For 28 years, Magdalena has worked in the fields through the pruning season, cherry harvest, apple harvest, and hops. She has spent decades waking up at 3 in the morning, working long hours, and carrying the weight of providing for her family while raising four children. Her story is not only one of hard work. It is a story of endurance, love, and the kind of sacrifice that too often goes unseen.
Some of her hardest memories are not only from the labor itself, but from what it meant to be a working mother. She remembers leaving her children at daycare for long days and hearing that they had been mistreated or bullied while she was away. She remembers continuing to work while pregnant because her family depended on her income. She remembers being told to return to the fields after rain, climbing wet ladders to finish the harvest, even when the conditions were unsafe.
She also remembers the deeper harm that many women farm workers know too well: supervisors crossing boundaries, safety being ignored, and workers being sent back into the fields after pesticides had been applied. People became sick. Some were taken to the hospital. Still, the work continued. Magdalena kept going because she had children to feed and a family to hold together.
Today, what gives her the greatest pride is seeing her children grow into young adults with choices she did not always have. That pride says everything about who she is. Magdalena’s life reflects the contribution women farm workers have always made to this country, to their communities, and to their families. She has given her strength, her time, and her body to difficult work, all while building a future for the people she loves.
Her message to other women in agriculture is simple and powerful: raise your voice. In honoring Magdalena, we honor the many women farm workers whose labor has sustained families, fed communities, and shaped this movement for generations.
Help support the Farm Worker Movement and uplift farm worker voices like Magdalena’s by sharing stories like hers and by donating to the UFW Foundation at ufwfoundation.org/donate. Donations go towards legal services, community organizing, advocacy, and
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