(Re)Thinking Woman(hood): Sara Estela Ramírez, Activity, and Being

Abstract

Researcher Emilio Zamora calls Sara Estela Ramirez “a red rose” referring to her participation in the labor movement of the United States in the early 1900s. This traditional characterization seems at odds with her work, deeply rooted in feminism. Yet, the depiction makes sense if one considers that she centered her feminism and activism precisely on the “rose” of tradition, on motherhood, coloring it with “su roja pasión”—her passion for justice. I propose that Ramirez (re)imagines womanhood as permanency, as what I call “Being” (“el ser” with a capital “B”) rather than “being” (“el estar”) and that she (re) codifies femininity—and marginality in general—to shun passivity, redeeming with it la Malinche and her children, working-class men.