the United States.

This month marks the 60th anniversary of the film's initial attempt at a release, and finally, its many stories will be told. From March 10th through March 14th, New Mexico State University's College of Education, Service Learning for Educational Distinction Office, and Creative Media Institute are co-hosting the Salt of the Earth Film Festival. The Film Festival is being held in honor of Angelina G. Sanchez, whose daughter, Elisa Sanchez, founded the Angelina Sanchez Memorial Endowed Scholarship to provide educational opportunities for Latino/Hispanic NMSU students seeking a chance to study abroad. 

Ms. Sanchez had a role in the film herself, playing the character named Consuelo Ruíz even as her own "character" was played by Ms. Revueltas. In keeping with the film's fiercely pro-Labor, pro-worker worldview, several of the cast members were themselves mineworkers. The role of Ramón Quintero, husband of Ms. Revueltas's character Esperanza Quintero, was played by the president of one of the local miners' unions, Juan Chacón.

Ms. Sanchez's daughter, Elisa Sanchez, speaks of the film;s central role in making visible, in stark relief, populations traditionally rendered invisible by the dominant culture, even 60 years later:

“We are shedding light on an important Mexican-American, New Mexican and U.S. historical event,” Elisa Sanchez said. “Most people don’t realize the film was based on a true story and the struggle that Mexican-American miners and their wives and children went through to open doors of opportunity.”

Through her efforts to honor her mother's legacy, she is also bringing to light the true heritage of the women of Empire Zinc Mine Strike: as women, as Mexican Americans, as the wives and survivors of the male mineworkers, and as workers in their own right. It's a compelling legacy of strong women that deserves broader dissemination.

If you're in New Mexico and are interested in attending the Film Festival, here's the information from NMSU:

The festival begins at 4 p.m. Monday, March 10, with a discussion, “Platica con Mujeres de Color: Finding Comfort in our Skin” with guest speakers Elisa Sanchez, Jonah O. Garcia, a licensed independent social worker, State Sen. Mary Jane Garcia, Olga Pedroza, a Las Cruces city councilor, and Christina Chavez Kelley, NMSU assistant vice president for student diversity-outreach, at O’Donnell Hall Room 111.  

Creative media professor Phillip Lewis is leading a discussion on activism in film and how it can change the world with special guest film director Rod McCall at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at Milton Hall Room 171.  

Elisa Sanchez is hosting a discussion on “Women Leaders: What does it take to be a good leader, especially for a minority woman?” at 2:30 p.m. Thursday, March 13, at O’Donnell Hall Room 300.  

The festival concludes with a screening of “Salt of the Earth” and dialogue following the film at 4:30 p.m. Friday, March 14, at the O’Donnell Hall Atrium.  

For more information, contact the NMSU College of Education at 575-646-6313. 

And if you're a journalist or blogger, consider covering it. it's an important piece of history: for the U.S., for New Mexico, for Labor, for Hispanic Americans, and for women.

Edit: I couldn't find an image last night when this posted, but I've found one this morning. The women of the Ladies Auxiliary of Local 890 Mine Mill and Smelter — the wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, and others who, when their men were forced to leave the picket lines, took their places — have been honored via New Mexico's Historical Markers Program:

Photo credit: GEO Trailblazer 1,
posted at Waymarking.com;
all rights reserved.

Until 2007, not a single marker along New Mexico's roadsides honored the great historical contributions made by women in this state. That changed, thanks to a project launched by then-Governor Bill Richardson and his wife, First Lady Barbara Richardson. Now there are 64 markers honoring women and their contributions to our state. One of them is the one pictured at left, entitled "Ladies Auxiliary of Local 890, Mine Mill & Smelter (1951-1952)."

The text on the front of the marker reads:

After eight failed negotiating sessions and the expiration of their labor contract, Mexican-American workers at the nearby Empire Zinc mine struck for wage and benefit equality. When an injunction prohibited union members from picketing, the women-wives, mothers, sisters and daughters-took the union workers' places on the line. 

On the reverse, it reads:

The "striking" women persevered despite life threatening situations, violence, incarceration and tension at home. Their determination made national news and resulted in the popular documentary film, Salt of the Earth. These courageous women not only survived in solidarity until the strike ended, but they commanded recognition as well as respect.

Now, their story will be told to a much broader audience.




Copyright Ajijaake, 2014; all rights reserved.