(Left) Rebecca Flores answers questions from the crowd. (Right) Laura Varela introduces the film with clip of Rebecca Flores on the screen.
An IWC founder and labor leader Rebecca Flores is the subject of an upcoming documentary being produced and directed by longtime IWC volunteer Laura Varela of Varela Film.
A sneak preview of the upcoming documentary Rebecca Flores: Under the South Texas Sun was held at Galeria EVA., 3412 S. Flores St., in San Antonio on March 31.
Flores was born in Atascosa County, Texas into a family that worked the fields from cotton in South Texas to beets in Wisconsin. Young, married, with three small children, she became Director of United Farm Workers of Texas in 1975. Several pieces of key farmworker regulations were passed during her tenure.
Upon her retirement, she worked with RAICES and other organizations toward ending family detention in Texas. Upon their release, Flores helped organize humanitarian aid for families and petitioned the City of San Antonio to fund a temporary shelter for the hundreds of vulnerable people that came through San Antonio.
She is one of three San Antonio Peace Laureates. Her name is engraved in the concrete of downtown San Antonio, surrounded by stories of other local labor leaders in the city’s new Labor Plaza. (Another notable Chicana activist, María Antonietta Berriozábal, was also an IWC founder.)
Varela is a professional documentary filmmaker whose work is shaped by her roots growing up on the US/ Mexico border in El Paso, TX. Her work crosses cultural, linguistic, and physical borders using film and contemporary art installations. She produces for VoxFem Network, a multi-platform, multi-program, multi-venue network and center for innovative, international women artists & changemakers.
The presentation also included a live panel discussion with Flores, Varela, film co-director/editor Anne Lewis, and the film’s Humanities Advisors: Lilia Rosas, Ph.D.; Dr. Teresita Garza, PhD.; Antonia Castañeda, Ph.D.; and Tomás Ybarra-Frausto, Ph.D.
