A local activist is part of a group that was to launch the National Alliance for Farmworker Women in Washington D.C., earlier this month.
Alina Díaz, who formerly worked for Farmworker Legal Services of New York, is the vice president of Alianza de Campesina, which includes other delegates from New York as well as from Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Texas, according to a press release.
According to information from the alliance, the grassroots initiative was needed because farmworker women have been undercounted and overlooked, and their unique needs have been ignored for too long. The small group of women created the alliance plan to inform lawmakers, government representatives, students and the public about farmworker women’s priorities and goals in order to ensure that their homes, workplaces and communities are safe and healthy.
"We believe in social justice and the need to fight for a better world for all, where a honest day’s day work is valued and the fruits of the earth are valued not only because they nourish us but because they come from the hands of real people with names, faces, dreams and hopes," Díaz stated in an e-mail.
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